Spells & Sleeping Bags #3 (24 page)

“No, you won't,” Liana says.

I glare at her. “Yes, I will.”

“Silly Rachel. When are you going to learn that I'm the one calling the shots?” She lets out an exaggerated sigh. “I've given this some thought and here's how the game is going to be played. See, you surprised me yesterday. I expected you to agree to my plan right off. I thought you would jump at the chance to spend time in my shoes. It should have been an easy choice for you. Your sister comes with me, or you become me. But instead you're forcing me to make this far more difficult than it needed to be.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Shut up and listen,” she orders, her voice icy cold. “We
are
going to switch places. Don't you get it? That's why I'm here. That's why I came to camp in the first place.”

Excuse me?

Liana's eyes flicker over the beach. “The question is, how far do I have to go to get what I want?”

The spine chills are back. “What are you going to do?”

She fixes her gaze on Poodles. “It's sweet that she has such strong feelings for Harris, don't you think?”

Poodles waves to Harris and runs toward him.

“Leave her alone,” I say.

Liana ignores me.

“Don't!” I shout, and then, helpless, I feel a gust of cold and watch as Poodles throws her arms around Harris and kisses him right on the mouth.

Unfortunately, I'm not the only witness. Deb sees it. Anthony, Abby, Mitch, Janice, Houser, and Rose all see it too.

That can't be good.

Liana sighs. “Say bye-bye to Harris. I'll bet he'll be asked to leave camp immediately. Poodles might have to leave too. A shame. Two whole weeks early.”

Nausea overwhelms me. “You're crazy,” I say.

“No, I just know what I want. Ready to switch yet?”

I don't answer.

Her eyes are on the dock. “Look at Raf in his canoe. Doesn't he look like he's having a good time?” she asks.

I feel another gust of cold, and with a flick of Liana's wrist, Blume, paddle still in his hands, spins around and knocks Raf over the side of the dock. Raf lands headfirst in the water and comes up coughing.

“Leave Raf alone!” I cry.

“I will if you switch with me.”

At least Raf's okay. I watch as he pulls himself onto the dock. “No,” I say clearly. “I'm not going to let you bully me. I will not switch places with you.”

Her cheeks flush with anger. She purses her lips and takes another look around the beach, then spots my sister, who is still sitting by herself, reading. “You know, Rachel, traveling through Europe can be dangerous for a twelve-year-old. Really dangerous. It would be so easy for something to happen to her. For her to just disappear. Don't you think?” She smiles sadly. “I've always wanted a little sister. Someone just like Miri.” Her smile fades. “Too bad.”

Fear slices through me. I gaze at my sister, who is obliviously reading her book and looking so sweet and helpless. I watch her for a moment before I turn back to Liana.

I've lost. If I don't do what she wants, I could lose Miri—forever. Tears sting my eyes. “I'll switch, okay? But if I do this, you have to promise you'll never hurt Miri. Ever.”

“I'm not such a monster, you know. I really don't want to hurt anyone.”

What a crock. That's all she's been doing since she arrived at camp. “Promise me.”

Her face hardens. “I promise.”

I know I have no reason to trust her, but what choice do I have? And anyway, maybe I can still outsmart her . . . somehow. “All right.”

She stands up and wipes the sand off her shorts. “Come on, let's get this show on the road.” She smiles sweetly. “And then I have to go make up with
my
sister, which will be a piece of cake. Let's just say your sister is very malleable. She's soon going to realize that I'm the nasty person you always said I was, and that you really are wonderful. Don't look so glum, Rachel. Isn't that what you wanted?”

I swallow the rock in my throat and follow her up the beach. I take one last look at Raf. The next time I see him, it will be through Liana's eyes. The next time he sees me, I won't be me.

Then I look at Miri. I don't know why Liana's doing this. All I know is that I have to save my sister. I try to will Miri to look back at me, but she goes on reading. After Liana gets through with her, Miri will never want to set eyes on me again.

18
THE BIG SWITCHEROO

Switching is a trip.

We do it at the lookout. We have to sit facing each other with our legs out, bare feet touching.

Liana passes me a black candle and a book of matches. “When I count to three, we're going to light our candles. Ready?”

As ready as I'll ever be, I suppose. I want to run down the hill, but what's the point? If I don't do this, she could hurt Miri . . . not to mention Raf, Prissy, and everyone else I care about.

“One, two, three!” she shouts, and lights her candle.

I scratch my match against the box, and the flame leaps to life in my right hand. I pick up my candle with my left and light it. “Now what?”

She extends her candle over the center of our circle. “Our flames have to become one,” she says.

Here goes nothing. Or everything. I lean over and let my candle's flame touch hers.

As they interweave into one, Liana tells me to repeat after her. “As this flame burns through the night . . . ”

I hesitate.

“Say it!” she barks.

“As this flame burns through the night . . . ,” I whimper.

“Please listen to our plight,” she says.

“Please listen to our plight,” I repeat.

“Let our two souls switch . . . ,” she continues.

