Freaky Monday (3 page)

“Hadley. This is
so unlike you,” Ms. Pitt stated the obvious.

All I could do was look down, humiliated. I had never ever in my life been called into the hall by a teacher.

“I know it's unlike me. I tried to tell you before!” was my only defense.

“Okay, so tell me now. I'm listening.” Ms. Pitt gave me her best “I-really-get-you” eyes. Which only made me know how much she
didn't
get me.

“I switched to this Super Student Planner Plus organizer thing and I guess I spaced on writing down the date. I'm so, so sorry, but I forgot.”

Ms. Pitt's eyes grew like saucers. “
You
forgot?”

All I could do was nod yes. “Maybe I could have an extension? I'll skip the dance and cram tonight and—”

“I'm sorry, Hadley, but absolutely not. Forgetting is not a justifiable reason, I'm afraid. If I gave a free pass to
everyone who forgot, where would we be?” Ms. Pitt gave a tough-love smile as my head figuratively exploded.

Come on, haven't I proven worthy of just one little tiny exception? My mind scrambled—without my oral presentation, an A in English would be virtually impossible. This was the beginning of the end. I wouldn't get into Stanford. I wouldn't even get into Chico State. I'd end up folding sweaters at the Gap or…worse!—panhandling in the streets of LA or…

Ms. Pitt's voice interrupted my increasingly paranoid thoughts. “I remember once when Tatum came in unprepared—”

When I heard
Tatum
, a fuse blew in my head. The rip cord was pulled and this crazy monster of emotions opened up its mouth and swallowed me whole.

“AGAIN WITH TATUM! Why is everyone talking about Tatum? She's awesome, I get it!” I couldn't believe how loud that came out, but it was almost like an out-of-body experience. I had no control.

Ms. Pitt stepped back, shocked apparently by my outburst. But there was no stopping me now…. Everything was boiling over and I kept going. “I can't believe you chair up the committee on self-esteem! Rule number one—don't compare the geeky sister to her gorgeous older sister! EVER!”

Ms. Pitt's eyes were filled with instant recognition. “Hadley, you are far from geeky. But I realize how someone's self-image can be completely divorced from all reality whatsoever. You feel inadequate. I understand. And I know that must be hard for you. It's clear your sense of self is contorted, much like a psychological fun-house mirror in which—”

“‘Psychological fun-house mirror'? What?”
I had to catch my breath.

“I am merely trying to understand how you feel here!”

“Then maybe you should stop trying!”

Ms. Pitt was exasperated. “Can we continue this discussion after school and come up with an adequate solution?”

I nodded hotly yes.

“And I vow to never mention Tatum again, as I realize having a sister so dynamic must be—”

I stormed away, before I did Ms. Pitt bodily harm. If it wasn't completely clear, I didn't want to talk about Tatum's “dynamism,” either. Ms. Pitt was so dense! And she was the worst kind of dense—the sort of dense who
thinks
they've got it all figured out and are totally plugged in, but it turns out they're as clueless as the day is long.

Before I entered class, I felt Ms. Pitt touch my shoulder. I spun around and glared. I have never lost my cool so much in front of a teacher in my life. “What?”

“I assume you've read the book.”

“Of course,” I said, adding defensively: “I wrote down all the vocab words I didn't know and everything!”

Ms. Pitt shook her head, disappointed. “Oh, Hadley.
To Kill a Mockingbird
is not about vocab words…. It's about life….” She looked me in the eyes. “Do you know what it's about? I mean, really about?”

I was tired of being so defensive and was already emotionally raw. “Look, I read it, okay?! I did the assignment!”

Ms. Pitt cut me off, frayed herself. “So you said, so you said.” She took a big breath. “How about you give a more general presentation on the book itself and we'll reassess after we've
both
cooled down.”

“Fine.” Things can't stink any more, so why not? My life was over, anyway. Any drop of prior confidence I ever possessed leaked out of my body. I was a shell.

