Amy flipped to the next page and continued her reading.

‘July 19, 1934

It is so curious that neither Father nor Mother acts as if anything has happened. They proceed as if nothing has occurred at all. They act as if Mary has always been the eldest instead of me. I am now treated as a child and no longer as a young lady. My patience wears thin for this game and I wish to change back into my previous age once more although Mary seems to be enjoying herself quite a good bit lately. When I breeched the subject of reversing this, she always finds a reason to either ignore me or put it off until as she says, later dear.’

Amy flipped the page and was shocked once more; the writing was back to the tight looped cursive that began the diary.

‘August 1, 1934

I am so overjoyed to be back at my proper age once again. It feels so much better to be seventeen again, although I must admit that there were some carefree moments being ten for much of the summer. Mary has returned to ten and has proceeded to pout about it but as I remind her, it is her proper age and place and not mine. She must grow up in the usual order of years and not skip past so many where so much is to be learned and seen.

I have written down the words that reversed our spell and our ages and it goes as follows:

Swap Slip Flop Flip
We flipped our ages
We swapped our lives
The one who was older is now the youngest
The one who was younger is now the oldest
And the second wishes to return to first
And the first wishes to return to second  
We do this because this is how life was’

Amy began to cry at the sight of the words. After composing herself she continued to read.

‘I have sent a copy of these words to our cousins in America and I do hope that these words get to them so they can reverse their ages if in fact the spell worked for them’

Amy sat back against the wall and allowed herself to just cry. She curled up in her sleeping bag and though she heard her friends come in, she pretended to be asleep with her face towards the wall.

In the morning, Amy sent a text to her Mom: What was your Mom’s Mom’s…your Grandma’s
maiden name?

A reply popped up: Her name was Virginia Cook…why?

Amy replied: “I think I found something that would interest her…I’ll tell you the story when I get home…love you”

JFK Airport July 29th, 2015

“Amy!” Kelly yelled at her sister as she saw her round a corner and head out through the TSA area. Once on the other side, both sisters opened their arms and met for a big hug.

“I missed you Kelly” Amy declared “Did you have fun without me?”

“I’m sure I didn’t have as much fun as you did” Kelly replied “You have to tell me everything that you saw and everything that you did”

“I will…and I have a surprise for you later…” Amy added with a wink and a pat of her backpack. Amy smiled and hugged her parents at the end of the terminal and her Dad grabbed her bag and led them out to the car.

Amy talked non-stop through the car ride home, dinner and as they sat around on the back deck.

“Well, I’m glad you three can sleep in tomorrow, but I have to go to work, so I think I’ll turn in” Dan said as he stood up. He gave each of them a kiss on the top of their heads as he headed into the house.

After he was gone, Amy’s eyes widened and she asked “Do you think he’ll come back down?”

“No…” Lori replied wearily “Why do you…”

But Amy was already up and crossing the deck to where her backpack sat against the side of the house. She knelt down and pulled out the book and she clutched it closely to her chest.

She sat down on the edge of the lounge chair and placed the book on her knees. “This book” she tapped the cover of the plain leather book “Is the answer to all our questions”

Both Lori and Kelly’s eyes widened when they saw the familiar looking book laid out on Amy’s long legs.

Amy flipped her hair off her shoulder and opened the book “The Diary of Abigail Cook, which details her life in Salisbury England in 1934” as she flipped through the pages to the one where the writing styles split the torn out page. “And right here is the page where her sister Mary wrote out the original wording to the spell that swaps ages right after they switched and Mary became the 17 year old and Abigail became 10”

“Oh My God” Lori exclaimed.

“It also mentions how they tore out this page to send it to their cousins Ruth and Virginia in America”

“Virginia Cook! Grandma!” Lori said standing up.

“And if you go several pages in the summer with this more childish writing: you find that it switches back to the more elegant style along with these words…” Amy said as she spun the book around and handed it to Kelly.

Amy smiled as Kelly read the words to the reverse spell.

Kelly nearly dropped it from her shaking hands “I…I can’t believe it. You found it. You found the spell to turn us back.” Kelly said slowly in utter shock.

“That I did…big sis. We can switch back now” she said as she raised her hands and shoulders.

