She did sleep finally. When she next opened her eyes, there was sunlight pouring in the window… which was odd, because her mother always woke her up when she came in to open the shutters on Amanda's windows. But there was no one else in the room…
She blinked. Where was her canopy? Why was she looking at a ceiling? Had she fallen off her bed? Because this didn't feel like her bed-it was harder. As her eyes began to focus, the first real stirrings of fear began. She noticed the chest of drawers in front of her. It was yellow, not pink. And what were those flowered curtains doing at the sides of her window? No… not her window. Not her room.
She sat up suddenly, and that was when she noticed her hands. What had happened to her manicure-the nice rosy polish? Whose stubby, bitten fingernails were these?
Her heart was pounding furiously, but her body moved in slow motion. Lifting legs that weren't her legs. Putting feet onto the floor, experiencing the new sensation of a carpet instead of a fluffy rug. Walking toward a mirror that hung above the unfamiliar chest of drawers. Looking in the mirror and seeing… Tracey Devon.
THE REFLECTION STARED BACK at her, frozen and uncomprehending. The same pale freckled face, greasy hair, and thin lips that she'd scorned the day before in the cafeteria. The scrawny body, barely concealed by a thin, babyish nightgown covered in faded pink flowers. There was no question about it-Amanda Beeson was Tracey Devon.
Her body couldn't move, but her insides were shaking. Amanda closed her eyes. Think of who you really are, she commanded herself. Amanda Beeson, five foot two, 110 pounds, light brown hair, blue eyes, turned-up nose. Amanda Beeson, the coolest girl at Meadowbrook Middle School, the Queen of Mean. Frantically, she tried to remember what she'd worn to bed the previous night: an extra-large T-shirt with "I heart New York" written on it that her father had brought back for her from his last business trip. When she had the image firmly imprinted in her mind, she opened her eyes again. The shock she was feeling was still visible on the face of Tracey Devon.
The silence of the room was broken by a series of harsh beeps. It took Amanda a moment to realize that the noises were coming from an alarm clock on the nightstand. She turned it off and sat down on the bed.
Stay calm, she told herself. You know what's happening. It's happened before and it will pass. She was actually more angry than frightened. Curse that Tracey Devon for demanding pity! If Amanda had disliked the girl before, she positively hated her now. Hate, hate, hate, she repeated silently.
Surely you couldn't feel sympathy for someone you hated. If she concentrated on her real feelings for Tracey, she'd get out of Tracey's body and back into her own.
But it was hard to focus on hate when what she was really feeling at the moment was hunger. It occurred to her that maybe her hunger was making her too weak to get back into herself. She could do something about that.
Moving awkwardly on unfamiliar feet, she went to the door and out into the hallway. So this was Tracey's house-or at least, the upstairs part of it. She heard voices coming from another room and edged along the wall to peek in and see what was going on inside.
She recognized the seven little girls immediately from pictures in magazines. The Devon Seven were getting dressed, assisted by a weary-looking woman-Tracey's mother? — and a teenage girl. Did Tracey have an older sister?
"Lizzie, help Sandie with her buttons," the woman said.
The teenager looked helpless. "Which one is Sandie?"
"Lizzie, for what I'm paying you, the least you could do is learn to tell them apart," the woman replied testily. She pointed to one of the septuplets.
So the teenager was some sort of mother's helper, Amanda realized. While they were both occupied with dressing the girls, she could creep downstairs, find the kitchen, and get something to eat.
Unfortunately, one of the children spotted her. "Mama, there's Tracey!"
Startled, the woman looked up. For a second she seemed puzzled, and then her expression changed to irritation. "Tracey, why aren't you dressed yet? You're going to be late for the bus, and I am not driving you to school."
Fine, Amanda thought, because she had no intention of going to school, not as Tracey Devon. She did like the idea of getting out of that horrible nightgown, though, and decided to put off scrounging for food until after she'd changed. Besides, maybe by then she'd be out of Tracey's body. She might be eating a bowl of her very own Special K in her very own kitchen.
But while she was in this body, she figured she might as well improve the way Tracey dressed for school. Examining the contents of Tracey's closet, however, didn't offer much in the way of anything decent to wear. There was certainly nothing in there that Amanda would want to be seen in. Was the family too poor to buy her clothes? No, that couldn't be it. The house looked okay, and those little clones were wearing cute matching dresses. Once again, it was Tracey's fault-the girl had no taste. Another reason not to feel sorry for her.
Not enough of a reason to get Amanda out of her body, though. She opened a drawer and hunted in vain through the piles of plain white underpants for a bra-and then she remembered something about Tracey. They were in the same gym class and changed in the same locker room. Tracey didn't wear a bra. This was another reason to make fun of her.
With a sigh, Amanda began to search for the least offensive items of clothing. She ended up with a plain denim skirt-no label, of course-and the only T-shirt that didn't have stains on the armpits. The shirt was way too baggy, but she found a brown belt and cinched it in at her waist. Burrowing through drawers, she couldn't find any makeup-not even a tube of lip-gloss-but she did manage to uncover a rubber band, which she used to pull the dirty hair away from Tracey's face and up into a high ponytail.
