Switcheroo (Sabrina the Teenage Witch, Book 30)
Chapter 1"Late, late, late," Sabrina Spellman murmured to herself.She searched madly through stacks of paper piled on her desk. Nowhere. Her article for the school newspaper seemed to have disappeared as if by magic. And today was Friday, deadline day, so if she didn't get it in, there'd be a huge hole right in the center of the front page.She lifted up the edge of her purple bedspread and peered under the bed for the dozenth time. She checked the wicker garbage pail, in case it had accidentally fallen in. She jerked open the door to her closet and tossed out shoes and sweaters and dirty laundry, knowing there was no way she'd put the article in there when she'd finished it late last night. She glanced at the clock on her bed stand. It glared at her with its bright red digits: 7:59."Darn!" Sabrina said, twisting a lock of her blond hair in frustration.Her blue eyes stared around the room wildly. She was sure she'd placed the article right on top of her notebook, along with her chemistry textbook. There was the chemistry book, but the article was gone. And if she didn't find it in a minute and a half, she'd miss the school bus. She thought about casting a "find it" spell, but those usually took a while and time was the one thing she didn't have right now."Looking for something?"It was Salem, Sabrina's cat. The fact that Salem could talk wasn't the only unusual thing about him. Actually, once upon a time, he'd been a powerful and charismatic warlock, but after an unsuccessful attempt to take over the world, the Witches' Council had sentenced him to one hundred years of cat-hood. He wasn't your normal house pet.But then, the Spellman household wasn't your normal home. For one thing, Sabrina lived not with her parents but with her two aunts. Aunt Hilda and Aunt Zelda were witches. When she'd found out about it on her sixteenth birthday, it had seemed strange and impossible -- until then, Sabrina had thought her aunts were simply a little eccentric. But now that she'd had time to learn about and understand her own magical powers, it felt totally natural. She loved being a teenage witch! Except for this morning, when she was stuck just like any normal teenager who'd misplaced her homework."So what're you looking for?" Salem asked, his almond-shaped yellow eyes staring up at Sabrina from out of a faceful of black fluffy fur."My newspaper article!" Sabrina answered, emptying out her knapsack once again to see if the paper hadn't somehow magically appeared in it since the last time she'd checked."Uh-oh. It wasn't, like, a stack of white papers sitting on top of your notebook, was it?" the cat asked. He picked something out of his teeth with one claw."Great! You found it!" Sabrina turned now, looking at Salem. She noticed something white sticking out of the corner of his mouth."Quite a good article, actually," Salem said. "Delicious with Kitty Love Seafood Deelite Dinner." He burped."Salem! You didn't eat my article? Tell me you didn't do it."Salem blinked up at Sabrina. "Okay, I won't tell you," he said."Auuuuuugh!" Sabrina moaned. She sank down onto the messy purple folds of her bedspread. "How could you?" She had worked so hard on that article. It was about how the Westbridge boys' sports teams got twice the funding of the girls' teams. It was a story she really thought was important.Vvvvrooooooom!From outside came the sound of a bus zooming by. Sabrina ran to the window and looked out over the budding, early spring trees. She was just in time to see the back of the school bus disappearing around the corner in a cloud of exhaust and dust.Yap, yap, yap.The little white dog that her across the street neighbors, the Del Vecchios, kept tied up in their yard barked after the tailpipe."The bus! I missed it!" she groaned."Hey, I'm really sorry I made a midnight snack of your article," Salem said regretfully. "But you spilled tuna on it last night and I couldn't resist. I'm weak, weak I tell you." "Salem!" Sabrina warned. She threw him a dirty look.Salem slunk under the bed, then popped his head out again. "Look, can't you just think of some excuse?" he asked sheepishly."The cat ate my article," Sabrina said to herself quietly.No, Ms. Quick, the faculty advisor forWestbridge Lantern,would never believe that one. And she could imagine the other kids' mocking laughter if she ever let those words out of her mouth. It would get around the whole school. Everyone would make fun of her. Especially Libby Chessler, her archenemy, the worm in the apple that was Westbridge High. And Libby wasn't just Sabrina's worm, she was a worm for anyone who was a little different. Nope, Sabrina could never tell the truth. There was nothing to do but reprint the article. Then she'd molecular transfer herself over to school and be there as the bus drove up.Sabrina hurried down the stairway to Aunt Zelda's study, taking the steps two at a time. Her aunt's papers were neatly stacked in piles and the labtop -- the mini laboratory her aunt used for her work -- was folded up on the main desk. On a side desk sat the computer, with a mess of research books Sabrina had used for her article scattered on the surfaces and floor around it. She pointed and the books piled themselves up into a neat stack in the desk. Then, she booted up the computer, pulled up her paper, and hit the print button.Bleeeep, blattt, cawph,went the machine. A message popped up on the screen. It said,Error! Cannot print document. I am currently possessed by a computer gremlin. Call the exorcist immediately!"Noooo!" Sabrina moaned.The computer had been just fine the night before. How could a gremlin have gotten in overnight? She didn't have time to figure it out. Maybe she could reprint the article from the newspaper office at school. She slipped a diskette into the A drive and hit the Save As command.Bleeeep, blattt, cawph. "Error!"said the computer."Cannot copy documents until exorcism is completed."Then the font changed on the screen to something curly and gothic-looking."Quiet, Minion!"It was the computer gremlin speaking now, Sabrina realized."Submit! Struggle is useless!"The computer let out some gurgling, laughter-like sounds, then the screen went blank."Poor thing!" Sabrina murmured quietly. But sorry as she felt for the computer, she had no time to help it. She'd just have to go to school without her article and think of some way to fill in the page -- one space Ms. Quirk and the rest of the Lantern staff had saved for her article. The clock in the study said 8:14. She should just be able to spell herself over to school in time for first period. She pointed and, in an instant, she was gone.But by the time Sabrina's white, square-toed boots touched down in the cleaning supply closet at Westbridge High, it was already 8:30. On her way over to school, she'd gotten caught in a cold air front that had blown her halfway across town and given her a terrible case of the frizzles on top of it. "Ugh!" Sabrina groaned in frustration, running her fingers through her tangled hair. She couldn't go out there looking like this. She could just hear Libby making fun of her, "Hey Sabrina, where'd you get the freaky perm?"Sabrina stopped herself. She had to get a grip on herself. She was starting to get really stressed out. She looked around -- mops and brooms were dangling in her face, the cleaning supplies were stacked on the shelves -- and she started to panic.Focus,she told herself.It's not going to help things if I get totally wound up.She took a deep breath, then let it out. She smoothed her blue-and-white-striped mini-dress, which had become somewhat wrinkled in transport. She'd meant to change into something different before she'd left the house