“Shut up Carrie!” Jessica yelled at her older sister.
“No, you shut up, you little brat” Carrie snapped back at her younger sister.
“Both of you shut up” their mother hissed “this is a museum”
Jessica stuck her tongue out at Carrie who responded in kind.
“Carrie!” her mother said sharply through gritted teeth “Behave yourself! You know better and act your age…” he gaze shifted to Jessica “Quit antagonizing your sister!”
They both mumbled their own appropriate remarks in return.
They both walked slowly behind their mother into the next room.
Carrie hung back a bit; at 17 she was not happy being here. She had spent the day walking and texting, barely looking at any of the exhibits.
Jessica, at 12, was more interested in the museum and had only started fighting with her sister when Carrie stepped on her foot while texting her boyfriend. Jessica thought to herself “She thinks she’s so cool but she’s not”
Carrie looked up and saw the back of her sister’s head walking in front of her, ponytail flipping back and forth “Dumb ass” was all that passed through before her phone buzzed a new response. Carrie was vaguely aware of her mom appearing next to her. She heard “watch your sister…I’m going to the bathroom”. Carrie mumbled “Yeah…okay”
Carrie looked up and saw her sister looking at an odd statue with a bird head. One of the workers was standing next to it talking to Jessica, so Carrie headed that way. The worker had a red stone and a blue stone on a table before her along with a very elaborate necklace.
“Oh here…now that we have another…I can show you what the stones do” the worker said with a smile as Carrie approached.
Jessica smirked as her sister approached “That’s just my dumb sister” she said.
“You’re the dumb one” Carrie said in response.
“So as I was telling your sister” the worker started “these stones were recently discovered in Egypt. We’re not sure quite what their purpose was, but they do an interesting trick. If you would each pick one up please.”
Carrie picked up the red stone and Jessica picked up the blue. “Hold them for a moment…now pass them to each other. Good now watch”
Carrie looked down at her hand as she opened it; the blue stone that Jessica had passed to her flashed a bright red. “Oh” was all she managed while seeing that the stone in Jessica’s hand was now glowing a bright blue.
“Now clasp the stone tightly” the worker ordered and they both followed the words. When they opened their hands back up Carrie’s stone was the original blue of Jessica’s and Jessica’s stone was now the dull red of Carrie’s original.
“Pretty neat huh” the worker said as she walked off.
“Yeah! That was cool” Jessica exclaimed while Carrie just shrugged.
The two sisters were the only ones in the room now. “Is it warm in here?” Carrie asked still typing on her phone.
Jessica looked over at Carrie “Yeah, I feel warm all of a sudden” she answered.
A new text popped up on Carrie’s phone saying “Hey J girl…what up?”
Carrie started to respond but stopped. As she waited, suddenly not sure what to type, a new message popped up “You there Jess…”
“Jess?” Carrie thought confused. “What’s my boyfriend doing texting someone named Jess?” She quickly typed back in “This is Carrie. You know C girl. Who do you think you’re talking to?”
After a few seconds the response “Carrie, please give the phone back to your big sister” came across.
“What the fuck?” Carrie asked genuinely confused. Why was Derek writing that?
Jessica felt a tingle across her forehead and she wrinkled her brow. “What’s going on?” she asked out loud.
Carrie was still staring at her phone when she heard a voice behind her. She turned and saw her sister standing there “Oh…it’s just you” she said. “I thought I heard someone say something”
“I said something” Jessica declared.
“What’s wrong with your voice Jess…it sounds deeper” Carrie said.
“I…” Jess stopped; her hand went to her throat; it did sound a bit deeper “I don’t know what’s going on with my voice”
Carrie took a step towards her little sister, a puzzled look on her face. Jessica looked back at her and seeing her facial expression said “What?”
Carrie stopped and took in what was before her. Something was different about Jessica, but what was it?
Jessica was feeling weird; Carrie was acting weird; Jessica was getting scared. “What’s going on Carrie?”
“I don’t know…” Carrie was feeling very confused. Nothing was quite making sense in her head. She slapped herself in the temple and held her hand over her eyes, pressing down tightly. She suddenly felt dizzy.
Jessica cocked her head to the side. Something was definitely going on, but what it was she wasn’t sure. But when Carrie took her hand away from her eyes, Jessica’s eyes went wide and she sucked in her cheeks. She took two quick steps towards her sister and said “OH MY GOD! Carrie! You…You’re SMALLER!”
Carrie had just opened her eyes to see Jessica bounding toward her. Taking in the sight, suddenly she was right there before her saying she was smaller “What?” she said confused but then it hit her. Jessica was staring at her face to face. “Uh…Uh” was all she said trying to process what was happening. Her little sister was the same height as her. She saw Jessica’s mouth hanging open in shock when she realized something that truly terrified her.
“OH…OH…” Jessica managed “Um Carrie” she said excitedly “Do you realize that I’m taller than you?”
