Switched (2 page)

He didn't glance back.

I stood staring at him until he disappeared around the corner. A few seconds later I heard the front door to the school slam.

I realized I was trembling. I walked over to my locker and tried to open the combination lock. But my
hand was shaking and my eyes were blurred with hot tears. I couldn't see the numbers.

Why didn't he explain? I wondered.

“It's just too much.”

What did that mean? What was he trying to say?

After several tries I managed to unfasten the lock and pull the door open. I checked the calendar hanging on my locker door. I wanted to see if it was Friday the thirteenth.

No. It was the twelfth.

Still my unlucky day.

With a sigh I bent down and stuffed books and notebooks into my backpack. I couldn't really see what I was taking. I didn't care.

I have to get out of this building, I told myself.

If I don't, I'll suffocate. I really will.

I slammed the locker door shut, hoisted the backpack over one shoulder, and hurried down the hall. Two teachers came around the comer, laughing about something.

They stopped laughing when they saw me. I guess they caught the unhappy expression on my face.

“Nicole—are you okay?” one of them called.

“Yeah. Just fine!” I shouted. I pushed open the front door and stepped out of the school.

The air smelled fresh and sweet. A dogwood tree in front of the building was in full bloom, covered in dazzling white blossoms.

I turned my eyes to the street. A red and white Shadyside city bus pulled away from the corner. Two
kids from the middle school whirled along the sidewalk on Rollerblades.

I didn't see anyone I knew. My friends had all gone home or to their after-school jobs by now.

Mom is probably wondering why I'm late, I thought bitterly. I could hear her voice now: “Nicole, if you knew you had to stay after school, why didn't you call and tell me?”

I have no life. No life at all!

I started down the steps when I saw Lucy coming toward me. She gave me a friendly wave. I hurried to greet her. Lucy and I have been best best best friends since we were in preschool.

Lucy has straight blond hair. But hers is shorter than mine, and she usually pulls it back in a ponytail. She has green eyes, a tiny, upturned nose, and a very sweet smile. I guess you'd say she was more cute than pretty.

I ran up to her and hugged her. I was suddenly overcome with emotion. “Lucy—it's been such a
horrible
day!” I blurted out. Hot tears ran down my cheeks.

Lucy was so understanding. So smart. And she knew me so well.

We had no secrets from each other. None at all. It was wonderful to have one special friend I could always trust.

“My life—it's all falling apart today,” I told her. “Everything. I . . . I just feel so out of control. So . . . miserable.”

“My life, too,” Lucy whispered back. “Such a bad time. Me, too, Nicole. Me, too.”

I let go of her and took a step back. I wiped the tears from my cheeks with both hands and stared at her in surprise. “You, too?” I choked out. “You're having a bad time, too?”

She nodded. Then her eyes flashed. Like green fire. “But I have an idea,” she whispered. “I know what we can do.”

“An idea?” I repeated, staring back at her. “Lucy, what kind of idea?”

Her eyes lit up again. Her face glowed with excitement. “Let's switch bodies,” she said.

I
followed Lucy to Fear Street. I felt a tingling excitement as we walked. I felt charged, as if an electrical current circled my body.

Was she serious? Did she mean it? Were we really going to switch bodies?

The ground grew dark, then light again as clouds rolled rapidly over the sky, blocking the sunlight, then allowing it to beam down again. The changing light gave everything an unreal feeling.

I told Lucy about my day, about my unhappiness. About David and Mr. Frost and the science report. About my parents, smothering me. Not letting me breathe.

She nodded, understanding. She didn't need to reply.

She wore a short black skirt over pale yellow tights. Her yellow sleeveless T-shirt revealed her slender, winter-pale arms.

Our shoes crackled over dry, dead leaves from the winter.

The sun faded and the old trees over Fear Street darkened. Then they flared brightly again, like someone turning the brightness control on the TV.

I shuddered as we stopped to stare up at the old Simon Fear mansion. I'd heard so many creepy stories about the burned-out old house, about this street.

“Why don't they just tear it down?” Lucy demanded, squinting through the now-bright sunlight. “It's such an eyesore!”

“Maybe they're afraid to,” I replied in a hushed voice.

I gazed across the street at the old cemetery with its ancient, crooked gravestones jutting up from the ground like broken teeth.

Beyond the cemetery stretched the Fear Street woods. Ancient maple and birch trees, unfurling their fresh spring leaves, reached over the street, tangling together, like dozens of arms.

As I followed Lucy into the woods, the old trees formed a tall arch over our heads, nearly shutting out all the sunlight, covering the woods in grays and dark blues, dark as evening.

“Where are we going?” I asked breathlessly.

Lucy seemed to know the way. She kicked brambles away, leaning forward as she walked, following an invisible path.

“Lucy—wait up!” I called, stepping around a deep, marshy puddle. “Hey—Lucy! Wait!”

I caught up with her near a fallen, moss-covered tree. She stared down, and I followed her gaze. Thousands of tiny white insects swarmed over the green moss.

“Yuck,” I murmured. “How gross.”

Lucy nodded. She wiped her forehead with the back of her hand. It wasn't a really hot day, but we were both perspiring.

“Where are we going?” I repeated my question.

Lucy pointed past the fallen tree. “It's right up there. I think.”

“What
is?” I demanded. “Why are you being so mysterious?”

She grinned at me. “It's a mysterious place.” She took my hand. My hand was cold. Hers felt hot and damp. “Stop asking so many questions,” she scolded. “Follow me.”

She tugged me over the moss-covered tree. I imagined the thousands of white insects crawling over me. The thought made me shudder.

