Freaky Friday

Annabel arrives home with less than an hour before Bill is supposed to bring his clients over and finds that 15 of Annabel’s friends have turned the Andrews living room into an impromptu obstacle course. She yells at them to clean everything up and get out, telling them that it is inappropriate to hold their club meeting at Annabel’s house when Annabel herself seems to be missing. When the teens realize that Annabel is still missing, they theorize that her risky behavior may have led to her being killed or permanently injured in an accident. Annabel is miserable at the thought of having to live in a seriously injured body for the rest of her life. She realizes that Ben is the only person who would still visit her decades into a serious disability.

She asks where Ben is and is shocked to learn that he, too, is now missing. Annabel calls Boris back over and learns that Paul never came over because he is ill and that Ben left with a beautiful girl whom Boris did not recognize but whom Ben was clearly happy to see. The girl said that she was going to buy Ben ice cream. Terrified, Annabel decides to call the police. As she heads for the phone, Boris proclaims that he loves her. She slams a door in his face and begins searching for the right number to call. Unfortunately, the officer who answers her call when she finally dials the right number is Officer Plonchick, the same officer who questioned her earlier when Ben was crying on the street.

Plonchick is skeptical about her story, accusing her of being a slightly crazy and negligent mother at best and a potential child murderer at worst. Fortunately, Boris is listening on another extension and breaks into the call, assuring the police that her story is correct. As Annabel goes through the whole story again, she grows increasingly flustered at trying to explain how her son, her daughter, and her mother are all missing. Finally, she breaks down and tells the truth, that she is a 13-year-old temporarily trapped in her own mother’s body. They decide that she is insane and offer to send medical help.

Boris runs in and hangs up the phone for her, saying that he does not want anyone to put her in a mental hospital. Minutes later, the doorbell rings. Annabel assumes that the man and woman are there to take her into custody, but after a bit of confusion she learns that they are in fact Bill’s client and his wife, Mr. and Mrs. Frampton. Annabel asks Boris to entertain the guests for a moment. She runs into her parents’ bedroom and focuses hard on mentally communicating with her mother.

She explains everything that has gone wrong and begs her mother to return. She thinks that if things do not get fixed she will throw herself out the window to her death. She lies down and begins calling to her mother aloud, over and over. Finally, she hears her mother’s voice begging her to quiet down so that the guests do not hear her. She feels a hand stroking her hair and opens her eyes to see Ellen, back in Ellen’s body, sitting next to her on the bed. Annabel is back in her own body, too. Flooded with relief, she asks whether her mother engineered the body swap and was in fact Annabel all day. Her mother says yes. Annabel chides her mother for being irresponsible as Annabel and for worrying her so much by disappearing.

When she tries to tell her mother about Ben being missing, Ellen says that she is surprised that Annabel cares so much. Annabel says that she does care, a lot, and is relieved when Ellen tells her that Ben is in the next room playing. Boris taps on the door, and Annabel says that Ellen should not let him in, because he thinks Ellen is unreasonable and hates Annabel. Annabel hurriedly fills her mother in on some of the things she has missed. Ellen asks Boris where the Framptons are, and he explains that they have already left and will come back tomorrow night. He assures Ellen that he and Ben cleaned up Annabel’s room—which he still thinks is Ben’s—before the Framptons arrived. Ellen invites him to come over for dinner a little later, and Boris leaves.

Ben comes in and gives Annabel the toy helicopter he made at school. She hugs him and praises the helicopter, delighting Ben. He thanks her for getting him ice cream, and she is confused. Suddenly, Annabel understands that it was her mother, in Annabel’s body, who came and got Ben from the apartment earlier. She is unable to process that she is the attractive girl that Boris was so interested in and cannot understand why he did not recognize her. She gets up and looks in a mirror. She finds that, during the day, her mother has had her hair cut and her braces removed.

Annabel learns that her mother spent the first few hours of the day pretending to be Annabel. After dropping Ben at school, Ellen went out for coffee and then spent some time shopping for new clothes for Annabel. She went to lunch afterward but was irritated at the way adults snickered at the idea of a 13-year-old ordering fancy food and reading The New York Times. Then she went to Annabel’s orthodontist appointment—which Annabel had completely forgotten about—and got Annabel’s braces removed. Afterward, she took Ben for ice cream. When they got back to the apartment, she heard the real Annabel calling for her, so she went into the bedroom and switched their bodies back. She refuses to tell Annabel how she made the switch happen, however.

After Annabel finishes her conversation with Ellen, she goes into her room to freshen herself up for dinner. She overhears her father and mother talking and learns that her father was late getting home because of work. Ellen explains that the Framptons will be coming to dinner on the following night, anyway, so it is nothing to worry about. Annabel goes out to greet her father, who is very impressed with her physical transformation.

Annabel’s grandmother calls, and Bill answers the phone. Afterward, he tells Ellen that he is stunned that she would agree to a month-long visit with her mother in Larchmont when she knows how he hates Larchmont. Ellen is confused, but eventually she realizes that it was Annabel who agreed to it. Annabel exclaims that now everyone will be having a miserable summer, selflessly pretending that she does not want to go to camp so that the family can spend the money on a vacation somewhere other than Larchmont. Her parents are very relieved, and Annabel finds herself wondering what Boris will be doing all summer.

Boris arrives for dinner and goes into the kitchen to check on the food he has left in the oven. Annabel hears a noise and comes into the kitchen. Boris recognizes her as the person who took Ben earlier in the day. He holds a fork to her throat and demands to know where Ben is. She calls him a “dumb fathead” and tells him that she is Annabel, Ben’s sister (139). He refuses to believe this, because the Annabel he knows has braces, messy hair, and sloppy clothing. Luckily, Ben comes into the kitchen and vouches for her. He asks whether Boris thinks she looks pretty now, and Boris agrees that she does. Annabel and Boris smile at one another and then sit down to talk until dinner is ready.

When Annabel realizes that the dish Boris has prepared is not “meatloaf,” as she thought, but “beetloaf,” she is disgusted, but she assures him that it is probably delicious. She learns that his perpetual congestion often causes people to misunderstand what he is saying. In fact, his name is not actually Boris: It is “Morris.” At dinner, as Boris/Morris shares a little about his home life and his neglectful, emotionally abusive mother, Annabel realizes that his speech is getting congested again. She suggests that he has “an allergy to [his] mother,” and he agrees that this is probably true (143). Annabel is delighted to learn that Boris/Morris spends the summers with his grandfather in Stamford, because the grandfather has an available rental house on his property, and her parents are now interested in spending the month of July there.

That night and for the rest of the weekend, Annabel works on her English paper for Miss McGuirk—it is the story of how she and her mother swapped bodies. Miss McGuirk gives her an 88, noting that she should not say the story is “fact” when it is so completely unbelievable (145).