Karyn pointed at a poster on Jon's wall. "So that's supposed to be English?" she asked. "I can't recognize it at all."
"Not for a while," said Jon. He went over to his computer, and explained, "But there should be some things you can understand. Reality is changed so that things were always that way, so for the next half hour it's as if you always spoke only Korean. Digging through a pile of papers he found a letter Karyn had written to him two weeks ago. "Look at this. Anything you wrote to me is now in Korean."
Karyn read the letter and said "Wait a minute. I remember writing that letter. I never said I bleached my hair in it."
"Hmm," said Jon. "The hair wish changed reality too. So there has to be an explanation for you being a blonde." He turned on his computer monitor and said "I bet your web page is the same way. Like the letter, you wrote it, so it should be in Korean now. Maybe it'll be different too--it'll say you came from Korea or something like that."
Jon typed in the address.
Karyn watched as the page loaded. She squinted at the words and then said "I can't understand it."
"Wait," replied Jon. "That's still in English."
Karyn motioned Jon aside and sat down, poring over the page. Then she scrolled down to find a picture of herself. It was a very familiar picture--not showing blonde hair, or Asian features, or even non-dyed black hair. And it was hard to tell, but those didn't look like large breasts. The picture was Karyn, just as she had appeared before they had made any wishes at all. "What?"
"Of course!" said Jon. "The range limit. Your web page is on a computer somewhere in another state. It's far out of the stone's range. So everything's as if you were always Korean, except for your web page."
"But so many people have web pages," said Karyn. "You're saying we can't change anyone without being noticed?"
"Well, yeah," said Jon. "If I, oh, turn Biff into a girl or Sarah into a guy, their web pages would be a dead giveaway. Or at least their friends' web pages."
"Or their cell phones," said Karyn. "If they have voice mail their recorded message is in a computer. It'd have their old name and voice. And there's income taxes. Bank accounts. Electric bills. Draft registration. College applications. Everyone's in all kinds of computers and they're all all over the country. Wish for a big house, pay your bills, and a month later you're arrested for cable TV fraud or phone fraud. Wish you were older and your parents get audited by the IRS because their taxes don't make sense, and you still can't rent an adult video, because the computer with your age in it is out of the stone's range."
"Hold it, hold it," said Jon. "We just have to be careful and not do any of those things. We can still make plenty of safe wishes, like if I wished for a hundred dollars in my pocket."
"We already did one of those," said Karyn. "My driver's license... If I ever get stopped by the police my license says I'm Korean, but their computers say something different. So I can't drive for the next day."
"It's just a learner's permit anyway, right? You don't need it that much."
"True. I just wish there was some way to make the range of the stone bigger, or at least keep every little wish from causing that problem." Unfortunately, Karyn wasn't holding the stone, and the stone probably couldn't have granted that wish anyway. They would have to figure out an answer by themselves....
