Jon sighed. He didn't see quite as upset as someone usually was who would be int hat position and couldn't change back.
Alan probably thought that Jon was just admitting to himself that he agreed to it. Jon, however, was thinking about the stone and the pad which, unfortunately, Karyn had both of (he had left the stone with her when he went to the back with Alan).
Jon emerged again. Karyn smiled at the idea of Jon wishing for something weird without thinking and getting forced to realize how weird it was when it affected him.
"Change me back!" whispered Jon to Karyn. "Just erase it!" He sat down. He was sure that Alan would yell at him but he had to do it.
"Sure, Jon," said Karyn, "but one thing..."
"What?"
"We never figured out what happens when you erase a wish. Suppose you write down 'we're on a bus to the mall'. Then we get to the mall. And you erase the wish."
"Then we're magically back, right?"
"No, then we magically aren't on a bus to the mall. It might be nice and bring us back. Or it might erase the bus and say we're at the mall for another reason. Or it might do nothing at all since it's just us being on the bus that we wished for and we got off so we aren't on it anyway. Get the idea?"
"Yeah, I do. So you're saying, I wished that we're sitting at a table watching weird staff. If we erase that, the wish just has to make it so we're not watching weird staff any more. It doesn't have to change the side effects back. It could undo everything, but it could also just get rid of the ones we're watching, and leave alone me and the other ones. Or it could blind us so we're not watching them and do nothing else at all."
"Get back here!" yelled Alan. "Don't sit with the customers... the boss'll get mad."
Jon got up, and Karyn erased the paper. As soon as she did so, Jon tripped and soda spilled over both of them. They rubbed their eyes, both saying at almost the same time "I can't see!"
When they finally could see, needless to say, nothing was different.
Karyn got out another sticky note and thought hard about what she'd write this time. It was definitely harder than it seemed.