Sure enough, what had terrified Carrie was the realization that Jessica had just shifted before her. She had gone from staring directly into her eyes, to looking slightly up into them. “OH MY GOD WHAT THE FUCK!” she yelled. She thought with all this screaming that someone would come, but no one appeared.
“Carrie! What.The.Fuck.” Jessica said her voice undeniably deeper now. Carrie was still getting smaller, but more than that, she looked different to Jessica’s eyes, somehow, she was looking younger. Her face wasn’t as mature looking; Jessica would swear that her sister’s cheeks were chubbier, a bit of baby fat in them. She noticed that her clothes didn’t fit her as well. Her tank top was loose as well as her shorts, like her hips weren’t a big now. Carrie’s shorts had been a tight fit in the thighs but now, they sat loose.
Carrie didn’t notice her own physical changes apart from her shrinking; she was too wrapped up in looking at her younger sister. Jessica was wearing a baggy t shirt and baggy basketball shorts, but the t-shirt was getting tight on her now and more and more of her legs were showing and she would swear that she watched as the waistband pulled out, tightening the laces. More than that, her face looked different now. Her facial features were much more defined, more mature. Her hair was no longer stringy and in a ponytail, but full and long.
Carrie was now just coming up to Jessica’s chin. When she dropped her eyes, she was staring right into her sister’s full chest. “AH” she managed and she took a jump step back.
Now looking down at herself, she saw how skinny she had become. “What the fuck!?” she said but it came out in a voice much higher than she expected to hear.
It was higher than what Jessica expected to hear too. She startled at the high pitched voice coming from her big sister. She looked at her and was shocked at what she saw.  Her big sister wasn’t very big anymore. In fact, she looked small, she looked like a kid. “Oh Carrie”
Carrie looked up at her little sister again “What did you do to me?” she yelled.
“What? I didn’t do anything to you!” she said back.
“You had to do something” she flapped her arms in desperation “Look at me!”
“I…I am looking at you” she said slowly.  “You look like…”
“Like what? Like what Jess” Carrie whined.
“Well; you look like a 12 year old girl.” Jessica said frankly.
“AH! That’s it!” Carrie yelled “If I look like a 12 year old; you look like…”
Jessica cut her off “…a 17 year old” she said with dawning realization.
Both girls screamed at the top of their lungs.
After their solid scream, they were still alone.  
“What are we going to do Jess?” Carrie pleaded helplessly.
“I…well…um…” she looked at her sister, clothes barely staying on. Jessica pulled off her shirt and tossed it to Carrie while untying her shorts. “First: we need to change clothes, I guess.”
“What good will that do?” Carrie said swatting away the shirt.
“Look; your clothes are barely staying up…you look ridiculous.”
Carrie looked down and realized her sister was right. She easily slipped out of her own clothes and put on Jessica’s while Jess did the same with her clothes.
Once redressed Jessica said “Okay, um…uh… Mom will be back any time now…she’ll know what to do.”
“But what if she doesn’t?” Carrie asked “I can’t go anywhere looking like this. People will see me. What are my friends going to say when they see me? What will they say when they see you? Mom will freak out when she sees us.”
Jessica thought for a minute “Why has no one shown up here with all our screaming?”
“What…”
“We’ve been screaming our heads off in a museum for the last like 5 minutes and no one has shown up”
Carrie shrugged, but Jessica walked over and picked up Carrie’s phone. She flicked to the clock app and it wasn’t moving. “That’s weird”
“What?” Carrie asked walking to Jessica.
“The clock has stopped” Jessica said.
“Really? I just turned into a tween and you turned into basically an adult and you think that a clock not working is weird.” Carrie said with her hands on her hips.
“Why though?”
Carrie shrugged her tiny shoulders, trying to figure out what had happened to them.
Jessica absent mindedly flipped to the pictures on the phone, “Hey Car…come here a sec; you need to take a look at this”
Carrie went over and glanced at the phone. “What!” she ripped it from her sister’s hands. The picture that opened up on was of her and her boyfriend. But that wasn’t her now in the picture. Carrie seethed looking at the tall brunette with her boyfriend then it hit her like a ton of bricks. That girl with her boyfriend in the picture was Jessica: Grown up Jessica.
Jessica looked embarrassed when Carrie looked at her now. “You…”
“Don’t Carrie…I can’t control what’s going on any more than you can.”
“You switched our ages! You switched our lives!” Carrie yelled, and then over Jessica’s shoulder something caught her eye. “The Stones!”
Carrie was running past her when it hit Jess “Oh yeah” she turned and saw them glowing bright again.
Carrie quickly grabbed the red stone and Jessica picked up the blue. As soon as the stones hit their skin, they changed color. Carrie now held the blue and Jessica held the red, but they stopped glowing.
