Jon spluttered and nearly fell out his seat at the revelation. "What? That can't--"
"It can, and apparently it did. He must have been beyond the range of the stone at the time of the wish," Karyn interjected in a steady, matter-of-fact tone. "There's more. 'Your' boyfriend... he wants 'Jen' to call him. Now."
"Oh no..." Jon moaned. "What do we do? Can't we wish him to forget or something?"
Karyn rolled her eyes. "Jon, for someone who is so protective of a life and identity that didn't exist a day ago, you seem awfully eager to fool with other people's minds and memories." Jon blushed guiltily as she continued. "Besides, he might not even be in range yet. Even if he was... it's pretty obvious now that there are going to be issues since the whole world outside the town still thinks you're 'Jen' or whoever."
He drummed his fingers against his desk nervously before shaking his head. "I don't know... it's too much to think about. Maybe you should call him back and say Jen lost her voice or something."
After pondering for a bit, Karyn waved it off. "I don't think so... it'll be too suspicious now. We can't hide this from him forever anyway. Maybe we should just tell him everything."
"No!" Jon exclaimed, jumping to his feet. "It's too risky.... He might want to wish for some drastic changes. We're better off keeping him out of this until we can figure it out." His personal anxiety over the issue was quite evident.
"Well gee. What do we do then?" his friend asked a bit exasperatedly.
Jon reached over and grasped the stone in his palm and began to think up a wish. Karyn cautiously remarked, "Let's not be too hasty..."
He held the stone out in front of him as he began his carefully worded wish:
"I wish that in a moment, I will gain the ability to physically transform my body to be like the one I had an instant before the wish that changed me into a boy, as well as return myself to my current form by mentally willing it, and that because it's an ability I am just getting, no one else knows of it, nor is any apparent history changed by granting it to me."
His eyes squeezed closed as a flash filled the room and the stone glowed with warmth. Suddenly, he felt a slight tingle in the back of his mind, which faded just as quickly. Taking a deep breath, he willed the transformation.
Karyn gasped as Jon's short hair tumbled out into long auburn locks that went to well below 'his' shoulders. His entire body subtly shifted as his bone structure grew more delicate, and his whole body slimmed and softened. His chest and rear gently swelled while his newly aligned bones gave him a more feminine posture. The modest dusting of body hair on his body thinned out and in some places, disappeared entirely. In a surprising move, his clothing now shifted to match, leaving him clad in a soft, pale green tee and light beige short-shorts, with the appropriate underclothes.
Altogether, she looked like the sort of girl Karyn would hang out with, if there were more girls like that at school. As one would expect, Jen bore a striking resemblance to Jon, and could easily be his fraternal twin. However, her appearance left both Jon and Karyn with an eerie feeling of half-recognition, as if it was the image of someone they felt they absolutely should know but couldn't recall at all.
Almost as if entranced, Jon stepped towards the mirror and reached out with her right arm, tracing the features of her unsettlingly familiar new reflection. She abruptly turned away and sat back down at her desk, trying hard not to look at 'herself.' This was just too weird.
