The Swap (8 page)

I WAKE UP WHEN
I hear Ms. Dean's voice over the loudspeaker.

“All buses will be running late today due to sixth-grade orientation. Please remain in your classroom for an additional fifteen minutes before dismissal.”

Not a problem
, I think. I slowly open my eyes and stare up at the ceiling. Everything is blurry. The lights are dimmed. For just a few seconds, I'm a little confused . . . like, you know—who am I? Where am I? Why do I feel like I got hit by a truck? Then I remember.

I am Ellie.

I am a loser.

I am on the nurse's cot.

I am an escaped gym convict!

I have no friends.

Great.

I do not lift my head. I don't move a single muscle. I lie completely still and replay what happened in the locker room over again. I close my eyes and try to think of something, anything, I did to cause Sassy to suddenly hate me so much.
I don't understand what I did, or why she hates me
. It's so crazy how things can change so quickly. I would do anything to get things back to how they used to be.

I use my hand to wipe the tears that I feel trickling down my cheek. Oh my gosh, my eye feels all tender, and puffy like . . . like I got hit in the face. And my nose. My nose is killing me!

And my head. My head is throbbing. Like I ran into a wall.

At this moment? This very second? It occurs to me that the nurse isn't here.

Where
is
the nurse?

The room is so still.

It's eerie.

Then I start to remember. I'm not alone.

OMG.

Jack Malloy
.

How humiliating! The Prince of Thatcher Middle School saw me crying in my stupid gym clothes! Jack Malloy. Saw. Me. Crying.

Life as I know it is officially over.

I turn my head to glance at The Prince, sleeping, and—

What the—

I close my eyes, then open them and look again.

I'm dreaming, right? I'm dreaming. Of course I am!

When I turn to where Jack is, where The Prince was lying the last time I checked—

It's not him lying over there.

It's me.

What happens next is I freak out! I jump up. And this is going to sound absolutely crazy, but I go over to my own body, sleeping on the cot, and poke my arm.

“Hey!” I say. The voice that comes out of my mouth is so raspy and deep! I sound—oh my gosh, I sound like a guy!

“Hey! Get up!” I say.

This has to be a dream, right?

I'm standing beside the cot, looking down at my own body, dressed in the blue Thatcher gym shorts and orange tee, seemingly sound asleep. There's actually a little bit of drool coming out of my mouth. Am I dead?

I must be hallucinating
.

I poke again. This time hard. Then I bend down real close and put my lips to my own ear.

“Helloooo!” I say.

Nothing.

So I grab a handful of my loose red hair and yank it. Hard.

I just about faint as my own eyes pop open and stare back.

Face-to-face, one inch away.

It's like I'm looking in a mirror . . .

Only there's no mirror.

I'm looking right at—

ME!

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

..................................................................

SURE, I'VE HAD MY BELL
rung a couple of times. Last year in the playoffs, I got clocked in the head. It's the weirdest feeling. It's like you're in a daze, you know? Sort of like a dream. Like I'm almost hovering above myself, watching everything happen.

That's exactly how I feel when I wake up, all groggy, in the nurse's office, with someone jabbing me in my shoulder.

“Wake up!” I hear my own voice practically yelling in my ear.

“Hey!” I hear myself say. “Helloooo!”

I must be dreaming, right?

I swat away the hand that's poking me.

Chill!
I think, slowly opening my eyes.

Holy jeeeeez!

Please don't think I'm insane when I tell you this. I swear to you.

When I open my eyes?

I see
my own face
staring back at me.

For a few seconds I'm sure I look a lot like a little baby playing peek-a-boo.I close my eyes tight, then open them again.

Close. Open!

Close. Open!

Close. Open!

Same result every time . . . my own face is three inches away from me, inspecting me like I'm some sort of full-on freak show.

To make matters worse?

The me standing there? The me I'm staring at?

I'm not looking too good.

Both my eyes are a little bit black, my nose is banged up, and there's a streak of dried blood on my upper lip.

This is some crazy dream! I reach out and touch my cheek. My face jerks back and I hear my own voice let out a squeal. “Ow!”

Okay, this is getting weird. I guarantee you, I've
never
squealed in my life.

Close. Open!

Close. Open!

Close. Open!

“Would you stop doing that!” says the voice—
my voice
, sounding rattled and much deeper than it does when it's in my own head.

For just a split second, I take a big deep breath and quietly hope that my brothers are going to jump out from behind the nurse's empty desk. “Surprise!” they'll shout. “We're just rippin' you, Jacko!” they'll tell me. “Easy there, bud, settle down!” Only, my brothers aren't here. Nobody is here. Nobody except for—

“Hello?” I say weakly. And by weakly I mean I don't want to actually admit that I'm speaking to what looks like my ghost standing two feet in front of me, and I don't want to tell you the voice that comes out of my mouth sounds like a GIRL!

