WRITER'S NOTE: Hope that this written prospective will be easier to understand then the first chapter. Here you guys have it! Another but short post. I am working on the next post for 13 Reasons why and guess what guys it's a tape chapter so if you're reading that story be excited, cause I'm excited for who the next tape is about! This story right here though will also be taking twists and turns. As always if you like review because how am I supposed to know I have readers if they don't respond. Happy readings loves!
CHAPTER 3
Franky G.
Anna (in Tess's body): "You mean we're like stuck in this SUCKFEST?" Freaky Friday 2003
I was nauseated as I dry heaved stumbling through the nature sight. I was ensnared in a trap, trap being, Helga Pataki's body. Her body did not react to the intrusion of my soul well. Just like her body's usual inhabitant it was ornery and domineering. Her brain seemed to subconsciously trigger an attack. As far as her body was concerned I was an illness Helga needed to sweat out entitled Arnold fever.
I was nervous and that didn't help, well I tried to fight the fever Helga's body induced in an attempt to kill off the virus. I had no idea how to explain that I was a human soul to what would be an inadement object if it weren't for my interference of keeping it moving. I feared if her body did expel me from it, without being able to switch back, Helga would either die as well or be trapped in my own skin forever. I had to find her and figure out a solution but I couldn't. I was too weak for a manhunt so I went somewhere peaceful in an attempt to lighten my burden.
I stood under the willow tree and suddenly I wasn't as queasy. I looked ahead, and there she was as if my body had done the manhunt for me just tugging her soul along for the ride. Go figure, I appeared on the outside to be in perfect health; no signs would lead someone in the direction that I was no longer inside my own body. I was too nice, once I was myself again I would have to work on that a bit. It was then I spotted my own masculine lengthy figure attempting to back track away from the area I stood in. ""Helga come sit with me it seems like we have a lot to talk about, and a lot to figure out fast." It was awkward staring on as my own Jade eyes narrowed and my own rose petal lips curled into a scowl. She sauntered over plopping under the willow tree next to me.
"Football head first things first; if you dared to look at me and touch me naked I'll kill you!" My head though still rounded was not as intense. I scrunched my nose slightly pissed off to hear my own voice lashing out with the ridiculous ridicule of football head that she'd clung to over the years. "Yeah tell me about it your body has done nothing but try and kill me all morning." I snapped off a little bit, my composure slipping given the bizarre circumstances. "What?" Helga spluttered and I was taken aback not used to my own voice rising in decimals while communicating. "No I just saunter around town throwing up blood to amuse myself." I replied coolly and it was even stranger to hear Helga's voice speak in my own personal calm, yet, passive aggressive tone. "Arnold, you walked outside with my pajamas still on!" She continued to scold in my own deep monotone. I looked down. I wore a pink pull over covering the fact that I hadn't dared to put a bra on, matched with black pajama shorts, and pink ballerina slippers. Only Helga would care about minor side issues in a catastrophe. Why was I friends with this crazy blonde to get myself into this situation in the first place? I knew; because since I could remember, even digging down to the oldest of memories Helga was always right there, I didn't know any other way then our psychotic friendship.
"Are you kidding me!" I exclaimed and a group of children playing catch snapped their heads over curiously. "Arnold I never wear that much pink in public I look like little Ms. Princess." She reprimanded. That's it! I had it with Helga! I'd had enough of her none sense since the fair. I snatched her up by my blue shirt pulling her down to my newfound height of 5'4. "Listen, we are going to have to stick together through this. If you want to ever control your closet wear again then I suggest you help me figure out how to swap back. I think I'll be okay I'm feeling better since you got here. I think your body senses something, or me. Either way though we better figure it out before its permanent." I cut to the chase uncomfortable that for once in my life I didn't have all the solutions to a problem.
"We have to go back to that ancient bitty. I say we slap her around a bit and make her reverse the spell." Helga conceded in her vigilante devil-may-care way.
"Spell?" I was puzzled even as Helga I was puzzled by her train of thought, she was always unreadable.
"Yeah, spell, obviously she pulled a freaky Friday on us." She rolled my green eyes for effect.
"Pulled a freaky Friday? Elaborate." I prodded.
"You know did some voodoo, twirled her magic wand, and Tada now we've swapped bodies." Helga waved my brawny arms around to empathize. Seeing myself through her perspective took me by surprise. I was much bigger then her if I embraced her I'd cover her whole fragile frame.
"Well the next carnival isn't for another two weeks and it's six hours away. We'll have to save up some money and ride a train." I was comforted as my mind reeled on to conclude a solution a familiar habit in an unfamiliar position.
"Yeah because your old ass Packard and my tore up Nova can really make a grand trip out of Hillwood." She scuffed just as I anticipated she would. She was always the only one to ever go against the grain of taking my advice. Always wanting to do it her way now would be no different. Just as always we would have to confront a battle amongst ourselves meet in the middle and become closer for it. Until then though, I would be stuck with her impulsive tendencies.
I glared at her craning my neck to look up, was I really that tall? Compared to her tiny body I felt like I was David taking on the Giant. I wondered if she acknowledged the fact that she was completely and utterly breakable? She just brushed it off and took on the world anyway.
