The Switch Up

by Katy Cannon

  We heard the music first, when we were barely more than halfway up the hill. Guitars, drums and other instruments I couldn’t identify by sound alone. It was early evening, the sun still hovering in the sky, lowering itself slowly towards the stone walls of the village, turning them red and gold and orange.

  Rosa let out a little whoop of excitement, turning cartwheels on the grass beside the path while Antonio held her basket as well as his own. Luca’s grin was wider than I’d ever seen it, a flash of white teeth against his tanned skin as he smiled at me.

  I couldn’t help it. I could feel the anticipation jangling through me like bells on a string, all ringing at once.

  “Ready, Willa?” Antonio asked, offering me his hand with a smile.

  “As I’ll ever be.” I took a deep breath, then reached out to hold his hand, trying not to blush at the feel of his skin under my fingertips. He couldn’t see my heart, so I let that beat double time with excitement.

  Rosa skipped through the gate first, followed by Luca, then Antonio and me. Together, we stepped through the ancient stone archway into the main piazza – and then I stopped, almost instantly.

  I hadn’t been prepared for this. It was nothing like the summer fete I’d thought it would be.

  Heat from the many cooking stalls hit my face, while the music and singing rang through my head. Flags and decorations hung from every balcony, every stone cornice, in every colour imaginable. And in the centre of the piazza, people were dancing – brightly coloured skirts flaring and black boots hitting stone.

  But most of all I heard laughter and I saw smiles. The whole community, happy to be together, celebrating their village and their history through their love of food, music and dance.

  Suddenly, what clothes I chose to wear to this celebration seemed like the least important thing in the world.

  “Shall we catch up with the others?” Antonio asked, sounding amused. When I looked up at him, unable to reply except by blinking, he smiled. “It can be a bit overwhelming the first time you see a festival like this. You don’t have these at home?”

  “Not like this,” I said. “Well, not that I’ve ever been to, anyway.” Maybe other people spent their weekends at parties like this, while I was hiding away in my room with a book. Maybe this was what I’d been missing all along.

  Not any more, though.

  Antonio and I caught up with Luca and Rosa, which, although I’d sort of hoped Antonio and I would be alone, was nice too. Sofia and Mattias had already distributed the dishes that we’d spent the last couple of days preparing to the appropriate tables, and were now sitting with friends in the centre of the piazza sharing a carafe of wine. We waved as we passed and wove through the crowds, sampling the food at every stall, pausing to listen to the music as we reached the end of the piazza where the band were performing.

  A stream of dancers swooped past us, twirling and twisting, the women’s arms raised above their heads as they swayed and moved. They were so beautiful, with their skirts flying loose in the breeze.

  I’m not a dancer. My parents gave up on my ballet classes after Grade One because I was always looking at my feet and chewing my hair. Well, that and the fact that I have no natural rhythm. But even my hips started to sway to the heavy beat as the music filled me.

  I was focused so completely on the music, my eyes half closed to feel it better, that I didn’t see the dancer who swung out of formation until she reached out to grab my hands. My eyes flew wide open as I was pulled into the dance, and I saw that Rosa was beside me with another dancer. Rosa was spinning and singing at the top of her voice, her head thrown back with happiness.

  I wanted that too. That joy. Not caring what she looked like, or who was watching, or if she was making a fool of herself.

  The dancers had dragged in all sorts of bystanders to join in their performance, and none of them seemed to have any more idea what to do than I did. But it didn’t matter. Clinging to my partner’s hands, I let her twirl me around, spinning me off until another dancer caught me, and the whole move started again. I spun around the piazza, laughing so hard I could hardly breathe.

  I caught Luca’s eye as I danced past the spot where we’d stood to watch. He was clapping along in time to the music, one foot stamping on the ground too. He grinned at me as I spun around again, falling into the arms of one of the other dancers just as the music came to a triumphant halt.

