Switch

by Tish Cohen

  “Mine, for instance.”

  “Gran! Can we focus? Do you think the rubber gloves could have done this? Because I was wearing them at the time.”

  She leans back in her chair and folds her arms. “Of course it’s because of the gloves. I bought them from a roadside fortune teller in Africa. She was doing psychic readings from a fairly dinged-up crystal ball.”

  I’m so relieved. Because if we know how the switch happened, we know how to make the switch unhappen. “Good. This is good.”

  Then my stomach drops. Because I have no freaking idea where they are.

  “You have them with you, I assume,” Gran says, dead certain I am not stupid enough to let them out of my sight.

  Only I am that stupid. I mean, they have to be back at the bridge, right? When I woke up, I was in Joules’s room and they were nowhere to be seen. Then again, I’ve been back to the bridge—twice—and there was absolutely no sign of them.

  “No. Not actually with me.”

  “Andrea. I told you when I gave them to you—you have to take good care of them. Are you keeping them in a safe place?”

  “Totally.” I nod way too fast. “I … totally. I keep them in a totally safe place.”

  Crazy to check the top of the slope beneath the bridge. You’d think I’d have noticed something as eye-catching as feather-and rhinestone-covered gloves. But I check anyway. It doesn’t seem possible anybody could have taken them—who would hang out here except for an idiot like me?

  I try a quick wish when a train thunders overhead—no surprise when it doesn’t work—and once the last railway car has passed, I start to work my way back and forth along the grassy area beside the bridge. It’s not easy, the hill is made of dust and rocks and gopher holes, with long patchy grass and bushes that have been scorched by the sun into tumbleweeds about to break loose and roll across town. The whole time I pray I don’t find a rattlesnake or a scorpion or a nest of hairy tarantulas.

  Pill bugs I can handle. Tarantulas … not so much.

  There was this foster kid who came to us just over a year ago. I can’t remember his name but he was twelve years old and obsessed with spiders—I don’t know why, maybe he was never allowed to wear a Spider-Man costume as a kid. You know how kids are; you hold something back from them too much and it’s for sure going to fester.

  Anyway, this kid totally spooked me about tarantulas. Said that, when frightened, they can jump five feet in any direction, just like that. Splat. Hairy spider on your face. And they bite, too. But they have no venom. Being bitten by a tarantula is no worse than being stung by a bee. But still. It’s no bee, it’s a massive hairy spider.

  The thing about this kid—Christopher was his name—was he’d lived in and out of group homes his entire life. His parents checked out of parenthood when he was about three but not by choice. I don’t know what happened to his dad but his mom wound up getting multiple sclerosis and could no longer take care of him. And here’s the kicker: he had relatives but not one stepped up. I guess none of them answered the phone or something when it came time to place Christopher in proper care. That’s the kind of thing that kills you, imagining a three-year-old with a sick mother and no one answers the phone.

  Eventually, after he placed in the nationals for math—the kid was smart—some relative claimed him. An uncle living up in New Jersey all of a sudden missed him enough to take him in. He wasn’t too excited about going there, though. He said “They don’t have nearly as scary spiders on the east coast.”

  The roadside is a disappointment. I find exactly what a person might expect to find. Plenty of candy bar wrappers and empty cigarette and gum packs, a greasy McDonald’s bag and broken beer bottles in a wide variety of colors—light brown, dark brown, green, clear. There’s one of those tiny Lego figures which I almost take home for our Lego bin but leave for the ground squirrels to have some fun with, a twisted cloth—really filthy—that was probably someone’s T-shirt that flew out the back of a pickup, and a greasy dead crow that’s had its eyes pecked out but otherwise looks pretty fresh.

  I find a piece of skinny plastic hose (stained with what could definitely be blood) that some serial killer probably dropped between victims, and more broken beer bottles. This patch of land really is the home of the wasted. You wouldn’t want to wander around here without thick-soled shoes, that’s for sure. Even with such a treasure trove at my feet, no sign of the gloves.

