Karyn paced the floor while trying to figure out what she'd done. Let's see, she thought, I got Jon down to 8 and 3/4 years old, then I took off 8 years... But something doesn't add up.
"Oh, no, what was I thinking?" she said.
Karyn had just gotten back into town after being in the mountains. It was the first day of school after spring break and Jon was very stressed-out waiting for her so that he could show her the stone...
In other words, it was April. Never has spring break ever fallen in June. It was the kind of brain glitch everyone had occasionally, like the time in fifth grade where she accidentally called the teacher "Mom". Jon was born on September 17, so he wasn't 17 years and 9 months, he was 17 years and 7 months. And after all the changes, he was just 7 months.
So when she subtracted 9 months, it was now two months before he was born.
Karyn walked out of the kitchen and around the house, trying to find the nursery. It turned out to be just where Jon's room was. She saw Joan there, happily tearing the plastic wrap off of several baby toys, and placing them in a crib. Joan was more than a little bit pregnant.
On an impulse, Karyn decided to try something she was sure she could tease Jon about later. "Joan," she asked, "do you remember exactly when your baby was conceived?"
"Of course I do. We had only one chance to be with each other for a while... but there's no way I'm going to give you the details about that!"
"No, no, I don't want to know the details! I just want to know when it happened."
"Um, December. It was exactly two hundred and ten days ago. I've been keeping track. But why would you want to know something like that?"
"That's all I needed!" said Karyn. "Minus 210 days!"
All of a sudden, the room was no longer decked out as a nursery. It was just a storage room, the blinds were down, and it was pretty dark--but not so dark that Karyn couldn't see the naked couple behind some boxes, their clothes on a pile next to them. That was lucky--she had expected she'd have to go forward and backward by little bits until she found exactly the right moment. She stepped over to where the couple was, said "Hi Jon!", and watched the couple squirm as an apparent intruder loomed over them. Now, how often do you see your friend's conception?
Before they could do anything she said "Plus 16 months." Suddenly the lights were on, Joan was clothed and the only other person there, and she was holding Jon again. And he was seven months old once more.
"Did you find what you were looking for?" asked Karyn.
"I think I have all I need now. Jon'll be okay, she's a well-behaved girl."
"Excuse me?"
"I know, I know, it's Jan, but when I say that, people keep thinking I said 'Jon'. It happens so much that I decided I may as well just call her Jon and not worry about it."
"Never mind, Joan. It's okay. I just wish I knew..." Of course, the stone was still in Jon's room, wherever that was. Maybe it was here in the nursery, but Karyn didn't see it lying around.
But Karyn figured it out the answer herself on the way to the mall. She had seen--and interrupted--Jon's conception. At conception a single sperm and egg join. If the moment of conception was changed by even a fraction of a second, a different sperm cell will reach the egg, and the person will be different--a different sex, maybe.
So Jon was a girl now. She wondered whether Jon would even know he used to be a boy, since a sperm and an egg cell certainly couldn't hear her try to age them....