  Breathing hard, I disentangled myself from the dance troupe and headed back to the sidelines before the music started up again. I needed a minute to recover if I was going to dance any more! Rosa, on the other hand, was still dancing, even though there was no music. And Antonio…

  “Where’s Antonio?” I asked Luca, glancing around the piazza to look for him.

  “Oh, he met a … friend,” Luca replied. But he didn’t meet my eye as he said it.

  And then I knew why.

  Antonio hadn’t gone far – just into a little alleyway behind the stall nearest to us. Where he was kissing a beautiful, dark-haired dancer from the troupe.

  Of course.

  My whole body felt too hot, and my chest was tight. I couldn’t look back at Luca, couldn’t bear to see him laughing at me. Stupid little Alice who’d let herself hope, even just for a moment, that Antonio might actually have noticed her.

  I’d known. I’d told myself over and over that this wasn’t a date.

  But it seemed my crush-ridden heart hadn’t quite believed me. Until now.

  Obviously it was Hal who put the first obstacle in my path.

  “I can’t spend my summer just being your alibi, Willa.”

  “Alice,” I corrected, glancing around us. Fortunately, no one else in the park by Mabel’s flat seemed to be paying attention to two teenagers sitting on the grass in the shade of some big old tree. “And why not?”

  “Um, because I actually have my own life?”

  I tried not to look too surprised at that revelation. “So, what will you be doing when you’re not being my alibi?” I mean, I didn’t want to interrupt his important computer-game-playing time, or whatever it was boys like Hal did over summer. That would be terrible.

  Hal looked away, obviously embarrassed. I knew it. He didn’t actually have any plans.

  But then he said, “I got accepted to this great science camp for the summer. It’s every afternoon next week, at Queen Anne University’s other campus site, across town.”

  “Where, exactly?” A new plan was already formulating in my brain.

  Hal pulled out his phone and opened the maps app, bringing up the location with a few swipes of his finger. Taking the phone from him, I smiled as I enlarged the map just enough to show the theatre where my course was held. It couldn’t be more than a five- or ten-minute walk between the two.

  “Perfect,” I said.

  Hal grabbed his phone back, his forehead crumpled in confusion. “Why do I already know I won’t like whatever idea you’re about to come up with?”

  In fairness to him, Hal had grasped how being friends with me worked in a very short time. Smart guy.

  Still, I flashed him my most innocent smile in the hope it would encourage him to play along a bit longer.

  “I’m registered on a theatre course just around the corner, three afternoons a week for the next two weeks.”

  “You are, or Alice is?” Hal asked.

  “Me, myself, personally.” I rolled my eyes. It wasn’t really that confusing. And why would Alice be going on a theatre course?

  “OK, so?”

  Leaning forwards, with my elbows on my knees, I made sure I had Hal’s full attention before I shared the plan. “So, we tell Mabel that I’m going to science camp with you next week, but actually I slip off and go to my course instead.”

  “That … could work, I suppose,” Hal admitted. “Except, my camp is only one week. What do we do in week two?”

  I shrugged. “We’ll figure it out.”

  That made him fidget nervously with the strap of his back
pack. I got the feeling that Hal was a planner, like Alice.

  “Remind me why I’m helping you again?” he asked.

  “Because Alice will be really, really grateful,” I said. Which wasn’t exactly a lie – Alice would be grateful he hadn’t dobbed us in, at least.

  “You’ve told her you’re hanging out with me?”

  “Of course!”

  “What did she say?” Hal sounded eager now, far more so than he had at the idea of hanging out with me for the summer.

  I tried to find a way to put Alice’s comments that would convince him to keep helping us. Telling him that she’d actually said, You and Hal, together for the summer? That should be … interesting, probably wasn’t it.

  “To tell you thank you, and that she’s really looking forward to seeing you again soon.” I jumped to my feet, reaching down a hand to pull Hal up too. He groaned, but followed all the same. “Now, come on, let’s go and find Mabel and ask her about science camp.”