  I cross beneath the bridge again and go check out the other side. This area must be way less popular than the first. Even though it’s in the sun, there’s no broken glass whatsoever and hardly a speck of garbage. Maybe one gum wrapper, but that might have come over here on the bottom of my shoe. It’s weird; right away I notice there are fewer weeds here, too. Like no one can stand this side of the bridge—not even the dandelions. It is a bit steeper, so, okay, maybe it’s less popular as a get-drunk hangout. Or, if you’re a serial killer, you might have more worries over here when it comes to solid footing. And I think—I stand up taller and push my face up into the breeze—yes, I’m sure. It’s the windy side of the bridge. The side Dad would say “takes the brunt of it.”

  I sit down for a minute and stare at the cars passing by, surprised by the number of black SUVs on the road. Three pass me by in a span of about five minutes. They’re never going to catch the guy who hit Michaela’s parents. Plus, you’ve got to assume the driver would have had the car fixed after. What kind of idiot would he be to drive around in it right now with a dented hood and broken windshield?

  Without even the shelter of the few struggling trees on the other side, I get hot fast. It’s brutal. I feel like my skin is blistering before my eyes. I’m sweating and, maybe because I skipped breakfast, maybe because I forgot about Joules’s caffeine addiction, I feel like I could faint.

  That’s when I see it. Way over to my right, just beneath the concrete barrier that separates someone’s yard from the busyness of Harbor Boulevard, a teeny, tiny sparkle of light. I take off at a run and drop to my knees when I see first one crazy, dust-covered rubber glove, then, about ten feet away, the other.

  Laughing, skipping in place, I pull them on and stare at them in wonder. That’s it. I have the answer now. I can run beneath the bridge and change everything back. I can jump out of Joules’s crummy life and back into my own. I can sleep in my bed and stop drinking coffee and tickle the Ks and get bossed around by Mom. I can ask Dad about the weather and tell Cici and Sam yes, I’d love to go jogging with them.

  I can call Gran and say, “Pleasepleasepleasepleaseplease don’t bring me back any more gifts from any more places you travel.”

  I can be me.

  Still wearing the gloves, I crawl back up to the base of the bridge and flop backward in relief as I wait for a train. I have no idea if a train is necessary or if rain is necessary or if all I need is the gloves. I’m exhausted, I feel it now. People aren’t meant to switch bodies, switch worlds. It’s too hard to catch up, seventeen years into the trouble another person has created for themselves. What I’ll do when I’m me again, I’ll sleep for as long as I want. Just sleep and sleep and sleep.

  Then I’ll wake up and never covet someone else’s life again.

  The ground starts to rumble and I sit up, wrap my arms around my knees and stare at the gloves. Some of the rhinestones have fallen out—or maybe were pecked out by the same beast that swallowed the crow’s eyes. I guess the glue didn’t hold so well in the hot sun because many of the feathers are gone as well.

  The train is closer now, the piercing whistle hurts my ears. A few more seconds and it thunders over my head, spraying me once again with grit.

  I hold up the gloves, but before I make my wish, the feel of Will’s leg over mine hits me. The touch of his fingers pushing hair off my face. The smell of his breath. I came so close. Closer than I’ll ever come to kissing him again.

  I took too much time. I should have rushed it. Kissed him before Joules appeared. I mean, he likes me, I can see it. He kn
ows there’s a difference now, he knows Joules has changed. It’s the me in her he’s attracted to.

  As the train crashes overhead, I have an idea. The gloves are mine again, to use as I please. What’s the rush?

  I could put them in a safe place and wait. Not for long. Just until I can experience that kiss.

  It’s why I made the wish in the first place, right? To live, just once, the kiss I saw in the music room. To turn my back on that wish coming true could anger the … the wish-granting gods. It could send the message that I’m toying with the universe. Playing games with life.

  One kiss.

  And then.

  The rattle overhead fades as the last cars pass and, as quickly as it arrived, the train is gone. One rubber finger at a time, I pull off the gloves. I stare at them, lying in my lap, fake gemstones winking up at the sky. With no backpack or purse to stash them in, I’m not sure what to do. Tuck them in my shirt, maybe, and when I get to school, stuff them in Joules’s locker. Then hide them in her backpack after school.