“Are we really going to do it?” I asked her. “Are we really going to switch bodies?”

She narrowed her eyes at me. With that cute button nose and her delicate features, she looked twelve
instead of seventeen. “You
want
to do it—don't you?” she asked softly.

I nodded, thinking about my parents, my school-work, about David . . . about my messed-up life.

Yes. I wanted to get away. Get away from myself.

I wanted to get as far away from myself as I could.

Yes. Yes.

Yes, I wanted to trade places with Lucy. I wanted to trade lives—for a while, anyway.

Lucy didn't have an easy life. Her parents battled like wild animals in a zoo. They were so wrapped up in their own problems, they hardly paid any attention to Lucy.

But I would like that, I decided. I'd like that a lot.

Yes. Yes. Let's trade, I thought.

Lucy didn't have it easy. But her life was better than mine.

And she had Kent. Kent Borden was such a great guy. So smart. So funny.

Even though Lucy was my best friend, I'd often wondered what it would be like to go out with Kent. Kent instead of David.

Now I'll find out, I thought.

Lucy and I will switch bodies. And I'll find out what it's like to be with Kent.

Such sick, strange thoughts.

The light became grayer, the air heavier as we moved deeper into the woods. Our shoes crunched over the blanket of dead leaves that covered the ground.

“I think it's right up there,” Lucy said, stopping to pull a white burr from her hair. “Ouch! It's prickly!” She tossed it to the ground.

A bird uttered a long, loud cry, somewhere above our heads. It was such a sad wail, it made me stop. “It sounds so human,” I told Lucy. “Like a human crying.”

The sound repeated. I hesitated, chilled by the strange, mournful sound.

Lucy's expression grew solemn. “Don't chicken out,” she scolded. “Don't chicken out now. You want to do this, Nicole. You know you do.”

I gazed at her, surprised by her sudden seriousness. “I'm coming with you,” I said softly. “I'm not chickening out.”

The bird wailed above our heads as we made our way through a tangle of scrub pine. Just beyond the shrubs stretched a long stone wall. Built of smooth gray stones, the wall reached a foot or so over our heads.

“My grandfather described this wall,” Lucy confided. “Before he died, Grandpa told me where it was, told me the story of how it came to be built and how it got its incredible powers.”

I swallowed hard, staring straight ahead at the wall. Deep cracks crisscrossed its surface like roads on a map. The plaster between the stones was chipped and broken.

“The wall is old, huh?” I asked my friend.

She nodded, staring straight ahead at it. “No one knows how old.”

“And who built it?” I asked, brushing a mosquito off my arm.

“No one knows that, either. At least that's what Grandpa told me. He said it's called the Changing Wall. He said that over a hundred years ago, evil people came to the woods to use the wall and change their bodies. To switch bodies with unwilling victims.”

I gasped. “You mean they
forced
people to change bodies with them?”

Lucy nodded. “That's how they escaped from paying for the crimes they had committed.”

I stared at the wall. “Wow,” I murmured. I turned to Lucy. “How did your grandfather find out about it?”

“From the old caretaker at the Fear Street cemetery,” Lucy replied. “The caretaker lived in a cottage in the woods behind the cemetery. He knew all the old stories and legends—horror stories, mostly—of what went on in the woods. He would never repeat the stories, until one day many years ago. On that day, he told my grandfather the secret of the Changing Wall.”

Lucy ran her hand gingerly over a smooth gray stone on the wall. As she touched it, the sky grew even darker. A deep gray settled around us. It seemed as if her touching the wall had made the world grow darker.

But of course that was only my twisted imagination.

I reached up my hand to touch the wall, but slowly drew it back.

Lucy snickered. “It's only stones and plaster, Nicole. It won't bite you.”

“H-how does it work?” I stammered. My chest suddenly felt fluttery. I realized I was very frightened.

“Grandpa explained it all. It's really so simple,” Lucy replied. “We climb up on the wall. We hold hands. We jump off, down to the other side. And when we land on the other side of the wall—”

“When we land, we're switched?” I interrupted.

Lucy nodded. “When we land, we will be switched. Your mind will be in my body. And my mind will be in your body. When people look at me, I'll look like you and everyone will think I'm you.”

I stared at her, letting her words sink in. Then I raised my eyes to the wall, so gray and solemn, its dark shadow slanting over us.

“You really want to do this?” I asked Lucy.

“Come on. We have to try it,” she replied. She took my hand again. This time both of our hands were cold and clammy.

She squeezed my hand. “It's so simple, Nicole. A simple jump. We have to try it. We really have to.”

She raised her hands toward the top of the wall. “Give me a boost,” she instructed.

I helped hoist her onto the top. It took her a short while to gain her balance. “It's kind of bumpy up here,” she warned, lowering herself onto her knees.
“The wall is so narrow and cracked. Be careful, Nicole. Be careful not to fall off.”

She reached down both hands to help pull me to the top.

I hesitated. Behind us I heard the mournful wail of the bird, high in the trees.

Was it a warning sound?

Was the bird warning me away?

What kind of a bird sounds so much like a girl crying so bitterly? I wondered.

“Come on, Nicole,” Lucy urged, shaking her hands impatiently. “Hurry. It's hard to balance up here. And the stones are cutting my knees.”

I ignored the wails of the bird and grabbed Lucy's hands. She tugged me to the top. I scraped my left knee on the side. But I managed to scramble up beside my friend.

On our knees we rested a few minutes, catching our breath.

Then we both slowly, carefully, climbed to our feet. And turned to face the other side.

I don't know why, but I expected to see something different on the other side of the wall. Different trees. Different sky. A house or something.