Switched Souls

I am crossing the street on my way home, when I hear a strange noise and see a blinding light. I turn and see a car speeding towards me, and I scream. When I wake up, I’m in a hospital. My eyesight is a bit fuzzy, and I feel a little dizzy.

I hear someone say, “She’s awake, Mrs. Power.”

That’s when a woman I didn’t recognize ran up to me and hugged me saying, “Azla, I’m so glad you’re okay. You really made us worried. Are you feeling pain anywhere?” asking more questions as she squeezed me tighter.

Huh, I’m confused now. “Wait, my name is Dazley, and who are you? Where am I?” I asked as I slowly pushed her away. She gasped and slowly shook her head. “You must have hit your head during the car crash, maybe we should cancel your interview,” she replied.

“Interview?” She ignored my question as she continued.

“I am your mother, and your name is Azla Power. Dr. Wheeler, maybe you should check her again. Also, what kind of name is Dazely.”

Before I could register what she said, she got up from the bed and sang, “you later!” Then she was gone. Dr. Wheeler looked around the room.

“Oh, well I left my bag in my office, I will go get it. If you need anything just press the red button next to your bed, but I don’t think you’ll need to, because I’ll be back soon.” Dr. Wheeler said. Then she left, too. I began pondering what the woman, who is not my mother, said and looked in the mirror.

NO WAY! I became my most favorite actor ever, Azla Power. I have her long black hair and her blue eyes that are the same shade as the sky. I realized I can’t let anyone find out that I’m not Azla because, well, you know the reason. It would be hard to explain. I have to find out what happened and fix this before it’s too late.

A few days later I was finally released from the hospital. I arrived at Azla’s mansion. There waiting for me was Azla’s mom and her identical twin brother, Alex. I started getting excited because I never thought I would meet him. They are twins, and act together in every movie they are in. Azla’s mom, Mrs. Power, smiles widely, “You’re back from the hospital, go upstairs to shower and change out of the hospital gown. After that, come downstairs for lunch, I’ll be in the kitchen cooking.” Then she goes inside.

“There’s one good thing that came out of your accident; mom never cooks for us anymore ever since she hired Astelle,” Alex mentions. His phone rings, and he pauses to answer the call. When he’s done with his phone call, Alex says, “I’ve got to go, I’ll see you at lunch.”

I walked into the mansion; it is huge. I went upstairs. After a few minutes, I found Azla’s room (only because she hung up a sign that said her name) and found out that she has her own bathroom in her room, so I showered and changed. Then I went downstairs.

By then, Alex was done with whatever he was doing, and Mrs. Power was done cooking and had set the table. As we sat down Alex called into the kitchen, “Astelle, come eat with us.”

Astelle poked her head out of the kitchen. “Sorry, I don’t think I should.”

Mrs. Power laughed and uttered, “Nonsense! Come on, Astelle. It’s okay, we think you should eat lunch with us.”

“Okay, it’s only because you insisted,” she replied.

Then she sat down, and we began eating. When we were finished eating, Astelle stood up and started taking dishes. I didn’t know what to say, so I quickly got up to leave before things got more awkward, when Mrs. Power said, “Nuh, don’t leave just yet, remember, you have to practice playing the song on the piano that you’re playing in that scene in the movie”.

I frowned, I don’t know how to play the piano. OH NO! At my piano practice, Mrs. Stressor was frowning, and I could tell Alex was trying not to laugh and trying to look like he was reading, though he was watching us as if this was a tennis match. Mrs. Stressor started pacing back and forth. “What are we going to do? You were close to perfecting the song and the deadline is in two weeks, it took us three weeks to get that far, what are we going to do?”

I knew I would do terribly. When we got back, I went to Azla’s room, jumped into her bed and fell asleep for the rest of the day. The next day, after breakfast prepared by Astelle, of course, Alex grabbed my arm, “It’s time to see Mr. Tea, our dance choreographer, remember!”

I lyingly confirm, “Of course I remember. Why do you ask that?”

“I know, just teasing, cuz it seems like you hit your head,” he said.

On the way there, I started getting excited because this might be fun. I’m actually really good at dancing because I’ve been dancing since I was three years old, taking lessons, too. The second I met Mr. Tea I could tell I was going to like him and soon I found out that I was right. He is patient, and I learned a lot of new dance combinations.

When I danced, he seemed surprised, “That was really good, you both are awesome!”

On our way out to the car, Alex stopped me. When I turn around he asks, “You’re not Azla, are you?”

