In My Shoes (12 page)

I worked on physics for maybe fifteen minutes
before Jake’s mom came in to check on me.

“How are you feeling?”

“Not too bad right now, thanks.”

“Good. So, how was studying yesterday with
Nicole?”

Some parents have a way of asking things
where it sounds more nosy than caring. She wasn’t like that. She
had a warmth about her that made me feel that she really cared
about how things were going between Jake and…well, me. They seemed
close, and it made me miss my parents. Even more than I already
did. I quickly pulled myself together.

“It went well. We got a lot done. Nicole’s a
nice girl.” I hoped that was something Jake would say. Not too
much, but complimentary.

“Well, I wouldn’t expect you to fall for
anyone short of fantastic.”

I must have been blushing, because my face
felt warm. “I don’t think it’s going to be like that. She’s nice,
but she’s not interested.”

“Then, she must not know you well enough yet.
Give her time. She’ll see how special you are. But remember, if
it’s meant to be, it will happen. Don’t force it. If she’s not the
one, someone else will be.”

Okay, so I already know I like Jake’s mom.
She’s kind. Thoughtful. I’m not going to tell Jake this, but I
can’t help liking him a little more just because of his mom. Maybe
we
will
end up friends. Maybe. “Thanks, mom.”

“Sure. Are you hungry? I could make some
eggs.”

“Eggs would be great! Thank you.”

“Sure.”

I studied for a while, expecting she would
call me when the food was ready. About ten minutes later, she came
in with a plate of scrambled eggs and a glass of orange juice. The
look on my face must have shown surprise.

“You were studying, so I thought I would
bring it to you.”

“Wow! Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.

“So,” she continued, “what’s on your schedule
for today?”

“I’m going over to Mike’s to hang out
and…more studying.”

“With Nicole or with Mike?” she asked.

“I’m not sure, but probably Nicole.”

“Remember, I want to meet her.”

“Sure. If she drops me off tonight, I’ll have
her come in.” I’m setting up a time for her to meet her own son.
Will my life ever be normal again?

“Well, I’ll leave you to your studying.”

“Thanks, again!”

She smiled warmly and left.

I studied for about an hour, moved the
laundry to the dryer and then I turned my focus to the rest of the
day. Every day we have so much to cover, so I thought making a list
and sorting the priorities would be a good idea. If the handwriting
thing had occurred to me sooner, I would have insisted working on
that yesterday. As important as it is to be able to
look
the
parts we are playing, it is more important that people believe we
are who we are. That won’t happen if we can’t even write
properly.

So, today we will need to meet with Mike…I
want to get that out of the way first…and then we will need to
cover handwriting and lots of homework.

Sometimes I get a nervous feeling, like I
have three hours worth of stuff to do and only an hour to do it. It
doesn’t happen very often, because I am not one to procrastinate.
Sometimes it does happen, and this is one of those times. Except,
it feels more like I have three days worth of stuff to do, and only
one day to do it.

If, by some miracle, we get handwriting and
studying done, then we can work more on helping Jake be a girl. I
mean, being a guy has been a piece of cake, but being a girl takes
work.

My parents expect me home by ten on a school
night, so we will only have until a little after nine to get stuff
done before Jake has to bring me back here. Assuming Jake’s mom
doesn’t expect him home earlier. I will need to ask him about
that.

We would have more time if Jake had a car.
I’m trying not to make a big deal of it, but I hate not having my
car. I’m not really a big fan of Jake driving my car either.

I must have spent an hour or so lost in
thought. I thought about Jake and me and how we were going to
convince Mike about this situation. Then I thought about how we
were going to get all of the necessary stuff done to prepare us for
being each other at school tomorrow.

I hadn’t come up with any answers when Jake
called me.

“Hi, Jake,” I said cheerfully, remembering my
promise to be extra nice today.

“Hi…Jake,” he replied. He must be around my
parents.

“How did things go at church?”

“They went fine.” His tone didn’t sound so
certain.

“Did something happen?” I asked.

“No, not really,” he said, but I could tell
there was more.

“Tell me later?”

“Sure,” he answered. “I’ll pick you up in a
half hour, okay?”

