"I wish that for as long as I remain a girl plus the amount of time I've already spent as a girl, Karyn would become a guy who everyone but me thought of as Jake just as they think of me as Melanie or Mel, and that she would only answer to the name Jake. I also wish that her clothes would become boy's clothes like mine are girl's clothes." Mel was forced to close her eyes for a long time as the stone carried out the long wish. When she could look again, she saw a boy who she might have thought to be cute, if her sexual orientation had changed along with her sex.
Jake was now a few inches taller than Mel. Not much else had changed. He was still tall and a bit gangly, and his hair, though now in a short, stylish boy's cut, was the same bright red as Karyn's had always been. "I suppose-" started Jake, stopping to clear his throat at the sound of his strange new voice. "I suppose I might have deserved that." He was about to continue, but a thought forming in his mind stopped him. "You'll have to give me the stone if you want me to change you back," he lied.
"Umm...okay..." said Mel, handing the rock over.
"Thanks," replied Jake, "but I still think you need to learn a lesson, so I'm not changing you back until tomorrow, even if it means I have to stay like this. I wish that the wishing stone will become unusable until tomorrow morning, thirty minutes before the time that school normally starts." There, he thought, that should keep Mel from making any more wishes for revenge against me, and the way I worded the wish should keep anything unexpected, like a random March blizzard closing the school, from making the rock useless forever.
"Wonderful. I think I'll be keeping the rock until tomorrow morning," grunted Mel, taking the rock back. "At least I'll know that you'll be suffering a gender crisis right along with me. Maybe we can compare notes tomorrow after school to decide who it sucked worse for."
