The ride over was uneventful, as I spent most of the time trying to figure out how we could fix this. Every time the car went over a bump in the road, the sway of my slight body reminded me of just how strange the situation was. Emily would apologize every once in awhile and I would reassure her that it wasn't her fault. It's funny, even though I didn't mean it, every thing that came out of my mouth sounded like that of a bratty pre-teen girl, making my reassurances seem that much shallow. We pulled into the library and immediatly jumped out of the car and approached the large front doors. Upon entering, Emily followed me over to the study area, where we saw Karyn hunched over a stack of Biology and Darwin books. She didn't notice us until Emily spoke.
"Karyn?" Emily said quietly. Karyn immediatly looked up, almost startled. At first she didn't recognize her old friend, but the memories quickly gushed back.
"Emily?!" She said, obviously not using her 'library voice'. With a nod of confirmation from Emily, Karyn sprang from her chair and gave her the biggest hug. "What are you doing here?! I haven't seen you in forever!"
"You, too! I'm back for a little bit because of..." Emily gasped for air as Karyn released her hug, "...because of family stuff. Oh my god, you've grown so much!"
"This is so crazy!" Karyn said, a permenant smile plastered on her face. She turned her head to me. "Who's your friend?" She asked. Emily quickly went from joyed to sullen.
"My...my cousin." She said slowly. Karyn noticed the change in Emily's attitude, but almost seemed to ignore it.
"Yea," Karyn started, "I was about to say, she looks exactly like your older cousin!" Karyn giggled. Emily was still sour.
"It...it is my older cousin." Emily let out. Karyn slowly turned to Emily.
"Have you been hanging out with Jon?" Asked Karyn, obviously thinking the stone might be at work.
"We...we ARE hanging out with Jon." Emily said, trying to put it as easily as possible.
"Its me." I said, raising my hand up in a mock attendance. Karyn gasped and just stared at me, then slowly lowered herself into her chair. She covered her face with her hands while she emmitted muffled explitives. Emily went over and hugged her.
"We need to figure out how to reverse the wish." Emily said. Karyn looked up.
"How'd this happen? What'd you say to do this?" She asked. Emily quickly and quietly explained what happened. After some thought, Karyn looked up.
"Okay, I've been thinking about this stone thing." She glanced down at her books. "Actually, I've been thinking about the stone more than my project, but anyway..." she continued, "I think I know why reversing wishes doesn't work. Give me the rock, I'll make a small example." She held out her hand for the rock. I slowly handed it to her.
"I won't do anything stupid, unlike some people." She said with a slight smirk. "Anyways, I wish my pencil was twice as big." With that, the stone glowed softly and the pencil on her table grew twice as big. I had no idea where she was going with this. "Now watch the rock." She held it so everyone could see it. "I wish the pencil was back to normal size." Very faintly the rock glimmered, but nothing happened to the pencil. "Aha, exactly as I thought. You see, the stone is casting the wish, but as far as the stone is concerned, the pencil is already at normal size. Even though WE know it was twice as small a minute ago, the stone doesn't understand the concept of time. 'Normal' to the stone means how things are now. So Jon, you ARE Jon, because Jon is a young girl." She then smiled triumphantly.
"Okay, so how do we fix this?" I asked. Karyn seemed to be waiting for the reply.
"I know exactly how!" She said, full of confidence....