They put them back down on the table. That was when an older man walked into the room. Suddenly both of them became aware of a lot of background noise: Noise that had been missing.
Other people now wandered in and out as Jessica opened the phone. The clock was working again and a new text arrived from Gina: “Hey Jess, when you done?”
Gina was Carrie’s best friend. Jess flipped through the pictures…she was in most of them, not Carrie.
“Honestly Jessica, have you put that phone down once today”
Jessica spun at the sound of her Mom’s voice.
“Mom?! Uh…what” Jessica said nervously.
“What are you so jumpy about? All I said was put down your phone and look around you for a change.”
“Change!” Carrie piped up from beside them. “You want to talk about changes. I’ve got a good one for you mother”
“What?” their mom said confused.
“What do you mean what? What are you going to do with us?” Carrie demanded.
Looking totally perplexed at her and saying nothing, their mom just looked at them like they were crazy.
“Mom” Carrie said “Look at us. I’m a little kid and Jessica’s huge!”
“…what are you talking about?” she said a bit worried.
“You don’t see anything wrong?” Carrie asked nervously.
“Ummm…please tell me what I’m missing here”
“Mom: I’m 17. Not Jessica; she…she…she switched our ages so now she’s the older one and I’m younger than her”
Turning to Jessica she said “What is she talking about?”
Jessica froze; she shook her head back and forth and raised her shoulders up, raised her palms and gave a meek “I don’t know”
Carrie’s mouth hung open in shock “Tell her Jess! Tell her about the stones! Mom!” she grabbed her mom by the arm and spun her towards the table. “Mom: So like there were like these two stones and one was red and one was blue and Jessica was looking at them so I walk over and this lady told us to each pick one up and so we did I picked up the red one and she picked up the blue one and then they changed color and mine turned blue and hers turned red and then they glowed and then when we put them down they went back to doing nothing but then I started to feel all weird and then Jessica’s voice got deeper and then she started to get taller and I got shorter but not only shorter mom I got younger and younger and Jessica was getting older until she was my age and I was her age and so we switched clothes cause my clothes were like way too big on me now in this tiny little body and then we picked up the stones again but all they did was change color one more time and now I want to change back into myself and I need Jessica to turn back into herself because she’s supposed to be my little sister oh and my phone you think it’s Jessica’s phone but it’s my phone but the pictures are different now and there’s pictures of her kissing Derek on there but…” Carrie was running out of steam. She took a deep breath.
Her Mom just looked at her; then she looked at Jessica and she said “I have no idea what she just said but it sounds like a bunch of nonsense…did you have anything to do with this Jessica?”
“Mom…I…”
Carrie looked up to her mom “Carrie: I don’t know why you’re making up stories all of sudden but I don’t find it funny. I left Jessica in charge of you while I left for two seconds and I come back and you’re trying to get her in trouble obviously but when you tell a story that could not possibly ever happen; I mean come on, you being the older sister. I think I know what order I had my children in.”
She started walking to the next exhibit “Come on girls” she called without looking back.
Carrie and Jessica just looked at each other in shock and surprise. “She doesn’t get it” Carrie said.
“No” Jessica added “There’s nothing wrong to her…”
“…nothing different” Carrie finished.
“So that means…” Jessica started.
“That means that whatever happened to us…” Carrie continued.
“…affected everything” Jessica looked down at Carrie. “Mom not realizing it…the pictures on the phone…”
“…the texts from Derek and Gina directed to you…” Carrie said.
Jessica raised her arms out and looked down at herself “Whoa: I am seventeen”
Carrie looked up, the realization dawning on her as she heard her sister say “and you’re only twelve”
“No: No that’s not…you can’t be…” Carrie said shaking her head violently back and forth “I can’t be younger than you!”
“Oh but you are” Jessica bent down to get to Carrie’s eye level; she poked her in the chest “little sis”
Carrie swatted her hand “Quit it” and she took a step back but Jessica was still walking towards her.
“All those times you picked on me. All the times called me names. All the times you got me in trouble for something you did” Jessica was saying as she walked her sister backward.
“No: no…cut it out Jess. Just…just because you’re bigger than me at this moment, I am still your older sister”
“Not the way I see it” Jessica said now stopping and folding her arms.
“I know…and you know what happened” Carrie said quickly “and just because nobody else can see it doesn’t mean…”
“Mean what? Who are you going to tell? No one is going to believe you. The more you talk about it, the crazier it sounds. You’ll get your little ass thrown in a mental institute if you mention it again to Mom. I mean have you thought it through yet?”
Carrie looked dazed. Jessica came over to her and leaned down and whispered in her ear “I promise that I’ll be nicer to you, then you ever were to me”
Carrie looked at her as she stood back up to her full height. “But get used to it: I am now bigger and older than you now and it looks like I will be from now on…so come on squirt” she grabbed Carrie by her upper arm and swung her around towards the door “Mom’s waiting”.