onyx: poltergeist

six

CELINE

It's been quite a number of days since Jayda and Mr Lambert switched bodies, and when I meant a couple, I meant it's already Wednesday, but honestly speaking, I was starting to miss regarding Jayda as Jayda and Mr Lambert as Mr Lambert. Then again, both of them do have their own hectic schedules, so we couldn't exactly rush into coming up with millions of ways to reverse the curse.

I'm worried for them. Both of them have been trying so hard to blend in, I could tell they were pretty uncomfortable themselves. For Jayda, it was being a good teacher not just our class, but also a few other English and Creative Writing classes for a few other batches. For Mr Lambert, it was having to relive his high school years again. After all, he's already 34, a far cry from when he graduated from high school, so he's most probably not used to having to sit in a classroom amidst a sea of students who were half his age.

I lay on the bed, scrolling through my Instagram feed, double tapping on a few posts from some friends I had back in middle school. It's funny how I still follow them though, we don't even talk anymore, but we still want to know how we're doing in life. Not that we were going to meet up anytime soon, but probably just to quench our supposed curiosity towards one another.

I was about to like another post when I was interrupted by a text notification. Apparently Jayda had added everyone into a class group chat; she probably spent the last two days trying to save everyone's contact just to add everyone in. I don't blame her though, she was Mr Lambert in everyone's eyes now, and the teacher life has most probably drained her a lot. No doubt that she needed to take a break.

Not long after a message popped up in the group chat. Jayda.

Mr Lambert: Hey guys, so this group will be used for me to relay important news or homework for all of you, but feel free to ask me any questions from class.

Bold move there Jayda, opening yourself up to questions regarding class. On the brighter side, at least she did take a few pointers from Mr Lambert when he set up the group chat for our English class last year.

I was about to close my messenger when I suddenly remembered our plan to switch Jayda and Mr Lambert back. We have yet to set up a contact point, and that was when I had to do something about it. I shifted my finger away from the home button and tapped on the settings to make a new group, adding Jayda and Mr Lambert's contact to it and naming it EMERGENCY entirely in capitals. After all, the body switch situation was indeed an emergency that we had to fix as soon as possible.

Okay, now that those two are settled, I might as well explain to the both of them why this group even existed since I created it a minute ago. I was about to type out my so called welcome message and deliver it to the group, only to be beaten by a confused Jayda texting me from Mr Lambert's phone.

Mr Lambert: What is this?

Damn it Jayda, why do you have to be so fast?

Me: Well, so I added you and Mr Lambert into this group so that we can all find a way to figure out what this hell of a curse is and how to reverse it so that the both of you can finally get back into your own respective bodies and stop feeling overly uncomfortable.

Me: That is all.

Me: And aren't you supposed to finish off your teacher duties like mark papers and stuff?

Mr Lambert: Cool it Cel, it's just the third day of school, why would I give out work so soon, let alone mark them?

So that explains why Jayda was so free, even while stuck in Mr Lambert's body and role as a teacher.

Me: Alright fine Jay.

Jayda: Girls what's going on?

What a great timing to enter Mr Lambert into the picture.

Me: Nothing much, Mr Lambert. I just created this group so we can contact each other if we find a way for the two of you to swap back into your own bodies. Or if anything goes horribly wrong.

Mr Lambert: Knock on wood Cel.

Me: Yeah, knock on wood.

Jayda: Oh, alright then. Great to know about this and I hope we'll find some new leads soon. :)

There goes Mr Lambert with the cheesy smiley face at the end of his text, but he does have a point. We better start finding some leads to changing both of them back soon; God knows what would happen to them if we don't do it as quickly as possible.

~

JAYDA

It's been two days since I heard about Celine's 'emergency' plans and damn I am definitely, thoroughly drained. I guess the memes were true about teachers dying to get back home for their well needed rest, because my life in Mr Lambert's body and as a teacher in my own school seemed to revolve mainly around surviving every lesson I was involved in.

I wouldn't say I was a good teacher to all the Creative Writing and English classes I had to stand in for Mr Lambert, but I would say that I was turning out to be pretty mediocre on the standards of teaching professionally. Most of the classes were bearable for me to handle, but there was this one class of overly hyperactive freshman students that would keep firing away questions which I had to answer after thinking back at what I learnt in English two years ago. You could say that they were very active in class, but I would say that I'm worried I would ultimately crack under pressure while taking on Mr Lambert's role as a teacher.

Like any other working class adult, checking emails was practically the most important thing I had to do besides actually teaching classes, so I also had to attach myself to Mr Lambert's email inbox really closely, hovering around it to keep an eye out for new messages. It's almost eleven at night and all I had been doing for the past hour was just sitting in front of Mr Lambert's laptop, which I took almost the whole day trying to hack into until I found a slip of paper with his password in his office drawer, reading and responding to the stream of messages that piled in. Most of those messages were from his colleagues, AKA the teachers that had taught me before for the past two years, and a few others were from the year head, informing on more minor matters.

I was about to shut the laptop and dive into Mr Lambert's shockingly plush sheets to get some shut eye when a new message surfaced at the top of the inbox. Judging by how it was sent by Mr Patrick Jackson, the head of the school, it looked pretty important, so no doubt I will be opening that email before getting some sleep for the weekend.

I moved the cursor over the email titled Class List Update and clicked on it. What's up with the current class list anyways; are people leaving or are new people joining the class? Things are starting to get a little interesting here.

I scanned through the message and my suspicions were finally confirmed. The only thing I could make out of it was that a new student was going to join our Creative Writing class coming Monday, and that he or she was an exchange student from some other country, which I later found out to be the Netherlands. Now things are really starting to get interesting.

Conveniently attached at the end of the message was, you guessed it, the updated class list which I immediately opened. I was dying to know who is this new person joining my Creative Writing class, and if they turn out to be pleasant people to work with. The message stated that the newcomer's name would be highlighted on the class list, so I hastily scrolled through the list, past Celine's name, past my name, until I was greeted by a bright flash of yellow from the screen.

Martijn Gerard Garritsen.

Oh, okay then. What an exotic name; I don't even know how I would pronounce that right, especially the Martijn part. Guess I'll have to drop by the store to pick up a guidebook on how to speak Dutch soon.

I quickly typed out a formal thank you message to Mr Jackson before shutting off the laptop and room lights, clambering onto Mr Lambert's bed and collapsing onto his surprisingly fluffy pillow. Long before I knew it I had already drifted off into sleep, still wondering who my new classmate was.