I stood in front of the class and looked out, the whole class staring with disbelief. Nan and Soup were shell-shocked, and worse, Zane could barely make eye contact.

Ms. Pitt handed me her copy of
To Kill a Mockingbird
.
I flipped open the book and it almost magically—and I don't use terms like “magically” unless I mean it—stopped on page 138. At least it seriously felt like the book willed itself to stop in a certain spot. My eyes found a passage that seemed to leap off the page. You know in movies when the camera wants to direct your attention to something in particular, so there's almost like a little spotlight on the item in question? Well, it was sort of like that. Not that I saw an actual light from Moses on the hill or anything, it was more like it was a…feeling. Or something.

“This quote is from Atticus, the father.” I cleared my throat.
“‘You,
uh,
never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view—'”
Deep breath.

“I wanna understand your
sister's
point of view!” some meathead moron blurted from the back of the room. “Tatum Fox is HOT!”

Someone howled.

With that, I dropped my book. It was all too much. Why oh why couldn't a hole appear in the floor and I could just dive right in and disappear forever?

I tried to finish the quote and look strong. “‘Until you…until…'”

Ms. Pitt did try to come to my aid and help me along. She bent down, picked up my dropped book, and said,
“‘—until you climb into—'”

And together, Ms. Pitt and I finished the quote aloud:
“‘…his skin and walk around in it.'”

What happened next sounds made up but I swear it is completely true.

The clock minute hand snapped back one minute.

The lights flickered.

I felt a jolt.

It seemed as if the world had been tipped off its axis and was settling back into its usual holding pattern.

Ms. Pitt and I just stood there, uncertain what had just happened. And what
had
happened again exactly?

“No way! Did the clock totally just snap back and the lights go postal or am I completely hallucinating here?” I exclaimed.

And then everything gets even weirder. Because while I, Hadley Fox, had asked that question, what I heard was Ms. Pitt's voice!

When I turned around, trying to gain just a smidge of clarity or sanity or anything to cling to, I realized I was standing next to—get this—
me
! NEXT TO HADLEY! Panicked, I looked down at myself, and that was a shock, let me tell you. Because I would NEVER,
EVER
dress like a wannabe earth mother, but it seemed I was wearing a flowy peasant skirt. I would never own a flowy peasant
skirt, let alone wear one to school!

Then I studied my hands…and they were
so
not my hands, they were ancient and covered with bizarre rings! Those dorky rings that are only sold in artisan shops where they sell a lot of ceramic bowls and wind chimes. There's also almost always a cat named Sage or something ambling around the store.

Anyway, they were Ms. Pitt's hands! WHAT??

Wait a second! I APPEARED TO BE—AND YOU KNOW I COULDN'T MAKE THIS UP IF I TRIED—MS. PITT! You probably think I'm crazy right about now, but don't worry, I was thinking the same thing.

“Maybe it was some sort of seismic shift…. I felt it, too,” I watched HADLEY say. Except
I
hadn't said anything!

But there “Hadley” was, wearing the same cargo pants and marginally cool T-shirt and striped hoodie I had put on this morning! Standing right there in class! It was me, but it wasn't me. Was this some sort of molecular mix-up? Some glitch in the physics of the universe? What was happening?

We turned to stare at each other, totally weirded out.

“What's going on?!” I whispered, panicky. Again, that was definitely Ms. Pitt's voice coming out of my mouth, not mine.

Let me say right here that from now on I'll have to call Ms.-Pitt-inhabiting-my-body “Hadley.” And I'll have to call myself “Ms. Pitt.” (Ugh!)

“Class, did anyone feel anything?” Hadley asked. “Zane?”

The class was silent, freaked, sharing stolen looks of complete worry. I know what they were thinking: Why was Hadley addressing the class this way?

“Uh, no…I didn't feel anything….” Zane responded uneasily.

“Dude! This is so freakin' weird!” another meathead (there are a lot of them at Burroughs Junior High) astutely observed from the back row.

