Free Switch by Tish Cohen Page A

race to the front door and outside, tearing down the street as Mom—appalled by our total disregard for her orders—hurls threats in our wake.
    One thing is sure. If I survive this screwup, if I ever get myself back into my body, I am so done for.
    I can’t run like myself. Either Joules is a smoker or her lung capacity is ridiculously small. Besides that, I’ve got her breasts heaving up and down and throwing me off balance. By the time we get to the bridge, I’m clear out of breath—no kidding. I stop and lean over my knees and try hard not to die.
    Joules stops alongside me—the run was no problem for her—and I motion for her to follow me up the concrete embankment.
    “What the hell happened?” she shrieks at the top, herhead nearly hitting the underside of the bridge. “How is it possible that you’re me and I’m …” a small sound escapes her throat, “you?”
    I pull her down to sitting. “I might have made a sort of really stupid wish last night.”
    “You wished this?”
    I shrug and run my hands through the bits of gravel by my side. “Not a real wish, no. I mean, yes, I did, but I didn’t think it would actually come true. That I’d actually wake up in your room—”
    “So this is all your doing! You did this to me. Us.”
    “Sort of.”
    “You wished you were me and then you slept in my bed?” She looks enraged at this. Like she might hit me. It might not be a problem taking a punch from Joules, but I’ve spent a lifetime lifting small children and collapsing and un-collapsing rusty strollers. Those arms she’s inside of are strong.
    “You slept in mine,” I say. “What’s the difference?”
    She grimaces. “Just, nothing. I want to be me again. I want to BE ME AGAIN!”
    A couple of joggers below on the sidewalk stop and look up. I pinch Joules in the arm—careful not to leave a bruise. “Just chill out, would you? All I have to do is make the wish again. Then we’re both back to normal, right?”
    “I don’t know, idiot! All I know is you’re some kind of freaklady witchperson!”
    Ignoring her, I close my eyes and try to get more specific about what, exactly, happened last night. I sit taller, look at Joules. “I know! A train went overhead. When thebridge was rattling like it would fall down and crush me, that’s when I made the wish.”
    “Seriously? Is that all it will take—a train going overhead?”
    Her confidence in me might be a bit premature. It’s not as if I know what I’m doing. “Yes. Definitely.”
    She seems convinced. Which, of course, terrifies me because I have no idea if I’m right. “Okay,” she says. “When does the train come?”
    “I don’t know, it’s not like I have a schedule! But soon. It’s almost rush hour, so one has to come soon.”
    “Good. We’ll wait.” She’s calmer now. “Did you brush my teeth this morning? You have to floss twice a day. It’s what I do.” She almost smiles. “I do have a boyfriend to consider. I never know when I might get kissed.” Suddenly she appears worried. “Wait. Will didn’t come over last night, did he? You haven’t, like, done anything with him, have you?”
    As if. I haven’t done anything with any boy in my entire life. “I wish.”
    “Wait,” she says, sitting forward. “I was with Will.”
    “What?”
    “You wanted to know where I was around ten o’clock. We were in his car. And do you want to know something weird?”
    “Not really.”
    “We were talking about you.”
    This is hardly believable. “No way.”
    “He asked me something about you, I don’t remember what. And I kind of flipped out on him.”
    “Over me?”
    She shrugs. “I get all jealous over crazy stuff. Stuff that doesn’t have a hope in hell of happening.”
    “Like Will Sherwood actually liking Andrea Birch,” I say, not so much to her as to myself because it makes me realize I am not the only one who sees me as a loser no one would ever look at twice. People like Joules see me that way too. I