“Whoa” Lori said as she now read the spell. “That’s all there was to it…and I’ve spent twenty six years after switching with my sister and…oh my God” she brought the book down against her leg. “Does this mean that Grandma Ginny and my Great Aunt Ruth swapped ages?!”

Amy nodded slowly “It might…you said Aunt Jen found the book in an old box in the basement that had your grandma’s stuff in it and that was where the spell was…so…”

Lori was dumbfounded and unable to speak. “So was my Mom… ” She finally said. “Did she swap with Aunt Linda?” Lori’s mind was now racing. “There was a seven year difference between your Grandma and Aunt Linda…they would have been the right age in…in…1967. This may have hit 4 generations now of this family.” She finished stunned.

Kelly said “Why do girls keep getting born seven years apart in this family?”

Amy rose up from her seat and said “Kelly; it’s been a great year…I’ll admit that I loved being older. I had a great time in school and my trip through Europe was amazing, but I am ready to switch back with you; all you have to do is say the word. I will go back to being 11 and you can be 18 now”

Kelly stood up; she had grown a bit taller during the last year and she smiled “Thank you Amy…I will also admit that I had a great year too. I had good friends in school and the lack of responsibility was awesome. You’re a good big sister. I liked being your little sister. I thought it would be easy to switch back if I was ever given the chance. But since I didn’t think there was a chance, I put it out of my mind and accepted the fact that I was going to have to grow up again. Now, I get the chance to swap back and while I like being 11 and I like being the young one; we definitely need to switch back. You never got a chance to experience these years and here I am hogging them by going through them twice”

Amy did a slight bounce up and down in excitement. “As much as I hate losing this body and the ability to drive and so much else…I need to go back and I’m looking forward to going back and growing up on my own. And besides, this body is still going to be waiting for me”

Lori was smiling behind her girls, just allowing them to talk.

“So…should we try to do this now?” Kelly asked. “Or should we wait until tomorrow morning when Dad is out of the house in case we make too much noise”

“Oh, good point: Let’s do it tomorrow when the house is clear” Amy agreed before she turned to her Mom “So…do you really think this spell has affected all the women in this family or do you think your Mom and Aunt skipped it?”

“I don’t know, but I’d really like to find out” Lori concluded.

None of them could really sleep through the night. They stayed up talking and taking turns reading the diary of their distant cousin in England. Jet lag finally caught up with Amy and she dozed on the couch for a few hours around 3 A.M. and Lori and Kelly headed to their rooms to wait for the morning.

Kelly was lying flat on her back when she heard the side door close and her Dad’s car start. She got up and watched the car drive away down the street before she went across the hall into her sisters’ room and got dressed in a pair of shorts and a t-shirt that were both too big for her at the moment, but, she hoped that they wouldn’t be for long.

Kelly padded her way down the hall and stairs and found that Amy was sitting up on the couch waiting for her.

Amy smiled at her sister wearing her clothes and thought it was smart in case this worked. “Are you ready?” she asked eagerly.

Kelly stopped in front of her sister and said “Yes; are you?”

Amy nodded “I am…I’m as ready as I’ll ever be”

Lori emerged from the kitchen and Kelly put her hands on her hips “Mom! You beat me downstairs too!”

Lori gave a half-hearted smile “I wanted to see your father off for the day”

“Yeah…sure you did” Kelly replied.

“So…how do you want to do this? I mean should we just stand across from each other like this or do you want to go to the mirror in the hall…” Amy said.

“Um, I don’t know” Kelly replied “Should we record it?”

Lori laughed from across the room. “Sure put it on YouTube and see how many hits you get; no don’t record it”

With smiles on their faces, Amy took out the book and held it between them as they stood side by side so both could read and they started together:

“Swap Slip Flop Flip
We flipped our ages
We swapped our lives”

Kelly took the next line “The one who was older is now the youngest”

Amy picked up with her line “The one who was younger is now the oldest”

She paused a moment before she said her second line “And the second wishes to return to first”

Kelly swallowed and said her next line “And the first wishes to return to second”

They finished together with the final line “We do this because this is how life was”

Kelly turned left and took a step back as Amy turned right to face her sister. “Hold on” Amy said as she felt her stomach flip.

She looked down at the floor before looking out of the tops of her eyes as she kept her chin against her chest. Her eyes met Kelly’s and the right side of her mouth went up into a sarcastic smile “Going down?” she quipped as she began to shrink.

