onyx: poltergeist

eleven

CELINE

"I do indeed have feelings for Jayda."

Oh my god.

I wanted to scream. Everything seemed to fall into place, first Jayda confessed to me saying that she likes Martin, and now Martin just broke to me that he likes her back. I don't even care if I'm the third wheel, I could see a potential love story blossoming in front of my eyes. If only I get Jayda and Mr Lambert to switch back first.

"You okay there Celine?" Martin waved his hand in front of my face. I suddenly remembered that we were still sitting beneath the staircase landing and that my jaw had dropped wide open. I couldn't even remember for how long we've been hiding in that spot, but I'm pretty sure we were already very late for our next class.

I still couldn't believe it, Jayda's definitely going to have a new boyfriend, and Martin's definitely going to have a new girlfriend. One problem still remains ingrained somewhere in my mind, how do I tell Martin about the body swap incident without hurting his feelings? I can't bear to watch how devastated he'll get when I tell him that the Jayda he likes isn't exactly Jayda.

This is going to be so tough.

I sighed and turned back to look into Martin's sea foam eyes. "Martin, I need to tell you something very important. It sounds really unbelievable, I know, but something happened between Jayda and Mr Lambert," I finally confessed.

Martin clenched his jaw. He probably has teacher-student relationship on his mind and I could tell he was jealous. I started to get nervous. It's not anything of that sort Martin! Jayda wouldn't do such a thing, she only viewed Mr Lambert the same way she viewed her brother Aaron and that was final. Not to mention the number of times she tried convincing me that Mr Lambert was gay.

"What happened?" Martin finally brought himself to ask about the body swap incident. His soft eyes had already hardened into a serious shade of teal and no doubt was I frightened of him. Petrified of one of my best friends.

"Jayda and Mr Lambert, they...switched bodies," I confessed the unbelievable. Martin's definitely going to be so confused.

I watched as Martin knitted his eyebrows together in disbelief. "What? How?"

"It's a curse," I explained, "Jayda's birthday was on the last day of school before summer break, so her mother gave her this antique onyx pendant necklace which has some weird dust specks that swirl inside on their own. Crazy, right? How could dust simply swirl within a stone?"

"Okay," Martin nodded along slowly, "then what happened?"

"Apparently the necklace is haunted, and the dust specks might be the ashes belonging to the person haunting it. So at the end of summer break the curse kicked in causing Jayda and Mr Lambert to swap bodies the next morning," I continued.

Martin stared at me blankly before a sudden realisation dawned on him. "Wait Celine, was that the reason why our group chat was called Emergency? And was that the reason why Mr Lambert was in it? Was that also the reason why neither Jayda nor Mr Lambert were online while we spammed the group chat with our project research? Because Jayda was stuck in Mr Lambert's body and Mr Lambert was stuck in Jayda's body?" he immediately fired a long string of questions right at my face.

"Yeah," I drawled anxiously, "we're still trying to find a way to change them back though, but everything will be back to normal, I swear."

"We have to change them back," Martin proclaimed, determination lacing his voice as he got himself up on his feet, ducking his head and shifting out from underneath the staircase landing. I followed suit behind him, revealing myself from our hiding spot and standing up beside him.

Martin turned to me once again. "So if Jayda's stuck inside Mr Lambert's body, how is she really like?" he questioned again.

"She's cool, also pretty mellow," I explained, "she's that kind of person that would choose to go home to write or scroll through Tumblr rather than stay up all night partying like any other teenager, and she's really artsy. But actually she isn't any much different from Mr Lambert anyways, personality wise, which is why he's her favourite teacher."

Martin nodded slowly, still in deep thought. "Seems like someone I'm cool with. Back home in Amsterdam my friends would usually love to sneak me out to go to crazy parties, but I guess Jayda's different. Different in a good way, it's kinda calming."

I smiled and quickly glanced down at my watch. It's been twenty minutes since we had our long heart to heart conversation, which meant that we missed a third of our lesson time. "Crap, we're late. It's about time we make a move to class. What's your next period?" I asked.

"Math," Martin shrugged, "with Mr McKinney."

Ah, Mr McKinney, my Math teacher back when I was a confused freshman. Ironically he was just as confused as I was, so I definitely knew the perfect excuse to let Martin into class, considering that I used it quite a number of times and emerged completely unscathed. "Just tell him there was a long line in the toilet. Works every time," I advised him.

"Thanks a lot," Martin let out a light-hearted chuckle, only to be rudely interrupted by a high-pitched squeal echoing from down the hallway. Not so long after a bumbling Charlene clad in dangerously short booty shorts, as well as her new boy toy Zach emerged from round the corner. Honestly speaking, that girl changes her trophy faster than she changes clothes. Last time she was with Dylan, now she's with Zach. Who's going to be her next catch then? Daniel, Christopher, no one knows.

"Ah fuck," I groaned, "not that bitch again."

If anyone planned on asking, yes I do get very vulgar when faced with the people I hate. And I might have cursed a little too loudly for her to whip her head at my direction.

"Well Saline," she scoffed, still clinging onto Zach, "why aren't you and your phony boyfriend in class."

God, I hate that name so much. It's just so lame, comparing me to... salt solution.

I rolled my eyes, Martin folding his arms furiously beside me. "We were late, nothing intentional anyways," I immediately decided to turn the tables on her, "Why aren't you in class?"

"Fuck class," Charlene rudely waved her hand to dismiss me, "my grades are shit anyways." She rudely barged right in between Martin in me, dragging Zach behind her. "Now would you excuse us," she said with a sarcastically posh tone, "we'll like to have some fun in our little hiding spot, so we'll prefer to have you two get the fuck out of here."

"Yeah sure," I spat bitterly, "we were already planning to leave anyways. Good luck on not getting caught hooking up, assholes."

What more does she even want from me, or Martin, or the both of us? Pretty soon she'll be turning to Jayda as well. Oh god, not Jayda. I shuddered at the thought of Charlene spreading vile rumours about my best friend.

Nothing of the body swap incident should even get leaked to Charlene. God knows how much trash she could start talking about from that one situation, especially when a teacher is also involved in it, let alone when Mr Lambert is involved in it. As much as Jayda looked up to him I believed Mr Lambert was a good teacher, and it would definitely be a shame if he got thrown out of school for something that wasn't even true.

Now that Martin knows of the entire situation from the very beginning till now, we should all really start planning on switching the both of them back into their original bodies. The rest of the student body must not know a single detail of whatever happened since the first day of school, so we had to carry out our operations stealthily, and quickly for all that mattered.

It's about time we make a move.