Chapter 4- Vice Versa- Shapeshifter, Ali Sparkes

Disclaimer: urgh, why do I even bother...I don't own shapeshifter, comprende?

"Gideon Reader, get your sorry arse over here, right now!" Sophie stormed across the common room, with a look that could honestly kill. Actually, it was more a look that could rip, tear, and grind to a pulp. It was fairly apparent to Dax that she was not particularly pleased with Gideon.

"GIDEON!" Sophie screamed. "Give it back!" Gideon stuck his head up from behind the sofa where he had obviously been hiding. Sophie screamed in triumph and lunged for Gideon, who, with astonishing agility, leapt over the sofa and ran towards the door. But Sophie was too quick for him. She jumped on top of Gideon, pinned him mercilessly to the sofa.

"Help!" he yelled, but everyone else was to busy laughing as Sophie repeatedly whacked Gideon with a cushion, screaming insults at the top of her voice. Gideon's head snapped up and he glared at the sofa hard, and it immediately bucked, sending both Sophie and Gideon flying.

Sophie screamed "GIDEON, YOU LITTLE TOAD!", and scrambled to her feet ready to continue the cushion assault, when to everyone's surprise, he had disappeared.

"Where's he gone?" asked Mia, glancing round the room.

"Gideon? Where are you? Gid?" Lisa jumped up from her armchair and started rifling through the sofa cushions.

"Gideon? Argh! A frog! Look!"

The COLA'S gathered round the offending amphibian, each wearing a look somewhere between confusion and fascination.

Clive pushed his glasses further up his nose. "That's not a frog. That's a toad." Simultaneously every head in the room turned to look at Sophie.

That's when the screaming started.

"I-I d-didn't mean it!" wept Sophie, smothering her face with a rather inadequate tissue. Her eyes were red and puffy, and dark rings of smudged eyeliner surrounded them like inky halos. With her wavy dark hair fanning out from her face in frizzy disarray, she could easily have passed as an extra for The Ring.

"Oh Sophie, calm down, you're getting yourself all worked up," soothed Mia, patting Sophie on the shoulder.

"Think on the bright side, you know what your power is now!" grinned Jenny, possibly a little insensitively. Alright, very insensitively, seeing as it made Sophie sob harder still.

"Well, next time someone decides to show off their power, please don't use me as the guinea pig!" huffed Gideon, who had mercifully been restored to his normal yet irritating self. Luke glared at his twin and whacked him over the head with his impossibly large book.

"Cut it out, you two, can't you see she's upset?" scolded Lisa, glowering at the two boys.

Spook flounced over. "I don't see what all the fuss is about. So she turned Gideon into a toad. Big deal."

"She turned Gideon into a toad. Of course its a big deal! Who knows what she could do!"

Barry piped up at this point. "Yeah, she could like, make food come out of thin air or sumfink!"

Clive shot him a look. "Only you, Barry, only you."

Gah, that took a while. Right, now time for a future apology: The holidays are over, I go back to school tomorrow. So, limited writing, reading and reviewing time for me I'm afraid. BUT i have some of this story written out on paper, and i will aim to write up AS MUCH AS I CAN!

Thank you to my beta goodythreeshoes, she's the one who has to deal with my HORRENDUS grammatical errors.

alwaysconfuzzled x