In several parallel worlds, the stone had been used to transform boys into girls. When Jon wished for something interesting, the stone chose something that followed the pattern of what the stone had done in similar worlds.
So Karyn had pointed the front of the antenna at an old man across the street from the school walking a dog. She pressed the button and instantly the man turned into an old woman. A second later, he realized that he was different and seemed about to panic, looking over his body and looking around to see if someone had done something to her.
She might have menaced Karyn, but Karyn pressed the button again. This time the woman looked confused for a second and acted as if everything was normal and she was a woman all along.
"It just changed that guy into a woman!" said Jon. "And you pressed it again and she forgot she'd been changed."
"I wonder what it does on a woman," said Karyn. She pointed it at herself and pressed the button. Nothing happened no matter how many times she tried it.
"That was dangerous," said Jon.
"Maybe you're right," said Karyn. She looked around.
"What are you looking for?"
"Something else to try it on. Aha!"
"What? That's just a pigeon," said Jon.
Karyn aimed the antenna at the pigeon and pressed the button. It turned into a pretty brunette woman (who fortunately did have clothes, though they were a similar color to the pigeon).
"What? Who?" said the woman. "I'm talking. Talking? How could I be talking. I can think like you... I am one of you now!" Jon was half expecting the woman to be flapping her arms like wings, but instead she just waved her hands for a second, and stopped, seemingly understanding that she no longer had wings.
At this point, several students were approaching to see what the fuss was about.
Karyn pressed the button again and the woman who had been a bird acted as if nothing was wrong and she had been on campus for a completely different reason. "Thanks for the directions!" she said, and walked off the campus--and the students who a moment ago were trying to see what the fuss was about now didn't seem to remember any fuss at all.
"So the button changes anyone and anything into a girl or a woman," said Jon. "The second time, and it's as if they were always one. What good is something like this?"
