Jon hung up the phone and didn't fight the ears welling up in her eyes. It hadn't worked. Karyn chose Mikey over her. She had been surprised "Joanna" had known about the stone, and even more surprised to hear that the little girl she thought of as Mike's kid sister knew so much about her life and her daily routine up to and including Karyn's ill-considered wish to know what it was like to have blonde hair and big boobs, but Mikey must have already prepared her with some kind of cover story (or else he had made some wish). Karyn didn't buy it. She had no memories of anyone named Jon and so her loyalties naturally lay with "Mike."
Jon vowed to never give up, to find some way to convince Karyn of the truth, to find some way to recover the stone. She wouldn't rest until she had her life back, that was what she told herself. Some days were better than others, some days it was easier to keep that promise. Mostly though, not so much. Ballet and Girl Scouts and eventually gymnastics and clarinet lessons and even a beauty pageant all took up a lot of time and usually kept her whereabouts well accounted on the rare occasions when Mom wasn't acting as her chaperone or coach.
Needless to say the next few years were very hard for Jon and by the end of year five she answered much more readily to Jo or Joanie than her "real" name since no one but Mikey (and even then only rarely) used it. She didn't even look anymore when she heard someone yell "Jon!" She had mostly given up trying to get the stone, largely because Mikey had messed her life up so badly with various "incentives" to leave him alone, though it was always at the back of her mind. It was hard to process just how different she was now or how she would even get back to an increasingly distant normal if she did get the stone, but she hadn't tried anything in over a year and a half, hoping to lull Mikey into a false sense of security. He was back in town from college to visit some old friends for his 21st birthday and she was hoping he might finally slip up.
Joanna's first period had come and gone and the once scrawny little girl body was maturing at an ever increasing rate. She was thirteen again and the Jon still very much alive and aware inside her dreaded the ultimate effect of this second adolescence. Boys were starting to notice her. Her blossoming breasts were already a solid B cup, some of the biggest in her class, and the rest of her was starting to lose the straight up and down shape that had dogged Jon as a boy right up until 16 and Mikey's series of evil wishes changed everything.
She actually looked a lot like their mother, and even Zoe, though not as much as before. Mikey had decided over two years ago now to mix things up a little. Jon had managed to make a pretty convincing looking fake stone and tried to bluff Mikey with it in order to see where he went to verify his was gone. Let's just say things went badly. Mikey had always had some father issues. Even at his new age he didn't really remember their dad, not like the memories Joanna still carried from her life as Jon, and this lent itself to some peculiar fixations on Mikey's part. Going through a phase of fascination with graffiti, rap, and street racing, Mikey killed two birds with one stone on Joanie's punishment. He wished up a mentor for himself - - and a new father for Joanna.
The effect on the family was profound. Now, instead of Dad leaving shortly after Mikey was born, Mikey was the oldest. Dad had left after Zoe was born, except now Dad wasn't Dad. Not for Jo anyway. Her father was Damonte J. Morgan, ten years younger than the lonely Ms. Madison, and something of a hoodlum that Jo's Mom had met while working as secretary for a defense attorney in the city. Damonte moved in and Ms. Madison became Mrs. Morgan and then pregnant with Jo, though not in that order.
Jo became racially mixed as soon as Mikey had made the wish, her skin darkening to a warm, rich brown and her straight brown hair becoming a long fall of thick, kinky black curls. Mikey's clothes had changed too, becoming an almost stereotypically urban wardrobe, and a handful of tattoos etched themselves into his skin. Mikey had always looked strong since his wish to change his age. That was the day he started looking tough.
So that took some getting used to. Her classmates definitely treated her different now that she was ethnically mixed, some better and some worse. It was weird having some guy in the house married to their mom, calling himself her dad and even trying to act like it sometimes. She couldn't take him seriously, not with her old memories in place, which made her wonder if the "real" Joanna would have had more respect for her father. As it was
Jo got the impression her mom marrying Damon and her own subsequent birth had been something of a scandal in the boring suburban neighborhood where they had formerly lived. It might have even been why Mikey and Zoe's dad left to begin with. It was definitely why they left. You see, in this reality the Morgan family had moved to a slightly seedy neighborhood in the city proper, all the better for MikeÜ to carry on his illicit nightlife. And just because she still lived in the old neighborhood didn't mean Sharon was spared. Mikey finally made her his girlfriend and she became the spoiled white girl slumming it with the musclebound Eminem caricature Mikey had become.
And now Mikey was coming home from college for a visit. Jo was surprised he even went. With the stone he could have anything he wanted and apparently he liked the life of some daredevil quasi-criminal. The thumping of heavy bass from an expensive car audio system slowed to a stop outside. He was here. Jo tormented herself with the idea that she might somehow get the stone, but Mikey was more dangerous tan ever and this time he might do something really horrible if he caught her.
