Switched at Birthday Read online

  “We saw your name on the sign-up sheet for auditions today,” Saylor said. “You’re trying out for the lead?”

  “That’s right,” I said.

  They laughed. “So it’s really true?” Kelsey said. “We thought it was a joke.”

  “Hate to break it to you, Lav, but you’ll never get the lead,” Zoe said. “You’re just not lead material.”

  “You have to at least look like someone could fall in love with you,” Kelsey said. They laughed again.

  “We’ll see,” I said. But I was afraid they were right. Maybe auditioning was a big mistake. Lavender had been booed off the stage at the Talent Extravaganza. Why should the musical be any different?

  I reached for my tray. “I’ll be leaving then —”

  “Where do you think you’re going?” Zoe gripped my tray so I couldn’t pick it up.

  “But you just said —”

  “I know what I said. I asked you over for a reason. And you don’t know what it is yet.”

  “What is it?”

  “Go buy me a Nutty Buddy.”

  “A what?”

  “A Nutty Buddy.” It was this ice-cream cone with nuts and chocolate on top. They sold it at the cafeteria.

  “You don’t like those,” I said.

  “Oooh,” the other girls said.

  “How do you know that?” Zoe practically yelled at me. “How do you, Lavender Schmitz, know what I like or don’t like?”

  Because I’m not Lavender! I felt like shouting. I’m your best friend Scarlet and I know everything about you. Or at least I thought I did.

  “Just do as you’re told,” Kelsey said.

  I couldn’t believe Kelsey had just said that out loud. I’d never thought she was as bad as Zoe. But maybe she was.

  I didn’t have to take this from them. “Why should I?” I challenged.

  Zoe picked up my chicken pot pie. I didn’t normally like chicken pot pie, but Lavender’s stomach was craving it.

  “Because if you don’t, your chicken pot pie is going down.”

  “All right, I’ll go get you your stupid Nutty Buddy.” I turned around to go back to the cafeteria line when I felt a splotch!

  Something hit me in the back. I had a good idea what it was.

  The whole cafeteria erupted in laughter. The chicken pot pie tin slid down my back and landed on the floor with a clang. I could feel the pie slime soaking through my shirt.

  I turned around to face Zoe. “Why did you do that? I was getting your stupid Nutty Buddy.”

  “I didn’t like your attitude,” Zoe said. “Besides, I don’t like Nutty Buddies.”

  “I know,” I said through clenched teeth. “I told you that two minutes ago.”

  “You better go wash up,” Kelsey said. “Need a clean shirt?” She threw something at me. I caught it. It was a T-shirt that said I CUT THE CHEESE AT THE BREAKWIND DINER.

  “We saw it in the Lost and Found and knew it must be yours,” Zoe said.

  I tossed the T-shirt on the table and ran out of the room. Through my wet eyes everything blurred. The whole room was laughing and pointing at me. Even the Pimple Poppers.

  I caught a glimpse of Charlie’s face among the crowd. I almost didn’t mind being humiliated in front of the whole school. Almost. But not in front of Charlie.

  I ran to the nearest bathroom, but it was full of seventh graders and I didn’t want them to see me crying. So I dashed into the music room, which was empty. I dove under a desk and curled up into a miserable little ball.

  “Schmitzy?” The door opened and someone walked in. Great. More torture. Bring it on.

  “Why don’t you just leave me alone?” I cried.

  I saw a pair of argyle kneesocks heading toward me. Maybelle’s face peeked under the desk. “Schmitzy, are you okay?”

  “No,” I said. “Go away.”

  Maybelle didn’t go away. She sat down with me under the desk.

  “I saw what happened,” she said. “I walked in right when they threw the pie at you. Why didn’t you wait to have lunch with me?”

  I hadn’t thought of eating with Maybelle. I didn’t know that was the plan. From now on I would.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I forgot.”

  “Why are you letting them get to you?” she said. “That’s not like you. You’re usually so good at ignoring them.”

  “I am?” How could anybody do that? I thought. You’d have to be superhuman.

  “Yeah,” Maybelle said. “It’s one of the things I admire about you. You’re like a duck. The rain rolls off your back.”

  “It’s only because my back is so greasy. With chicken pot pie.” I sniffled. “I guess they were just too mean for me today.”