  As I’d expected, Mabel was thrilled by the plan. I mean, she had a lot of questions (which I let Hal answer) and we had to hammer out exactly how everything would work – how we’d get there and back, where we’d meet etc. But overall, she was definitely in favour. I got the feeling she was going to be doing a lot more work than she’d planned during my visit, and this way she didn’t have to worry about entertaining me 24/7 as well. Of course, it helped that science camp was absolutely the sort of thing that Alice would sign up for.

  “Oh, your dad will be so pleased for you!” Mabel said excitedly. “You’ll text him and let him know? I know he’ll want to call and talk to you about it, as soon as he can.”

  “Absolutely,” I agreed, mentally making a note to text Alice and warn her that she needed to tell her dad the good news. I might not mention the Hal part just yet, though.

  The important thing was, I started my course at the Old Row Theatre on Monday – and by the end of the summer, I’d have a job on Heatherside, and my dad back in my life full time. Everything would be perfect.

  I didn’t mean to run away from the others, exactly. And I definitely didn’t want them to know that I was upset at seeing Antonio kissing some other girl. But I knew what the tightening of my chest meant, the way I was struggling to catch my breath.

  When Mum died, I started getting panic attacks a couple of times a week. Then, it tended to be when I realized I was all alone, and I didn’t know what to do next. As time went on, I learned to manage them better, until I sometimes went whole months without one. And even when they did happen, I knew what to do.

  These days, they came when there was too much in my head. When all my thoughts crashed and swirled around my brain, too fast for me to even make sense of them. Like now.

  Idiot! Why on earth did you think Antonio could ever be interested it you? You thought wearing a short skirt would change anything? Everyone will be laughing at you now. They’ve probably been laughing at you all along. Willa would never have got herself into this position. They’re bound to figure out you’re not her any minute now and send you to London. And what are the chances Mabel will want you after this…

  I sucked in the deepest breath I could manage. I was catastrophizing. Nothing had really happened. Nobody had died.

  The world keeps turning, Alice. There’s always another, better day ahead. My mum’s voice, again.

  I blinked away the tears and took another deep breath. My heart was starting to slow to something approaching normal speed again, at last, and my chest didn’t feel like it was being crushed by the tide against the rocks.

  It was a start. Now I just needed a few minutes to get myself together. To get back to Alice, instead of the Willa-wannabe I’d tried to be that evening. Whatever everyone else believed, I really wasn’t Willa, and some new clothes couldn’t change that.

  Luca found me, tucked away on a set of steps that led to the closed bank on the edge of the piazza. I tensed, waiting for the inevitable teasing.

  But the laughter never came.

  “You OK?” Luca settled on to the step beside me, leaving a few inches between us.

  “I’m fine,” I lied. “Just got a bit claustrophobic with all the people. Needed some air.”

  “So you hid away in a dark corner with walls on three sides and a stall just in front. Makes total sense.”

  I didn’t have a response to that.

  “Is it my brother?” he asked.

  “It’s not Antonio, I promise.”

  “Right.” He didn’t believe me, obviously.

  “Really. It’s not like I thought I was here with him on a date or anything.”

  “Which is why you dressed up and held his hand.” There was a simmering anger under Luca’s words that I instinctively read as being directed at me. Then I saw the glare he sent across the piazza, to where I’d last seen Antonio and realized the truth. He was angry with his brother.

  “Dressing up wasn’t for him,” I explained. “Not really. Yes, it was nice to be asked but I knew he meant it in a friendly way. In fact, I figured Sofia probably asked him to ask me.”

  Luca shook his head. “She wouldn’t do that. But she probably asked him to make you feel included. And Antonio doesn’t know how to talk to girls if he isn’t flirting.”

  I smiled. “The point is, I knew this wasn’t a date or anything.” I had to keep reminding myself of that. My hopes were not Antonio’s fault.

  “But you were upset when you saw him kissing Maria.”

  So that was her name. “Is she his girlfriend?”

