A few minutes ago, Jon had felt proud of himself for outsmarting Steve 'The Stud' Farber, and wishing away the enraged horse Steve had been turned into. But now, he was standing before Mrs. Farber, who no longer remembered her son. And who now needed an explanation for Jon's presence in her house, and the mess in the basement.
"Okay, let's start again." Jon said. "You heard the horse, didn't you?"
"I heard what SOUNDED like a horse." Mrs. Farber replied. "But that could have been you making horse noises as you trashed the basement."
"Really?" Jon asked. He tried to make the sounds of a horse, and failed. "There WAS a horse down there, but I got it to go away."
"How? I don't think you can fit a horse through the basement's window."
"It sounded like a horse to me." Moose Matthews chimed in. "It must be still down there."
"Look at me!" Jon said. "I was almost killed down there. The horse nearly kicked my head in."
Mrs. Farber pushed past Jon and went down into the basement. "What a mess!" she exclaimed. "But I don't see any horse down here."
"That's because I wished ... because I made it go away." Jon corrected himself.
"You're crazy." Moose growled. "But I don't even remember what I'm doing here. Must be a gas leak or something making us all a bit crazy."
Mrs. Farber emerged from the basement. "I don't smell a gas leak."
It was clear she was tired of this. She turned back to Jon. "I'll let you go this time, but you'd better leave before I call the authorities."
Jon knew this was his cue to exit the premises. As he stepped outside the Farbers' house and on to the street, he again breathed a sigh of relief. It was another close call.
The reality of the situation was now sinking in. He could justify what he had done to Steve as self-defense. But this incident would not have happened in the first place had he not been careless and accidentally dropped the wishing stone.
Jon felt a bit guilty over what happened to Steve. True, Steve 'The Stud' Farber had always been a jerk, but now his whole life had been taken away from him. Now 'The Stud' was a horse on a farm somewhere, and would probably soon be going after young mares. Meanwhile, no one here would remember him.
He didn't really know what to do now. Perhaps he would talk to Karyn about this. Maybe together they would come up with some way of making sure incidents like this didn't happen again.
