It's My Party, and I'll Cry If I Want To…
“All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another.”
France, Anatole. (1881). The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard. Dodd-Mead & Company.
Jacob took a deep breath, clenched his jaw as tightly closed as his eyes were screwed shut, and tried to dissipate his growing, worrisome sense of angst about life, the universe, and everything unfair with adolescent life. Oblivious to the tarnished ring of green-stained copper in his fist, Jacob wished for justice, happiness, popularity, attractiveness, the ability to make things right in this stupid, topsy-turvy world of arbitrary cruelty and unfair teenage mores. If only Jacob could … could … could what? … If only he were top of the adolescent food chain? … Then what?
Opening his eyes and exhaling at last, Jacob discovered he was no longer on the Johnson family's front lawn.
And even more surprising, he was no longer even in his own body.
“Shit!” he exclaimed, literally jumping a step into the air in shock and surprise.
Jacob was now indoors, in the excessively sweet, syrupy saccharine, pink décor bedroom of some sappy teenage girl. A single bed was centered against one wall, set meticulously with decorative pillow sham, taut chenille bedspread, and even a frilly white decorative valance. The walls were plastered with staple-scarred posters of hunky heartthrobs, ripped from the pages of some stupid magazine. A curio shelf in the corner displayed a motley mixture of incongruous girly bric-a-brac – collectible Barbie dolls, overly sentimental Christmas and birthday cards, a series of empty glass perfume bottles, a jeweled glass sculpture of a butterfly, a gaudy hot pink ceramic figurine of a giant stiletto heel, a cheap plastic vase with a bouquet of even cheaper plastic flowers, and row upon row upon row of tiny cylindrical bottles of nail polish in every possible tint, shade, and hue of red, pink, or purple. Another corner of the room sported a wicker laundry hamper with a modest pile of pastel colored t-shirts, black and gray yoga pants, and girls' bikini briefs and boyshorts, all turned inside-out and relegated to the basket after some prior use by the body Jacob presently possessed. All around Jacob, the room screamed out everything that was girly, feminine, and frilly.
Steeling himself for the shock, Jacob prepared to examine himself. He had known from the instant he opened his eyes that he was no longer himself. This new body was too short, too slender, and too weirdly balanced with small (but definitely noticeable) breasts in the front and a modest (but definitely pleasantly rounded) behind in the back.
He knew he was female.
Jacob now took inventory of his new, female self. He wore a pale pink, lightweight sweater over the top of a white blouse with an exposed peter pan collar. A gray, a-line skirt flared out at his bare knees. Around his feet were a pair of pink ankle socks with an upturned bit of frilly lace. Below that, he wore a pair of gray oxfords with a modest heel.
He was sickeningly cute.
Ready for the worse, Jacob searched his new bedroom for a mirror. With little surprise, he discovered a baroque mirror in the shape of an enormous oval mounted on one wall, with ornate, shocking pink filigree surrounding it. And there, in the mirror, was the reflected image of a very surprised (and slightly disgusted) looking blue-eyed, blond haired girl. He'd become Hannah Robinson – a goody two-shoes, preppy, girly girl with rich parents. Hannah, who was to be the hostess of a big birthday party bash this weekend (the very same soirée Jacob's best friend Matthew was oh-so-very-keen to attend). Hannah the nicest, sweetest, most girlish and innocently kind and caring creature known to teendom.
“I'm Hannah Robinson,” Jacob said glumly to his reflection.
Even his voice was syrupy sweet now – almost the dulcet soprano of a cartoon caricature of a sweet, innocent, girlish ingenue. His words came out sounding pouty rather than glum.
“Shit,” he cursed again.
This time, seeing Hannah's image mouthing profanity while hearing her voice utter aloud a curse word just proved too much.
Jacob winced and lightly slapped both cheeks of his smooth, girlish face.
“Don't swear with her body,” he told himself. He was no fan of Hannah's. She'd never been anything but nice, sweet, and friendly to him – just as she was to every living thing on planet Earth. If anything that over-the-top sugariness was half the reason he'd wanted to avoid her big, birthday party this weekend! Of course the main reason though was pure social anxiety, plain and simple. He'd feared making a fool of himself in front of so many people. And a kind, outgoing rich girl like Hannah would have everyone at her party. That meant lots of people. All the popular people. Including the mean people. And that would mean nerds like Jacob being put on display for the amusement of some of the more popular and less kind kids at school.
Only now it looked like Jacob would be forced to attend that party after all – only as both hostess and guest-of-honor. Jacob was now going to be the sweet, little birthday girl!
He wouldn't swear again. Hannah wouldn't approve, and even if she and Jacob weren't exactly friends (or even in the same social stratosphere), he knew her well enough to realize she disapproved of profanity and would be shocked to know her lips and tongue had ever vocalized such uncouth, bad language.
Instead Jacob merely sighed and sat down on Hannah's perfectly decorated bed.
“It was that crazy corroded metal ring Kaitlyn was trying to dig up,” he mused. “Somehow it … it … I don't know.”
He hadn't wished for this … had he?
Jacob had never entertained the thought of switching bodies with Hannah Robinson. He'd never thought about bodyswapping with anyone, for that matter! But he had … he had … deep down, inside, at some subconscious level he didn't want to ever confess to anyone – not even himself – he had wished to be someone else.
Someone just like Hannah, he thought ruefully.
He hadn't been that specific. But somehow, someway that stupid doughnut of doom had caused his soul to transmigrate here into the body of Hannah Robinson: someone who was everything that Jacob secretly wished he could be.
He just hadn't specified such a person be male or female, much less demanded it be Hannah herself.
And yet, here he was, now in the soft, pink living flesh of a teenage girl. But … did that mean poor, innocent, sweet Hannah was now trapped in the doughy, flabby, nerd shell of a male body that used to belong to Jacob Smith?!