The Flip

“Did you know that some things that people sell in antique stores for a couple bucks are actually worth millions?” Luna Brooks asked, pushing the door open to the store. The store owner, whose name tag read, “Hi! I’m Archibald!” gave a friendly wave and said, “Hey girls. If you need help, just let me know!”

Olivia Tate, who was Luna’s best friend, smiled and thanked him.

“Hey, Olivia!” Luna called, “Look at this funky mirror! It would go perfect with the other pictures on my wall!” she said while gesturing to a small pink mirror that looked straight out of the 18th century with a curvy frame.

“And it’s only a few bucks! We’ll take it!” she said to Archibald, who smiled deviously. At least, that's what Luna was thinking as she went to the counter. 

“You know, this mirror was actually donated by the family of Edna Cartringer,” Archibald said. “Legend says that Edna used that mirror to bring her all her riches but everyone that's purchased it has brought it back – probably for a reason. Maybe it brought them misfortune instead. For example…” Archibald stopped there, looking at Luna and Olivia’s nervous faces. “Ah, I'm just joking. Have a great day, you two.”

“Well, he certainly was strange, no?” Olivia remarked as they left, and Luna nodded in agreement. 

Later in the evening, Luna and Olivia were having a sleepover, and Luna had the bright idea to have a fashion show. Brainstorming clothing ideas, Luna had an idea. “Hey, what if we dress up as each other?” she asked, suddenly sitting up. 

“YESSS.” Wait, me first. Olivia said, and ran into the closet. A minute later, Olivia strutted out of the closet, wearing a sparkly pink gymnastics leotard, hot pink tights, and sparkly pink heels. Luna burst out laughing, and dashed into the closet. Olivia hopped onto Luna’s huge bed, and erupted in laughter when Luna emerged from the closet a few minutes later. Luna was wearing two inch heels to match Olivia’s height of 5’ 7”, a brown wig from her halloween costume two years ago, and she was wearing straight jeans and a simple shirt, which was exactly Olivia’s style. Olivia couldn’t control herself. She spent a full five minutes laughing, then whipped out her phone, and snapped selfies of themselves in front of the mirror. Neither of them noticed the mirror sparkle in the background…

The next morning, as Olivia woke up, she felt strange. Really, really, strange. Luna sat up and yawned next to her, and Olivia shrieked.

“What??” Luna yelped, suddenly awake, and then shrieked. 

“What… WHAT IS HAPPENING?” Oliva cried. 

“WHAT THE HECK? This shouldn't even be possible. Ok,ok,ok.” Olivia said, trying to both calm down and figure out what happened. “We switched bodies somehow. What did we do that might have caused this? Ok, so we went to school” she began, and Luna nodded her agreement. “Normal except…” Olivia continued, “you told me how you were late to Chemistry class and your teacher told you that I’m the better half of you. I don’t think Mrs. Martinez has supernatural powers. Ok, during lunch I spilled ketchup down my shirt, and you had an extra shirt in your locker which is the shirt I wore for the rest of the day. Maybe it’s magical ketchup. Ok, so last, I had… Wait, you don’t think that's what happened in the morning? Remember, because you’d borrowed my t-shirt a couple months ago, and you wore it to school today?? That might be it, because I was wearing your clothes for the whole day and you were wearing mine.” Olivia said, then continued with her theories as realization dawned on her face. “Wait. That mirror. The mirror that we got after school. That happened yesterday too. That SWITCHED OUR BODIES. This must be why everyone else returned it so soon.” 

“We have to figure out how to change back!” exclaimed Luna.

“Ok, wait. Work with me here. What if we wear each other's clothes again and take more selfies?” 

Luna, now Olivia, nodded and dashed into the closet, and emerged, wearing the same clothes as yesterday, this time, completely serious. Olivia, who was now in Luna’s body, also changed into the same sparkly pink outfit as yesterday, and they snapped more selfies in front of the mirror again. Olivia and Luna closed their eyes, but nothing happened.

