The Mince Pie Mix-Up Read Online Free PDF Page A

wearing Mum’s dressing gown? Pink really isn’t your colour.’ Scott sniggered and disappeared into the bathroom, slamming the door shut. Judy would normally tell her son off about the door-slamming (he needed reminding at least five times a day) but she was too preoccupied by the dressing gown thing. Why are you wearing
Mum’s
dressing gown?
    Judy turned around as a door opened behind her. Charlie emerged from her bedroom, one leg of her pyjamas lodged mid-calf so that she resembled a nineties rapper. Judy always thought her daughter looked adorable first thing in the morning, her curls amassed around her head to Sideshow Bob proportions. Of course, it wasn’t quite so adorable when Judy had to brush the curls later on, but for those first few minutes of the day she could appreciate the charm.
    ‘Is it morning, Daddy?’
    Daddy?
    Judy looked down at the increasingly uncomfortable dressing gown, pulling it tightly across her body, and realised she was wearing nothing but a pair of boxer shorts underneath.
    Boxer shorts?
    Slowly peeling away the dressing gown again, she gasped when she caught sight of the hairy belly and even hairier chest beneath the fabric. And her legs! What the hell had happened to her legs? Yes, it was winter and she wasn’t quite as razor-happy as she was in the warmer months but she
looked like a Yeti
.
    ‘Can I go and watch cartoons?’ Charlie asked.
    ‘Yes, sweetie.’ Judy clamped a hand over her mouth, shocked by the voice emerging from her lips. It was gruff but not in a first-thing-in-the-morning, bottom-of-hamster-cage sort of way. It was not her voice at all. It was a man’s voice.
    ‘Yay!’ Charlie bounded down the stairs, not at all concerned that her mother had spouted an alarming amount of body hair overnight and adopted a man-ish tone.
    With shaking fingers, Judy pulled the waistband of the boxer shorts away from her body, wincing as it snapped back into place once she saw what was in there.
That
did not belong in there at all.
    ‘Da-ad!’ Charlie hollered up the stairs. ‘What’s happened to the Christmas tree?’
    Judy’s eyes widened. The Christmas tree!
    The fairy had catapulted into the tree, knocking it to the floor and scattering its pine needles. But that was a
dream
.
    Wasn’t it?
    ‘Just leave it, sweetie. I’ll sort it out in a minute.’ Judy covered her face with her hands. That was
definitely
a man’s voice coming out of her mouth. Specifically, her husband’s.
    ‘What’s up with Mum?’ Scott asked as he emerged from the bathroom. Judy sighed with relief. So Scott could see it too. She wasn’t going mad and imagining things! ‘She usually gets up with us. Are you taking me to football?’
    ‘I don’t know,’ Judy said in Calvin’s voice. ‘I don’t know what’s going on.’
    ‘Okay.’ Scott gave Judy a funny look. ‘Whatever. I’m going downstairs.’
    ‘Don’t touch the tree,’ Judy said before dashing into the bedroom and heading straight to the dressing table mirror. An anguished cry escaped her as she saw the image looking back at her. This wasn’t real. It couldn’t be real.
    Judy crept towards the bed, releasing another anguished cry as she saw the body sprawled out in the bed. Instead of her husband, she saw herself. Man, she looked rough first thing in the morning.
    ‘Calvin,’ she hissed, shaking his –
her –
body. ‘Calvin, wake up. Something’s happened.’
    ‘What?’ Judy watched as her body propped itself up on its elbow and rubbed at its eyes. It threw back its head and flung open its jaws to yawn. Yep, there were her fillings.
    ‘Calvin!’ Judy hissed again, eager to get this mess sorted out.
    ‘What do you want?’ Calvin asked in Judy’s voice. He opened his eyes and shook his head as he took in his own image staring back at him. ‘What the –’
    ‘We’ve switched bodies.’ Judy sank onto the bed and grasped Calvin’s – or rather or her own – arm. Gosh, this was confusing. ‘I had a dream. We