  The door opened. We froze. A pair of sneakers, boy-sized, walked into the room and wandered around. Whoever it was seemed to be looking for something. We heard a boy’s voice say, “There it is.” The sneakers started for the door.

  I sniffled again. I had to. I didn’t have a tissue with me.

  The sneakers stopped. Maybelle and I held our breath.

  “Hey,” the boy said. He knelt and peered under the desk. It was John Obrycki. “What are you guys doing under there?”

  We crawled out. “What are you doing?” I asked. “Spying on us?” My brush with Zoe had left me a little touchy.

  “I came to get my clarinet music,” John said. “What’s that goop all over your back?”

  I almost started crying again.

  “Zoe,” Maybelle told him. John nodded. That was all he needed to hear.

  “You need to borrow a shirt?” John said. “I’ve got a clean T-shirt in my locker. It’s a little big for you, but —”

  “It doesn’t say anything embarrassing on it, does it?” I asked.

  “Just CORY’S CABINS,” John said. “Is that embarrassing? It’s a campground my family goes to sometimes.”

  “That sounds fine,” I said.

  “I’ll go get it.” He left.

  “What are you doing after school today?” Maybelle said. “Want to come over and make peanut butter brownies?”

  “I’d like to,” I said. “But I’ve got an audition today.”

  “You’re auditioning for the musical?” Maybelle said. I braced myself for the backlash, but she was smiling. “That’s fantastic! Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. Why wouldn’t Lavender tell Maybelle about the auditions? Did she have a secret reason I didn’t know about?

  John returned, T-shirt in hand. Maybelle said, “John, Schmitzy’s going to be in the musical.”

  “Well, I haven’t tried out yet,” I said.

  “You’ll get a good part for sure,” John told me.

  “You’ll get the lead and Zoe will have to eat her words,” Maybelle said. “Or else eat the chicken pot pie off your shirt.”

  “You’ll show that whole stupid Glossy Posse,” John said. “They should call them the Bossy Posse.”

  I laughed, and that spurred them to make even more silly jokes. It was weird — I was so used to making names for everyone else that it hadn’t occurred to me that they’d have names for us. It almost made me feel better to know that.

  When I went back to the bathroom this time, I wasn’t crying. I changed into John’s T-shirt. It was a little long, but it still felt like it fit.

  I wasn’t glossy and I’d lost my posse, but nothing would stop me from making it to that audition.

  Ingrid Morganstern stood onstage singing “My White Knight” while Mr. Brummel accompanied her on the piano. It was the second day of auditions — M through Z — and Ingrid was trying out for Marian. She sang pretty well, but she was a big girl, taller than all of the boys. She’d be better as Eulalie Mackechnie Shinn, I thought. Eulalie Shinn was the mayor’s pretentious wife.

  I didn’t want any competition for the part of Marian. Marian was meant for me and I was determined to get it. I didn’t care if I had to play her in my body, Scarlet’s body, or the corpse
of Frankenstein’s monster — I was going to get that part.

  “Nice work, Ingrid,” Mr. Brummel said when she stopped singing.

  Ingrid beamed and walked off the stage. The auditorium was crowded. A lot of people were trying out, but others came just to watch. They laughed and jeered whenever someone onstage did something wrong — missed a line, sang off key, stumbled during a dance move. Mr. Brummel had to keep calling for quiet.

  My heart was racing and my hands were clammy. I left the auditorium to perform Mr. Brummel’s preaudition ritual. I slipped into the girls’ room, checking under the stall doors to make sure no one was around. I had the bathroom to myself. I could begin.

  I took a deep breath.

  I whispered Marian Marian Marian backward, forward, upward, downward, inward, outward, eastward, westward, northward, and southward. And finally, heavenward.

  “Please,” I begged to the skies above. “I know it’s a long shot. But it means so much to me. Please let me be Marian.”

  The bathroom was silent. I took another deep breath.

  I felt silly. This would never work. How could a chant possibly make a wish come true?

  But then, I thought as I brushed Scarlet’s annoyingly long hair out of my face, if this could happen …

  I didn’t need to finish the thought.