“Did you feel anything?” Olivia desperately asked. Luna just shook her head. Just then, Olivia heard Luna’s mom calling them down. 

“ Luna, Olivia, breakfast!’

“Do I respond?” Olivia asked. 

“Uhh, yeah, I guess so. You have my voice now, Luna responded. 

“Umm, coming, mom!” Olivia shouted down. “Ok. Ohhh, my gosh. I think, for now, we have to act like each other. Course, we’re going to spend the whole day together, so it doesn't really matter. The first thing we need to do after breakfast is go back to the antique store and find that guy. What was his name? Ricky or something? Oh, wait. It was Archi…” Olivia’s sentence trailed off as gears in her brain suddenly clicked. “Where’s my phone??” she yelped, running around trying to find it. 

A second later, they heard Luna’s mom call them again.

“Girls! I’m not going to ask you again! Come down!”

“I’ll tell you my theory later.” Olivia whispered as they walked down the stairs.

20 minutes later, after a breakfast of pancakes, Luna and Olivia left to go find Archibald. As they walked, Olivia typed furiously on her phone, and after a few minutes, she had found what she was looking for.  

“AH-HA!” She cried, triumphantly. “I was right. Archibald is a member of the Cartringer family… he… he was Edna’s husband,” she finished, spooked. 

“Why is that so creepy?” Luna asked, confused.

“Because, it means that Archibald knew that the mirror puts, like, a curse on everyone that buys it. For us, it was a body swap. 

“Oh,” Luna said, spooked as well now. As they walked into the shop, Luna noticed the name of the store. Switched and Shuffled Antiques. 

Fitting, Luna thought.

“Good morning.” Olivia said to the boy working at the front desk. “Do you know where we can find the manager, Archibald?”

“Um, I’ve been working here for a few years now, and I’ve never met anyone named Archibald. Wasn’t there an Archibald in the Cartringer family? And isn’t he… dead?”

“Yeah, so we’ve learned.” Luna muttered under her breath. 

“Thanks for your help anyways.” Olivia said, as they walked out.

“Now what?” Luna asked while they walked back home. “What if we can’t switch back?”

“Oh, please. That’s not going to be the case because next Friday at exactly 3:48 pm we’re going back to the store and finding Archibald. If not, then we’re kinda dead in the water.  

As Ocean View High’s bell rang, they marched into school defiantly, ready to literally walk a mile in each other’s shoes – they had gym first period. 

At the end of the day at three o’clock, Luna and Olivia emerged from the sea of students leaving the school, exhausted, no longer feeling prepared. Luna had forgotten her name was Olivia, nearly got detention twice for forgetting Olivia's homework, and nearly fell asleep in Olivia’s last class, fancy English. Olivia was really smart and so she had answered all the questions she could, and at the end of math, chemistry, and English, each of Luna’s teachers had called her up to the front to ask if she would mind being placed in the advanced group for each of those classes, thanks to her sudden increase in effort. It was plain exhausting. 

After that Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday passed in a boring blur of homework, tests, tennis and gymnastics, and it was finally Friday again. At exactly 3:48 pm, they walked into the store but their hopes quickly turned into disappointment when they saw an old woman by the name of Margaret at the front desk. 

“Hi, do you know where we could find Archibald, the store manager?”

“Archibald?” The woman asked, hunched over, peering at them over her glasses. “I knew an Archibald back in the 1800’s, dearies, but not one within the last 20 years.”

“Wait a second, 1800s? But, it’s 2025 right now. That would mean you…” Olivia trailed off.

“I what, dearie?” The woman said, looking more menacing than a kindly old grandma. 

“You don’t look a day over 40, ma’am. Have yourself a nice day. Goodbye now!” Olivia finished, flashing a smile at Margaret, and she dragged Luna out of the store. 

