"Ask the stone?" replied K. "It was your idea, anyway."
Karyn said "I wish to know what caused the change in history that K. is talking about." A moment later, she shook her head. "I'm not getting anything. I bet someone's hiding their tracks, unless the stone just can't do that."
"So it's not an accident and it's not my fault," said K. "Oh, wait. We could have created the timeline by accident but then someone in it found the stone and made a wish. So that doesn't prove anything, and we're back to plan #1."
"All right," said Karyn. "In fact, I have a better idea. I wish that Jon, myself, and K. were not only back at a time just before Jon and I left, but that Jon and I were merged with our earlier selves."
The world suddenly changed around them. Now they were sitting down, back at school eating lunch, and the teacher (who they tested the brown hair change on) was walking away.
"I don't feel any different," said Jon. "I guess that since our earlier selves are us and have the exact same memories, we don't have thoughts of being two people or anything like that."
Meanwhile K. was standing around looking very out of place in her fatigues and combat gear. People were beginning to stare at the obviously unusual person.
"Jon," said Karyn, "it's your stone. You take it. But first we need to do something about K. I wish that reality be changed so that K. is my twin sister Kay, and that us three, while we remember the old reality, know how to act under the new reality."
As she handed Jon the stone back, things became different. K. (or Kay) was now also teenage. She had a bookbag and normal clothes and nobody gave her a second glance.
"There you go," said Karyn. "And now you have your fifteen years back, too."
"It's not over," said Kay. "It depends on what caused the change. Suppose Jon lost the stone in the age of the dinosaurs, and millions of years later someone bad found it. Then we stopped the change. But suppose someone was going to change history anyway and just found Jon convenient. Or suppose Jon is evil. Then we didn't stop the change at all. We just delayed it."
"I'm not evil!" exclaimed Jon.
"Just suppose!" said Kay. "But as I was saying, we don't know that we stopped it. Maybe whoever or whatever did it could try again."
"True," replied Karyn.
"So," said Jon, fingering the stone, "why don't we...."
