You run into the hallway. Brian is already at the peephole. "Dude, it's your dad. I mean, my former dad. This is confusing."
You groan. "He's probably here to take me home."
Brian opens the door. "Hey, Mr Anderson. You here to pick up Adam?" It still feels a little weird for you to hear him talking about you as Adam, and himself as Brian. From the way his face twitched slightly, Brian seems to feel the same way.
"Yes, Brian, I am. You ready, Adam?"
"I just need to grab my shoes," you say immediately. Even though it still feels a little weird to answer as Adam, you're getting used to it. It feels pretty natural.
You and Brian run down the hallway to Brian's room. Wait, no, it's your room. You're starting to think of it as his room. You guess it sort of is, now.
"Should we switch back now?" he whispers to you. "Or should we stay in the other's body for a couple days? It could be cool to live the life of the other for a little while."
"I agree. I'll stay in your…well, my now…body, and you can stay in my old body, which is yours now."
"Deal. But take these!" Brian says, pulling off the socks. You slip them back on and get into your shoes. No. Brian's old shoes. No. They're Adam's, and since you're Adam now, they're yours.
You and Brian walk back down the hallway to your dad. Your dad asks, "Ready to go?" You nod and start to head out the door, but hesitate and turn back for a moment.
"Hey, Brian?" you ask. "When do you think I could come over next? I want to…test that out again. If you don't mind."
"Well, dude, I have tennis on Tuesday and Thursday, and karate on Monday and Friday. Is Wednesday after school good?" You realise that Brian's saying is what you, when you were Brian, did, and that he remembered that easily. You surprise yourself slightly by knowing what Adam, so you, does extracurricularly.
"I can't do Wednesday. I have drama in the afternoon and guitar in the evening. I think that we can only meet on Saturday."
"Okay, then. See ya around, dude."
"Goodbye." You walk to your dad's car as Brian shuts the door to his house behind you. You don't even notice that you're now referring to your old stuff, from when you were Brian, as the new Brian's.
You get in the car and your dad drives you home. You both sit in silence, which is pretty normal, as you don't really like each other very much.
After about ten minutes, you arrive back at home. When you were Brian, you hadn't been to it before, because neither of Adam's parents liked people over, but it's now familiar to you. It feels like home to you, more so than Brian's house. You immediately walk down to your room. Nobody is home Your mother is at work, and your father drives off again to do who-knew-what. You didn't know or care—his life is his, and you want to keep your life separate from his. Your younger brother, Caleb, is at a friend's house, sleeping over. Your older brother, David, joined the military two years ago, as soon as he turned eighteen, and is now in Syria. You decide that if you want to change who you are, you have to do it now. Your mother won't be home for another hour, and your father won't come home for another several hours, when he'll be drunk and will go straight to bed. Your older brother clearly isn't coming back for a while, not when he's healthy and still fighting. Your younger brother won't be home until tomorrow afternoon.
You try to decide whose shoes to put on first. You decide on your little brother. You take off your shoes, go into his closet and pull out a pair of his shoes. Since he's seven and you're twelve, they're several sizes too small for you, so when you slide your feet in, half of each of your feet sticks out of the back of the shoes. You walk awkwardly to the bathroom. By the time you pull out the stool in anticipation for shrinking, the transformation is beginning. Your feet begin to shrink, and your height goes down by about half a foot. Your hair darkens to red and shortens slightly, and your eyes change to green. Other than that, you're still very similar to what you had been—skinny, freckled, pale skin. The worst part, though, was that you'd forgotten to take off your clothes, and now it was way too big for you.
