Switched at Birthday Read online

  It was a cool, sunny fall day. The leaves on the trees were just turning orange. I marched through Scarlet’s neighborhood chanting Marian, Marian, Marian. The big old houses, winding, hilly roads, and leafy yards were so different from my own neighborhood. My street, lined with brick row houses crammed together on tiny plots, seemed shabby compared to this. But I still loved it.

  I stopped on the hill above Falls Road. Below me, the kids marched into school like ants, one line coming from Roland Park, the other from Hampden. They filed into the giant ant farm that was our school and disappeared, ready for another day of battle.

  Marian, Marian, Marian.

  I ran down the hill and followed them inside, heading straight for the bulletin board outside the music room. A crowd buzzed around it. The list had been posted.

  “Let me see! Let me see!” I elbowed my way through the crowd. Luckily, with Scarlet’s height, I could see over most people’s heads.

  Lavender Schmitz! That was me!

  I stopped, blinked, and read the list again. There it was, in black and white: my name, Lavender Schmitz.

  I got the part! I was going to play Marian!

  “Why are you screaming?” Kelsey asked me. She and Zoe had joined the throng struggling to read the list. “Being in the chorus isn’t that exciting.”

  Being in the what?

  I came to my senses. I wasn’t Lavender Schmitz. I was Scarlet Martinez. I skimmed the list until I found her name, bunched up with the rest of the rejects in the chorus.

  I knew for a fact that Mr. Brummel didn’t turn anyone away for the chorus. If they couldn’t sing, they got a dancing part. That was what I was destined for: A dancing part in the chorus.

  Not Marian Marian Marian.

  Mr. Brummel’s old good-luck superstition hadn’t worked after all.

  “Holy guacamole! Lavender!” Maybelle jumped up to see over the heads of the crowd. “Lavender!” she shouted. “You’re Marian!”

  “What?” Scarlet’s face lit up.

  Maybelle hugged her. Scarlet looked stunned, but happy. She hugged Maybelle back. They jumped up and down, the way Scarlet used to do with Zoe and Kelsey. “I don’t believe it! I don’t believe it!”

  “I don’t believe it either,” Zoe said. “That troll opposite Charlie Scott? Did they change the musical to Beauty and the Beast?”

  “The play’s going to stink,” Kelsey said. “Charlie kissing Lavender? Who wants to see that?”

  “Even you would have been better than Lavender, Scarlet,” Zoe said.

  I drifted away, fuming. I didn’t want to talk to anyone.

  My best friend, Maybelle, was unwittingly cheering on Scarlet. And Scarlet’s so-called friends were no help at all.

  Scarlet was even more charmed than I thought. Even when she was stuck in my old, klutzy body, she still won. She still got the part, got to be with the boy she liked, got everything!

  But she got the lead using my voice. That was what killed me. It was my voice! I’d worked on those songs. I’d practiced them and loved them. She hadn’t even known them until two days ago. She’d learned them from my records. Which she found in my room!

  That part was mine. I deserved it.

  “Scarlet?” Kelsey said. “You’re not really bumming about the cast list, are you? The very fact that Lavender got the lead shows what a waste the musical is. Why bother with it?”

  “She is upset,” Zoe said. “I can see it in her face. By the way, is the electricity out at your house? You look like you got dressed in the dark.”

  I glanced down at my clothes. A purple sweater over red plaid pants and green sneakers. Clashy, and not in a good way. I still hadn’t bothered to brush my hair. And I wouldn’t have known how to put on Scarlet’s makeup if I’d wanted to.

  I’d kind of hoped I couldn’t go wrong with anything in Scarlet’s closet. She didn’t own anything that wasn’t fashionable.

  But you could put her clothes together in a cool way, or you could put them together in a pathetic way. Which, according to Zoe, was exactly what I had done.

  “You better get it together, Scarlet,” Zoe said in this whispery way that made it seem as if she was trying to help me. “You’ve lost your touch. I’m — I’m a little embarrassed to be seen with you. I’m telling you this as a friend.”