“What was that about?” Luna asked on the side of the street, but Olivia shushed her, and gestured to walk back to her house. As they walked, Olivia whispered, 

“She said that she knew an Archibald in the 1800’s. That would mean that she’s well over 200 years old. Luna, THAT’S NOT POSSIBLE.

“She could’ve said that she knew him from the 1800’s. Archibald Cartringer is a famous name, y’know.” 

“No, but get this. Last week, I did some digging on the Cartringer family and Archibald had one sister. Margaret. And that was the old lady’s name!” Olivia said.

“Wait, what?” Luna said, shocked. “There’s no way. How have we met two Cartringers, the filthy rich family that died 200 years ago, in the same store? That’s no coincidence. Wait a second. You don’t think that if we come back next week, Archibald’s – like – great grandma will be there?”

“The way this is going, that’s definitely a possibility.” Olivia responded, deep in thought. 

“What are you thinking about?” Luna asked as she pushed the door open to her house. 

“I’m thinking about how we need to go to the library and research about the Cartrigners and their relations to ancient artifacts.” 

Luna and Olivia spent more than three hours at the library reading everything they could about the Cartringer family and their obsession with strange artifacts. Suddenly, Luna heard Olivia call her over to the historical biography section. 

“Luna, look!” Olivia said, breathlessly. “This book, or rather, this journal, was Margaret Cartringer’s. It says that there is a book on reversing curses, and it’s titled, Archibald’s Curses, an A-Z guide.”

“That’s great! Where is it?” Luna asked, excitedly. 

“That's the problem.” Olivia responded. “I can’t find it anywhere. It’s not in any nearby library’s catalogs. I hate to say this, but what if we have to go back to the antique store? The book might be there.” 

“Well, if we have too, I guess. Hopefully it isn’t Edna Cartringer this time. 

As they left the library and walked into the antique store, Olivia’s head swirled with more and more questions.

As they came in, Luna saw a young boy named Archie at the counter, who was on his phone, playing a game. He gave Luna and Olivia a half-hearted wave, and went back to his game. Luna and Olivia split up, and Luna’s head quickly popped up from the pile of books that she was searching. More gears in Olivia’s head began to click, as she thought more and more about the name Archie and the family tree she had seen in the library before.

“OLIVIA!” she shrieked. “I FOUND IT!” Luna quickly clapped a hand over her loud mouth, however, her cheeks turning to her favorite color, bright pink. Olivia ran over, and looked at the price tag. 

“AHH!” she yelped. “Why is it so expensive?” Luna gasped as she saw the tag. 

“230 dollars? That’s insane.” Suddenly, Luna’s phone pinged. 

“Oh my gosh – Olivia – you have a school event thing today.” Luna said.

“Noooo, we can’t go. We just found this book, and we can’t take it, or pay for it. Ok, wait. Luna, can you get pictures of every single page?” Olivia asked.

“Ummm…sure…I guess so.” Luna flipped to the last page and read the number at the bottom. “330 pages?? I’m going to be here all day!” she groaned. 

When they got home, Olivia pulled out her phone and noticed 335 missed messages from Luna - one for every page in the book, and then five more extra messages about how crazy this situation was. Olivia lay in Luna’s bed for a little bit, scrolling through all the pages of the book. She noticed that the first page was sent around 4:30, and the last one was sent at 5:50. ‘Poor Luna,’ she thought. As she read through the pages, she noticed the letter S, and stopped on that page. 

“S,s,s, spooner’s curse, the swapping curse. Ah hah!” she said to herself. “Oh, no.” Olivia closed the page after screenshotting it, and texted Luna: 

Olivia: LUNA!!!!!

Luna: Yeah?

Olivia: I found the swapping curse. Ya want the good or bad news first?

Luna: good news, always.

Olivia: K, so the good news is that there’s a cure. The bad news is that… we have around six more days to reverse it until we’re stuck 4EVERRRR

Luna: WHAT THE FLIP????