“Okay. I’ll see you then.”

We hung up and I started getting everything
together.

Once I had everything I needed, I grabbed,
folded and put away the laundry. After I finished, I lay down on
the bed to relax while I waited for Jake. I still felt tired. I
must not have slept right last night. My mind was racing so much
now, resting was futile. After a while, Jake called my cell
phone.

“Hey, I’m outside. Do you want me to come in
or do you want to come out?”

“I’ll come out. We’ve got a lot to do.”

“Okay,” he said in a curious tone. “Bye,” he
said, hanging up.

I gathered his stuff together and headed down
the hall. His mom was in the kitchen.

“Bye, mom. I’ll see you tonight.”

“Have a good day, Hon,” she said with a
smile.

“Thanks!”

I walked out and got in…well, my car. My
first thought was to remember to be as nice as possible.

“Hi,” I said cheerily. “How are you
doing?”

“Good,” he said hesitantly, looking at me
through the corner of his…my eye. “How are you doing?” He pulled
off down the street.

“I’m good. So, I want to know how last night
and today went, but first…head to Mike’s house.”

“Why?” He was a little concerned.

“Because it’s time to have the conversation
with him.”

“What…now?”

“Yes, now. He knows something is up, and he
thinks I am hiding something important from him. If we don’t tell
him now, I think it could damage your friendship. I told him we
would come by and tell him what is going on.”

“So, how are we going to convince him?” he
asked.

“I thought you said
you
could convince
him?”

“Well, I can. I just didn’t realize we were
going to do it now. I haven’t exactly had a lot of time to think
about how to do this.”

“We are just going to have to wing it. Have
him ask you questions only you should know the answers to.”

“That’s what I was planning to do, but I was
hoping to have a backup plan.”

“Well, you have about ten minutes before we
are there. You might want to start thinking.”

“Nothing like a little pressure.”

“Look, you’ll do fine. If I didn’t think you
could pull this off, I wouldn’t have agreed to it.” I smiled,
hoping to give him confidence.

We arrived at Mike’s house and stopped at the
door.

“You remember what to do?” he asked.

“I knock on the door, we walk in and I say hi
to Diana. Then we head straight to Mike’s room.”

“Right. Are you ready?” he asked.

“As I’ll ever be.”

I knocked on the door and walked in. Mike was
sitting on the couch. Jake came in behind me and I shut the door.
Mike gave us a head nod.

“Sup?” he said.

“Can we talk in your room?” I asked.

“Why, noone’s here?”

“Okay, we can talk here then.” I looked at
Jake. “Do you want to start?”

“I can try,” he offered. “Mike, you and Jake
have been friends for a long time.”

“I don’t like how this is starting,” Mike
said nervously.

“Ask me something that you would expect only
Jake to know,” Jake continued.

Mike looked at me. “Jake, what’s going
on?”

“Just humor her. You’ll see.” I hope.

“This better be good,” he said,
irritated.

“Oh, it’s a doozie!” I promised.

“Alright, something only Jake
would
know. Uhh…okay, what was the name of the first teacher me and Jake
had together?”

“That’s easy,” Jake replied, “Mrs. McKeon.
Third grade. You had a crush on her. Man, she was hot!”

Now, normally it would bother me that he
called his teacher hot while in my body. Here, it just might help
make the point faster. Mike took turns looking at both of us.

“Okay, what’s going on here?”

“I don’t know exactly how to explain it,”
Jake said, “and I’m not sure you’re ready to believe it.”

“Believe what?”

“Nicole and I have…somehow…switched
bodies.”

“Dude, quit jerking me around,” Mike shot.
“Do you really think I’m that gullible?”

“Dude, I don’t think you’re gullible, but
this is real and I don’t know how to convince you.”

“There’s no way to convince me, because I’m
not buying it.”

“Mike,” I interjected, “think about the last
few days. You keep saying I’m acting funny. I’m walking funny and
talking funny. That’s because I’m Nicole.”

“This isn’t funny.”

“It’s not funny. Do you really think Jake and
I would become friends and spend all of this time together, just to
try and mess with your head?”