Kelly’s hands flew to her mid-section and she pressed down against her belly, she felt a twinge in her hips and as her hands moved down and onto the tops of her thighs, she detected her skin there beginning to stretch. Kelly inhaled sharply as she began to grow taller. She had grown back to 5’1” in the year she had spent as a kid but now, her height increased by the second. Her shoulders and back broadened along with her arms and she knew her chest was starting to rise.

Amy was shrinking down all over, her body constricting itself backwards as the years passed off of her. She smiled anew as she saw Kelly’s face begin to mature before her and she knew that her own face would be showing signs of immaturity now. She felt her mouth and nose tickle as they shrank and pulled inward. Her cheeks rounded off and lost their definition as she passed backward through the teen years. She felt a deflation in her chest as her age regressed and she looked down and saw nothing blocking her view down to her bare feet.

Amy noticed her shorts feeling looser and looser on her shrinking legs. Her legs were losing their roundness and fullness and becoming stick thin all the way down to her bony ankles and narrow feet.

Kelly now leaned forward to look past her blossoming bosom and she wiggled her toes as her feet widened and returned to how she remembered them looking as her legs filled out and lengthened as she returned to her natural height of 5’8”. Her hips flared and her rear rose up and outward as her waist and stomach came in and became defined once more above her hourglass hips. Her chest reached its original size once more as her hair lengthened and darkened and her features matured and became the defined face of an 18 year old.

Amy continued down to 5’1” as her body lost all signs of maturity and her shorts and shirt hung like loose sails against her small 11 year old body. She had been looking down at herself as she shrank and now she looked up and into the face of her big sister Kelly. Kelly was smiling and gently exploring her returned body. She watched her as she poked and prodded and began to laugh. “I’m back” Kelly said to herself.

Kelly now looked across and down at her little sister Amy. Amy was smiling still, seemingly happy with being returned to being a kid again. Kelly took the two steps that were separating them and grabbed her sister into an embrace. Amy returned the hug as hard as she could with her weaker and skinnier arms wrapped around her sisters’ neck.

“Thank You Amy…Thank you for switching back with me” Kelly began. “You didn’t have to…you could have kept that diary a secret and kept on going as the older one of us. Even though I would have been perfectly happy if I had to spend the rest of my life as your little sister; I’m glad I get to be your big sister again”

Amy didn’t know what to say to her sister. She wasn’t quite ready for the weight that was leaning on her small frame as her sister hugged her and she was afraid of toppling over backward. Kelly finally broke off their embrace and Amy said “It’s good to have you back…it’s good to be back myself” as she flapped her arms up and down feeling the breeze of her shirt sleeves.

As Kelly rose up to her full height, Amy looked down at herself again. She put her toes from her right foot up on top of her left foot and gave them a wiggle as she said “Just remember sis…I will be taller than you someday”

“Someday I won’t mind you being taller than me, just as long as I’m older than you” Kelly said before she rolled her shoulders and added “It feels good to be back; I didn’t realize how much I missed my body, my mature body that is, until I got it back”

“It feels weird being small again” Amy said looking around the room. “I had gotten used to being tall and now everything in the house looks off to me. Oh Man; I have a pack of Oreo’s at the back of the top cabinet and now I can’t reach them” she added with a stomp of her foot.

“I’m just glad to have my girls back in the right order” Lori said as she approached them. She gave them both a hug. “I’ve been texting back and forth with Aunt Jen all night: she says congratulations on finding it and being able to reverse it”

Amy looked at her Mom “Are you and Aunt Jen going to swap back?”

Lori shook her head “No: your Aunt and I discussed it and we both agreed that it’s been too long. If we swapped ages now, it would just screw up everything and cause a whole lot of trouble”

Kelly now looked up “Do you still want to find out if your Mom and Aunt switched now?”

Lori shook her head “I don’t remember my Mom ever keeping a diary but I think a visit to see Grandma and Grandpa might be in order today”

“I’m going upstairs to change clothes and see what my room looks like now” Amy said as she headed for the stairs.

“Yeah…I need a bra” Kelly added as she followed her sister up the stairs. “If we’re going for a road trip…I want to drive” she added.

“I bet you do” Lori said relieved.