Jon found he had managed to actually get to school slightly early, thanks to the new bike. He put it in one of the racks near the door, then hung around outside waiting for Karyn. Subconciously looking for her familiar red hair, he was slightly startled when she walked up to him and said "Hi." The blonde girl hand't registered as his friend when he'd seen her at a distance.
"Hi yourself", he replied, looking at her. She had trimmed the long blonde hair somewhat, making it closer to her original style, but it was still a very different look to the one he was familiar with. Her sweater bulged out noticably when she moved her arm, and he glanced down at her chest briefly. She made an irritated noise, and he looked back at her face. "How are the, well, you know..." he tried, motioning slightly at her chest.
She appeared irritated. "Not easy to get used to, that's for sure. Having several more pounds of flesh suddenly attached to you is quite a shock, and the things are so big than every time I rolled over in bed I woke myself up. I want my old breasts back!" Karyn wasn't happy. "Have you got the stone?"
Nodding, Jon replied "Yes, but there's a problem." He was thinking of the best way of answering her quizzical expression when the bell rang, and they had to go inside. "I'll tell you later", he said quickly as they parted ways just inside the building.
He was glad that there was no PE class scheduled for today, so no one would see his newly furry midriff. Still, he made sure to keep his shirt pulled down. Every now and then when he bent over or moved just right, he became aware of the box in his pouch, but much of the time he didn't notice it very much.
Several hours later they sat on the ground outside the cafeteria during the lunch break, in the sunlight. Jon began his explanation.
"I wished for a new bike this morning, and got it, but got something else as well." She interrupted him.
"New bike? What's wrong with the old one?"
He scowled. "I didn't HAVE an old one. That one is the new one!" She looked surprised, then nodded in comprehension.
"Ah. OK, since I didn't hear the wish I have memories of you having got it for your birthday three months ago." She looked at him and asked, "So what else did you get?"
"Ears. Kangaroo's ears, growing out of my head." His friend looked startled, and inspected him closely.
"Why would you get kangaroo ears? And where are they, you're perfectly normal now." She paused, then added, "Well, I suppose they'd match your pouch anyway."
Stunned, he stared at her. "My pouch? How did you know about..." Unconciously he put a hand on his lower abdomen, feeling the box through skin, fur, and shirt.
Karyn glanced at him in surprise. "What do you mean? I've always know about your pouch. It's odd, but really neat. Very useful, you've always kept important things in it, like your wallet. It must be great having a built-in pocket you'll never lose things from. Is that where the stone is?"
He nodded slowly, looking at his old friend in amazement. It suddenly struck him that the strange animal-related changes must be subject to the same reality-altering effect of the stone's normal wish-granting. Karyn hadn't heard his wishes, and thought his current state normal as a result. Suddenly he wondered with some horror whether the changes were also permanent like other wishes were, but relaxed slightly a moment later. He had been able to wish away the ears, so logically they couldn't be.
"Does everyone know about it?" he asked, curious.
"Most people. It's pretty obvious when you don't have a shirt on, and the fur stands out a bit as well. You used to make everyone laugh in PE by seeing how many things you get into it. I think the record was a basketball, half a dozen tennis balls, and a large towel." She giggled at the memory. "You looked like you were pregnant with twins, odd shaped ones at that."
Shaking his head, he tried to explain. "Before this morning I didn't have a pouch. It appeared when I wished the ears away. I think something is wrong with the stone. Twice now when I've made a wish it's been granted, but I've gotten animal bits as well." She looked askance at him.
"Really? You're not just pulling my leg?" He shook his head. Lifting his shirt and reaching into his pouch he pulled out the stone in it's box. Opening it he showed it to her. She inspected it carefully. "Looks OK to me", she said.
"I thought when I looked at it this morning something looked slightly different, but I'm damned if I can figure out what or why." He lifted the stone out of the box between finger and thumb, and held it up. "I don't know what's going on, but I've worried about using it again. What might happen to me?"
Karyn shook her head. "Well, we're going to have to use it, I need to get my breasts and hair back to normal somehow." He shrugged and dropped it back into the box, then returned the box to his pouch.
"I guess so, but we'll have to be even more careful." The end of lunch bell rang, and they went their separate ways once more.
After school they met up at the usual place. Jon leaned his new bike against the wall and together they sat down on the other side, away from view of the road or any passers-by. "So, what do we do?" asked Karyn.
Jon shrugged a little helplessly. "I'm not sure. I'm worried that using the stone may cause more problems than it solves. I mean, I can live with a kangaroo pouch I guess, and the fur is something I can deal with. Everyone thinks it's normal anyway, like your breasts and hair. We could put the thing away and forget about it and just get on with our lives and not risk anything else."
Shaking her head, Karyn replied testily, "You may think these breasts are something I can live with, but you try it. They're huge, at least compared with the ones I'm supposed to have, and they get in the way. Your pouch is actually useful, these are just a pain. I want my old breasts back, and I'm not keen on the hair."
He sighed. "OK, OK. Let's just be careful, alright?" Getting to his feet and pulling the box out of his pouch he opened it and removed the stone. Pacing back and forth, he thought for a while. Eventually he said, "I think we should make sure that we remember any changes that result, whether either one of us hears the wish or not." Karyn nodded, and he said "I wish that both Karyn and myself would always remember reality from the time we both saw the stone regardless of the results of any wishes." There was the usual feeling of having to look away for a moment.
Karyn suddenly said, "Oh my god, I remember, you never had a pouch before. Weird. What does it feel like?" Then she stopped and stared at Jon, who was twisting around trying to get a good look at the four-foot long kangaroo tail that had ripped through his pants. "Fucking hell, what happened?", she gasped in disbelief, and pointed at his tail. Then she looked down at the end of her arm and gasped loudly. Jon stopped and glanced back at her as she slowly raised her arm and inspected it, then raised the other one and looked at that as well.
The problem was that neither arm ended in a hand any more. Instead, where the hand should be, the arms merged into the lower foreleg of some sort of hooved animal. They were a few inches longer than her arms had originally been, and terminated in large solid hooves, fur spreading from the hooves halfway up to her elbows. She rapidly discovered than she could only bend her "wrists" up and down, having very limited movement.
The fur was striped black and white, and after a few moments she said faintly "I think they're from a zebra. Jon, what's going on? What do I do?" She held her hooves up in front of her, tapping one with the other and wincing at the clunking noise.
