“I don’t know.” Lori answered. “The guy at the store was like a drunk or something,” She paused to fling her long brown hair over her shoulder. “he probably didn’t know what the hell he was talking about!” Lori pushed back her chair to get up, and walked over to the counter where all the snacks were. She picked up a oatmeal creme pies box and looked inside. She reached in and retrieved one.
Courtney turned around to face her friend. She was holding the necklace. “No, I think he might have known..” She trailed off.
“Huh?” Lori asked through a mouth full of oatmeal creme pie.
Courtney looked at her as if she were in a daze. “The necklace, what he said about it,” she was speaking very softly, barely audible.
Lori was getting kinda spooked. “Courtney?” She asked tentatively.
She snapped out of it. “Oh, sorry, I was just thinking... that guy..” She paused to put her thoughts together. She continued. “Well, you know how Whenever we’re out at night, I always like to find the star Venus, right?”
“The planet Venus, yeah.” Lori said sarcastically.
Courtney shot her a dirty look. “Anyway, that could be the star part of it,”
“Not if it’s a planet!” Lori exclaimed.
“Okay, so maybe the necklace-maker-guy screwed up. Or, maybe it’s not Venus. Maybe it’s another star.” Courtney said defiantly.
Lori was trying unsuccessfully not to laugh. “Yeah, and what’s the souls part?”
“Well, you said that there was only two of the necklaces, so...”
“What? Do you think you’re gonna trade souls with someone?” Now she couldn’t help but laugh.
“Oh, okay Courtney, so some strange person’s gonna be walking around in your body, and your gonna be in their’s.” She was laughing uncontrollably now. “What is this, anyway? A freakin’ rerun of Freaky Friday? Geez!”
“Hey!” Courtney said defensively. “It’s not totally inconceivable!”
Lori stopped laughing then, and became serious. “Yes it is! Are you kidding? Have you ever heard of the Laws of Science?”
“They’re not called the laws of science, Lori.”
“Well whatever they’re called, You went way past the boundaries of ‘em! Reality check, Courtney! It could never happen!”
“Oh yeah? How do you know that it could never happen? How can you be so sure? Haven’t you ever heard of astral projection? That’s beyond the laws of... whatever they hell they are!” Courtney was getting kind of mad now. She stood up from the table.
So was Lori. “What in the hell is an astral projection!?” (It was a good thing that they were alone in the house , because they were yelling loud enough to wake the dead!)
Courtney sighed, disgusted, and a little pissed off. She lowered her voice to a lesser volume. “An astral projection is when you let your soul, or yourself I guess it would be, leave your body.”
“What you mean, like, you make yourself die or something?” Lori was terribly confused.
“No,” Courtney explained. “It’s almost like being invisible. You can walk around, spy on people, you can fly, but you can’t talk, and you can go anywhere in the universe.”
“Cool.” Lori was impressed. “So what happens to your body? Does it keep.. um..” Lori groped for words. “um.. functioning?”
“I think so, but, that isn’t my point.”
“So what is your point?” Lori questioned, obviously intrigued.
“You believed me, didn’t you?”
“Huh?” she paused. “Oh! yeah, why, were you lying?”
Courtney shook her head. “No, but my point is, you kept an open mind about it. Until I finished explaining, didn’t you?”
“Yeah.”
“So if you can keep an open mind about astral projection and other stuff beyond any means of reality, why can’t you keep an open mind about the soul switching?”
“I don’t know.” She wanted to go somewhere and do something, instead of argue about that astral crap. “Hey, let’s go somewhere!”
Courtney sighed again. She sat back down. “I’m too tired. I don’t feel like riding bikes, anyway.”
“Oooh!” Lori said, rather annoyed.”You never want to go anywhere! Or do anything! You’re always too tired!”
Courtney looked at her friend, and calmly said, “Where do you want to go?”
“To Jessica’s house.” Lori said happily. Courtney looked up at her. She had a huge grin on her face.
“Oh, no. No, no, no, no, no! If you want to see Brian, go to his house. Don’t use Jessica just because she lives down the street from your life-long crush. Uh-uh. I don’t think so.” Courtney objected. “And anyway, I don’t wanna go.” Lori sighed. Courtney continued, “You can go by yourself though.”
Lori sat down. “Nah. I don’t wanna go alone.”
“Okay, what do you want to do then?”
“Algebra?” Lori offered.
“Oh, I don’t care.” Courtney said as she put the necklace around her neck and fastened it. “I already finished mine though.” ***** “Okay, so what’s negative three plus eight plus negative six plus two?” Lori asked. They’d been working on the chapter review unit in their math books.
“Um, hang on for a sec,” Courtney picked up her calculator. She punched in the equation. “It’s one.” Lori wrote in the answer on her paper. She wrote down the next question and started working it. Courtney leaned back from her sitting position to lay down the ivory carpeting of her pink bedroom. She hated the color of her room. She didn’t used to though. They’d repainted it when Courtney was 8 years old. She’d liked it then, but then again, all 8 year old girls like pink. Now she wished her room were purple. It was her favorite color. She looked over at the numerous pictures of her friends, family and (of course) Hanson on her bedroom wall. She looked at Taylor’s picture. She sighed as she thought to herself, ‘Wouldn’t be nice if Taylor had the other necklace, and we traded souls? Well, not really. I wouldn’t be able to meet him, I’d be him.’ She looked at another picture of him. She thought, ‘God, he’s cute. I wonder wh...’
Lori broke into her thoughts with the sound of a book slamming shut. She sat straight up.
“What on earth was that?” Courtney looked at Lori and saw her math book closed. “Oh. You’re finished. You scared me!”
“Sorry.” Lori looked at the clock. “Oh shit! I was supposed to be home like, now.” She looked at Courtney apologetically. “I have to go.”
Courtney stood up. “I’ll walk you out..” she offered.
“Don’t bother. I’ll call you later, okay?”
“Okay. See ya.”
“Bye!” Lori yelled as she ran down the stairs. Courtney heard the front door slam as Lori rushed outside.
“Bye.” Courtney muttered. She picked up Lori’s soda can and walked downstairs to the kitchen. She threw the soda can away.
