I had troubled dreams that night. The stone was terribly exciting, but also frightening - Karyn had accidentally made permanent changes to her body with a casual statement. How would I avoid that? How could I keep the stone safe, where nobody else could use it against me, but avoid Karyn's predicament? If only there were some way to reverse the changes...
Then, it came to me! I couldn't reverse a wish, but maybe I could modify a wish that had been made already.
I sat up in bed and found the stone where I had left it, on my bedside table. I grabbed a random hardcover book off of the shelf in my room, held the stone, and said, "I wish that this book had a plain black cover."
I felt my eyes forced away from the book, and when I looked back, the cover had changed to solid black. Then I made another wish.
"I wish that this cover was black because it is a dust jacket, and that the original cover was underneath the dust jacket."
Once again, the sensation of being distracted washed over me. When I looked back, the book was still black, but was covered by a dust jacket. I pulled the dust jacket off the book, and the original cover lay beneath, as though nothing had changed!
I had trouble sleeping that night, because I could hardly wait to help Karyn get back to normal. I know I could have wished her back right now, but I wanted her to know that I had helped her. I was definitely overtired when I got to school the next morning, and I wasn't thinking totally straight, but I found Karyn before classes started and pulled her aside to a relatively quiet pert of the hallway.
"Karyn, I've figured out how to fix your wish!" I blurted.
"Really?" she asked excitedly, "How?"
"Listen!" I said, and pulled out the stone.
"Jon, I can't believe you brought that to school! Aren't you worried that..." she began.
"I was more worried about leaving it at home. What if my mom found it or something? Besides, I've got this figured out." I replied. "Karyn, I wish that your hair and boobs were ultra-lifelike prosthetics, so realistic that nobody but you can tell that they're not real!"
There was a moment of strangeness as I felt like my eyes were being forced away, but this time they didn't actually move. Karyn looked exactly the same. She looked at me, confused, and asked, "How does that help me? I still don't look like myself."
"Don't worry," I said, "I've got that figured out, too. I wish that Karyn had a variety of other ultra-lifelike prosthetic hair and boobs, and that today she was wearing red hair and boobs that look exactly like what she had yesterday before she made her wish!"
This time, my eyes were forced away, and when I looked back, Karyn looked exactly like her old self. She reached up, touched her hair, and frowned. "I think I see what you're trying to do, Jon, but..." she said, but she was interrupted by the bell, and we had to rush to class. That's where things started to go wrong.
As we sat down, Biff, the school's basketball star and local bully, walked past Karyn's desk. "How's it going, carrot top?" he said to her, and he reached out and gave her hair a pull.
Suddenly, Karyn's hair fell off of her head completely, like a wig. Everyone in the room gasped as Karyn's prosthetic hair fell away, revealing a completely bald head underneath. Karyn reached up and touched her head with both hands, let out a sort of strangled shout, and then ran out of the classroom. Everyone else was frozen in shock, including me. Luckily, I recovered my wits, and leapt out of my desk to follow Karyn. I snatched the prosthetic hair out of Biff's hand as I ran.
I came out in the hall just in time to see Karyn running into the girls' washroom. I raced after her and ducked into the door as quickly as I could. What was I going to do now?
