The day after the technology conference was a long one.

It had to be...tatiana wasn't going to fix this problem unless she made a day of it.

She needed the day off and told Sally as much. Asking her to keep things going in her absence and send all urgent paperwork to Tatiana's home. "Sure thing boss. Got any laundry while I'm at it? I could go do the dry cleaning on the way."

"No thank you." Tatiana replied

"Plants to buy? Books to sell? Anything?"

This was Sally's way of sulking. She was a very rare and remarkable woman, but she was one of those people who was cursed with a contradictory nature.

On one hand, she was steadfast, loyal, and disciplined. Able to follow any form of instructions to the letter without question.

And on the other side of that was a dormant volcano. Passionate, hot tempered, and burning with the constant need to do something.

Sally was beyond confused regarding Tatianas behaviour of late. The Volcano was boiling over. Furious that she was being kept out of the loop.

But the loyalty wouldn't let her start throwing things at her bosses head, so instead Sally said, "Okay Tanya. Your the boss. I'm just the peon employee. You stay home and take care of yourself and when you need some entertainment call me on the phone and I'll run over and dance a jig."

That was how Sally left things the night Tanya arrived back at her mansion.

....

Tatiana gathered all the data she had and put it on the table.

Fact 1: At 8pm, Lola loud had made a birthday wish about being a grown up and woke up the next day in Tatiana's body.

Fact 2: Calculating the time zone difference, that would make it about 5pm in California when Lola made her wish. At this time, Tatiana was arriving at the Cultural centre for a black tie Gala.

Fact 3: Lola had never heard of Tatiana before, nor had Tatiana heard of Lola. This is evidenced by the fact that Lola woke up and thought she was in the future. If she had known Tatiana's face, she would have figured it out much sooner.

Fact 4: Tatiana's full schedule that day included Visiting the lab in the morning, A lunch date in the japanese botanical gardens, overseeing the transport of a meteorite to the San Francisco museum of science and natural history, Cutting the ribbon to a brand new university that specialized in the supernatural, and finally the black tie Gala where she mingled with a bunch of Hollywood celebrities. If this condition was caused by Tatiana, Did anything happen at these events to trigger the change?

Fact 5: The body swapping is triggered by sleep.

Fact 6: At least it was until the pageant. Then she and Lola switched in the middle of the day while they were both wide awake. And there was something odd about that one. Is this process changing?

Fact 7: If this was caused on Lola's end, Lola's family is comprised of five potential candidates who may have had something to do with this.

1. Lisa, a genius scientist who once wrote a thesis on humanities evolution into the singularity, possibly made an invention and tested it on Lola? Also, According to Lola, Lisa admires Tatiana personally.

2. Little black haired girl, (name still unknown) Wears occult jewelry and performed a good luck spell to help Tatiana win the pageant. When Lola wrecked her party, could the creepy girl have cast a curse, not knowing it would actually work?

3. Lola loud, was this really a damn birthday wish gone wrong? Are we now supposed to except such nonsense is possible?

4. Lana Loud , she was more angry at Lola than any other sibling because it was also her birthday that got ruined. Possibly Lana did something in anger that caused the change. Plus, their twins. It has been reported that twins display some minor forms of psychic ability.

5. Rita Loud, the last person to talk to Lola before the first change. Practically speaking, she should be suspect number one for this.

Fact 8: Lola also had a slew of party guests that day. All of whom went home crying and hated her the morning at school. Are any of them likely?

Fact 9: The children probably told their parents all about it. Is there a parent in Royal woods who has this potential?

Fact 10: all of that pales in comparison to the number of people Tatiana rubbed elbows with that day. Any of them could have been possible.

Fact 11: If this was caused by an individual, they MUST have known both Tatiana and Lola. The distance between the two locations is too great to simply be a random choice. In which case, what was the motive? If it was to hurt Tatiana, this was too childish to do any lasting damage. If it was to hurt Lola it wasn't childish enough. Wouldn't a little kid wish for Lola to actually get hurt in some way?

Fact 12: If this was an accident, who caused it? Tatiana or Lola?

Fact 13: If it wasn't deliberate or an accident....then it was an act of god. In which case no one can save us.

Tatiana examined these notes and tried to put the pieces together in her mind. The most important ones were number eleven and twelve. Was this an accident or someone else's sick joke? Tatiana had to figure out the truth.

No. They both had to figure out the truth. and with them swapping bodies like this Tatiana and Lola would have no choice but to work together.

