The Summer Switch

By: Violet Z. Wexler

 

Kaylie

 

My strawberry-blonde hair blew into my pale face as I woke up. The window was open and warm wind was coming in. That’s when I remembered what day it was. August 23. The most important day of my life… probably. Today was the day Mackenzie came back from basketball camp! I knew the first thing she would do was rush to my house and I was right. Ding dong! I heard my mom get up and walk to the door. “Mom! NO! I have to open that!” I yell to her dramatically. It had to be the perfect moment. She stops in her tracks confused. But she listens. I run and run and run down the many floors of our house and on the last flight of stairs I trip and go sliding down the stairs on my stomach. In any other situation I would groan but since Mackenzie is here I giggle and open the door.

 

“KENZ!”

“KAY!” I could tell she had just came back and she hadn’t even stopped at her own house. Her suitcase was is her hand and she looks like she is still in California. Her sunglasses are resting on her head and she has her beach shorts on. She drops her suitcase. We both know what’s coming. “Who are we? Who are we? You guessedie! Uh, uh you guessedie! We are besties! Yeah, she’s my bestie! You’re impressed; you’re obsessed, we’re the bestest in the west!” We sing together. We topple into a pile of laughter.

 

This is a chant we made when we were ten and we have still been doing it for the last two years. Me and Kenzie are both twelve now. Kenzie is beautiful. She doesn’t think so, but I know so. She is pale like me and her hair is wavy, long and blonde. She usually pulls it back in a neat pony tail. “Kenz, you have been gone for TWO WHOLE MONTHS!” I complained dramatically. We walked over towards the kitchen. I looked outside of our huge windows. It just started to summer rain again.

“I know! I don’t know how I survived without you,” Kenzie replied. She walked over to my snack cabinet and took out my chips just like it was her own house.

“Emma! Jayden! I need you to go pick up Olivia from her acting camp!” my mom yells to my siblings. Our house is usually chaotic with all my siblings. Kenzie actually LIKES it! Can you imagine that? She says it’s “exciting.” She has a small family. It’s just her and her parents. That’s what I want. With Emma, Jayden, Olivia, Dad, Mom, and me were are always rushing EVERYWHERE. At least Noah left for college. Not that I’m happy about it or anything. But I did get his huge room.

“OMG YOU DIDN’T SEE MY NEW ROOM!” I shout. We run up four flights of stairs in to my new room.

“It’s awesome!” Kenzie was really impressed. Her room is tiny. My new room had many posters up on my new turquoise wall and drawers and cabinets. I sat down on my bed.

“I wish I had your family because they’re so… what’s the word… CALM.” I told  Kenzie. We always fight about not having each other’s lives.

“No way! Something is always going on in your family. I never get bored over here.” I tried to think about that way. I couldn’t. I got distracted. That’s when I remembered.

“Look at this,” I said walking over to the wall. “A little piece of the wall is a secret hideout,” Kenzie loves stuff like that. I pushed down on the wall and the door popped open.

“Woah,” Kenzie said amazed.

 

Kenzie

 

The warm wind blew, the birds chirped and we had no worries. It was the last day of break. The last day of summer. The last day of Great Wolf Lodge with Kayla. Great Wolf Lodge was an amazing hotel with so many fun activities. They have a HUGE AWESOME indoor water park with rides and everything. And a thing called MagiQuest where you have to complete a bunch of quests. It’s not a very good day. We have to leave GWL and summer. But, I am so excited to see Sarah and Tori. Those are my other friends. I am closest with Kayla though. Today we went on the scariest water ride there. It brought you outside and spun you around so many times. We decided we were going the GWL when I came back from basketball camp and went into her new room. This is how it went:

 

“Woah,” I said. Kayla had just shown me the door to a secret hideout in her room. We climbed through a tunnel to a get to the little room. Scratch that. It was huge. Only the tunnel was small. In there was a bunk bed, a bean bag, a tv and a desk. “OMG,” I said amazed. I was a little jealous too.