Both of our pairs of eyes were scared and wide, scanning each other and the room. “Hallway. Now,” Hadley said, and dragged me into the hallway. Or rather, the “me” in question was Ms. Pitt. Hadley closed the door to the classroom to give us some privacy in the hallway.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“No, what are YOU doing?” Hadley responded.

“There is no possible way you could…be me…is there?” I squawked. “NO!!! No, no, no! This is not possible!” I practically screamed, and pulled at Ms. Pitt's way-too-much hair.

“I mean, did we fall into a portal or something? Because I
so
do not need my life to go all
Matrix
on me!” Except it wasn't me at all. Again, my voice sounded entirely too much like Ms. Pitt. To make matters worse, Mr. Wells appeared out of nowhere and stared at us incredulously.

“Ah, Mr. Wells. Hello there,” Hadley said officiously with the distinct sound of near-panic creeping into her voice. “We were discussing…movie imagery.”

“Movie imagery?” He didn't buy it.

“Right. From the movie
The Matrix
.” Oh, boy.

“I see,” he said skeptically. “And where are your students, Ms. Pitt?”

“They're in there,” I said, gesturing to the classroom. Couldn't he just get lost already?

“
In there
, how comforting…” With that, Mr. Wells walked on but the disdain was heavy. He looked back suspiciously over his shoulder a few times.

“
In there?
Okay, there is NO way you are going to MY English department chair interview today. Not talking like that, you're not!” Hadley said.

“Back up. English chair interviews are
so
not important right now,” I tried to say calmly. Focus, focus…. “Okay, it was the
To Kill a Mockingbird
quote that did this. We said the quote together and that's when this…this…impossible weirdness happened, right?”

Hadley nodded yes.

“Then let's say it again. Maybe we'll switch back!” I cleared my throat, a little proud of myself—that would do it, very clever solution. See, I
am
an honor student, after all….
“‘You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view—'”

I gave Hadley a look and she joined in:
“‘—and climb into his skin and walk around in it.'”

We both stared at each other, expecting another lights-flicker, body-switching moment.

Nothing.

Crap.

I closed my eyes tightly, scrambling for an answer when I heard an—

“Ohmmm…ohmmm…” Hadley also had her eyes closed, and her thumb and middle finger were touching as if in some prayer mode.

“What are you doing?”

“Releasing my need to the universe,” Hadley said with pseudo-calm.

“I don't release my need to the universe!”

“You should,” Hadley said as if this was totally logical. “Obviously the universe is trying to tell us something.”

“Yeah, that we're INSANE.” I paused for effect and
finally Hadley opened her eyes.

“All right. We'll deal with the interview later…right now we have to get back into class before we both get thrown out of school
permanently
,” Hadley said, and started to march back into class, just as uppity as Ms. Pitt would have done.

Wait a second!
I thought.
If this is really happening, why not use this hallucination? I'm suddenly the teacher, right? The one with the power for once?! So, why not give me and Zane a reason to interact? Brilliant! I may wake up any moment, but let's use this—

We entered the classroom and everyone looked at us like we had fourteen heads. Soup and Nan gave a freaked “what gives?” shrug of the shoulders, searching our faces for clues.

Out of instinct, Ms. Pitt—I mean, Hadley—stepped forward to handle the class. “So, class—”

But that looked even more insane. Hadley can't run this classroom! I stepped in front of her. After all, I was in Ms. Pitt's body, right?

I stopped for a moment, to think about how Ms. Pitt would have run the class. And I almost—truly—did her a favor and considered behaving like her. But then I thought:
You're
in charge. Why don't you run things the way
you
want? After all,
Hadley's
not going to get into
trouble for anything Ms. Pitt does wrong.

“Okay, there's going to be a little change-up here,” I said.

“There is?” asked Hadley, clearly threatened.

“Yup! I'm going to team up students. Let's start up…Zane and Hadley. How about that?” I smiled, gesturing for Hadley to sit down already.

“Why?” Hadley asked.

“Because I'm the teacher and I said so.” I smiled to myself. That
was
fun to say. Power
does
corrupt!