Olivia: Ok, so in the picture that you sent me, I found the swapping curse, and to reverse it, it says that we have to act like each other for a full 24 hrs. Oh jeez. Then, after that, we have to have another sleepover, and do exactly what we did on the night that we swapped, and then spray Edna Cartringer’s perfume around the room right before we sleep. Idk how we’re gonna find it tho, I guess it means another trip to the antique store…after that we have 2 and a half days for the mirror to do its magic, because it also says that the mirror has to be sprayed with her perfume too…

Luna: EWWWWWW didn’t she wear Eu de OLD LADY??? But how the frizzle frickle frackle are we supposed 2 act like each other for 24 hrs???? We would have to sleep in each other’s beds and stuff like that… UNLESS we have another sleepover?? Also how will it work because like when one of our moms calls the other one of us would have to answer. 

Olivia: Oh yeah…. There’s no way our parents would let us have 2 sleepovers in a row. So wait what if we tell them it's an experiment??? Like 2 see how much people can adjust 2 living in each other’s lives for 24 hrs

Luna: Welp- we’ve already been thru that…

Olivia: Ok so first thing tmrw morning we ACT LIKE EACH OTHER cuz we don’t have time to mess up. 6 DAYS AND COUNTING, LUNA, 6 DAYS!

Luna: Ok ok! 

The next day, Luna and Olivia acted like they were each other, which got incredibly confusing at times. Olivia, who was in Luna’s body, acted like Olivia. Luna was in Olivia’s body, but she had to act herself, Luna. In Olivia’s body. Luna had gone over to her own house for breakfast, and it was incredibly weird when Luna, who was in Olivia’s body still acted like Luna, answering Luna’s mom, who really thought that Olivia was answering her.

It was nearly 10, and they had to continue to act like each other until 10 the next morning. So as they each went to their houses. The next morning, remembering each other’s habits, Olivia got up at 6 a.m., like Luna always did, and Luna made sure to stay asleep until 9:30. They met up after breakfast, and walked to the antique shop as fast as they could. They waited outside the store for a minute, counting down until it was 10 so they could officially stop acting like each other. 

“3-2-1! Yes! We made it.” they cheered, and walked into the store. Today, there was a boy called Richie at the counter, and at this point, Olivia had accepted the craziness. First Archibald, then Archie, Richie, who was also a Cartringer, and Margaret? It was making her head spin. Luna was on the other side of the store, meaning she hadn’t noticed Richie, who looked 15 but was probably 115. Luna grabbed a store catalog, which, apparently, they still had, and saw the perfume, listed for… $50. They paid quickly and left, and as they walked out, Olivia opened the cap and took a big whiff of the perfume, expecting at the least an over-sweet scent of flowers and then doubled over, gagging. 

“Oh, jeez. That bad?” Luna asked. Olivia nodded in response, desperately trying to get the scent out of her nostrils. 

That evening, they sprayed the horrible scented perfume around the room, wearing nose plugs, of course, and practically used half the bottle on the mirror.

“No room for error!” said Olivia, as she sprayed the mirror until the foul-smelling liquid was nearly gone. They hopped in their beds, eager to get it over with as soon as possible. 

Two and a half days later, Olivia and Luna were holding their breath as they counted down until the exact moment that they had switched. They closed their eyes, and counted, “3,2,1!” and they opened their eyes. 

“Yes!” cried Olivia, diving onto the bed, back into her own body.

“Alright!” cheered Luna, doing cartwheels around the room. That afternoon, Olivia and Luna went back to the antique store to return the perfume and mirror, hoping for the best.

“Well, I hope you had some fun with it!” Archibald said. He had also accepted the perfume back but when he saw how much was left, he said:

“You girls know that it was only necessary to spray the perfume once or twice, right? I can’t take it back now because it's half empty. Sorry!” 

A week later, Olivia was in her room reading through the rest of the A-Z manual for fun. Suddenly, her train of thought was interrupted as she heard her mom calling her from the kitchen.

“What on earth did you spend $50 dollars on antique perfume for??