"Ethan!"
Ethan jerked his head up when he heard his mother's annoyed voice. He looked at her angry face directly in front of him. She had her teenage boy hands on her hips and looked at him sternly. Ethan's brain began racing as he tried to find a way out of this situation. It was obvious that his mother was angry at him "playing" with his tablet during dinner.
"It's very rude to play games while we have dinner. Give me your tablet!", his mother demanded, confirming his suspicion about the problem.
"I'm sorry", he replied and tried to get the swapplet away from her. "Won't happen again…"
"You're right. It won't", she said and grabbed at the swapplet. Sitting at the table, Ethan had no choice but to let her touch it. His mother's expression turned from angry to confused in an instance.
"I'll put it in my room. Sorry mom", Ethan quickly said before she could begin asking questions and went upstairs to his room as fast as he could in his heels. His mother looked after him speechless while his father and sister just shrugged their shoulders and continued eating their meal.
"Shit!", thought Ethan as he closed the door behind him. "She knows about the swapplet now… Just what I needed…"
He threw the hi-tech device frustrated onto his bed and casually glanced around the room, immediately noticing that his dirty clothing pile had changed to his mother's clothes.
"I guess, I have to talk to her before she tells Dad or Stacey something… It's bad enough that she now knows about it… She'll take it away from me or something…", he thought as he wandered up and down his room, his manicured hands rubbing on his forehead as if it would help him think. "I guess I have no choice but to go downstairs and hope that she stays quiet until after dinner. Then I have to talk to her."
Just as quickly as he had entered his room, he got out of it and almost ran into his mother.
"We need to talk", she whispered and dragged him back into the room he had just left. "I don't know how I know it but this tablet of yours is not a normal tablet. I suppose I don't tell you something you didn't know yourself already."
Ethan nodded slowly. "Yes… It crashed into our garden yesterday. I picked it up and had the same happen to me as had happened to you when you touched it", he explained.
"And you didn't tell me or your father about it?", she asked him indignantly.
"How could I?", he replied and threw his hands up. "If it was just some hallucination or something you would think I'm crazy!"
"Does it work?"
"Yes. Everything you know about it is true. It works exactly like that", he said and sat down on his bed, right beside the alien object. "I tried it out with Lily". Ethan had decided that it was the best to not let her in on the swaps he had made with her. He had a feeling that his mother was interested in the device, just like he was. If he played his cards right, she might want to borrow it for her own curiosity but let him keep it.
"Who else knows about it?", she asked and lowered her voice while seating herself next to him.
"Only Lily, you and me", he told her truthfully.
"You told Lily about it?", she asked shocked.
Ethan shrugged. "Yeah, of course I did."
Ethan noticed that his mother wanted to say something, but she decided to stay quiet. Her gaze then went down to the swapplet. “And what did you swap?”
"We exchanged hair", he answered and decided to also keep quiet about the genital swap for now. His answer caused a sceptic look on his mother's face. "But you always had long hair and Lily always kept her hair short. I remember making braids for you when you were younger and I remember when you dyed your hair red", she said.
"Of course, you do. You know very well that the swapplet, that's what I'm calling it, can change reality itself. For everyone but me and Lily, it is like I always had her hair", he explained.
His mother looked intently at him. After a while she used her manly hands and put them against Ethan's head, turning it around to look at it from every angle. "It’s hard to believe...", she said slowly. "How about we try swapping something? Nothing big, don't worry."
"Fine but nothing major...", he sighed. "How about we swap voices?"
Ethan grabbed the swapplet and was about to make the necessary inputs but then suddenly stopped. "Oh, right. You may know how to use it, but you’re not registered yet. Hold out your hand please so that it can scan you... aaand done." Ethan resumed his action while his mother looked at him with amazement. She was more amazed by the fact that she knew what was happening. After a while Ethan stopped and she knew that the swap had taken place. But she did not feel any different.
"Did it work?", she asked carefully, still doubting her alien knowledge. She gasped in surprise and Ethan responded: "What do you think?"
"Incredible...", she muttered. "It really works!"
Ethan had to suppress a giggle when his mother began softly singing in his voice. It sounded so wrong having his voice coming out of his mother's mouth.
"We have to tell your dad", she then said as soon as she was finished.
"No!", replied Ethan immediately. "The less people know about it the better. This thing is too powerful to fall in the wrong hands."
"And the hands of some random teen are the right ones?", she asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Better than some politician who would use it to get world domination or something". He held the swapplet tight to his chest.
"You're probably right there. Still, we must tell your father... Although...", her face changed to an absentminded look. "Maybe we shouldn't tell him right away... Give me the... what do you call it? Swapplet."
Ethan investigated his mother's face and only reluctantly gave her the device. He knew that he was at the mercy of his mother now and it would be better for him to play along.
"Thanks", she said, and a weird grin appeared on her face. She began putting in commands in the swapplet and Ethan had to control himself to not take it away from her, fearing that she now swaps something with him. Which she did.
"That's better", she said in her own voice again. "Now come on, we still have dinner to eat. I'll keep this thing for now."
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