  “Embarrassed to be seen with me?” I said. “What do you mean?” I’m Scarlet Martinez, I thought. I am not embarrassing.

  But evidently I was embarrassing. My natural geekiness was leaking out, transforming Scarlet from hotsy to notsy. Like a balloon with a tiny hole in it, slowly losing air until it’s nothing but a wrinkly piece of rubber. Scarlet had sprung a geek-leak.

  “Let’s just say your social rating is way down,” Zoe said. “I heard the jock boys talking at lunch the other day. You used to be a 9.7. You’re down to eight and slipping.”

  “So? What do I care what a bunch of stupid jocks think?” I said.

  Zoe shrugged. “It’s not my problem. But if your social stock falls, you lose power.”

  “What power?” I said. “The power to keep people from picking on me, the way they pick on Lavender?”

  “That’s one way of putting it,” Zoe said.

  I’d end up where I started — Lavender with a different name. Pariah of the school.

  Because that was who I really was on the inside. And no matter whose body I wore on the outside, I couldn’t escape myself.

  “Congratulations, Lavender.” Charlie shook my hand. “I’m glad you got the part. You really sold that song in your audition.”

  “Thank you.” My heart bounced around my rib cage. The voice that won the lead may have been Lavender’s, but the actress part was me. When Lavender was onstage she kind of flinched, as if she expected to be booed.

  “So you’re a triple threat,” Charlie said. “You sing, you act, you play the ukulele.”

  “I don’t play the ukulele,” I said.

  “Yes you do,” Charlie said. “I saw you play at the Talent Extravaganza.”

  Oh. Right.

  “Unless you uke-synched it,” he said.

  “Oh. No, that performance was all too real.” I remembered how the audience had booed Lavender. No wonder she flinched when she went onstage.

  I would have never booed her. If only I’d known.

  “You were good,” Charlie said.

  “I’m thinking of switching to guitar,” I said. “Much cooler. Meanwhile … I guess we’ll be spending a lot of time together now. Working on the musical, I mean.”

  “Yeah.” He dug the heel of his sneaker into the floor tile. “Maybe you can come over to my house after school sometime. To practice our lines and stuff.”

  “Awesome,” I said. “I’m going to need a lot of practice.”

  “No, you won’t,” Charlie said. “You’re a natural.”

  “Yes, I will,” I said. “Trust me.”

  It might not be so terrible, being Lavender, I thought. Just for a little while.

  “You look great today, Schmitzy,” Maybelle said to me. We were walking down the hall together after English. “There’s something different about you.”

  If only you knew, I thought. “No more glasses,” I said.

  “Of course!” Maybelle said. “I can’t believe I didn’t notice right away. I guess the Marian news sidetracked me!”

  “And I thought I’d wash my hair for once,” I added.

  “Whoa,” Maybelle said. “Don’t change too much, or I won’t recognize you.”

  “Ha ha.”

  I kept an eye out for Lavender — to avoid her. I felt guilty about the audition, and I was afraid of what she’d do when she saw the makeover I’d given her. Lavender’s hair wasn’t half-bad, once I washed it and brushed it about a thousand times. It was thick, I had to give it that. I’d found a few old barrettes in the dust under Lavender’s dresser, washed them off, and stuck them in her hair to keep it under control.

  “So guess what?” Maybelle said. “I have
a feeling Ian Colburn is going to ask me to the Halloween Spooktacular!”

  “Really?” I said, but what I thought was Uh-oh. Zoe had been eyeing Ian all year. And what Zoe wanted, Zoe got. If not, someone had to pay. I didn’t want that someone to be Maybelle.

  “What makes you think he’s going to ask you?” I hedged.

  “Someone left this note taped to my locker.” Maybelle handed me a folded piece of paper. It said:

  Maybelle had checked no.

  “A yellow-bellied admirer?” I said. “Why do you think it’s Ian?”

  “Because he’s a terrible speller,” Maybelle said. “The spelling gives him away.”

  I was worried. What if Maybelle was being set up for a prank? What if Zoe had seen Ian talking to Maybelle, got jealous, and decided to do something mean — like fake a note from Ian? Maybe the bad spelling had been done on purpose to make Maybelle think the note was from Ian.

