Joni left her room, then headed to Clark's bedroom door. She was about to knock on it and get her brother to open up, but as she rose her hand to the door, she heard him talking. He must have been talking to himself.
She pressed her ear up to the door and listened.
"Biff replaced Clair Pierce and Clair replaced ... replaced ... replaced who? Why can't I remember?" Clark said, getting more and more frustrated. "I know that after Lauren took Ester's place, Ester took Burt Whitefield's place, and Burt took Sarah McMillan's place and became Burnice ... but I can't remember what happened to Clair. Why can't I remember? Oh I wish I had the stone, then I could just wish to remember."
"Burnice McMillan used to be a guy?" Joni whispered to herself.
"Joni, what are you doing?" she heard her mother ask. "Are you eavesdropping on your brother?"
She turned and looked at her mom, who looked at her sternly. From what she overheard from Clark and Nick, the person who was now her mom used to be Tiffany Sanders, the girl who was replaced by Zoe. She just couldn't even imagine her mom acting like a total ditz and a complete slut.
"I was ... uh ... I was just checking to see if he was in there," she said, thinking up a plausible lie quickly. "I needed to ask him something."
"Oh. Well, I don't think you should bother him while he's getting ready for school."
"Okay, fine," she said, then went back to her room, shutting the door behind her.
Tiffany stood there for a moment longer, wondering why her daughter was acting so ... agreeable. But then she figured that it was a good thing. Maybe Joni was finally coming out of her Goth phase. After what she went through over the weekend, it was possible that her daughter might be reevaluating her life choices. Unfortunately for Tiffany, however, Joni had no intentions of abandoning the Goth crowd anytime soon.
In his room, Clark tried really hard to remember what happened to Clair and who took Nicole Lisle's place. Then it occurred to him. Maybe Joni knew who the new Lisle girl was. If Clark could get a first name, maybe he could work backwards and figure out who took Nicole's place.
He left his room and knocked on Joni's door, just a minute after she returned to her room.
Usually his sister (whether it was Joni or Zoe) got pissed off whenever she was bothered, but this time, she seemed rather fine about it. Odd.
"Clark? What is it?" she asked, wondering if he knew that she knew about whatever he and Nick were talking about.
"Do you know a girl with the last name of ... Lisle?"
"Only that French bitch Michelle. Why?"
"Uh ... no reason," he said. Then he returned to his room.
Joni was confused for a moment (why was her little brother asking about Michelle?), but then decided that she had dodged a bullet. She closed her door, then grabbed her phone. Maybe Linda could make sense out of all of this people switching stuff. She needed some answers and she had a feeling that she wouldn't be getting any more from her brothers.
When Clark got back to his room, he sat on his bed and thought about what Joni had told him. Michelle, Michelle. No, that didn't sound familiar. Or did it? There was a good chance that this Michelle girl used to be a guy. Nick used to be a Nicole, after all. But what names could that be? He noticed that when someone changed gender, their name stayed somewhat like their original name. But what was a boy version of Michelle? Michael? Mike? Mickey? He paused. That last one kind of sounded familiar. But something about it was wrong. Why couldn't he remember? It was like there was this blank spot in his memory. It was obvious that he had forgotten something, but he just couldn't remember what.
He groaned, feeling frustrated. He really wished he had the stone right now. It would make things so much easier.