Mike thought about that for a minute.

“And, when Nicole flashed you the other day…”
Jake started.

“You did flash me!” Mike said with triumph.
“I knew it.”

“Yes, well,
I
flashed you…not Nicole.
She wouldn’t do that.”

“So, why did
you
do it, then?”

“This…switch had just happened that morning.
We were arguing when you came up, and she was rude to you. I was a
little overwhelmed with the situation, and I didn’t like her making
you think I was mad at you. I shouldn’t have done it,” he said
looking at me.

Mike was trying to sort this all out. He
thought for a bit, and then shook his head.

“No. This is good, but I still don’t believe
it.”

“Ask me more questions,” Jake offered. “Stuff
you’re sure only I…Jake would know.”

“You could be sending signals or
something.”

“Fine, right the question down and I’ll write
the answer.”

Mike hesitated before getting a pen and a
piece of paper.

“Alright Nicole, or Jake, whoever you
are…come over here where he, or she, can’t see,” he said pointing
at me.

“Fine by me,” I said. “I’ll just have a seat
over here.”

Mike wrote something on the piece of paper.
Jake looked at him with his mouth open.

“Dude,” Jake said.

“Hey, if you’re Jake you should know this,”
he said, trying to justify whatever he wrote. I was a little
curious, with Jake’s expression.

Jake wrote something on the same piece of
paper. Mike looked in disbelief. “Impossible.”

He looked at me and then he looked at
Jake.

“There’s no way he would tell you that.”

“You’re right, but I’m Jake,” he said.

Mike looked back at the paper. “Wait, write
your name on that paper.” Jake did so.

Mike ripped the paper in half and walked over
to me with the blank half. “Write your name on this piece.”

I wrote
Nicole Elizabeth
Evans.

“That’s definitely not Jake’s handwriting,
but hers is,” he said pointing at Jake.

“How?” Mike said, not sure what to make of
the situation.

“How, what?” we both asked together.

“How did this happen?”

“Well, we don’t really know how this
happened,” I said.

“We don’t know how, or why or how long. We
just know that we are like this, and we have agreed to play the
roles until we switch back. We thought you could help.”

“Help how?”

“Well, you know Jake really well. You can
help me in case I start to say or do something wrong. We have to be
able to convince everyone else that we are each other. You can back
us up.”

“So who else are you going to tell?” Mike
asked.

“Nobody! And you have to promise not to tell
anyone,” I said sternly.

“Seriously? Who would believe me? But, you’re
not going to tell any of your friends?” he asked me.

“No. My friends don’t live in
science-fiction. I would have zero chance convincing any one of
them.”

“That should probably offend me,” Mike
quipped. Yeah it probably should.

“I didn’t mean to offend you,” I offered.

“You didn’t,” he said laughing. “So, what do
we do from here?”

“Jake and I have a lot to do before tomorrow,
so we are going to leave now. Tomorrow, pick me up at Jake’s house
like you usually do…if you don’t mind.”

“Not at all. This should be fun.”

“Yeah, it’s been a real blast!” I said with
heavy sarcasm.

“A constant party,” Jake added, also thick
with sarcasm.

“Burn that piece of paper,” Jake said as he
and I headed for the door.

“Right,” Mike agreed.

“That didn’t go too bad,” Jake said
cautiously, as we headed to the car.

“No, it could have gone much worse. So…what
did you guys write on the paper?” I said, trying to sound
playful.

“Not in a million years,” he said with
finality.

“Oh, come on. It couldn’t be that bad, could
it?”

“No, it couldn’t. But it could, and I’m not
saying.”

I grumbled as we both got in the car and
drove off.

“Oh, I almost forgot to ask how things went
last night and this morning. It looks like you survived.”

“Yeah, I survived. It was different. Before I
forget, your friend Jessica called your cell. I didn’t answer, but
I noticed that you had a bunch of missed calls and voicemail
messages.”

“Oh great, you haven’t been checking my
phone?”

“Well, I did after we got the other phone for
you, but then I put it away and forgot about it! I’m not used to
having a phone, and I wouldn’t know what to say to your friends
anyway.”