"I don't know," she said. "What are some names that sound like 'Scott'? Skye? Scarlet? Maybe if I just pick something starting with 'S'. Stephanie? Sara? Besides this is a bad idea anyway. Can't we just stay guys and go out with different hair or something? Or change something else?"
Some time later, their dad walked in the room, still in the form of the redheaded girl. She was holding an old shirt in one hand. "Okay," she said, sounding a lot more like a parent than one might imagine a college age girl to sound like, "the medal. Which one of you has it? Scott, or...?"
"I decided to go with 'Skye,' responded the second Scott. "But that's just temporary."
"The medal," said their dad.
Skye took off the medallion and handed it to her dad. He pulled the chain over his head, touched the medallion to the shirt, and began to transform back. As Scott and Skye watched, their dad became taller, lost his breasts, and was soon standing in front of them as he was before--or rather, as he was when he last wore that shirt. Apparently he had dug it out of somewhere and he was substantially younger.
"Now," he said, "I'm afraid it's time for a little lecture."
"But Dad..." said Scott and Skye, almost as one.
"I didn't just sit around waiting to lose my breasts," he said. "I did some research. Obviously, you didn't before you tried that stunt. There are lots of stories told about this medallion. They can't all be true--there just isn't time for them all to be, but even if only a few of the wrong ones are, you can be in a lot of trouble."
The two waited.
"Your biggest mistake was to use it on something without knowing if it could be reversed. You tried the medallion on something worn by two people. Congratulations, you're two people. Now what? Only one person can wear it. So it's permanent. Am I right?"
"We haven't really tried to see if we can combine," said Scott.
"But the instructions didn't mention that," added Skye.
"Here's something else that's not in those instructions," said their dad. "Some of the stories say that it magically gets lost so someone else can find it. Like the One Ring. Imagine that one day you use it to turn into, I don't know, some porn star so you can make some nude pictures, and all of a sudden the house catches fire and you lose the medallion in the rush. Or a burglar takes it. Or maybe it doesn't get lost by itself, but there's a secret society dedicated to making sure you lose it at the worst moment possible."
"It's probably just a rumor," said Skye.
"He does have a point," said Scott.
"Look at it like this," said Skye. "If those stories are true, then why didn't the people in one story look up the medallion on the Internet and find all the other stories so they're prepared?"
"Because it was up in the attic until Mom tried to sell it at the yard sale? It must have been there long enough that the last person to have it was from before the Internet. Hey, doesn't that also prove it doesn't get lost?"
"No," said Skye, "if nobody knows it's in the attic, it's still lost."
"But being in the attic does prove it doesn't try to find a new owner."
"Enough, said their dad. "Whether it gets lost or not, you managed to create a problem you'll have to help solve. Even if Skye does look different because she's a girl, how is she going to get a social security number? A driver's license? What if you apply to college and they want to see your high school grades, what do you show them when there are two of you? What if they deport you?"
"I think there are DNA tests," said Skye. "They would show that you and Mom are our parents. They can't deport us then."
"Unless," said their dad, "you lose the medallion while you're turned into that porn star. And even if you don't get deported, all the other things are going to be a problem. Honestly, I only see a few answers. First of all, go public. If you can tell people you're both Scott and they believe you, I'm sure they'll accept that you're citizens. But whoever owned the medallion before didn't do that, and I can see why. Do we want to put in a hundred thousand dollar security system so nobody steals it, be on the national news, and get threatened by the Mafia to de-age all their leaders?"
Scott and Skye both nodded.
"I can see you're not listening or you wouldn't be nodding. And you know, going public is harder than you think. Like when you touched the medallion to me to force me to transform. I admit it was clever to pick the one method of transforming that couldn't be stopped, but do you realize that if you tried that on someone else you could go to jail? Now, the second possibility. If there is a secret society behind it, we have to contact them and hope they're good guys. In fact, this medallion proves that magic is real. I don't think it means that just the medallion is real and there's no other magic in existence. For all I know there could be a wizard on every block, and they just don't tell anyone. Maybe they won't even let you go public. Do you have any other ideas?"
"Yeah," said Scott. "We could tell just the people we need to know."
Their dad replied, "You're going to tell just the Social Security Administration? Good luck."
"Or," said Skye, "we could tell people that something strange happened without mentioning the medallion. If we have the same fingerprints it proves we're the same person even if we don't tell anyone how we got that way."
"Hmm," said their father. "It's possible, but you'd have to think it through. I can't say I'm too upset at you, considering the aging effect."
"Does that mean we can have it back?" asked Skye.
"Sure you can, but I'm going to have to know if I can trust you. I don't want you trying anything you can't reverse. No more duplication. No pregnancies. No animals, not even just to get the ears, or young children, because we don't know if it wipes your brain for good. And if you know you need to be yourself for something, stop using the medallion long enough that at least one of you can change back. Got it?"
"We promise," said both of them.