.........

The next day she called Lola on the phone.

"Are you alone?" Asked Tatiana

".....Lady, I'm going to give you two seconds to try and remember what my house is like."

"Fine. Then act like a friend just called and head for the bathroom."

"Hold on Chantelle! I have to tinkle!" Lola said Loud enough for anyone to here. Silence for a few seconds and then she replied. "Okay. The bathrooms locked but you've got about five minutes before someone starts pounding on the door."

"Theres no other bathroom?!"

"Nope."

"HOW DO YOU PEOPLE LIVE LIKE THIS?!!...Sorry. I didn't mean to snap."

"Its okay. Thats the normal reaction when a friend comes over-"

"Never mind Lola. Listen. The reason I'm calling is because there are two things I need you to know. Number one, that was a very good presentation you gave at the tech convention. satisfactory."

"Oh!" Lola said with some surprise. "Well thank you. You won my beauty pageant so I guess we're even."

"Second. Whatever this is, its clearly not stopping. Now, I'm going to go out on a limb that you find this to be as much an inconvenience as I do?"

"You got that right. Waking up to go to work is even worse than having to go to school!"

"Then we're in agreement. I've been doing some thinking and it seems to me that whatever this is, it was caused either at your end or my own. If we're going to stop it, then we need to work together and investigate all possibilities as to what caused this and how to stop it."

"But we already know what caused this. I made a birthday wish."

Tatiana felt an urge to snap but this time she was able to surpress it. She needed this Childs help.

"Alright Lola. Then that is where you will start from. Try and find out the legends behind birthday wishes. Find out what the rules are and what you need to do when you make a wish that you regret. Then try and do those things and see if it stops the swapping. What do you think? Can you do that?"

"Huh. Thats a really great idea. I should've thought of that." Lola said

"Probably useless but she might as well take the...Magical....tasks." Thought Tatiana "Lord knows I don't want to."

"Okay. So what will you do?"

"I'll retrace my steps and visit all the places I went to on your birthday. Perhaps I was the one who caused this somehow. if I find something interesting I'll text you."

"Okay!"

"We need to work together now Lola. Alright? no more fighting. No more getting in each others way. I can't fix this without your help."

"Okay. You can count on me." Lola suddenly sounded very eager. A child realizing she's about to have an adventure.

"Also Lola, we should probably e-mail each other some ground rules when we're in each others bodies. The more we know about each other the more we can cover each other so that no one notices we're not there. And when we switch back we can send each other notes on what happened. How does that sound?"

"Boy. Your really smart."

"Thank you. So I've texted you my e-mail. Could you send me as much information about yourself as possible? Especially about beauty pageants. I won't be caught off guard like that again. I in turn will do the same and give you everything you need to know to impersonate me in public."

"Deal." A loud noise was heard on the other end of the phone. "Uh oh, Luan needs to go. I'll send you the e-mail today."

Tatiana hung up and breathed a sigh of relief. For the first time, she finally felt like she was getting a handle on this. And the kid was being co-operative. She's not as bratty as she appears.

Now she just had to collect as much information as possible and get to the root of these transformations. With hard work, this should be resolved soon without difficulty.

....

Lola skipped down the hallway. For some reason she felt really excited about all of this. It was scary at first, but now she was realizing that this was something truly magical! Just like being in a movie. "The big birthday curse" She decided to call it.

She was about to open the door to her room when she heard someone ask, "And what is an alpha particle?"

Lola twirled around, "The nucleus of a helium atom emitted as radiation from a decaying heavy nucleus. Everyone knows that."

Luna and Lisa peeked their heads out of the bedroom door behind Lola. "What did you just say?" Lisa asked.

Lola's expression mellowed and her mouth repeated the statement as if she always knew it.

"that's...correct." Lisa said.

"What are you guys doing?" Lola asked.

"Tutoring dude. Lisa's helping me with my physics homework." Luna answered.

The three girls looked at each other awkwardly. "Where....exactly.....did you learn about Alpha particles?" Lisa asked.

Lola didn't know. But somehow she did.

......

Tatiana put the spoon into the rich savoury cream and took another bite.

She had never thought of eating cake for lunch before, but for some reason she had been really craving something sweet. She liked the cafe as well. It was very quaint. And the earl grey tea was heated to the perfect temperature.

To be continued

..........................

Thanks for reading guys. It's been a long time. I got locked out of my watt pad account last year and just got back in these last two days.

I'll try to follow up this chapter soon.