 

I flopped into starfish mode on her lower bunk of her bunk bed. “Starfish mode” is an inside joke between me and Kayla. It is when I fully drop and try to take up as much space I can. Kayla climbed up to the top bunk. She hung upside down so I could see her head and blonde hair dangling down.

 

“We need to write down ideas of things we could do together for the next week,” Kayla said grabbing her notebook. Her head disappeared from view but after a minute she was sitting next to me on the lower bunk. We talked for a few minutes and her notebook looked like this:

 

  Ideas for the last week of summer:

• Tennis camp
• Country house
• Great Wolf Lodge
• Just stay here

We concluded on Great Wolf Lodge.

 

Now we are driving home in Mr. McKellen’s car. Mr. McKellen is Kayla’s dad. “I can’t wait to see Sarah and Tori!” I squealed.

“SAME!!!!” Kayla squealed even louder.

“Girls,” Mr. McKellen tried to settle us, “Calm down… wait… now you can squeal. We’re home!” This was not a squealing matter. Although we wanted to see our friends we also wanted to be back at GWL finishing the last of the MagiQuests and riding The Squid Trap.

 

After Kayla went to her house next door and unpacked, she came to my house and we sat in my tiny bedroom. “I want to be you. You are so responsible and independent and you get to bring your phone everywhere. AND YOU HAVE A PHONE. Ugg. So not fair.” I complained. I looked at my bed and then sat down on the floral covers.

“No way! You are so pretty, nice and so funny. Also, you have such a big family. I don’t like being an only child. SO NOT FAIR.” She argued. We looked at each other with eyes of disappointment. We sighed and then-

 

“I wish I had your life,” We both said in unison. I had a little time to laugh before I felt it. A tingling moving up my body. Then it felt like I had sparks all over me. I could tell Kayla felt it too from the look on her face. It was an excited but confused smile. I didn’t like the feeling but something about it made me smile too. Then ZAP! “What happened?” I asked. I felt like I was just born again. The light was stinging my eyes and my limbs felt loose. I felt like I was a whole new person.

“I think we swapped bodies…” Kayla said worried. Her eyes look confused and scared. I was a whole new person.

 

Kayla

 

“WHAT?” Kenzie said. It was Kenzie saying it but the person who was looking at me was well… me. “What?” She said quieter. “I-I sound like you.” She stammered as her wavy hair blew in the wind from the window. It was raining again. The drops were falling straight onto our heads. I quickly closed it.  

“Come,” I said grabbing her wrist and pulling her to the full length mirror in my bathroom. What I saw was Kenzie. I knew I was her so why did it still surprise me? “Well… this is good right? We both wanted each other’s lives,” Kenzie said trying to break the tension.

“Yeah,” I said unsure. “Yeah!” I said more confidently. I wanted Kenzie to feel safe and not worried because when she gets worried she faints.

“Soooooo what do we do now?” Kenzie said. We moved back over Kenzie’s bed. And I lied down confused.

“I guess we just live our life,” I said. “This is what we wanted right?” It was before but did we really mean it?

 

                                                      ★★★                             

 

So, that night we went into the other’s bed and slept. The next day was a disaster. I woke up at 7:00 and climbed through my window. Well, her window. I climbed onto my porch (this time is really is MY porch.) When I looked through the glass doors it was weird to watch myself sleep in my bed. Then, again it was weird to sleep in her bed. Now this part was a mistake. I went to shake Kenzie awake when I heard it.

 

“MACKENZIE HOWARD!” It took me a minute to remember that was me. I ran back to my room to see where the voice was coming from. It was Kenzie’s mom. Her face was flushed with rage but relief. “WHERE WERE YOU?” She shouted.

“Waking up Mac-Kayla,” I said in a meek voice trying to stop myself from saying Mackenzie in front of her mom.

“You know you’re not allowed to do that!” she said. I thought about this. No. I didn’t know that. I wouldn’t make that mistake again. Before I left for school though, I heard yelling. And not at me. It sounded like two voices. One was a male and one was a female. I had just imagined it, I told myself.  