  Listen to yourself, I thought. This is the way Zoe makes you think.

  “Be careful, Maybelle,” I said. “Don’t get your hopes up too high.”

  “You’re right,” Maybelle said. “I don’t know for sure who the note is from. But I really think it’s from Ian.”

  I shook my head sadly. Maybelle was so sweet, she couldn’t even imagine the mean things a mind like Zoe’s could cook up.

  “Are you going to the Spooktacular, Schmitzy?” Maybelle asked. “You don’t have to have a date, you know.”

  “I know.”

  “Maybe Charlie will ask you.”

  “Charlie? Do you really think so?”

  “I think he’s starting to like you,” Maybelle said.

  “I kind of thought he liked Scarlet.”

  “I used to think so too. But I’m beginning to change my mind. The way you sang at the audition … well, I think a lot of people see you in a new way now.”

  Aha. There was a good reason for that. I was Lavender now. People could sense the difference. They didn’t know why. All they knew was suddenly Lavender was getting less odd and more … normal.

  The bell rang. I had art; Maybelle had algebra. “See you at lunch?” I asked.

  “See you at lunch.”

  “Good.” I looked forward to having lunch with her. I would have liked to have lunch with her every day.

  I sat in the art room, wondering what to do with the hideous acrylic painting Lavender was working on. She was even worse at art than I was. The paper was smeared with strips of green and black paint. I couldn’t tell what it was supposed to be.

  John Obrycki sat next to me. He was wearing a smock. “How’s the sunset coming?” he asked.

  “Sunset?” What kind of sunset was green and black?

  “Isn’t this the picture you were telling me about last week?” he said. “The Toxic Sunset?”

  “Oh. The Toxic Sunset. Right.” The toxic part was right; I still wasn’t sure about the sunset.

  “I’d temper these greens with some blues and yellows,” John told me. “And go easy on the black.”

  “Thanks.” That gave me somewhere to start. I grabbed a bottle of yellow paint and a bottle of blue and tried to make the smudge look more like a sunset.

  Last year John had won a blue ribbon at the middle school art show. I remembered because the drawing he did — a portrait of his dog — was so good. And he’d made that origami star for Lavender’s birthday. It was still sitting on the top shelf in Lavender’s locker.

  “Congratulations on the play,” John said while he effortlessly molded a piece of clay into a dog’s head. “I saw the auditions. You were the best by far.”

  “Thanks,” I said.

  He looked at me as if he was expecting me to add something else.

  “Um, it was nice of you to come watch me.”

  He still stared at me in that odd way, like he was waiting for a blow to the head.

  “Aren’t you going to make some kind of mean comment about how I should have had better things to do, or how you appreciate my interest in your public embarrassment?” he asked.

  “No,” I said. “Why would I do that?”

  “That’s the kind of thing you normally say to me.”

  “It is?” Duh, of course it was. I kept forgetting how good Lavender was at losing friends and alienating people.

  I racked my brain for something snarky to say, to keep the Lavender illusion going. But I couldn’t come up with anything. I wasn’t good at witty comebacks, nasty or nice.

  Why should I be sarcastic anyway? Just because she was? I liked her friends. They were actually nice to me.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “From now on I’ll try not to make snarky remarks.”

  “That’s okay,” John said. “I kind of like your snarky remarks. Although not when you, like, put yourself down.”

  “Oh.”

  He went back to his dog’s head, and I kept on brightening up the Toxic Sunset.

  I’d thought Lavender loved being a weirdo and an outsider. But what did I know?

  I was only certain of one thing. Now that she — meaning I — had the lead in the school musical, all that could change. Would change.

  The world was about to meet a whole new Lavender.

  I hadn’t seen Scarlet all morning. I looked for her every time I passed through the halls. Where was she? Madame Geller was calling on me a lot in French and getting suspicious when I started coughing uncontrollably every single time. (She said something in French which I didn’t understand but had a feeling meant, Scarlet, I’m onto you.) I needed Scarlet to tell me at least one phrase I could use to put her off — something that meant, It’s on the tip of my tongue.

