So, as promised, here is the latest installment of A Girl Like Me. Am hoping that since it's Christmas Eve tomorrow, the next part will be up then (and that's when the plan rolls into action….!) Reviews are always welcome

ROSIE:

"Please tell me that you're joking."

Rosie frowned. This was possibly the best idea she had ever come up with, and right now her friend wasn't being very supportive.

"I'm absolutely not joking. This is my plan." She stared at Madge with a serious face.

Madge could barely get her head around the whole concept. "You really think that crashing each other's Christmasses is the best way to go? Both our families are going to see through that in five seconds flat."

"I wouldn't consider it crashing each other's Christmasses, it's merely…" Rosie considered. "Borrowing them for a bit."

"So while you spend time with my mother and Granny, I'm going to be, what? Madly thinking up military-style activities for your family to participate in?" Madge asked, her eyebrows raised.

"But think about it!" Rosie persisted. "We physically look exactly the same, and if we each dyed our hair a different colour, nobody would know. Mentally though, it's a different story. If we did something to make each other's Christmasses better using what we've got, it could make both our holidays better!" She glanced at Madge, half expecting her to get up and walk out of the room.

To her surprise, however, Madge appeared to be thinking.

"If you got my mother and Granny to cheer up and forget their problems for once, then I could make your family do away with their over-planning." Madge said slowly. "The only thing we'd have to do is dye our hair and learn to act a bit like each other."

"Which will be really easy." Rosie insisted. "Once we fool our parents into thinking that we're each other–"

"If." Madge muttered.

"–then it'll be straight forward from then on in. What do you think?" She looked eagerly at Madge.

Madge unwillingly heaved a deep sigh in resignation. "Fine. I'm in." A slow smile appeared across her face. "Are you sure you know how to cook?

As a couple more days wore on, Rosie tried hard to act as if everything was normal. Mercifully, nobody around the house seemed to notice. She played catch with her brothers in the garden after much persistent tugging and pleading from them, and even helped her mum wrap up the presents for her little brothers after they had gone to bed. Even when she had a spare moment, reading in her room or going for leisurely walks down the road, she found her thoughts straying to Madge and the plan. Would they even be able to pull it off? What had seemed like such a great idea earlier now seemed crazy. Problem was, she couldn't pull out of it now.

"You seem preoccupied, Rose. Simoleon for your thoughts?" Rosie was interrupted by the sound of her father's voice behind her. Straightening up from her position beside the mailbox where she was checking the mail, she turned around. Her father's face smiling down at her.

"Nothing's wrong, Dad. I'm just a bit…" She let her voice tail off.

"Preoccupied?" Her father nodded. "We all have those days. It's round about now that I find myself relishing the time I have alone, particularly with the big day approaching and with your mother and aunt busy. I find it's better just to stay out of the way."

Rosie hesitated. "Dad, have you ever tried to talk some sense into Mum? I mean, it's lovely that she's working hard to make it special, but all this obsession with Christmas is just crazy."

Her dad seemed to mull over what she had just said. "I know, love. Sometimes even I struggle to think where she's coming from. But to a mother, any event that puts her child's life in danger, even for a second, is one that is unforgettable. Especially because she blamed me afterwards for 'not thinking straight' and for not watching the pot on the stove. Luckily the fire department arrived and the fire wasn't too damaging, but it gave us all a scare." He sighed. "After that, she was always planning things out thoroughly, making sure that

Leaning forward, Rosie gave him a hug. "Don't worry, Dad. Maybe this Christmas will be different."

Her father returned the hug, with a slightly sad smile. "I hope so, Rosie. I hope so."

MADGE

"I don't know if I can do this."

"Madge, you'll be fine. This is nothing compared to what's going to follow."

Madge turned from side to side, surveying her reflection in the mirror of Drea's Salon, trying to imagine herself with blonde hair. Rosie however, having dyed her hair a few times before, was less concerned. "This is so weird."