"Aw, man. It'll be hard to get out of these." Your voice is really high-pitched—the voice of your brother. You step off of the stool and try pull off your clothes. Adam's jeans and underwear fall down by themselves, but it's a struggle to get Adam's shirt off. You look at your naked body in the mirror. "I need to put some of Caleb's—well, my—clothes on." You pick up Adam's clothes and carry them into your—Caleb's—room. It is yours now, as you're a second version of Caleb. You ARE Caleb. You pick out some underwear, a pair of jeans—a smaller pair than Adam's—and a shirt with a train on it. You like trains, or at least, Caleb does, and you are Caleb. You put them on. As usual, you have trouble with the button on the jeans. Wait. No. Caleb has trouble with it. Neither Brian nor Adam has trouble with it. But you ARE Caleb, so some of his problems are now yours, because you are him.
You run over to some of your toys and play with them for a while.
"Ooh, I should go try on some of Dave's clothes!" You dash over to David's room, forgetting about Adam's clothes. You pick out a pair of David's shoes that had been there since he was eighteen—he'd left them when he left for the army. You also choose some of his underwear, a pair of jeans, and a t-shirt. You're disappointed. The shirt doesn't have a train. All of his shirts are blank. You carry your clothes, David's clothes, and David's shoes into the bathroom. "Now for the changing!" you shout. Nobody is here to tell you off. You take off your shoes and all of your clothes. You don't want to break them. You take off your shoes, leaving the green-and-white socks on, and slide into David's shoes. You can't walk in them at all. Your feet just slide out. You're only seven and these shoes are for a grown-up. You're happy that you walked into the bathroom before putting the shoes on.
Then the changing begins. Your feet fill up the shoes, and you can't lift up them because they're so heavy and your legs are too weak. Then you grow to almost double your height. Your hair darkens from red to black, and grows so that it reaches your shoulders. Your eyes stay green, however. Dark hair spreads across your chest and down your stomach. You can feel it growing in your armpits, and see it growing on your arms and legs, and in your pubic area. Your penis grows from prepubescent-short to very long, and your testicles and scrotum grow from nothing, as you were changing from a seven-year-old. A scruffy beard stretches across your face from one ear around your chin and both lips to the other ear, interrupted only by a scar on your left cheek that Dave—well, you now, almost—got when he/you was attacked when he/you was fifteen. You gain a six-pack and good biceps and triceps. "Wow," you say in a deep voice, then clutching at your throat and feeling the Adam's apple. "That feels…unusual. And talking in this voice is even weirder than using the voice of Adam or Caleb. But I should put my clothes on." You put Dave's—your—clothes on. "I forgot that I looked like this. Dave—I—cut his—my—hair when joining the army. And shaved. Oh, these muscles feel good."
You go down into the garage. You see some of your weights from before the other Dave joined the army. You lift a couple of them for a little, loving how easily you do it.
After a couple minutes, you decide that you should change back into Adam. You walk casually back into the bathroom. You realise that the clothes and shoes in there are yours and Caleb's. "Shit. I left them in Caleb's room." You run back to Caleb's room with Caleb's clothes. You then carry Adam's clothes to his room. You run back to your room, strip off all of your clothes and your shoes and put them away, and then run back to Adam's room.
You've just slipped your feet back into Adam's shoes when you hear a car outside. You look at your wrist, but you left your watch in the bathroom. It probably was too big for Caleb, so it fell off your wrist when you changed into him. You pick up your phone and look at it. Six o'clock. It's almost definitely your mother. By then, the changes have started, and your feet now fit Adam's shoes and you've dropped in height from about six feet tall to about four foot six. You close your bedroom door and look in the mirror on it, watching yourself change.
The car door slams. You hear your mother's key in the door. By this time, luckily, your Adam's apple has gone, and you sound like Adam again. You are Adam again, not David anymore, even though you still have Dave's hair and eyes.
Your mother opens the door. "Adam? Evan? Are either of you home?" she calls out, Evan being your dad. "I'm home!" you yell, luckily sounding like yourself. Your eyes and hair, however, haven't changed back yet. They're taking a while for some reason. You still have David's long black hair and green eyes, and his body hair and beard. The scar, however, has disappeared.
You hear footsteps down the hallway and then your mother's hand on the door handle…