  I knew Scarlet would be in the art room, so I managed to escape study hall a few minutes early and creep up to the third floor where the studio was. The door was open so I peeked inside. Mr. Booth, the art teacher, was carving a soap sculpture at his desk, not paying any attention. Everyone else was quietly working on projects.

  I hope Scarlet’s not ruining my painting, I thought, scanning the room. It’s bad enough she stole the part that’s rightfully mine.

  There she was, sitting in the corner with my painting in front of her — daubing yellow onto it!

  Wait — was that her? She looked very different from my usual Lavender self.

  She’d brushed my hair and pinned it back with barrettes. She’d dressed my body in new clothes I’d never seen before. Jeans! And platform shoes! I would never be caught dead dressed like that!

  And WHERE WERE MY GLASSES?!?

  Scarlet had a lot of nerve. She was taking over my life!

  Then I noticed something even worse. She was sitting at a table with John Obrycki, and they were talking and laughing like they were having a good time. Like they liked each other. Like they like-liked each other.

  John took a scrap of paper and folded it into a bird. He moved the bird’s mouth and made it talk. Scarlet giggled.

  What was he saying to her?

  Wait a second. Were John and Scarlet … flirting?

  I felt a twinge of jealousy. Which surprised me. Because I didn’t like John Obrycki. I mean, I liked him, but I didn’t like him like that. I didn’t have anything against him. But he was a boy, and I was not the boy-crazy type.

  Then I wondered: How come he never flirted with me when I was Lavender?

  I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but I was seized with a terrible need to find out. The bell rang. I was supposed to go to gym while they had lunch.

  Kids started pouring out of the art room. I ducked behind the door. John and Scarlet left together, still talking, barely noticing anything around them. It would be easy to follow them without being detected. So I did. I’d just have to be a little late for gym.

  I couldn’t get over what Scarlet had done to me. She had dressed my body in the kind of clothes she would wear. Who did she think she was? She may have been inhabiting my body, but she was not me.

  I was so busy watching Scarlet and John joke and laugh like old buddi
es that I almost crashed into Kelsey and Zoe.

  “Where are you going, Scar?” Zoe asked. “You’ve got gym now, don’t you?”

  “What? Oh yeah.”

  Kelsey noticed that my eyes were glued to Scarlet and John. “Did you see that?” she asked. “Lavender actually brushed her hair this morning! And she wore decent clothes for once.” She glanced back at my old body, which was disappearing down the hall with John. I tried to push past Zoe and Kelsey, but they pulled me in the other direction.

  “It’s pathetic,” Zoe said. “She’ll never be pretty. Why bother trying?”

  “I don’t know,” Kelsey said. “I think she looks pretty good. A lot better, anyway.”

  “Shush.” Zoe elbowed Kelsey, who backtracked.

  “Um, well, of course, anything would be better than how she used to look.”

  Some kids I barely knew stopped Scarlet to congratulate her about the musical. Kelsey and Zoe blabbed on and on, but I hardly listened. The interesting stuff was happening to another Lavender.

  It was like watching a movie about myself. With an actress playing the part of me. Only the story had been changed from gloomy to happy. And the actress played Lavender so that I hardly recognized her.

  I wanted to jump up and down and yell, “John, that girl is an imposter! I’m the real Lavender!”

  But of course I couldn’t. That would look crazy.

  My confusion fell away and it all became clear to me. I knew exactly what I wanted. I wanted to play Marian. And I wanted to go to the Spooktacular with John.

  How could I stand by in this good-looking, tone-deaf body and watch while Scarlet experienced the most glorious moments of my entire life?

  I couldn’t.

  I had to do something right away. But I didn’t know what. I was stuck.

  Also, I had gym. Which made me wish I were literally stuck, just for an hour, so I could get out of it.

  How dare she interfere with my life? I muttered while the gym teacher made us do sprints up and down the bleachers. Which, I found, were a lot easier if your body was in shape, as Scarlet’s was. In my own body I wouldn’t have had enough breath to mutter anything.