Jon took his seat in physics. Some things hadn't changed.
But his teacher had. He had looked her up on his app before putting his phone away and going to class. Dr. Anne Redwood had been replaced by Yoko Tanaka the lunch lady. Anne was a young PhD who settled for a job at Lake Point High because she couldn't find work in her field. She had upset the wrong people while in grad school and was now persona non grata. Not even her advisors' strong letters of recommendation could help her.
Jon had no idea until he read her bio on the app. He had never given any thought as to why someone with a doctorate would be teaching in high school. She had never given any signs in class of settling for a position that she had never planned for. She gave Lake Point High her all. Jon had appreciated her enthusiasm even though the subject didn't interest him anywhere as much as it interested her.
Jo Redwood was young like Anne but had none of her predecessor's energy. She was visibly drained. Jon got a prisoner vibe from her. As if she wanted to break free from the school and do ... something science-y Jon wouldn't be able to understand even if he were an A student in high school physics.
Jo didn't take her colleagues' rejection in stride as Anne had. She couldn't stop hating the people who rejected her applications. She forced herself not to leak out her anger at these kids who had nothing to do with her dilemma. She wished she could do a better job with them, but the truth was that she just wasn't cut out for this. She was a researcher. She was supposed to discover new things, not repeat old ones to a bunch of indifferent teenagers. She noticed the redheaded one - Jon - being especially bored. Or at least distracted. She couldn't blame him. He was trapped like she was.
After writing a formula that few were paying any attention to, much less copying, she turned away from the whiteboard and noticed that she could see the cafeteria building through the classroom window. She had been at this job - in this very classroom - for months and had been oblivious to details like that. Life after getting her PhD was like a bad dream. It would be a total nightmare if she were, say, a lunch lady. At least this position was directly related to her degree. Even if she could only cover the basics.
Jon didn't understand them, and yet in his own way he was learning about how the universe worked. About how nature, nurture, and free will were the building blocks of identity. Oh, and ... the residue. Like Kelsey's bob cut on Julie Madison. Julie's red hair was a sort of residue as well, even though the trait had been in Jon's Irish ancestors all along. It was as if the stone had plucked out the genes for red hair because it thought red hair was what Kelsey would have had if she were Irish. Which Julie was now. Or to be more precise, a Julie-Kelsey-Linda blend.
Three layers now, thought Jon. Eight when this is over next Tuesday? Will I even recognize any girl - any woman by then? Oh no - what if they're stuck in that eight-layer blend once the wish ends? I had assumed all the girls would return to their original families and identities after the week was over, but my wording didn't insure that. I might have to live with whatever the stone decided forever. And worse yet ... so would Athena and Zelda unless they came back to campus. Mrs. Getherd might never be a mother to her children again. They'd all think Zelda was their mother. What have I done?
Jon was so consumed by guilt that he was not only ignoring the current Dr. Redwood but also ignoring the altered girls in class. He was surrounded by the eye candy he had wished for and wasn't taking a single bite.
He thought about what Samantha had told him. "You actually feel remorse for whatever you wished for." He did ... but what good was it doing Athena? And other girls now stuck in worst lives, believing things had always been bad for them? Conversely, was it right for Betty Lou Drucker to be rewarded with the life of an honor student? It certainly wasn't fair. He had feelings, but the stone didn't. It improved or ruined lives at random. Because of Jon's words on Tuesday. Maybe more words later today might repair the damage he had caused. Jon thought about what he could wish after he got home.
But first he went to his last class of the day. Jon paused in the doorway. The teacher was ...
