Freaky Friday
By Mary Rodgers
HarperTrophy
Copyright © 1972
Mary Rodgers
All right reserved.
ISBN: 9780064400466
Chapter One
You are not going to believe me, nobody in their right minds
could possibly believe me, but it's true, really it is!
When I woke up this morning, I found I'd turned into my
mother. There I was, in my mother's bed, with my feet reaching
all the way to the bottom, and my father sleeping in the other
bed. I had on my mother's nightgown, and a ring on my left
hand, I mean her left hand, and lumps and pins all over my
head.
"I think that must be the rollers," I said to myself, "and if
I have my mother's hair, I probably have her face, too."
I decided to take a look at myself in the bathroom mirror.
After all, you don't turn into your mother every day of the
week; maybe I was imagining it - or dreaming.
Well, I wasn't. What I saw in that mirror was absolutely my
mother from top to toe, complete with no braces on the teeth.
Now ordinarily, I don't bother to brush too often - it's a
big nuisance with all those wires - but my mother's teeth
looked like a fun job, and besides, if she was willing to do a
terrific thing like turning her body over to me like that, the
least I could do was take care of her teeth for her. Right?
Right.
You see, I had reason to believe that she was responsible for
this whole happening. Because last night, we had a sort of an
argument about something and I told her one or two things that
had been on my mind lately. As a matter of fact, if it's OK
with you, I think I'd better start back a little farther with
some family history, or you won't know what I'm talking about
or who (whom?).
My name is Annabel Andrews. (No middle name, I don't even have
a nickname. I've been trying to get them to call me Bubbles at
school, but it doesn't seem to catch on.) I'm thirteen; I have
brown hair, brown eyes, and brown fingernails. (That's a joke
- actually, I take a lot of baths.) I'm five feet; I don't
remember what I weigh but I'm watching it, although my mother
says it's ridiculous, and I'm not completely mature in my
figure yet. Maybe by the summer though.
My father is William Waring Andrews; he's called Bill; he's
thirty-eight; he has brown hair which is a little too short,
but I've seen worse, and blue eyes; he's six feet (well, five
eleven and a half); and he's a fantastically cool person. He's
an account executive at Joffert and Jennings, and last year
his main account was Fosphree. If you're into the environment
thing at all, you know what that is: no phosphates, low
sudsing action, and, according to my mother, gray laundry. We
had boxes of the stuff all over the kitchen. You couldn't give
it away. This year, he has New Improved Fosphree (That's what
they think!), plus something called Francie's Fortified Fish
Fingers. Barf time! If there's anything more disgusting than
fortified fish, I don't know what.
Oh yes, I do, I just thought of what's worse. My brother. He
is I cannot begin to tell you how disgusting. It may not be a
nice thing to say but, just between you and me, I loathe him.
I'm not even going to bother to describe him - it's a waste
of time. He looks like your average six-year-old with a few
teeth out, except that, as my grandmother keeps saying,
"Wouldn't you know it'd be the boy who gets the long eyelashes
and the curly locks? It just doesn't seem fair." No, it
certainly doesn't, but then what's fair? These days, not much.
Which is exactly what I was trying to tell my mother last
night when we had the fight. I'll get to that in a minute, but
first a few facts about Ma.
Her name is Ellen Jean Benjamin Andrews, she's thirty-five -which
makes her one of the youngest mothers in my class - she
has brown hair and brown eyes. (We're studying Mendel. I must
be a hybrid brown. With one blue- and one brown-eyed parent
you're supposed to get two brown-eyed kids and two blue-eyed
kids. So far there are only two kids in our family, but look
who's already gotten stuck with the brown eyes. Me. The sister
of the only blue-eyed ape in captivity. That's what I call
him. The blue-eyed ape. Ape Face for short. His real name is
Ben.) Anyway, back to my mother. Brown hair, brown eyes, and,
as I've already mentioned, nice straight teeth which I did not
inherit, good figure, clothes a little on the square side; all
in all, though, she's prettier than most mothers. But
stricter.
That's the thing. I can't stand how strict she is. Take food,
for instance. Do you know what she makes me eat for breakfast?
Cereal, orange juice, toast, an egg, milk, and two Vitamin
C's. She's going to turn me into a blimp. Then for lunch at
school, you have one of two choices. You can bring your own
bag lunch, with a jelly sandwich or a TV dinner (They're quite
good cold.) and a Coke, or if you're me, you have to eat the
hot meal the school gives you, which is not hot and I wouldn't
give it to a dog. Alpo is better. I know because our dog eats
Alpo and I tried some once.
She's also very fussy about the way I keep my room. Her idea
of neat isn't the same as mine, and besides, it's my room and
I don't see why I can't keep it any way I want. She says it's
so messy nobody can clean in there, but if that's true, how
come it looks all right when I come home from school? When I
asked her that last night, she just sighed.
A few other things we fight about are my hair - she wants me
to have it trimmed but I'm not falling for that again (The
last time it was "trimmed" they hacked six inches off it!) -and
my nails which I bite.
But the biggest thing we fight about is freedom, because I'm
old enough to be given more than I'm getting. I'm not allowed
to walk home through the park even with a friend, because "New
York is a very dangerous place and especially the park."
Everybody else's mother lets them, "but I'm not everybody
else's mother." You're telling me!
Tomorrow one of my best friends in school who lives in the
Village is having a boy-girl party and she won't let me go
because the last time that friend had a party they played
kissing games. I told her the mother was there the whole time,
staying out of the way in the bedroom, of course, and she
said, "That's exactly what I mean."
What kind of an answer is that? I don't get it. I don't get
any of it. All I know is I can't eat what I want, wear what I
want, keep my hair and my nails the way I want, keep my room
the way I want or go where I want. So last night we really had
it out.
"Listen!" I screamed at her. "You are not letting me have any
fun and I'm sick of it. You are always pushing me around and
telling me what to do. How come nobody ever gets to tell you
what to do, huh? Tell me that!"
She said, "Annabel, when you're grown-up, people don't tell
you what to do; you have to tell yourself, which is sometimes
much more difficult."
"Sounds like a picnic to me," I said bitterly. "You can tell
yourself to go out to lunch with your friends, and watch
television all day long, and eat marshmallows for breakfast
and go to the movies at night ..."
"And do the laundry and the shopping, and cook the food, and
make things nice for Daddy and be responsible for Ben and you ..."
"Why don't you just let me be responsible for myself?" I
asked.
"You will be, soon enough," she said.
"Not soon enough to suit me," I snapped.
"Is that so!" she said. "Well, we'll just see about that!" and
she marched out of the room.
Continues...
Excerpted from Freaky Friday
by Mary Rodgers
Copyright © 1972 by Mary Rodgers.
Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
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