  “I don’t think so.” Luca shrugged. “Just a girl he knows from school. But it’s hard to tell with Antonio.”

  He sat up, straightening his legs out in front of him as he leaned back on his hands. “So, if it wasn’t for him, what’s the reason for the outfit?”

  I blushed a little as I tugged down the end of Willa’s denim skirt again. “A friend of mine… Alice. She keeps telling me I should dress up a bit more. When I mentioned the festival, she insisted on picking my outfit for me. This is what she chose.”

  I looked away, focusing on the toes of my canvas trainers. “I was trying to be someone else, I guess. More like her.”

  And for a moment, when I’d been dancing, I’d felt like a different person altogether. Not Alice, but not Willa either. Just free, I guess.

  Now I was back to being Alice-pretending-to-be-Willa, and suddenly it all felt too much.

  My throat got tight and I could feel the hot rush of tears behind my eyes. I wouldn’t cry in front of Luca, though. I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t…

  “Are you crying?”

  “No.” Definite lie. “Maybe.”

  Tentatively, Luca put his arm round my shoulder, so lightly I could barely feel it resting there. “I’m sorry my brother’s an idiot.”

  A burst of soggy laughter flew from my mouth. “It’s not Antonio. I just … sometimes I think I should never have come to Italy at all.”

  If I hadn’t swapped places with Willa, I wouldn’t be lying to all these people I liked, and trying to be something I wasn’t.

  Luca patted my shoulder awkwardly, which just made me sob again.

  “My mum used to say, sometimes, when I was sad, that I should think of a time or a place where I was happy instead, and imagine I was back there.” It was the first time he’d mentioned his mother. “You could try it, maybe?”

  I nodded, and closed my eyes, searching for a happier thought, a happier time.

  Which led me back to my own mum, naturally, telling me the tale of a waterfall that could wash away all your worries.

  I’d planned on telling Antonio about that waterfall tonight. Asking him if he’d help me find it, even.

  “You’re frowning,” Luca pointed out. “Happy thoughts aren’t supposed to make you frown. You’re doing it wrong.”

  I opened my eyes. “I’m not. I was just thinking about my mum. She told me about a waterfall somewhere in Italy. One she always wanted to go to. It’s called…” I tried to
drag up the name from my memory, forcing my mouth to make the unfamiliar Italian words. “Cascada del Fuga?”

  “Cascata della Fuga,” Luca corrected me. “Yeah, it’s not too far from here.”

  I sat bolt upright, my tears and Antonio forgotten. “Really?” I’d tried to look, once or twice, but I hadn’t got very far. The only sites I’d found were in Italian, and the translation features were worse than useless.

  “Well, not that close, either. Hang on.” He took his phone out of his pocket, and pulled up one of the websites that had baffled me. “It’s about two and a half hours away,” he said, after scrolling through a few pages. “It might take a few buses and a bit of walking, but we could get there. If you wanted to see it, I mean.”

  I looked up at him. “We?”

  He shrugged. “I figure you’d probably get lost on your own. I mean, if it’s not ordering gelato, your Italian is still a work in progress.”

  “True.” I tried to imagine Antonio offering to take me two and half hours to visit a waterfall, just because I’d mentioned I’d like to see it, and failed. “If you wouldn’t mind…” I gave him a shy smile. “I really would love to go. It would mean a lot.” Excitement bubbled up inside me at the idea of actually seeing Mum’s waterfall, at last.

  Luca beamed. “Good! Then we’ll start planning. I’ll need to look up the bus routes…”

  “Tomorrow,” I said, as he turned back to his phone. “Right now, I want to see if there are any of Sofia’s lemon cakes left.”

  “I doubt it.” Luca slipped his phone back in his pocket, looking relieved that my crying was over. So was I, to be honest. “They’re the best thing here.”

  “Let’s check anyway.”

  But as we crossed the piazza to the stall that had the lemon cakes, I wasn’t thinking about food at all.

  I was thinking about a waterfall that could wash away every worry, and every single panic attack.