Life Swap

Plots and Plans

"Mummy?" I said in the tone that every child always uses when they want something from their parents. Caroline was baking in the large kitchen at Broomwaters, a week after our fairly miserable experience at Kelly/Olivia's house. Nothing had changed, since. Kelly/Olivia could still not think of a way to get anywhere near Hoyte's diary, and that left me with just one scary option left as far as I could see. My theory was quite simple. Kelly/Olivia and I had contacted the remnants of the spirits within us, by doing our mind-meld, but what we really needed to do was touch the stone together. Deep down, I had always felt that touching the Dream Stone with Kelly/Olivia was the end game. And the only way to do that was to enlist the help of my sweet stepmother, because there was no way that Kelly/Olivia was going to be allowed to go within a million miles of it, if her stepfather knew where she was going. And I could not get there on my own either.

"Olivia?" Caroline replied, mimicking my tone. I was sitting at the kitchen table, watching the twins on their swings in the garden and polishing the best cutlery for a dinner party Mummy and Daddy were holding later on, being the helpful daughter.

"At half-term, would you take me and Kelly out for the day? Felicity and Louise could come as well, but it would be better if the twins didn't...they won't be upset because I'll explain it to them...because it is for Kelly, really...there is something we need to do for her?" I said, just blurting it all out in Chloe-like style. Caroline turned slowly around and leaned back against the counter, frowning as she stared at me.

"Oh, yes...and what do you need to do for Kelly, exactly?"

"It's nothing bad...we just need to go to the Victoria and Albert Museum?"

"Okay...let me guess...you want to visit your blessed Dream Stone again?"

"Yes...I knew you'd understand...but the thing is, Kelly's Daddy won't want her to go...so you would have to pretend that we are going somewhere else?"

"You want me to lie to Kelly's parents?" She raised an eyebrow, her eyes boring into me like lasers, but otherwise sounding surprisingly calm about my quite unusual request. I was wearing a purple corduroy dungaree dress with a warm white roll-neck top, just like the twins, more play clothes. We would get changed before our guests were due to arrive, because the dinner party was for the Blackstones and the Carter-Rogers, with Felicity and Louise coming for a sleepover.

"Not exactly lie, Mummy...just be economical with the truth?" I suggested, and she smiled and shook her head at me.

"Why do you think that Professor Hoyte would object to his daughter visiting a museum?"

"I...don't know...Mummy?"

"Really? You don't think that he might disapprove of Kelly being obsessed with the Dream Stone? If she is anything like you, pickle?" She asked, wiping her hands on a tea towel before walking across the room and holding out both her arms to me. "Because I would have some sympathy with him there?"

"We are not obsessed, Mummy?" I insisted, standing up and letting her lift me up into her arms, wrapping my arms around her neck and my legs around her waist. "Everything changed for both of us when we touched the Dream Stone together...you know that, don't you?"

"Hmm...I know that our fresh start began after that day...but it wasn't magic...you know that, pickle? Don't you?" She sighed, holding me tight and kissing my hair. "You had a terrible fright, and a brain bruise..."

"And I was different, Mummy...even my handwriting?" I reminded her as I kissed her warm neck, nuzzling into her. I was taller, but not much heavier, and I was still easy enough for most grown-ups to lift or carry. It annoyed me with some people, but never with her. "But don't worry...I don't want to change again...it's for Kelly...not for me...and her Mummy?"