  I hear footsteps to my left and glance up the road to see my own body, dressed in gym clothes, jogging along the sidewalk toward me. Joules.

  “Andrea!” she shouts.

  I have to ditch the gloves. Fast. I run back up to the concrete wall and, using a rock, madly dig a small hole in the ground. Once the gloves are tucked safely into it, I cover them over with dirt.

  Joules is scrabbling up the embankment beneath the bridge. Closer now, but not close enough to see what I’m up to. “Andie! Did you find any ruby slippers?”

  The girl actually thinks I have access to some sort of sparkly red pumps plucked from the striped-stockinged hooves of some witch felled by a bungalow in Munchkinland. For the zillionth time, I wonder about Joules’s grades. Either a whole lot of rocker swag is being passed around this school or she’s one of those book-smart/lifestupid people you sometimes come across.

  Leaving the gloves in the ground like this is dangerous. I might forget where they are. I reach for the first bit of trash I see—the serial killer’s hose—and coil it overtop of the gloves’ temporary burial site, then saunter back down the hill toward her, all disappointed-looking.

  “Nope. It’s officially a ruby slipper–free zone.”

  “The photographers are gone—the police chased them away from campus.” She walks up to me, then leans over her knees as if exhausted. “So get my butt back to school and make sure Will stays in love with me. Okay?”

  I sigh, all weary, and think about the kiss that needs to happen. “Okay, okay. I’ll do my best.”

  On the way back, Joules whines about the magic slippers and I assure her I’ll have them anytime now. And that she can relax in the knowledge that she’ll be back to sharing her caffeinated body with boys in the bushes before too long. (Although who am I to talk? I hadn’t been in her body two days before I got pretty busy in the bushes myself. Wait, strike that. Tried. I tried to get busy in the bushes.)

  Joules was right about the paparazzi—they’re gone. Unfortunately, so is Will. And he’ll be out for the rest of the day—the soccer team left at lunchtime for some sort of tournament in Chino Hills, so there’ll be no chance of my lips being anywhere near his anytime this afternoon.

  Shane, on the other hand, is here. He sidles up to me at my locker between third and fourth periods. “Hey, Joules.”

  “Hi, Shane.” I start to walk away.

  “I was thinking maybe I should drive you home today. You know, because of the photographers.”

  “Thanks. But I’m good. Will is driving me.”

  “Will’s in Chino Hills. It’s perfect timing. You swore you’d make time for us.”

  I’m angry at Joules. She never told me she made promises to Shane. I stare at him and wonder what she sees in him. I mean, he’s cute in a dumb surfer kind of way, but he doesn’t compare to Will. “There’s an us?”

  He nods, grinning. “Definitely.”

  “Well, there can’t be. Not any more. I’m sorry, Shane. I’m trying to work things out with Will. You and me, us, can no longer happen.”

  This time he barks out a laugh. As I walk away, he calls, “Yeah, right!”

  Nigel calls me just after the final bell rings to say photographers are still swarming the house and do I want one of the publicists to pick me up? Better to dash from car to front door, he says, than have to walk through them out on the road. But I have no interest in hanging with either Clara or Sue right now, so I tell him no. I take side streets and cut through the running trail to avoid being spotted and make my way over to my old neighborhood. I cross State College and head up and over the hill to Highcliffe Court just to reassure myself my house and family are still there. Stupid, I know. But now that I have a way back to my life, I need to make sure I still have one.

  It’s a funny house, all on one storey, and it looks a lot shorter than it actually is inside because the dark brown roof slopes down low. There’s this walled courtyard area in the front, just to the left of the walkway by the double doors. Other houses on the street have this same three-walled space but theirs is tiled and usually has a couple of chairs and a bistro table, as if the owners envisioned themselves lounging out there with coffee every morning. But in all my years living here, I’ve never once seen it happen.

