Switched

Here
we go
, Olivia
Abbott thought as her mother’s car pulled away from the curb. Olivia stood on
the sidewalk and smoothed the skirt of her new pink dress for the millionth
time. She usually felt her best in pink, but for some reason it wasn’t helping
at all this morning.

Olivia
wished she didn’t feel so nervous
.
After all, it wasn’t like this was
the cheerleading nationals or anything. It was just her first day of eighth
grade at a new middle school. In an unfamiliar town. Where she didn’t know
anybody.

She
was totally freaking out.

If it
wasn’t for her dad’s new job, she’d be skipping into her regular school with
Mimi and Kara and the rest of the old squad, instead of being the friendless
new girl who shows up out of nowhere five weeks into the school year.

But,
whatever,
Olivia was determined to make the best of the situation. This would be just
like the first time she ate sushi. It would be weird for a second—unfamiliar
and slightly funny smelling— but then she’d grow to love it. Besides, what was
she going to do, cry until high school?

Olivia
stood up straight and clapped her hands twice, like at the beginning of a cheer.
Then, with her mouth set in a smile, she made her way bravely toward the front
entrance.

Her
old school had been a modern box, painted a combination of ugly beige and ugly
brown, but Franklin Grove Middle School was different. It looked a thousand years
old. Ivy dripped from the huge entryway columns, and beyond the enormous oak
front doors was a hallway so big you could make a sixteen-person pyramid across
it. Olivia’s old school was plastered with inspirational posters with sayings
that made no sense, like LIVE EVERY DAY LIKE IT’STODAY! Here, black-and-white
school photographs hung on the walls dating back to practically the ice age.
She passed one picture with a plaque that said CONVOCATION 1912. It showed a
bunch of serious looking students in black robes.

At
least the sound of everyone rushing to their first class was familiar: lockers
clanging, sneakers squeaking, people laughing. Olivia made her way through the
bustle. There seemed to be a lot more Goths here than there had been at her old
school. They were as black-and-white as the photographs on the walls: black
clothes, pale skin, heavy black boots.

Olivia
caught her own reflection in a display case. Her pretty dress floated,
ghostlike, in front of tarnished trophies and a dark banner that said

GO,
FRANKLIN GROVE DEVILS! She tried to keep smiling, but her heart fell. She
looked like a lollipop in a graveyard. What if she never managed to fit in
here?

“Rise
and shine,” a voice interrupted. Startled, Olivia realized she was standing right
in the way of a Goth girl. A prickly bun atop the girl’s head was held in place
by a wooden spike—
Cool,
Olivia thought,
a chopstick!—
and she wore
a black dress with a neat slanted hem that started just above one knee and
ended at the opposite ankle.

Olivia
stepped to the left, trying to get out of the way, but the girl had the same
idea. They both stepped in the other direction. Then they both stepped back
again. Olivia laughed apologetically, but the girl just looked at her in a
weird way. It wasn’t mean or anything. She just looked curious, sort of like an
inquisitive black cat.

“Do I
. . .” the girl began, frowning. “Are you new here?”

“How
can you tell?” Olivia asked jokingly.

“So
you’re probably looking for the office, right?” the girl replied, with the
faintest of smiles, as another Goth in a black T-shirt that said HOP, BUNNY,
HOP! in pink letters pulled up, a digital camera hanging around her neck. The
first girl nodded to her friend before pointing Olivia in the right direction. “To
the end, around the corner, office is on the right.”

Olivia
had been going the wrong way completely. “Thanks,” she said sheepishly. “I
probably would have been wandering the halls looking for the principal’s office
until I got sent to the principal’s office for wandering the halls!”

To her
relief, both Goths cracked a smile. Then the one with the stick in her hair
looked at Olivia like she was trying to remember something. Finally she
shrugged. “Well, good luck.” And with that, she and her friend walked off down
the hallway.

The
office was exactly where the girl said it would be.

“Have
a seat over there,” the gray-haired receptionist said. “Principal Whitehead
will be with you in just a minute.”

Olivia
turned around and saw a chair, next to where a girl with long, soft-looking,
curly blond hair was sitting, reading a thick, battered paperback. The girl
wore jeans and a yellow T-shirt, and on the floor at her feet was a canvas bag
with a button on the strap that said ALIEN SPAWN ARE PEOPLE, TOO.
Finally
,
Olivia thought,
someone who isn’t wearing black!
She walked over and
held out her hand. “Hi. Olivia Abbott.”

The
girl lifted her eyes from her book. She looked confused. “No, actually, my name’s
Camilla. Camilla Edmunson.”

Olivia
laughed. “No. I mean
my
name’s Olivia,” she explained. “Nice to meet
you, Camilla.”

Camilla
made an I’m-such-a-dork face and shook Olivia’s hand. “Sorry. I’m just
really
into this book.”

Olivia
sat down. “Isn’t that the best? When you get so caught up in a book that you’re,
like, in a different world?”

“I
know!” said Camilla eagerly. She held up the cover of her paperback:
Random
Access
by Coal Knightley, The Second Book in The Cyborg Trilogy
.
“Ever
read it?”

