That night, an unexpected windstorm blew into town. The trees whipped, and one particularly old oak swayed in the gusts. After a great deal of blowing, an enourmous limb cracked and fell, right onto a power line.
Fortunately for Jon's family, the beeping of the truck from the electric company was enough to wake Jon's dad, Peter. Unfortunately everybody was already late for their respective job/class. Linda Madison scrambled to get Jon and Zoe up and going. Peter rushed in and out of the shower. Finally, everybody was ready to go and scrambled out the door. Jon was last, but little did he know that something had slipped from its ornately carved box and out of his backpack just as he was leaving.
A few hours later, power was finally restored and Peter arrived home on his lunch break. As he walked in the door, he stepped on something hard. He bent down and examined the stone.
"Hmm.. that's kinda neat." He picked it up and went over and set it on the coffee table. He went about resetting all the clocks in the house and then made a sandwich and sat down with it on the couch. As he ate, he flipped through the channels. The stone caught his eye again, and he picked it up. Rolling it through his fingers, his mind drifted.
"Hmmm..." he said aloud, "I wish...