 

School was even worse. Kenzie and me had the same first period so that was okay until THE NEW STUDY. Dun, dun, dunnnnn. In our first period, science, Mr. Ducey said we were starting a new study. He put us in groups and told us these would be our groups for the whole study. I was with Emily Sandler, Hailey Donatelli and Tori Goldston. At least I had Tori in my group. But I didn’t have Kenzie in my group. “Kenzie!” Tori called. Kenzie turned but I looked at her and slit my hand over my throat to indicate STOP. I ran towards Tori and hugged her. Over my shoulder I showed a worried face to Kenzie. I heard Macie Hiddleston call Kenzie over.

 

“Mackenzie, would you come over here please?” I separate from Tori’s loving arms. I run over to Mr. Ducey who was calling me. “Let’s go into the hall,” he said softly. Once we were in the hall he said, “I know you have not been do very well in Science. Well, you told me that you were having a lot of trouble understanding the curriculum. So, I talked to your mom and we decided to get you a tutor. She would come on Thursdays. Does that sound good to you?”

 

Thoughts clouded my head. How come Kenz never told me she was having trouble in Science? Sweet, honest, Kenzie? I could’ve helped her. Why didn’t she tell me? We tell each other everything…

 

“Is that a no?” he asked. I realized I looked stupid just standing there so I said,

“I’ll think about it.” I needed to ask real Mackenzie if she was okay with that and talk to her about how she didn’t tell me.

 

Kenzie

 

Today, in Science, I was NOT put in a group with Kayla. That didn’t help the situation but, her life wasn’t bad. That morning I played on her phone all morning and her mom didn’t say ANYTHING. Anyway, in first period, we started a “new study.” Whatever, hard thing was everyone knows that Kayla is like, a science GENIUS. No one knows that I have trouble with science though. Not even Kayla. I know that we tell each other everything but she just wouldn’t understand.

 

I was put in a group with a bunch of math nerds who knew nothing about science. Well, everyone knew “I” was good at science. So I was expected to do the whole thing. Well, the new study was chemistry and I’m pretty sure I failed already.

Macie said I should mix two liquids-out of five-but then I mixed the wrong ones and I accidentally, maybe have caused an explosion. I didn’t see Kayla anywhere in the room. Soon, Mr. Ducey and Kayla came back in. He told everyone to evacuate because the foam that was everywhere was toxic or something. Kayla was strucken. Her eyes immediately found mine. I smiled apologetically at her. But when we left the room but her face still looked the same. I was starting to think it was about something else. I was about to ask when she pulled me into the girl’s restroom. “WHY DIDN’T YOU TELL ME?” She yelled.

“What?” I said confused.

“YOU KNOW! WITH SCIENCE!” She continued shouting.

“We all make mistakes. Yeesh. It’s just some toxic stuff.” Her face flinched. I know she disagreed but instead of correcting me she said,

“I MEAN HOW YOU NEED A TUTOR AND EVERYTHING!”

“Oh… I just thought you wouldn’t understand…” She calmed down a little.

“You know I would.”

“Yeah…” I felt sheepish and and ashamed.

“If we are admitting secrets then… my parents have been fighting a lot and I’m scared.” she admitted. That’s what the fighting voices were, I realized.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Mackenzie! You knew exactly how it felt not to be told something! Why did you do it? I thought.

“Same reason you said.” We giggled.

“Okay I’m glad we figured this out but we are both not happy with each others life right?” Kayla changed the subject.

“DEFINITELY NO. My life is the best for me.”

“Okay so we need a plan. How about I meet you at the same place tonight and we say ‘I want my own life back’?”

“Got it.”

 

Kayla

 

So that night, we went to Kenzie’s room. “Okay, on three we say what we planned.” I instruct, “One…two.. THREE!”

“I WANT MY LIFE BACK!” we said in unison. Nothing happened.

“I guess we just have to live like this forever…” Kenzie said on the bridge of tears. We both broke out into sobs then. Hugging, each other tears ran down our cheeks. That’s when it happened.

 

Two of our tears conjoined into one big one. We looked at it. Sparks started popping out of the top. Then, an invisible force pushed us back into the wall. “I’m me again!” I shrieked.  Then, we exchanged glances of a true friendship.