I laughed out loud as her memory lowered it's guard ever so slightly. Before my eyes like an old reeling tape of film appeared a memory. Helga was standing her foot over a boy's chest. I remembered this too and was interested in her perspective. I was still shorter and slightly smaller then her puberty only just around the corner. Even so the boy on the ground was a large seventh grader that I had even felt intimidation from when he cornered me.
"Look here jerk only I get to punk Blondie over there got it!" Her pink bow bobbing with her head as she pointed behind her shielding me from the seventh grader.
"Oh look we got a tough guy brawler over here." The bully taunted Helga as she pressed her foot down roughly.
"No, it's the Irish in me. Consider me being cultural by not taking your crap." She snapped back witty.
He pulled out from under her staggering to his feet towering over both of them. Helga glared on unwavering in her courage.
"Whatever; try having some class, you're just a tom boy, try being a girl and maybe someone would actually want to be your boyfriend." He laughed staring Helga up and down from her Pink bow, to her matching dress, and white sneakers. This time I felt how badly the boy had hurt her she knew she wasn't pretty. Feeling this thought with her for the first time angered me. Helga was quirky but always pretty. If she hadn't been, edgy or not, she wouldn't have been a super model like she'd once been. The boy took off in a fit of laughter and I felt her shame as she wiped the tears away before I could take notice. I had never told Helga but I had taken notice anyway.
"You know in Mythology Athena; the Goddess of Knowledge and War is in fact a "girl", and described as a pretty one at that." It was strange hearing my slightly high cracking voice. I hadn't realized how much that had lightened her heart. I grabbed her hand squeezing it tight as I pulled her along behind me. "Nothing wrong with being a protector once in a while; it doesn't always have to be a guy, come on." Where are we going," she asked excited. "For a banana split and ladies eat free." Arnold promised. "Oh, Arnold if you wanted a free sundae you could've just asked." She teased and I nudged her playfully. "Whatever you say Helga," I countered as we rushed to the ice-cream parlor my hand still steering her to the store.
The memory flickered away and I was back to my surroundings no longer looking at my eleven-year-old self but; a seventeen- year-old that was huge in comparison to that childhood image. Helga's body still felt warm fuzzies from the memory. It was strange, I couldn't explain it in a phrase if I tried, and it appeared Helga's body had shown me the memory because it had learned to associate whom my soul was.
Helga's body had shared the memory in acceptation of sharing occupancy space with me. It seemed Helga's mind had called a truce. The pit of my stomach didn't turn anymore and I actually felt kind of hungry. My sinuses clearing up as I smelt her natural pleasant wildflower scent better then if I were standing up close and personal. I sighed happily just relieved that the aches and sores were gone. I could get through these two weeks now that Helga's body wasn't trying to snuff my soul out. I looked over at my own body arms crossed and quite defensive. On second thought, it was going to be a long couple weeks. I had over come Helga's mind; could I with stand the torture of her soul too?
Helga opened my mouth wide ready to make a comment when an unexpected shout rose into the still warm air. "Aye you, where's the boss's money!" Both Helga and I snapped our heads towards the voice that I already knew too well. Right before our eyes was Franky G. A classic Italian mobster man. He pressed his square sunglasses further up his long pointed nose as his skinny legs raced towards us. Only stopping to spit on the ground. It could
I had known he was trouble since hanging out with him once as a boy. Even back then he'd attempted to recruit me in the crime scene. He'd needed my back then oddly shaped head to go through a window and bust a B&E. I needed the financial help though. Though the tasks Franky G. and the crew had me execute were wrong I had no choice. Sometimes we have to break bad in order to make good. Sometimes a little wrong went a long way into a lot of good. I owed the boss money though. I had it at my house but right now I was in a bit of a circumstance that I found more important then the boss's check. We needed to make a run for it and fast!
"He's after me!" both Helga and I hollered at the same time. "He's after you?" We both repeated with alarm. I needed to run but I was floored as another one of Helga's uncontrollable memories charged at me. She was in trouble with the boss, her A game slipping, they needed Helga to toughen up. Franky G. shook Helga punching her in the jaw as she staggered back. The memory evaporated as quickly as it had fluttered to the surface of thought. Arnold pressed his fingers lightly to her jaw now understanding the bruising he'd felt there all morning.
"Run!" Helga hollered yanking me up to carry. Before I knew it she'd thrown me over her newly found broad shoulders. "Why is he after you? I thought you were papa Teresa. I guess your more into a Robin Hood act now huh? Steal from the rich and give to the poor Arnold-o?" She mocked as she breathed heavily still carrying me in her arms. "Come back here you twos!" Franky G. exclaimed as he rounded the corner on his motorbike. Luckily a bus made its pit stop and we both hopped on it hastily.
We both sat in the back sweating and heaving our chests for fresh air. "Explain!" we both demanded in unison. Something signaled to me that the whole situation just got a lot more complicated. First switching bodies, then getting mixed up in the mob, what was next? Nothing worse could happen right? Maybe I should knock on wood or buy a rabbit paw. Even with my knack for making things work I may crossed paths with an issue that I could not embrace nor resolve. Could I make it two weeks? That was even if I could make it back to the Gypsy in two weeks. I cursed, as Helga had put it: I cursed the gypsy for pulling a "freaky Friday," on us. This was not an adorable Disney channel skit and I was growing more and more uncertain of a happy ending as each minute of the body swap passed.