Freaky Friday

Bill Andrews is Annabel’s father. He is 38 years old, a tall man with brown hair and blue eyes. He works in advertising. Annabel thinks that he is “a fantastically cool person” (3). His easygoing nature shows when Annabel—in Ellen’s body—wakes him up early to demand a compliment on her beauty. Instead of getting angry, he assures her that she is beautiful and tells her that he loves her. He does not complain when she serves him instant coffee instead of brewed coffee, and he reacts with puzzled amusement when she slips and calls him “Daddy” (11).

Bill is very much a man of his era, however. He does not take much responsibility for his children and blames Ellen for any faults he sees in them. He speaks condescendingly to Ellen at times, as if she, too, is a child, fussing at her about how she spends money and expecting her to cater to him by washing his shirts on demand, entertaining his clients on short notice, and so on. Although Bill does not appear in most of the novel’s chapters, his appearances at the beginning and end of the story are significant in that they demonstrate Annabel’s growing appreciation for the nuances of adult relationships and the complexities of her parents’ personalities. Annabel still loves and admires her father greatly by the story’s end—but after being exposed to some of his faults, she also sees him in a more mature and balanced way.

Ben is Annabel’s six-year-old brother. He has curly hair and blue eyes, which Annabel considers unfair since she envies these traits. She admits that Ben is an ordinary-looking child, but she often refers to him as “Ape Face” (4). At the beginning of the story, she believes him to be selfish and spoiled, and she judges his actions harshly, often misinterpreting his real motives.

In reality, however, Ben is an obedient, thoughtful child who is loyal to his sister despite her terrible treatment of him. He walks the family dog without being reminded and refuses to cross the street he has been told not to cross, even though this leaves him stranded and alone. He worries about upsetting Annabel by eating her special snack cereal. He hates Mrs. Schmauss for saying mean things about Annabel. The truth is that Ben looks up to Annabel and thinks she is creative and smart. His character is important as a reflection of Annabel’s growth, and her acceptance of and kindness toward Ben at the end of the book shows how much she has changed in her Appreciation for Family Bonds.

Ellen is Annabel’s 35-year-old mother. She is an attractive woman with brown hair and eyes, and she is the family’s full-time homemaker. She is a conscientious wife to Bill, doing her best to launder his shirts when Mrs. Schmauss refuses to do so, making him food she knows he enjoys, running errands for him, and so on. She is also a conscientious daughter, calling her own mother every day at 9:00 in the morning, the time that is most convenient for her mother. Annabel believes that Ellen dresses too conservatively and is too strict with her children, but the complaints Annabel lists—Ellen makes sure they eat nutritious food, keep their environment clean, and keep themselves safe—only reveal her to also be a conscientious and caring mother.

Ellen is not nearly as strict as Annabel imagines: When Annabel loses her raincoat and boots for the third time that year, Ellen buys her new ones, and she promises Annabel that she can go to camp despite the cost. She makes eggs to order for her children each morning. When she has the opportunity to spend a day as a teenager again, she does not indulge herself, but instead spends the day working to make Annabel’s life better by getting her hair cut and her braces removed and buying Annabel new clothes. She respects Annabel’s autonomy enough to allow her to keep her room messy and her hair and nails unkempt if that is what Annabel wants to do. Ironically, one of Ellen’s burdens is the criticism she takes from her husband and Mrs. Schmauss—because, unlike Annabel, they view Ellen as a too-permissive mother.

Her respect for her children shows in the ways she speaks about them—for instance, when she tells people that Annabel looks like “her very own self” (9)—and in the ways she behaves toward them. It is this respect that leads her to choose to demonstrate to Annabel what adult life is really like through the body-swapping plan instead of just punishing Annabel for being disrespectful. As with Bill and Ben, an important function of Ellen’s character is demonstrating how Annabel’s perspective shifts and matures: By the end of the day inhabiting her mother’s body, Annabel sees Ellen in a new light, showing a new Appreciation for Family Bonds and greater understanding of The Responsibilities That Come with Adult Freedoms.

Throughout most of the novel, Morris Harris, Annabel’s neighbor, is referred to as “Boris” Harris. Fourteen-year-old Boris has “chestnut hair and hazel eyes” and is, as far as Annabel is concerned, “beautiful” (27). Boris serves as more than just a romantic interest for Annabel, however: He is an element of the novel’s comedy and a vehicle for Annabel’s self-discovery.

The confusion over his name is part of the story’s humor: Although his real name is “Morris,” everyone in the Andrews family thinks his name is “Boris” because his chronic congestion makes his speech difficult to understand. This chronic congestion appears to be psychological—whenever he is at home or thinking about his mother, his sinuses become clogged, but when he is in the Andrews apartment, his condition clears up. The text’s dialogue reproduces the comically confusing sounds of his speech, as in “It was by bother’s idea” for “It was my brother’s idea” (27). Boris’s actions—for example his declaration of love for Ellen and his preparation of “beetloaf” for dinner—also make him an amusing figure.

Boris is unconventional in his willingness to defy norms of the time to cook and babysit Ben, but he is quite conventional in his reaction to Annabel herself. When she has braces and unkempt hair, he does not consider her attractive, but as soon as her braces are gone and she has a more fashionable hairstyle, he thinks she is “a beautiful chick” (97). Boris does not approve of her messy room or her rebellious behavior. He is a sensitive young man who still holds a grudge against Annabel for a playground incident many years in the past, when Annabel struck him with a toy shovel. Because Annabel has such a crush on Boris, his strong disapproval of Annabel’s personality and behavior are a wake-up call to her that she needs to improve these aspects of herself. Another way in which Boris helps Annabel to see her own life more clearly is through his openness and honesty about his own home life—by contrast with Boris’s neglectful and emotionally abusive mother, Annabel can see, Ellen is a wonderful mother.