  I position myself next to the mailboxes in the center of the cul-de-sac and pretend I’ve dropped something in the bushes so I can stare at the house for a minute without making anyone suspicious. Eventually the front door opens and Brayden and his crappy friends walk out. They play basketball on the driveway for a while, but not like regular boys. These guys trip each other and laugh when someone’s knee starts to bleed. One jumps at the net and hangs, feet kicking beneath him as he tries to break the rim. Tomas whips the ball at Bray as hard as he can. At one point a fight breaks out and Tomas presses Dillon’s face to the concrete. Just when I’m ready to stomp over there and break it up, the other guys haul Tomas off him and Tomas starts shoving them around instead.

  How Mom doesn’t see the evil in these guys just baffles me.

  When they move their baboonery into the garage, probably in search of garden tools to use as weapons, I make my way back to the main road and call Sue to come get me. If I have to pass through a throng of ravenous photographers, I’d like to do it wrapped in a couple of tons of metal and a feisty publicist.

  chapter 19

  The police arrive at 12:48 a.m. There’s nothing scarier than wicked pounding on your front door at that time of night. You’re either about to be robbed, or your neighbor is in the midst of being murdered and is hoping you’ll be able to wrangle the blood-soaked machete out of the madman’s grasp, or the police have arrived to ask, “Are you a Miss Joules Adams?” while twirling a pair of handcuffs on an index finger like a Frisbee.

  In this case it’s the third.

  I stand there at the door yawning like a moron in Joules’s dead soldier coat while they start firing questions at me about my whereabouts this evening. My whereabouts? Can’t they see I’ve just crawled out of bed? Even as Joules Freaking Adams I can’t have caused too much trouble while sleeping.

  “I’ve been here the whole time,” I say, pulling the coat closed so the short cop behind the other two will stop looking at my knees. “Ask my …” I realize my mistake too late. There’s a photographer across the street, I can see the flash. Nigel must not come to the door or …

  “What’s going on here?” Nigel booms as he wanders over in boxers and undershirt. “You’re hassling my daughter in the middle of the night?” Behind him Sue races up (I knew she was sleeping with Nigel! She’s wearing nothing but a man’s pajama top and came out of his bedroom. Also, it makes me wonder about her—doesn’t she have a cat she needs to go home and feed? Or at least a plant that needs water?). She ushers Nigel away from the door, away from the photographer’s lens, and demands to know what they want from the Adams family at such an hour.

  The cop with the cuffs says, “Break-in over on Highc
liffe Court. We have a few questions for the young lady.”

  I move closer, heart thumping. “Which house?”

  Nigel roars from behind, “My daughter has been here all night!”

  Sue waves the cops inside and shuts the door. “It’s okay, Nige. I’ll do the talking.”

  “Which house?” I repeat. “Is everyone okay?”

  The short cop who was looking at my knees squints at Nigel. “Hey, didn’t I read you were off in rehab somewhere?”

  “He’s back,” Sue says with great authority. “Finished his stint and returned home quietly. But neither of you know that. Now, is there anything else you need from us? It is rather late.”

  “Which house was it?” I repeat. “Was anyone hurt? What happened?”

  “We need to take the young lady down to the station for questioning.”

  “Based on?” says Sue.

  “Based on witnesses who can place her in a position near the house several hours before the incident. Watching it.” My house.

  It was my house.

  Nigel and Sue look at me. “You were there?”

  “No. Well, yes, but it’s not what you think.” I turn to Shorty. “Will you please tell me if everyone is okay? Was anyone home at the time?”

  They fire questions at me.

  “How long have you been watching the place, Miss Adams?”

  “Were you with the others this afternoon?”

  “Have you any involvement in the other break-and-enters in recent weeks?”

  I’m too stunned to answer. All I can think of is my family being stormed, maybe even tied up, terrified, maybe worse. “Please tell me if everyone is okay! Are all the babies okay? Was anyone hurt?”

  The mention of the babies sends them all into action. They don’t use the cuffs, and they do allow me time to change into jeans, but they lead me toward the door, with Nigel in the background saying he’d hop in the car with me but for the photographers. That he has no choice but to wait at the house. That he’ll get hold of his lawyer and send him to the station.