Rosie nodded. "I know. But it's only temporary. If you don't like it, you can dye it back right after Christmas."

The two girls had spent the last few days, between doing chores and helping out their families, working on the final stage of their plan before it was properly put into action. They had spent their time mainly round at Madge's house learning to basically act and talk like one another. Though this arrangement worked well, due to Madge's mother being out at work (though she was due to arrive home slightly earlier on this day in particular) and Granny fast asleep in the armchair, it hadn't always been plain sailing.

"Madge, you're being too kind!" Rosie had vigorously shaken her head in frustration. "If my brothers came into my room at six o' clock in the morning, I wouldn't offer to read them a story, I'd yell at them to get the hell out of there!"

"But Rosie, it's Christmas!" Madge had rolled her eyes at her friend. "Surely they deserve a little bit of love from their sister?"

Rosie had made a noise of disgust. "Eurgh. No."

"And do you really think that I'd offer my mum a drink to help her 'loosen up'?" Madge retorted. "That's the worst idea ever! If anything, I might at least offer her a helping hand to prepare the food and everything, as well as look after Granny, you know!"

And now, today was Christmas Eve. Today was the day that they would completely exchange identities and hope for Watcher's sake that everything turned out as well as it could.

At least it was only temporary. Though Rosie didn't seem worried about this whole plan at all, Madge knew for certain that she wasn't keen on being a Rosie look-alike forever. "I know."

"Ready, girls?" The hairdresser, a curvy woman dressed in black with silver hoops stuck in her ears and short purple hair looked at them expectantly. "I'll do both of you at the same time. So it's thirty Simoleons for each of you, right?"

Madge gulped. Thirty Simoleons, to her, was a lot of money. Did she even have that much?

No.

"Um, Rosie?" Madge quietly edged over to her friend, her cheeks becoming pink. "I, um, don't think I can do this."

"Madge, you agreed to this." She could tell that Rosie was feeling impatient. "I haven't dragged you all this way here for nothing."

"It's not that." Madge wished the ground would swallow her up. She hated feeling like this. She got by, just, but it was hard sometimes missing out on things just because she didn't have enough money. "It's just, um, I–" She finished the rest of her sentence in a rushed whisper. "I didn't realize how much this would cost."

Rosie stared at her, her face softening. "Madge, it's fine. I'll pay."

"But–" Madge tried to protest, feeling useless and stupid. Charity.

"This whole thing was my idea, so it's only fair that I pay for this." Rosie reached into her coat pocket and pulled out a few banknotes. "I'm the one who got you into this mess." She smiled at the hairdresser, who had been tactfully trying to ignore this exchange. "We're good to go."

"Great! Follow me, please." The woman turned around and made for the door to the salon, and Madge, with a nudge from Rosie, had little choice but to follow her.

The resemblance was uncanny.

Well, they didn't look exactly like each other, but very nearly.

Madge's eyes widened as she stared at herself in the mirror, fingering her newly-dyed blonde hair, the same colour as Rosie's had been. Beside her, Rosie ran a hand through her now-brunette hair, marveling at how different she looked. True, there were slight differences. Madge was a tiny bit shorter than Rosie, and had eyes that were a slightly deeper blue, but apart from that, they practically looked like twins.

"My mother would flip if she saw me like this." Rosie admitted, but unable to wipe the grin off her face. "Though it's all for a good cause."

Madge took a deep breath, and for the first time, felt a flicker of hope. Maybe, just maybe, this plan was going to succeed.

"So, it looks like this is it." Rosie said seriously.

Madge tried to quell the faint trembling in her hands. "We swap clothes, then go to each other's houses and hope that nobody can tell we've swapped identities."

Rosie nodded, looking at her friend. "So…I guess that this it it, then, until tomorrow evening."

Madge swallowed. "All right." Without warning, she leaned forward and hugged Rosie. "Good luck."

"Good luck, Madge."

Any thoughts or ideas about what you think might happen next? Hopefully it doesn't end up a total and utter disaster, but then again, you never know...