“What the—” I mutter out loud. Obviously I'm dreaming, right? I'm talking to myself, so you can imagine my surprise when my own body—dressed in
my
light-blue polo shirt and jeans—reaches out, grabs me by the hand, and yanks me up to my feet and toward the full-length mirror hanging from the back of the closed nurse's room door.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

..................................................................

“LOOK!” I POINT TO THE
mirror. The two of us are standing in front of it, side by side, me and Jack. Only, um . . . I don't really know how to say this, because if I say it, if I say it, like, out loud, uhhh, you are going to think I'm—

“What the—” Jack starts, and I watch him staring into the mirror. “This . . . wait, dude, whoa! C'mon, man! This can't possibly be happening. This doesn't make sense!” He grabs me by the shoulder and shakes.

“Stop!” I say. “What are you doing?”

“Are you
real
?” he asks.

I push him back, kind of harder than I meant to, and he stumbles.

“Does that feel real?” I say.

We both turn back toward the mirror, as if the mirror is going to suddenly change what we see.

What we know.

What is clear as day.

I am in Jack's body, and he is in mine!

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

..................................................................

“I DON'T GET IT,” I
say.

Actually, I keep saying it over and over again. “I don't get it. I don't get it.”

I'm pacing across the small nurse's room, from one cot to the other, back and forth, like that is somehow going to change things.

Worse, Freckles is starting to cry like a total girl, except—

She's me.

I have never seen myself cry
.

This is unreal.

“Freckles!” I say, realizing I don't even know this girl's name. “Dude, you've got to stop crying, you know? You're freaking me out!”

“Yeah, well, your nose is killing me!” she says, snorting back sobs. “What did you even do to your face?”

I look back at her, I mean—

I look back at
me
. I look pretty banged up. “This is unreal,” I say, staring back into the mirror. “It's like I'm living in a movie!”

“We should get someone, right?” Freckles manages to stop the tears long enough to blurt this out. She's looking right at me. “We should, like, go get Ms. Dean, or—”

“No way!” I cut her off. “They'll think we're totally nuts! Who is going to believe this? What would we even tell them?”

“We'll just tell them what happened!” Freckles answers, as if it's all as simple as that.

“Yeah, great.” I almost laugh. “We can tell them we fell asleep, and we woke up in each other's bodies?”

Freckles looks mad. “Well? Do you have any better ideas?”

She plops down on the cot. “Oh, my head,” she whines.

I hand Freckles my old ice pack and sit down next to her. Honestly? For the first time in my life, I really don't know what to do.

Think, Jack. Think.

When was the last time I remember actually being in my own body?

“That wacky nurse!” I look at her empty desk across the room. “She must have, like—”

“Put some sort of spell on us?” finishes Freckles. She looks as freaked as I feel. “What are we going to do?” She's crying again. “We have to find the nurse, right?”

“Hey, whoa, whoa, whoa, just breathe, okay? Calm down,” I say. Every time I talk, I nearly die. My voice sounds so soft and—
girly
!

I feel dizzy. I flop back on the flimsy mattress. And yeah, if you're thinking this must be weird, it is! I glance down at my—I mean, Freckles's—tight blue gym shorts and puny girlie legs, and look, I'm not going to even say it, like, out loud, but I am in a body that is 100 percent female. Including the upper half and the lower half, and the everything-in-between half!

Oh, god.

I shut my eyes, but only for a second, because the door suddenly opens and in walks the guidance counselor, Ms. Buchanan.

“You kids doing okay? Feeling any better?”

I bolt upright. I say nothing.

“Thank goodness it's Friday, right?” She grins at the two of us sitting next to each other. “Y'all can go now and get your stuff. The bell's going to ring in ten minutes or so, and—” Ms. Buchanan stops. “Ellie, are you okay?”

“Ellie?” Ms. Buchanan repeats, staring at me, which is weird because she's talking to—

Oh.

Freckles elbows me in the gut.

“Oh, um—” I start, my first official conversation as Ellie. “I guess?”

“You guess, huh?” Ms. Buchanan stands in front of us. She crosses her arms and looks down at us both. “
What exactly
was going on in here before I walked in?” she asks, suddenly suspicious.

Ellie jumps up. “Nothing!” she says, sounding totally mortified, except it's my voice and my body that moves across the room and straps on my backpack and looks back at me. I feel a little bit panicked. Where is she going?