The day had started out pretty awfully, but Jon was feeling a lot better. The new flight position Karyn had suggested was making things a lot easier for her, the school day was over half done, and they'd figured out how to fix this when they got home; that idea to wish to know the effects of a potential wish was a good one, and Jon was proud of herself for coming up with it; there would be no more unintended side-effects! Heck, she had even managed to get her locker open with less trouble this time. All she had to do was get her books, get through the rest of her classes, and go home, and things could go right back to normal.
Of course, getting through the rest of the day would've been easier if Sarah McMillan's locker wasn't two doors down from Jon's, but neither of them had been able to convince the school officials to let them move to a different locker. And, as luck would have it, Sarah walked up to hers just as Jon finished retrieving her books. For a moment, she simply stared, dumbfounded, at the pixie-girl.
"Oh my God," she said at last, trying to maintain her composure and keep from cackling like a lunatic, "is that you? Seriously? Jon Madison, loser extraordinaire, wakes up as Tinkerbell?" She could barely keep from breaking out in a fit of giggles as Jon nodded.
"Oh, this is just perfect!" she laughed. "Well, let's get a few things straight. First, just because you're now a girl and something unusual doesn't make you cool. And on that note, stay away from me. I've already caught it and got away unchanged, but I'm not going to risk becoming the first-ever repeat case. And finally, I don't know what goes on in your head, but if you're a lesbian and I catch you staring at me in the locker room, or if you're straight and I find you flirting with any of my guy friends, I will make you regret it. Capisce?"
Jon shrugged. "Sure, whatever," she replied. She wasn't going to just do whatever Sarah told her, but none of the items listed were anything she wanted, anyway. The "cool" girls at the school were either trend-slave minions of Sarah's or girls who suppressed actual coolness with bitchy me-tooism in order to fit in with the others, and Jon wasn't eager to get closer to Sarah than she could help. As far as the third demand went, Jon wasn't going to be a girl long enough for that to be an issue. She turned and flitted off to her next class, ignoring Sarah's death glare behind her.
It had taken Mrs. Madison the better part of an hour to get Mikey home from the doctor's office. First she had refused to leave until they told her that her change wasn't permanent (it was,) and then she had refused to go into Wal-Mart to try on the new clothes her mother was buying until Mrs. Madison had grabbed her by the wing and threatened to pull until feathers came out. Now, at last, they were home again, and Mrs. Madison left the hysterical harpy-girl on the couch to calm down while she unloaded their purchases.
It wasn't even like she'd bought anything particularily girly, she thought. The blouses, skirts, and training brassieres were all simple solid color garments, completely devoid of frill or ornament. Not even one single pink or pastel among them. And that was all she'd bought, aside from some new clothes for Jon; she'd looked for any other lower-body garments, but apparently such a huge majority of harpies went commando (she guessed due to the whole egg-laying thing) that regular retailers didn't even carry panties tailored to fit around a bird's tail, let alone pants. Since she wasn't going to have her daughter go around completely uncovered downstairs, she had just grabbed the skirts from the regular women's section. She really didn't think a little modesty was too much to ask.
After the purchases were unpacked and put away, she went to see Mikey, who had calmed down to a quiet sniffling. She sat down on the couch and put an arm around her new daughter. "Listen, dear," she said, "I know this is hard for you to accept, but you're really going to need to come to terms with this."
"I don't want to!" Mikey moaned. "I want to be a boy again!"
"I understand," Mrs. Madison said. "But that's not how it works, and you know that. Besides, if you don't get used to this, you're going to get an even bigger shock when your oviposition starts."
"Ovip-position?" Mikey stuttered. "W-what's that?"
"Well, dear," Mrs. Madison said, "do you know what menstruation is in women? The 'period,' as it's called?"
Mikey shrugged. "Sort of, but not really," she replied.
"It's part of the reproductive process. When a woman is old enough to be able to have kids, her body will start the menstrual cycle, where about once a month, her body will send down an egg or two to potentially be fertilized and develop into babies. There's more to it than that, but that's the key element here. You see, the doctor told me that something similar called 'oviposition' happens in harpies, only because of their birdlike features, the egg, fertilized or not, doesn't stay inside the body."
Mikey thought on this for a moment, and her eyes went wide. "YOU MEAN I'M GOING TO LAY EGGS!?" she shrieked. Her mother nodded, and she burst into tears.