  How long was I going to be stuck in Scarlet’s body? I had no idea. Maybe I should throw the audition, I thought. What if I did well today and Scarlet got the part, and then tomorrow I woke up as Lavender again and didn’t get to play Marian?

  On the other hand, what if I never went back to my old body again? If Scarlet got the part, I’d have the fun.

  I didn’t know what to do.

  Something inside me said Go for it. Whatever happened, happened.

  I was very nervous, of course. Terrified. But just two days in Scarlet’s body had given me a boost of confidence. Even though I’d messed up the soccer game, I saw how people treated her differently from me. Maybe that would carry over into the audition. I wouldn’t be awkward Lavender on that stage — I’d be graceful Scarlet. It had to help.

  I went back into the auditorium. As I walked up the aisle toward the stage, Mr. Brummel announced, “Next up, Charlie Scott, auditioning for Professor Harold Hill.”

  Instead of taking a seat, I perched on the steps that led to the stage. From there I could see the faces in the audience.

  Charlie took the stage, and the crowd grew quiet. He was a good singer and everybody knew it. Plus he had that thing. I didn’t know what to call it, but he had this way about him that was extremely charming. I once heard of a whistle only dogs could hear. Charlie’s charisma was like a whistle only girls could hear.

  Mr. Brummel nodded at him from the piano. “I’ll be singing ‘Marian the Librarian,’ ” Charlie said.

  I melted. “Marian the Librarian” was a melty song. In the musical, Harold Hill, a con man, was trying to convince cold-hearted Marian to trust him. I had the original cast sound track recording of The Music Man, both the Broadway version and the movie version (on vinyl, of course), and I’d listened to them about a thousand times. “Marian” was the song I wished a boy would sing to me, if only my name was Marian … and I knew a boy I could stand to be around.

  Mr. Brummel played the intro. Charlie brushed the hair out of his face, took a breath, and sang. Suddenly he wasn’t a gawky eighth-grade boy anymore. He turned into a suave young man, singing to Marian. Calling to her. Melting her.

  From my perch on the stage steps, I watched the audience. Most of the boys fidgeted and twitched as if they wished they could change the channel. But the girls, almost all of them, were in a trance. Scarlet most of all. The look on her face — my face — transformed it. She glowed.

  I liked Charlie, but it was the song that got to me. From the look on Scarlet’s face, though, Charlie’s singing — or maybe Charlie himself — was the magic for her.

  Charlie finished the song, and the audience cheered. He smiled, slid the curtain of hair back over his face, blushed as boyishly as possible, and hurried off the stage.

  “Very nice, Charlie.” Mr. Brummel said the same thing to everybody, but he was obviously impressed. “Scarlet Martinez. You’re next.”

  I got to my feet and walked to the center of the stage. “I’m trying out for Marian,” I said. “I’ll be singing ‘Goodnight, My Someone.’ ”

  “Goodnight, My Someone” was a sweet lullaby sung by a lonely woman — Marian — who knew her true love was out there somewhere. She just hadn’t found him yet. I’d sung this song a thousand times — in my bedroom, in the shower, while riding my bike. I knew it cold.

  But my hands grew clammy, right on cue. I felt a few beads of sweat break out on my forehead. Everyone was staring at me.

  I’m going to mess it up, I thought.

  I cleared my throat and looked at the faces. The audience was respectfully quiet, because they thought I was Scarlet the Popular Girl. Calm down, I told myself. This will be easy.

  I opened my mouth to sing, and it all fell apart.

  The words croaked out of me. I sang all the wrong notes. My voice sounded like a dentist’s drill set on Screeeeeeeeeeeeech.

  The crowd shifted restlessly, but they didn’t boo or jeer the way they would have if they’d known that I, Lavender, was singing. Kelsey and Zoe sat in the back row, smirking.

  They’d tried to warn me. They knew something was wrong with my plan to star in the musical. I should have guessed.

  Scarlet was tone deaf. To call her voice froggy was an insult to amphibians.

  But I was stuck onstage in the middle of the song. It was my duty to finish. Stopping in the middle and running away in shame would only make things worse.

  So I croaked out the rest of the song. It was so bad I wanted to cover my own ears.

  Scarlet crouched in the front row, head in her hands, embarrassed. That look I recognized. No more glow.

