That day after school, Karyn glimpsed the pile of jelly beans and suddenly got an urge to eat one. She picked one up and popped it into her mouth... and felt her breasts shrink a bit, down to C cup size.
Uh-oh, she thought,.
She quickly brought up Jon's number on her cell phone and dialed.
"Hello?"
"It's me, Jon. We've got a problem. A stone problem. I think we'd better meet... oh, meet in the middle of the big space behind building 2. If what happened that I think happened, it's a good place to test."
"All right."
Karyn scooped up the pile of jelly beans and put them in her lunch box. Then she walked over to the area and got out her trig homework. Several problems later, Jon showed up.
"Hey, Karyn. So this is... what exactly? I came over as fast as I could."
"I found a pile of jelly beans. Hold on, let me finish. I found a pile of jelly beans and I ate one, and it gave me the breasts I wished for." She opened up her lunchbox to show Jon, but as soon as she did, he reached for one. "Don't!" she yelled.
"What?"
"I think if you had eaten one you'd have gotten breasts. It's something about the stone." Jon hesitated and she closed the lunchbox. "Can I borrow it? Please? I promise I'm not going to do anything dangerous."
"All right. I trust you." Jon took the stone out and handed it to Karyn.
Karyn made her wish. "I wish that I knew how this stone is acting, and why."
The stone glowed, but nothing happened except a sound, like someone tossing something on the ground. Karyn handed it back, apparently expecting it, and looked towards the source of the sound. "There it is!" She pointed to a scattered pile of what looked like jelly beans, a few yards away. It was easy to see, considering that Karyn had picked a big flat location for them to meet, and it hadn't been there before.
The two approached the pile and each took one and ate it. Of course they knew the answer then.
"I was right," said Karyn. "The stone is working differently. It's not even your stone. Someone replaced it. They needed the stone for some kind of magical ritual so they took the one they needed and replaced it one that they thought was just about as good."
"Well, it sort of is," said Jon. The whole bean thing is inconvenient, which is worse, but it lets you reverse wishes, which is better.... I guess I can still use it. But what if one of the beans gets lost? These things must have materialized in the air and fallen and bounced."
"We could wish it sitting on a bed."
"I don't know. And what's this about the target of the stone? I don't get it, Karyn. If I say "I wish Sarah is here," and someone else eats a bean, does that substitute them for Sarah and make them come here instead?"
"I suppose."
"But that's silly. If the 'target' is every noun listed in the wish, then saying 'I wish Dad never dented his car' and eating the bean would come out like wishing I never dented me."
"Maybe it's not nouns at all. Maybe making someone the target just means that 'I' and 'me' now refer to them, but names stay the same."
"In that case all we need to do is use names and not the words 'I' and 'me'. If you say 'I wish Karyn has C cup breasts' and not 'I wish I have C cup breasts' it doesn't matter who eats the beans, they never cause any trouble at all. That sounds too easy."
"We're probably not going to remember to do that every single time."
"And then there's the question of whether the person who eats them counts as hearing the wish...."
