Jon spent the rest of the afternoon holed up in her room. She stared from one posession to another; half this stuff she wouldn't even be able to lift anymore. She'd have to get a micro-sized keyboard, mouse, and monitor for her computer, but so much of her other stuff just wasn't available in different sizes. After all, it wasn't like she could call up Radio Shack and order a new TRS-80. What was she supposed to say, "yeah, you know that computer you sold in the '70s and '80s? I need a smaller one?"
And her vinyl...no, no way was that going. She'd make that work no matter what it took; she'd just spent too long building up her collection to give up on it so easily. Jon flitted over to her record collection. It took a little work, but she slid out Brain Salad Surgery from the shelf. She carried it over to her bed, slid the LP out, and carefully airlifted it over to the turntable. On it went, and Jon crashed on her bed, laying back and trying to figure this out.
It had all seemed so simple at lunchtime. This was to be no more than a minor inconvenience, easily solved. But now, without the stone, it was suddenly just as devastating for her as it was for everybody else; she was changed now, and it was a change that would last for the rest of her life. She was forever stuck as...well, as Sarah had put it, Tinkerbelle. This was a gross generalization, since she resembled the popular rendition of the character only in species, gender, and hair color, but Jon had an uncomfortable feeling that Sarah wouldn't be the last person to make the comparison.
But she'd just have to deal with it. The whole thing, she'd just have to make it work. After all, a lot of other people did, right? The question was, how? Jon had no idea, but she'd have to find out.
In the middle of "Benny The Bouncer," Jon heard the door creak open. Mikey walked in, still unclothed, and sat on the bed. Both girls sat in silence for a while, listening to the music. Finally, the young harpy-girl spoke. "I...I know you probably hate me," she said. "But...I just wanna say that I'm really, really sorry about what I did today. 'I...I know 'sorry' isn't gonna turn us back, but...'m sorry, Jon." She buried her face in a wing, trying to hide her tears.
Jon smiled sadly. "No, it's okay," she said. "You didn't know what you were doing, that's all. Any other person would have done the same thing. And to be perfectly honest, this whole change thing is the result of a stupid wish by Karyn and I in the first place."
"B-but you weren't the one that g-got us s-stuck!" the young harpy protested.
Jon sighed. "Seriously, Mike, that wasn't your fault. Don't think I'm mad at you, alright? Life's too short to hate everyone who's ever made a mistake. Besides," she said, flitting over and sitting on the other girl's shoulder, "we're going to need all the sympathy I can get to get through this, and you and I are the only ones around here that really understand what the other's going through. I don't want grudges over whose fault it was to get in the way of that, okay?"
Mikey smiled, a bit, as side one of the record faded out. "Okay," she replied.
