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anyone. None of the local kids would bother with him anyway.
    â€œMaddy Walton,” a voice asked from the door.
    â€œAnd Roland Townsend,” another voice asked.
    â€œFrancine and Jenny,” Mrs. Potter introduced. “Francine is Maddy’s new tutor, and Jenny is helping Roland.”
    Maddy and Roland exchanged identical expressions of surprise. Francine and Jenny were pretty girls hardly old enough to be prefects and certainly didn’t look sour enough to tutor anybody in anything. The two girls grinned at their expressions.
    Roland nodded to Maddy and went out of the room with Jenny. Maddy followed Francine into what she called the blue study. It was a small room with a table, two chairs, and a set of bookcases in it.
    â€œNow about this arithmetic,” Francine said cheerfully as she spread out textbooks and paper across the table.
    Being tutored by someone young and good-humoured was not at all painful, Maddy decided. Everything sounded so much simpler when explained by someone who wasn’t irritable or bad-tempered.
    â€œSo that’s how it’s done,” Maddy kept saying, as her sums ended up correct.
    Francine giggled and wrote up the next problem. It seemed hardly any time before Maddy looked up and saw Mrs. Walton waiting at the door.
    â€œFrancine is an ex-pupil here and at University, and she is so smart,” Maddy said as they headed towards the small red car Mrs. Walton drove. “She has showed me an easy way to do those beastly fractions.”
    â€œDid you have a nice day and how are you feeling?” Mrs. Walton asked.
    â€œOkay.” Maddy thought about her unpleasant afternoon and decided to forget it. “Just a bit tired, I guess.”
    Maddy thought that over and frowned. Why was she feeling so tired? All she had done was sit around in school, sit around eating lunch, sit around playing draughts and sit around being tutored. She hadn’t done a thing all day, but she still felt as tired as if she had spent the day digging ditches or something.
    When they reached the Walton house, Maddy changed into her good quality, warm tracksuit just as Mrs. Walton came into her bedroom. Mrs. Walton examined the room and its little bathroom and raised an eyebrow.
    The little bathroom was messy, with towels all over the floor. Maddy had forgotten to put the lid back on the toothpaste, or put back her toothbrush and hairbrush. In the bedroom, the bed was unmade, and she had dropped her school clothes on the floor as she had changed out of them.
    â€œHang up your blazer properly, Maddy. Put your dirty clothes in the laundry and take your shoes out and clean them.”
    Maddy sighed but obeyed meekly. It was a bit silly cleaning school shoes that she wasn’t going to need until Monday, but she did it. She tidied up the bedroom and bathroom. She had forgotten about how tidy Jennifer was.
    It was nice living Jennifer’s life, especially for the weekend, but not for a day longer. Why hadn’t her wish to be herself and back home again been granted? Maybe there was something special in the Matson backyard that had caused her wish to be granted.
    â€œDinner will be ready soon,” Mrs. Walton warned, as Maddy went out the back door.
    â€œJust going to talk to the Matsons,” Maddy said.
    She didn’t want to swap back right this minute, but it would be nice to know that she could.

 
    Chapter Six
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    Maddy stood at the kitchen door of the Matsons and knocked. The television was blaring and the shrill voices of her younger sisters were raised over it.
    The Matson yard had a cheerful, carefree look with its shabby back lawn; its scuffed patches under the hammock; the untidy clutter of scooters and bikes under the overhang of the car port and the big rabbit hutch. It was nothing like the neat Walton yard with its green square of grass edged by flowerbeds.
    Jennifer opened the door, and the familiar noise of the Matsons flooded out to welcome