Life Swap

Confessions and Calamities

"Have you seen any of your Redstone friends this week, Louise?" I asked, when we all finally got upstairs to Felicity's room, and her mother had left us alone.

"No...I am not really allowed to see anyone out of school...Mummy doesn't think they are great influences on me...and they mostly go shopping...or just hang out around the Redhill town centre, which she would never ever let me do, obviously...not without an adult around at the very least." Louise replied, looking uncomfortable. It was clearly awkward for her. She had only met Felicity a couple of times, and me just the once. She had never actually talked about what she did at home, with Gemma and Kelly, before. The little I did know, about her mother being really strict and her going to church, once in a while, or so she had always said, had been gleaned from small comments in isolation, over many years. She had obviously been hiding the awful truth about her life at home for ages. "I had two tutor sessions...on Monday and Tuesday...three-hour sessions, because Mummy says I am behind where I should be?"

"I've got loads of board games...if anyone wants to play...or we could just talk?" Felicity suggested, indicating her little sofa and two bean bags. Her room was nice, like a mini version of the one I shared with Grace and Chloe. She scooped the skirts of her pale blue dress and let herself down onto one of the bean bags. She knew that I wanted to tell Louise, and she was doing her best to give me the chance.

"I don't mind?" Louise said, heading for the sofa. She was wearing a sailor dress, traditional navy blue and white, which I was pretty sure Caroline would love, as we seemed to have many variations on that particular theme, in every colour of the rainbow, at home.

"Oh, let's chat...for a while...the twins have had me playing games, all week?" I grinned, as I took the seat beside her. I had been allowed to choose my own outfit, but not from the play clothes wardrobe, and the element of choice had proved relative in the end, as I hesitated. After some discussion with Caroline, I had finished up in salmon pink, much to my disgust, but I was trying not to think about Olivia's clothes. Because the clothes were irrelevant, as they were not mine, and I had no real say in what I had to wear, as Olivia. Getting my body back was the only thing that mattered to me.

"Grace and Chloe are your stepsisters?"

"Yes...my mum died...and their dad died...both cancer...didn't your aunt die...from breast cancer, last year?" I said, throwing my first killer piece of information into the ring like a hand grenade. It was hardly subtle, but I was not sure how long we would have to talk in private and I did not want to waste any time. So, I just jumped in with both feet, and I might as well have punched her in the face. And I had not lost my mum, of course. I had no grief to deal with, just the pain of being stripped out of my own life. It was brutal, because Louise had really loved her aunt, but it worked, in double quick time. Better than I ever expected it to.

"What? How do you know that?" She gasped, clearly stunned.

"Because you told me...you loved your aunt, because she thought your mum was too strict with you...you were crying one day, at school, just before she passed away, and we skived off biology because you wanted to talk..."

"But...what? You aren't at my school...that was Kelly?" Louise looked stunned, completely gob-smacked, but actually, because I knew so much about her, as well as our mutual friends, it took less time to convince her than Felicity. But in all fairness, she was more shocked, because it was a personal connection, not just an acceptance of the existence of magic. She was talking to an old friend trapped in someone else's body, and that had to be strange.

"It's a lot to take in...isn't it?" Felicity said, after a while.

"I...um...yes...but...you know...it does...sort of...explain...some things?" Louise gasped some more, and stammered, as her brain caught up with her ears. "Kelly was really weird, last week...like I told you on Sunday? She was really off with me, as well...quite mean, really...I knew something was wrong?"