  She could have warned me.

  At last the torture ended. There was a smattering of polite applause. Red-faced, I hurried off the stage before Mr. Brummel could say “Very nice, Scarlet” with total insincerity.

  I raced down the aisle, feeling everyone’s eyes on me. I just wanted to get out of there, but Zoe and Kelsey blocked the door.

  “What were you thinking?” Zoe asked. “Singing like that in front of everybody?”

  “Are you trying to geek yourself up on purpose?” Kelsey said.

  “Are you looking for humiliation?”

  At that moment all I could think was, I miss Maybelle.

  “Thanks for your support,” I said. I tried to push past them, but they weren’t finished yet.

  “You’re lucky we’re your friends,” Zoe told me. “We’ll tell everyone you were up there for a joke. Making fun of the musical, and how dorky it is. They’ll believe us. They’ll think it’s hysterical.”

  “You sure proved how dorky it was,” Kelsey said.

  I couldn’t let that go unanswered. “Shut your mouth,” I told her. “The musical is not dorky.”

  “What?” Kelsey looked shocked. “Did you just tell me to shut my mouth?”

  “You’d better be nice to us, Scarlet,” Zoe said. “You need us. Without us, you don’t have anyone.”

  Was that really true? Scarlet didn’t have any real friends except for them?

  “So what,” I said. “I don’t need anyone.”

  “Oh really?” Zoe threatened. “You’ll see.”

  “Really,” I told her.

  Bring it on.

  I rubbed my sweaty hands on my pants, waiting for my turn. My stomach clenched. I was glad that chicken pot pie had never made it into my mouth. What was the one thing worse than ruining an audition? Ruining an audition by ralphing onstage.

  At first I thought Lavender was messing up on purpose — making me sound bad because she didn’t want “Scarlet” to get the lead.

  But she wouldn’t do that. If she was stuck in my body, she’d want to play
Marian. And her voice was so terrible it couldn’t be faked.

  Then I remembered that it wasn’t her voice making that terrible screeching noise. It was my voice.

  I cringed. Did I really sound like that? Why hadn’t anyone ever told me I couldn’t sing?

  The worst part was that Charlie was still in the auditorium, watching. I remembered the nice things he’d said about me, how pretty I was, how good I’d be as Marian. Now that he’d heard me sing, would he still want to share a stage with me? Not as Scarlet, not with that voice.

  Lavender slinked off the stage, humiliated. For a second I was grateful she was the one who had to endure the embarrassment and not me.

  But everyone thought I was the one who’d messed up. When word of “my” terrible audition got out, the whole school would know I’d made a complete fool out of myself.

  And now it was my turn — in Lavender’s body. My turn to make a total fool of myself all over again.

  “Lavender Schmitz,” Mr. Brummel called.

  I mounted the stairs to the stage. I caught a glimpse of Charlie in the audience. His audition had been so amazing I forgot where I was. Seriously. If you had asked me what planet I was on while he was singing, I would have guessed Pluto. His voice was like gold, like chocolate, like rose petals. Sweet as the arc of a perfect penalty kick that goes straight into the goal. And he was singing to me, me alone. I felt convinced of it.

  Mr. Brummel knocked me back down to reality. “Okay, Lavender, what will it be today?”

  “ ‘Shipoopi’!” somebody yelled.

  I’d listened to “Shipoopi” in Lavender’s room the night before. It was a funny song sung by a short, fat man. “Shipoopi” was not a good thing to yell at a girl trying out for Marian.

  “I’m going to sing ‘Till There Was You,’ ” I said.

  “So you’re auditioning for Marian?” Mr. Brummel said.

  “Yes,” I said. A laugh rippled through the crowd.

  Mr. Brummel played the intro. I took a deep breath and opened my mouth to sing. My brain emptied. I closed my mouth.

  I’d forgotten the words.

  I’d practiced the song over and over again the night before. I must have listened to Lavender’s Music Man record twenty times. Lavender’s father had said that if he heard the record one more time, he’d personally break it into nacho-sized pieces, melt cheese on them in the microwave, and eat them with salsa. I figured he was kidding, but I couldn’t be sure, so I put on Lavender’s headphones and practiced the song some more until I knew it cold.