“Charlie!
Time to get your lazy butt outa bed and get dressed!”
Mum’s voice screamed up the stairs and
somehow infiltrated under my doona, two pillows and through my long hair. Shit she can really bum a dude out.
“Crap!” I throw the pillow covering my head
across the room with my eyes shut and hear it bounce off the wardrobe door as
it shudders a little and bumps closed, quietly clicking onto the magnets.
Hang on… I didn’t have a wardrobe door like
that! My sister did! My wardrobe door was a large rolling door! I sat up and looked around: “What the f…” I
didn’t get to finish the profanity that was coming out of my mouth when I heard
a shattering scream split the air – yep, my sister. I climbed over the end of the pretty white,
four-poster bed and stared at my face – um her face, our face, um – in the
mirror.
“Darren!” her voice was at the door, “Open
this immediately.”
I walked to it, unlocked it – why did she
lock everything? – and let her in, “Get in here. And stop screaming.” I watched as a very feminine version of me
sat on the edge of the bed, crossed his legs and began playing with his hair, “Jesus,
man, you’re such a girl.”
“Screw you… have you seen yourself?”
“Yeah, I have.” I nodded sitting next to her…
him, um… “What do we do now?”
“You and your friggin’ magicks.”
“Hey, I didn’t do this.”
The door opened and Mum was standing there, “No,
he didn’t, but your father and I did.”
“What?” I stood and began to pace, “Mum! I look stupid.”
“Correction, you feel stupid… you and your
sister have changed places and this will stay like this for a week until you
both learn to respect each other.” She looked from me to my sister, Charlie, “Now,
both of you get ready for school!”
We exchanged horrified expressions: “School?”
We caught the bus halfway to school, felt as
though everyone was staring at us and then got off at the mall where we walked
to the nearest library and found out that what Mum and Dad did wasn’t in any
book there – of course! – so we had to look around home to see which of my
spell books Mum had gotten her hands on.
“What do you mean, you might know which one
it is?” Charlie hissed.
“I mean, I might know which one it is.” I
replied, “And I’ll have to search my book collection when we get home. Come on, we have another kilometre to go
until we get home… and school will be over by that time.”
She sighed, “I hate this.”
“You’re not the only one.” I pulled at the
bra strap on my shoulder, “How do you put up with bras?”
She smiled, “It’s actually not too bad to
not have to put one on for once.”
“Shut up.”
We searched my bedroom for the spell book I
was looking for, but our folks had taken it.
Searching the house wasn’t on the cards as our Mum was a Clean Queen
from way back – she’d know if we had been snooping for anything.
We sat in my original bedroom with music
going and I talked, “Okay, I know Gary might have an idea of the spell. He was weird enough to copy the whole book
out when I bought it… now I know why he did.”
“Such a freak.” She muttered.
“Shut up.” I said grabbing my mobile and
texting him.
Gary walked into my room half an hour later
with Mum smiling behind him, “Gary’s here.” She looked at me, “Charlie, help me
with dinner, okay?”
“But, Mum…”
“Now.” The smile fell off her face as
glanced at my ‘sister’ and Gary. I left
with Mum and wondered what was going to go on while I was gone. I helped Mum set the table, feed the dog, put
out the rubbish (which I didn’t know my sister did), clean up the lounge room
(twice, because Mum wasn’t happy with the first attempt) and then I cut up the
veggies and put them into a bowl of water to be ready to roast. Then, Mum told me to ‘ready the chook’… I’ve never seen her do this! But I did as I was told and readied the chicken – and then, I scrubbed
my hands until they were raw but they still smelled like dead chicken and
butter!
Gary left with a worried look at his face. He knew what was going on as he dragged me outside, “Dude, your…” he looked me up and down, “…sister, told me what was going on. You have my absolute trust I won’t tell anyone.”
“Are you sure?” I pushed a curl behind my
ear.
He spotted that reflex and blinked, “Yeah…
My Aunt and Uncle did this to my cousins last year… it was shit! It was embarrassing. I didn’t want to tell you; and now I won’t
tell anyone about this.”
“The spell, though.”
He smiled, “She has it.”
“Thank you.”
That night, after dinner, Charlie and me
cast the reversal spell. I know we did
it correctly, but we had to wait until sunrise to see if it took effect.
I opened my eyes the next morning and I was still in my sister’s room. But it felt different. I wasn’t mad about this for some reason as I sat up and looked in the mirror; not until I looked in the mirror and realised I was still my sister.
A tap at the door sounded and I opened it to
see my sister looking at me… my blond-haired, blue-eyed sister… looking at me!
“I was going to say it worked, but it doesn’t
look like it.” She said.
“Get in here.” I opened the door wider and
she rushed in and I slammed it shut, “We did it right!”
“Yes.”
“What went wrong?”
“Charlie?
Darren? You both in there?” Mum
asked tapping her nails on the door.
I opened it, “What did you do?”
“You didn’t wait the week out, and used a
reversal spell. It reverses the effects
on your sister… but it makes the spell permanent on you.” she grinned, “Charlie,
you’ve always wanted a sister… haven’t you?”
