Airhead

‘Well, honey,’ Mom said, chewing the inside of her lip. ‘Yes. I’m sorry. But you know what a gossip she is around the pool where she lives. We really couldn’t tell her the truth.’

I couldn’t believe it. It turned out rumours of my death hadn’t been exaggerated.

I was dead. Legally. Medically. Technically. In every — ally, really, except the one way that mattered: literally.

I was dead, and I hadn’t even been able to attend my own funeral.

‘Was anybody from school there?’ I asked. ‘At my memorial service, I mean?’

‘Of course,’ Dad said, sounding a little hesitant for some reason. ‘Christopher, and his father—’

Now, for the first time since I’d woken up in Nikki Howard’s body, I really lost it.

‘Christopher?’ I gasped. ‘Oh my God. You mean you didn’t tell him? Christopher thinks I’m dead?’

Mom and Dad exchanged panicky glances. Suddenly, I was crying so hard I couldn’t even see them. I guess it wasn’t any wonder they thought I was losing it. I saw Mom signal Dad to leave the room — no doubt to search out Dr Holcombe and ask him for more of those coma drugs to calm me down.

‘Honey, you know we couldn’t tell him the truth,’ Mom said, coming to sit down beside me on the bed and putting her arms around me. Cosabella, who’d been busily grooming herself at my feet, hurried over to give me a few concerned licks as well. ‘We felt terrible about it, but… well, you heard what Mr Phillips said.’

Oh, I’d heard what Mr Phillips had said, all right. Thanks to Mr Phillips, the mystery of why Emerson Watts, eleventh-grader, had been saved using the incredibly rare and expensive lifesaving technology of whole-body transplant had been cleared up.

She hadn’t. Stark Enterprises had used it to save Nikki Howard.

Not me.

‘I know it’s awful to say,’ Mom went on as she hugged me, ‘but… Christopher will get over it. Eventually. With time. He really will.’

‘G-get over it?’ I wailed. ‘My best friend th-thinks I’m dead, only I’m not, and I c-can’t even tell him — and you think he’ll just g-get over it?’

Frida chose that moment to stroll into my room. Her brown eyes were practically crackling with rage, and her chin was sticking out — sure signs she wanted to have a confrontation with me about something.

But she stopped dead in her tracks when she saw that I was crying.

‘What’s with her?’ she demanded.

‘She just found out about Christopher,’ Mom said, gently rocking me. ‘You know, thinking she’s dead.’

‘Oh.’ Frida stared at me. ‘So? Don’t worry about him. I saw him in school the other day and he was fine.’

This just made me cry harder. It also caused Mom to say, ‘Frida!’

‘Well?’ Frida sauntered over to where my television’s remote control sat on the bedside table and picked it up, switched on the TV and began flipping cha

Mom got up, let go of me and snatched the remote from Frida’s hand in one fluid motion.

‘May I have a word with you in the hallway, young lady?’ she asked briskly.

The two of them left the room. While they were gone, I tried to pull myself back together. I couldn’t believe how selfish I’d been, not having given Christopher a second thought since I’d woken up. Except for the whole wishing-he’d-been-the-one-kissing-me-instead-of-Justin-or-Brandon thing, I mean.

What could Christopher have been going through all this time, thinking I was dead? Was he all right? How had he handled it, those moments after that TV had fallen on me, right in front of him? He must have been so freaked out. Who was he eating lunch with now that I wasn’t in school? He didn’t have anyone else to make fun of the Walking Dead with, or to play Journeyquest with, or to watch surgery shows on the Discovery Health Cha

Unless… unless some other girl had snatched him up for herself. Only who? What girl at TAHS (besides me) had the sensitivity to look past all that long hair and see the potential hottie that lay beneath? What other girl was fine enough?

God. Surely there had to be one. She could be sitting down next to him in the cafeteria right now, complimenting him on his avoidance of the tuna salad…

Suddenly Frida was back, this time by herself. She looked sullen.

‘I’m supposed to apologize,’ she said. Her gaze was on Cosabella, the now black television screen, the window behind me — anywhere but on my face. ‘So… sorry if what I said upset you. It’s not true anyway. Christopher’s not fine. I guess. But then… he was always so weird anyway, it’s kind of hard to tell.’

I had already dried my tears — or Nikki’s tears, I guess, although Dr Holcombe told me not to think of my new body that way. It’s YOUR body, Emerson, he’d said. Not hers. Not any more.

Right. I just had her name. Her face. Her loft. Her boyfriend(s). You name it.

‘I don’t get it,’ I said to Frida. I still felt like crying every time I thought about Christopher, and how a new girl might be getting to play Journeyquest — or sit around and watch surgery shows — with him right this very minute. Although truthfully, the allure of surgery shows had sort of waned for me. But I was trying to deal with it. As Dr Holcombe had pointed out, at least I was alive. ‘What’s eating you?’

‘Nothing,’ Frida said. ‘Gabriel left.’

For a second I didn’t understand what she was talking about. Then I remembered how she’d gone downstairs with Gabriel after he’d dropped me off.

‘Oh,’ I said. Was that what was eating Frida? She was jealous that I’d spent time with Gabriel Luna? ‘OK.’

‘He had to.’ Frida flopped into the chair next to my bed. ‘They wouldn’t let him back on the floor.’

‘Well,’ I said, ‘I’m sure he’ll learn to live with the disappointment.’

‘God!’ Frida glared at me. ‘You don’t even care about him, do you?’

‘How can I care about him?’ I demanded. ‘I barely know him. And besides… ’ I felt myself flush as I was about to add, I like Christopher. But I couldn’t admit this, not even to my sister. Not even now that Christopher thought I was dead, and I was in Nikki Howard’s body, and I had no chance of ever getting Christopher to like me. So I changed it at the last minute to, ‘He thinks I’m Nikki Howard.’

‘So?’ Frida shrugged. ‘You shouldn’t be so hard on him. He’s a really nice guy. He thinks you’re really great.’

‘How do you know that?’ I asked her, finding this hard to believe, since I had it from the guy’s own lips that he thought I was a drug addict.

‘He told me, of course,’ Frida said. ‘Down in the hospital cafeteria. We split a ci

I blinked at her. ‘Excuse me?’

‘You said back in the hallway that Gabriel rescued you. What from?’

‘Oh,’ I said. ‘Lulu Collins and Brandon Stark kidnapped me last night and took me to Nikki Howard’s loft. But you can’t tell anyone, OK, Free? Because I don’t want to get them into trou—’

‘LULU COLLINS?’ Frida was on her feet and shrieking. ‘You met Lulu Collins? And Brandon Stark? Are you kidding me? You hung out with them? Where did you go? Did they take you to Cave? Oh my God, did you get to see Justin Bay?’

‘Whoa,’ I said. ‘Hold on. First of all, stop yelling. And second of all, no, it wasn’t like that—’

‘Oh my God.’ Frida stopped jumping up and down and looked at me, wide-eyed. ‘Brandon Stark and Nikki Howard are — used to be — dating. If he thought you were Nikki, he must have — did he try to kiss you?’

I shook my head. No way was I telling my little sister about Brandon’s tongue-dive, let alone what had gone on with Justin — or how much I’d enjoyed both.