I panic, “How do you — why do you think that? Of course I am,” I answer a little shivery.

“First of all, twins know each other, like really well. Second, Azla is awesome at piano, Mrs. Stressor was just exaggerating, she’s sort of a perfectionist. Third, she is bad at dancing and you’re the opposite,” Alex explained.

“I’m surprised. I thought she was good at dancing because of my dream.”

Alex laughed, “Well, you thought wrong, she just walked around and you just exposed yourself by asking that.”

I slapped my forehead because I’m so dumb sometimes.

Alex asks, “Who are you really?”

I sigh, “My name is really Dazely Palmer.”

“Then Dazely, what do you think happened?”

“I think Azla and I switched bodies somehow,” I doubtfully claim.

Alex frowns, “Interesting!” Then he smiles. “I think I know where to start,” he says as we get into the car. Alex starts asking questions like if I ate anything or drank anything that day.

I told him the only thing I had was a new drink called Posters Potion Raspberry Grape Switch.

“That means we should go to Poster’s potions to check that out.”

“Okay, let’s go!”

“Aren’t you forgetting something or rather someone? We need to find Azla first.”

“How do we do that?”

Alex looks at me as if I’m stupid, “Just tell me where you live and what you look like.”

Never mind, maybe I am stupid. I tell him that I have blonde hair and brown eyes, then I tell him where I live. As we get closer to my house, I start to feel sad. I miss my mom and dad and younger brother and sister. Once we arrived, I gathered up my courage and rang the doorbell. It took awhile but eventually my younger sister, Alisha, opened the door. I have to resist the urge to go and hug her.

Alisha blinks, “What is Azla and Alex Power doing here? Just wait till Dazely hears about this!”

I say, “We need to talk to Az — no Dazely.”

Alisha turns around and shouts, “Dazely, come down here.”

I see myself come out of the kitchen. Wait— no that’s Azla, this is so confusing. She looks so surprised and confused as I feel.

Azla asks Alex, “What are you doing here?”

“Come with us and I’ll explain,” he replies.

As we leave the house, Alex explains how we switched, our plan, and everything else. Azla admits that she drank a Poster’s Potion (as they are called) before the accident. It takes a while but we find Poster’s Potion. I take a deep breath before heading inside. We are so close.

Once inside we go to the clerk and ask to see the person who made the drinks.

He is surprised, “My manager?”

“Is he the one that makes the drinks?”

He nods and asks us to wait a bit and goes to the back. We wait and wait and finally he comes back and says come this way, follow me. He leads us to a dark room and as soon as he leaves the lights turn on and an old man with messy white hair and a lab coat asks us, “What do you want?”

I told the old man, “We drank one of your potions, and it made a switch bodies. We are wondering if you have one that can switch us back?”

He starts to smile and say, “I’m surprised the raspberry grape switch worked.” Then he added, “Looking for this?” as he holds up a green bottle. He hands it to us, and when Azla reaches to grab it, he pulls his hand away and throws it out of an open window, where it lands on the road and a car crushes it. Azla gasps and the old man laughs. “That was my last antidote. Soon everyone will drink my potion, and everyone will switch.”

Azla is about to speak, but the old man snaps his fingers and his bodyguards force us out of the room, out of the shop and into the street. We all sighed.

Alex suggests, “Why don’t we go to the cafe across the street and brainstorm what to do?”

Azla says, “What is there to brainstorm? We’re already lost.” But we went anyway. After getting drinks and donuts, we sit down to think.

An old lady comes up to us and says, “Call me Bella, I am the manager of this cafe. May I ask what you were doing at my husband’s shop, Poster’s Potions?”

Alex looks at us, and Azla and I shrug. She might know something about her husband that we don’t know. Alex explains everything to her, and boy, she was shocked, “If I had known he was going to use Soul Switch for that, I wouldn’t have invented it.”

“You invented it?” I blurt out.

Bella nods and says, “I invented the antidote, too. Wait till I close the shop and I brew it for you.”

Soon, less and less people are in the cafe until it’s just us. She brewed the antidote and warned us that it would feel weird and she was right. Azla and I wobbled around as we tried to stand up, so we stay sitting down and then we switch back to our normal selves.

I looked at myself, and yes, we switched back, and this was finally over!

Bella shook her head, “Now that you are involved in this, you have to stop him from selling that potion.”

But that doesn’t stop me from being happy because, no matter how hard it is, we will stop him together in the end.