“Nope.
Is it any good?” Olivia asked.

“Are
you kidding?” Camilla cried. “This is my third time through!”

“That’s
exactly how I am with the Count Vira books.” Olivia sighed. “You know—vampires,
bloodsucking, frilly collars. They’re sort of my secret vice.”

“Don’t
worry.” Camilla grinned. “Your secret’s safe with me. As long as you don’t tell
anyone I can speak the Cyborg Beta language.”

Olivia
laughed. “It’s a deal!”

The
principal appeared, looking like school principals everywhere: bald head, short
sleeves, bad tie.

“Olivia
Abbott?” he said. “Welcome to Franklin Grove.”

Ivy
Vega could have bitten her best friend, Sophia Hewitt, for abandoning her as
they got to social studies. So what if they were almost late? That didn’t mean
Sophia had to rush to her desk the moment they arrived, leaving Ivy zombified
in the doorway as the second bell rang.

Ivy
clutched at the dark emerald ring hanging on the charm around her neck, hoping
it would ward off her fear like a magic amulet. As if. It had been three weeks
since Ms. Starling assigned seats, and Ivy still felt like she was caught in
direct sunlight without any sunblock. Sitting at a desk next to drop-dead
Brendan Daniels each morning was
torture
. Quite enjoyable torture,
admittedly, but still.

She
forced herself to put one foot in front of the other, shooting Sophia her
meanest look—the death squint—as she crept past. Sophia rolled her eyes.

Ivy
pulled the long wooden spike out of her bun as she sat down, then peered out at
Brendan from behind a curtain of dark hair.

He was
utterly Goth gorgeous in every way: skin the color of pure white marble, high
cheekbones that made dark valleys in his face, curly black hair that hung near
his shoulders. Her heart convulsed. She was sure she’d turn to dust if they
ever exchanged a single word. He clicked his mechanical pencil.

I’m
going to fail this class
, thought Ivy.
How can I concentrate on a single thing when he’s so close?

A
singsong voice interrupted her thoughts. “After I win the cheerleading tryouts
and become squad captain of the Devils, I’m totally going to do the best cheers
ever!” said Charlotte Brown.

Kill
me now,
Ivy
thought. Ivy could think of only one thing more painful than unrequited love,
and it was hearing Charlotte Brown babble on about herself.

“I am
already so much better than my big sister,” Charlotte twittered, “and she’s,
like, co-captain of the varsity squad at Franklin High.”

“Maybe
I’ll be
your
co-captain!” one of Charlotte’s minions said brightly.

“Maybe
I won’t
have
a co-captain,” replied Charlotte coolly.

It was
one thing to get assigned a seat next to Brendan Daniels and die of
embarrassment. But it was another thing altogether to get seated behind
Charlotte Brown and die of boredom listening to her endless, dumb,
mean-spirited chatter. Charlotte and her lemmings had been yammering on about
cheerleading tryouts nonstop since the first day of school.

Ivy
pushed her hair behind her ears and pulled out her notebook. She angled herself
away from Brendan—if she couldn’t spend eternity with him, she could at least
use the time productively—and turned to the back page, where she jotted her
ideas for the school paper.

“Former
Franklin Grove Cheerleading Captains: Where Are They Now?” she wrote.
Let’s
see,
she thought. There was Carli Spith, who was now a cashier at FoodMart.
And Melinda Willsocks, who got crowned Miss Revoline at the auto show last year
but still lived with her parents and couldn’t get a regular job. And . . .

Ivy
realized that the room had suddenly gone quiet. She stopped writing.

“Class,”
Ms. Starling announced, “I’d like to introduce you to a new member of the
Franklin Grove community.”

Beside
Ms. Starling stood the girl in the pink dress. Ivy got the same weird feeling
she’d had when she’d first seen her in the hall—like déjà vu mixed with
indigestion.

“Her
name is Olivia Abbott,” Ms. Starling explained. “She’s just moved here from the
coast.”

Ivy
put her hand on her necklace and twirled her ring as she watched the new girl
at the front of the room. Olivia’s long brown hair was pulled back in a
ponytail. Her dress was seriously pink. She wasn’t the kind of person who would
normally attract Ivy’s attention. So why did Ivy feel like she was looking at
someone she had met before?

Olivia
was given a desk right near the front, probably because, once again, Ms.
Starling was determined to ruin Ivy’s life using the ancient curse of assigned
seating; no matter how she craned her neck, Ivy was unable to catch another
glimpse of the new girl’s face.

In
between trying to learn about the legislative branch of government and trying
to look cool and beautiful in case Brendan was looking at her, Ivy tried to
figure out how she knew Olivia Abbott.

She
decided to list all the possibilities in her notebook: Kindergarten? Elementary
school? Dance camp? Summer retreat? Meat & Greet Diner? Costume ball? Mall?
Finally, desperately, Ivy wrote . . .
TV
???

There
weren’t many people Ivy knew who Sophia wouldn’t recognize as well, so Ivy tore
a blank corner from one page and passed a note back to her friend while Ms.
Starling was writing on the blackboard.