“Let our two souls switch . . . ,” I repeat.

Liana: “With absolute perfect pitch.”

Me: “Because you're a total bitch.”

Liana scowls and then says the line again: “With absolute perfect pitch.”

Me, also scowling: “With absolute perfect pitch.”

Liana: “Let she be me . . .”

Me: “Let she be me . . .”

Liana: “And me be she.”

“And me”—I hesitate and she kicks my foot—“be she.”

It starts with sinus pressure. At first it feels like I have a bad cold on an airplane. But then the pressure gets more and more intense, like a nail is being rammed into my brain, trying to knock something out, which I guess is what it's doing—trying to knock me out.

The next thing I know, the pain is gone. Just like that. There's no pain at all, just peace. In fact, I feel great, like I'm a cloud, or a gas, floating above the lookout. It's like I'm dreaming.

Then I'm feeling that ramming again—but this time, I'm the nail being rammed. A square nail being slammed into a round hole. And then the headache stops and I open my eyes.

Omigod.

I'm staring at myself. It worked! It actually worked! I'm sitting across from myself! You know what? I'm cuter than I thought. My hair might be wavy, but it has a nice fullness. I have really good skin, and my lips aren't too thin. What was I always whining about? Why did I think I was so plain? You know what else? Don't trust mirrors. Or even photos. There's nothing like looking at yourself through someone else's eyes. This is the real thing. This is really me. And I'm adorable!

The Rachel across from me is staring at me with as much amazement as I'm looking at her with. Er, at me with.

I look down at my hands (these are not my hands!) and then at my legs (these are not my legs!) and then at my boobs (these are—unfortunately—not my boobs!), then run my not-mine hands through my not-mine hair. My super-glossy not-mine hair.

My super-glossy hair that Liana permanently straightened before camp.

Huh, how did I know that?

Millions of images download into my head at the same time.

Whoa. I have access to Liana's past. All of it.

Maybe I can find something in her, some kind of spell, that will return me to my own body—while at the same time making sure she doesn't hurt anyone.

I close my eyes and let the memories wash over me. It's like I'm watching a movie about someone's life. Except it's not a biography. It's now an autobiography. . . .

I've just turned five and I'm on a broom with my mom, Sasha. Her long brown hair is tied tightly in a low ponytail and it keeps brushing my face.

“This is going to be so much fun,” my mom tells me. “You're going to love it in Paris. You're going to learn to speak French.”

“But I don't want to learn French. I want to go back to London,” I say, “where Imogene is.”

Imogene has been my best friend for the past four months, as long as I've been living in the United Kingdom. Before that I was in Rome, before that in Vancouver, and before that I don't remember. All the cities have blurred together like overexposed pictures.

“You'll make new friends,” my mother tells me.

My tears drip off my cheeks and into the clouds, but my mother doesn't notice.

“Can I have a sister?” I ask. We're on a yacht in the Red Sea. I've been playing checkers by myself for the past hour and I'm totally bored.

My mom and her gentleman friend, whose boat we're on, laugh.

“Please? I want someone to play with.”

“Liana, you're doing just fine on your own.”

“But a sister would be so much fun! Or a brother. I'd take a brother, too.”

“Sasha barely knows what to do with you,” the awful man says.

My mom nods. “One kid gets in the way enough.”

My powers finally kick in when I turn ten. I'm in a hotel in San Francisco, watching another movie on pay-per-view TV, when I manage to change the channel without the remote. I'm bubbling with excitement about telling my mom. She's going to be so proud of me! I wait eagerly by the elevator (I'm not allowed to leave the floor when she's out, but she lets me run up and down the hallway) and wait and wait and wait. When she finally returns from her date, I run to her, yapping a mile a minute. “I did it! I'm a witch too! Just like you! Now we can train together and I can come with you everywhere and—”

She shushes me with a flick of her hand. “Not tonight. I have a headache.”

I cry myself to sleep.

My mom and I fight about everything.

How I should wear my hair. How I should dress. How I don't want to keep moving. “I just want a normal life,” I plead.

“We're never going to be normal. You're a witch. Go study your spell book.”

“I don't want to study anymore!” I scream. And then: “I wish I could live with my father!”

My mother never talks about my father. I must have pushed her too far, because she yells, “You don't have a father!”

“I must have had one at some point. I wasn't hatched.” Not even witchcraft can manage that. “Who is he? I have a right to know!”

“You did have a father, but when you were six months old, I caught him with another woman.”

Even before I ask the next question, I'm dreading her answer. “What did you do?”

“I turned him into a mouse. And her into a cat. And that was the end of that.”

I spend the night throwing up in the hotel bathroom.

I meet a girl named Joanna in the park. She tells me my teeth are long and look like carrots.

I turn her into a rabbit.

Then I feel bad and turn her back into a girl. But I leave her with really floppy ears.

I'm so lonely I want to die.

Then I develop a crush on a boy named Matthew.

He says he likes me as a friend and he has a girlfriend named Ellen.

I put a love spell on him and give Ellen chicken pox.