Karyn was looking down at her now-smaller chest, and the fact that she was wearing a different sweater -- tighter and showing about an inch of bare skin at her midriff. Everyone else was looking at the more obvious change, the fact that her mid-back-length wavy blonde hair was now straight, chin-length, and a brilliant orangish-red.
Leonard was the first to speak, "There, another successful test of --"
Karyn interrupted him. "Oh, my God, it worked."
"Well, yes, of course," said Leonard. "I can assure you that --"
Karyn turned to speak directly to Jon. "It worked."
"Yeah, wouldn't you say that's interesting?" Jon half-mumbled.
Karyn grabbed Jon's wrist. "Come on. Leonard, where's the nearest mirror?"
"Um, there's a bathroom off the kitchen --"
Jon followed Karyn up the stairs. Mrs. Drullers was, fortunately, not in the vicinity.
The bathroom turned out to be a cramped half-bath, so it was cramped quarters for the two of them as they both faced the mirror. Jon found the light switch, and Karyn was arrested by her own image. Her hair color, more vivid than her original red, was striking. She brought a hand up to touch it, and noticed that her fingernails were obviously professionally manicured, her face made up to slightly enhance her natural beauty, a spray of freckles still visible across her nose.
She lifted up her sweater to reveal a robin's-egg blue bra. She undid the front hook to reveal a pair of nicely-shaped, perky breasts with adorably small pink nipples. "They're perfect," she murmured.
"Yeah," agreed Jon.
Broken from her reverie, Karyn quickly redid the bra and smoothed her sweater down. "Okay, Jon, what's going on?"
"What's going on is that you're gorgeous," said Jon. He tried to put an arm around her and kiss her on the cheek, but she ducked.
"Quit it, I'm not in the mood right now. You know what I mean. You said the wishes on your stupid rock were irreversible!"
"They are!" Jon protested. "Um, they were. Obviously, I don't know exactly what's going on. Leonard's invention seems like it's basically a bigger, noisier version of the stone, and obviously, its 'technology' means it works different than the stone's 'magic.'" He took it out of his pocket and held it in his palm. "I guess I could wi--"
"No!" exclaimed Karyn. "Put that thing away."
"But aren't you curious to see --"
Karyn grinned. "I don't need another hairstyle change this week."
"Okay, fine." Jon dropped the stone back into his jeans.
"Jeez, I should have done my hair like this a long time ago," Karyn said.
"Yeah, it really does look great," Jon said. "Even though it's not quite what you asked Leonard for." He scratched his head around the base of his right horn. "Oh, my God!"
"What?"
"So I guess Leonard was telling the truth about what else he's done with that machine. The horns on guys, the tails on girls, the fusion power..."
"What?!" Karyn swiveled a bit sideways so she could see her own tail in the mirror, twitching back and forth slightly, its strands now red again after her week of being a blonde, and tried to imagine herself being without it.
"We should get back down there before Leonard does something else," suggested Jon.
Now Karyn was looking at Jon in the mirror, trying to imagine him without his horns. "Oh, right. Probably a good idea."
They exited the bathroom to discover Mrs. Drullers back in the kitchen. "Oh, my," she said, at seeing two teenagers emerging from the same tiny bathroom.
"I just needed help with my zipper," Karyn said with a strained smile.
"I see," said Mrs. Drullers. "Will the two of you be staying for dinner? We have some leftover meatloaf that I don't want to go to waste."
"I'm not sure," said Jon. "We'll go downstairs and ask your son --"
"Of course, I could always make something else. Anything you want, I guess. Ha, but you kids know that, right? An old lady like me still isn't used to having a food replicator." She gestured to the spot where the Amana Wonderange sat on a countertop, just barely wedged underneath the upper cabinets.
"Yeah, we'll ask Leonard right now," Jon reassured her.
"I mean, when I was your age, people were all excited about microwaves and food processors, but then when they said fusion power would make anything possible..." She trailed off and said, "Right, right. Just let me know."
Jon breathed a silent sigh of relief at having escaped from that conversation. He and Karyn descended the basement stairs again, to discover...
