Switched Read Free

really hot day, but we were both perspiring.
    â€œWhere are we going?” I repeated my question.
    Lucy pointed past the fallen tree. “It’s right up there. I think.”
    â€œWhat is?” I demanded. “Why are you being so mysterious?”
    She grinned at me. “It’s a mysterious place.” She took my hand. My hand was cold. Hers felt hot and damp. “Stop asking so many questions,” she scolded. “Follow me.”
    She tugged me over the moss-covered tree. I imagined the thousands of white insects crawling over me. The thought made me shudder.
    â€œAre we really going to do it?” I asked her. “Are we really going to switch bodies?”
    She narrowed her eyes at me. With that cute button nose and her delicate features, she looked twelveinstead of seventeen. “You want to do it—don’t you?” she asked softly.
    I nodded, thinking about my parents, my school-work, about David . . . about my messed-up life.
    Yes. I wanted to get away. Get away from myself.
    I wanted to get as far away from myself as I could.
    Yes. Yes.
    Yes, I wanted to trade places with Lucy. I wanted to trade lives—for a while, anyway.
    Lucy didn’t have an easy life. Her parents battled like wild animals in a zoo. They were so wrapped up in their own problems, they hardly paid any attention to Lucy.
    But I would like that, I decided. I’d like that a lot.
    Yes. Yes. Let’s trade, I thought.
    Lucy didn’t have it easy. But her life was better than mine.
    And she had Kent. Kent Borden was such a great guy. So smart. So funny.
    Even though Lucy was my best friend, I’d often wondered what it would be like to go out with Kent. Kent instead of David.
    Now I’ll find out, I thought.
    Lucy and I will switch bodies. And I’ll find out what it’s like to be with Kent.
    Such sick, strange thoughts.
    The light became grayer, the air heavier as we moved deeper into the woods. Our shoes crunched over the blanket of dead leaves that covered the ground.
    â€œI think it’s right up there,” Lucy said, stopping to pull a white burr from her hair. “Ouch! It’s prickly!” She tossed it to the ground.
    A bird uttered a long, loud cry, somewhere above our heads. It was such a sad wail, it made me stop. “It sounds so human,” I told Lucy. “Like a human crying.”
    The sound repeated. I hesitated, chilled by the strange, mournful sound.
    Lucy’s expression grew solemn. “Don’t chicken out,” she scolded. “Don’t chicken out now. You want to do this, Nicole. You know you do.”
    I gazed at her, surprised by her sudden seriousness. “I’m coming with you,” I said softly. “I’m not chickening out.”
    The bird wailed above our heads as we made our way through a tangle of scrub pine. Just beyond the shrubs stretched a long stone wall. Built of smooth gray stones, the wall reached a foot or so over our heads.
    â€œMy grandfather described this wall,” Lucy confided. “Before he died, Grandpa told me where it was, told me the story of how it came to be built and how it got its incredible powers.”
    I swallowed hard, staring straight ahead at the wall. Deep cracks crisscrossed its surface like roads on a map. The plaster between the stones was chipped and broken.
    â€œThe wall is old, huh?” I asked my friend.
    She nodded, staring straight ahead at it. “No one knows how old.”
    â€œAnd who built it?” I asked, brushing a mosquito off my arm.
    â€œNo one knows that, either. At least that’s what Grandpa told me. He said it’s called the Changing Wall. He said that over a hundred years ago, evil people came to the woods to use the wall and change their bodies. To switch bodies with unwilling victims.”
    I gasped. “You mean they forced people to change bodies with them?”
    Lucy nodded. “That’s how they escaped from