By now she was starving. Noise from the room down the hall indicated that everyone was still occupied with the septuplets, so she hurried downstairs and found the kitchen. She spotted a box of granola bars on the counter and took one. She unwrapped it and managed one bite before mother's helper Lizzie came in.
"What are you doing? Those are for the girls!"
Amanda chewed and swallowed. "I'm a girl."
"You know what I mean." Lizzie went to the counter and looked inside the box. "Oh no, there are only six left," she wailed. "What's your mother going to say?"
Amanda didn't want to know. Suddenly, school didn't seem like such a bad idea.
She recalled seeing a backpack in Tracey's room and hurried back upstairs. A quick look inside revealed textbooks, so she slung it over her shoulder and ran back downstairs and out the door.
It wasn't hard to spot the bus stop-the school bus was coming up the road and a couple of kids were waiting at the corner. She didn't know any of them, and clearly Tracey didn't either, since none of them acknowledged her arrival. And when the bus stopped and the doors opened just in front of Tracey, they pushed ahead of her to get on. So rude. But the bus driver was even ruder-after the boy just in front of her scampered up the steps, the doors closed. As if she wasn't even there!
"Hey!" Amanda yelled, banging on the bus door. "Open up!"
The driver seemed mildly surprised when she boarded. "Sorry, I didn't see you," he muttered.
She was still fuming as she went down the aisle of the bus, which was probably why she didn't see someone's foot sticking out. She tripped over it. Sprawled on the floor, all she could think was-so this is Tracey's life. Nobody tried to help her get up, and the guy whose foot was responsible for her fall didn't even bother to apologize. At least no one was laughing-mostly because no one was paying any attention to her. And as she struggled to her feet, she could only pray that she'd be back in her own life very soon. As she made her way to the back of the bus, she decided that the first thing she'd do when she got to school was find herself. Maybe that would provide the jolt to end this transformation.
As soon as she got off the bus, Amanda hurried to her own locker. There the other Amanda was, fiddling with the combination and talking to Britney, who had the locker next to hers. Amanda had had the experience before of seeing herself out of someone else's eyes. It was always eerie-but very interesting.
She looked good. The striped skirt over the leggings worked-she hadn't been too sure when she'd first contemplated the combination. She wasn't thrilled with the ankle boots, though-next time, she'd wear ballerina flats.
"Amanda," she said.
The other Amanda turned, and Amanda-Tracey immediately recognized her own expression-which was exactly the way she would have expected to react to any attempt at communication from Tracey Devon. "What?"
Amanda-Tracey had no idea how to respond. She'd been hoping that simple face-to-face contact would put her back inside her own body.
"Um…just wanted to say hi."
The other Amanda stared at her in disbelief. Then she turned to Britney, rolled her eyes, and said, Lets go.
Amanda-Tracey was disappointed, but she was also relieved. That had definitely been genuine Amanda behavior. As she'd expected, she and Tracey had not swapped bodies-but it was good to have confirmation. She wouldn't have to worry about Tracey saying stupid things, acting nerdy, or otherwise ruining Amanda's reputation.
The warning bell rang, indicating that there were two minutes left before students had to be in their homerooms. It dawned on Amanda that she had no idea where Tracey was supposed to be.
She fumbled through Tracey's backpack and pulled out a three-ring binder-that made sense. Amanda hadn't seen a binder like that since elementary school. Everyone in middle school used spiral notebooks, one per class. But luckily, on the inside cover of the binder Tracey had pasted a copy of her schedule. Her classroom was at the other end of the building, on the second floor.
She hurried down the rapidly emptying hallway. Halfway up the stairs the final bell rang, and she sprinted the rest of the way. Darn! Homeroom teachers took roll and made a big fuss about tardiness, and the last thing she wanted to do today was draw attention to herself.
But when she slipped into the classroom, the teacher didn't even glance up. None of the other students took any notice of her either-at least, not until she slid into one of the empty seats. The girl in front of her turned around.
"That's Heather's seat."
"Sorry," Amanda said. Then she wanted to kick herself-or better yet, the girl who'd spoken to her. So what if she was sitting in Heather's seat? Heather wasn't there. And why had she apologized? Was she actually becoming Tracey? She looked around. Should she take a chance or ask the girl where Tracey usually sat? No, she couldn't ask-that would be too weird. The girl probably didn't know where Tracey's at anyway, since no one noticed Tracey.
Amanda moved to the other empty seat, and it must have been Tracey's, since no one objected. Clearly, everyone believed that she was Tracey Devon in Tracey Devon's seat. The mere notion was so horrific that she forgot to respond when the teacher took attendance.
"Tracey!" the teacher barked. "You're actually here for a change. You might consider answering to your name." The class giggled knowingly, as if this was some sort of common event.
"Sorry," Amanda said again and then mentally kicked herself and vowed not to repeat the word for the rest of the day.