Jon pulled out a drawer. A pencil was still there, the fresh eraser now hardened over 23 years. Some pens and spare staples, but no rock. But the rock could have been put anywhere, if it was around here at all and hadn't just been thrown in the trash. Maybe under the bed? In the old toy box among his old GI Joe figures?
There was a knocking at his window. Jon looked over and the face was his own, maybe a little different. He could hear a voice that sounded a lot like what his voice sounded like when recorded. "I wish that Mom's asleep watching TV and will stay asleep for long enough for me to get into Jon's room."
Well, now he knew what had happened to the stone. He could only wait until a few minutes later the door to his room opened and the other Jon stepped in. He did not look exactly like himself; he was maybe two years older.
"Hi," said the other Jon. "I bet you're wondering...."
"I guessed a lot," he said. "Mom said there was a Jon-6, and what was wrong with him was that he aged like a normal person, and she had to let him go. That's you, right?"
"Yeah," said Jon-6.
"And you got the stone."
"Just recently. Mom threw it out. I never could find it before she let me go. I've been staying with Mikey's family. Do the math... Mikey was seven. That was 23 years ago, so he's 30 now. I've been trying to sneak around here, and looked around outside. Last week I found the stone. It was in the dirt, like a normal rock. I could barely see the top half of it."
"It's my stone."
"I'm just as much Jon as you, so it's my stone first! Oh... I wish you'd just let me keep it. Look, Jon, I'm really sorry about that but we know that the stone can cause problems. The last thing I needed was to have us trying to fight for the stone and make contradicting wishes, each time changing something that can never be reversed."
Jon imagined himself accidentally turning into a box because the other Jon wished he'd shut up, or the other Jon dying because he wished he could go away. It could be a disaster. He realized that trying to take the stone really would be a bad idea. "You're right. I'd really rather have the stone but if you're me... it has to be one of us. Fighting over it can be bad. But could you use it to get me out of here? Please?"
"I can. But wishes don't reverse, remember? The original Jon wished for something interesting. We can't go back to normal. It wouldn't be interesting."
"Yeah, but you could wish that Mom is sane and that she's not a mad scientist and that we're just brothers or something. Maybe make her younger too if that's needed to make our ages work out." Jon hesitated. He didn't know that. "Could you?"
Jon-6 said, "I wish the two of us knew if that's interesting enough."
Jon suddenly realized, No, it isn't interesting enough. "Damn," he said. "Maybe if you wish for just part of that? In fact, how about this? Mom let you go because the experiment went bad. Make a wish that Mom let me go because the experiment went bad too. Just slightly bad in some way that won't keep me from having a normal life. How long would it take Mom to grow another Jon?"
Jon-6 replied, "It took her a while to make the machine. After that, around two years each. I'm aging normally, and you have to count me as starting at age 16, so I'm 18 years old now."
"Okay, then if I escape, she can't make another Jon and bring him out of the vat tomorrow. We'd have plenty of time to do something about it. So that wish should work. If it changes me in a way I don't like, I know we're allowed to reinterpret the wish. So you can fix it. You could wish that it changes me in a different way."
"I can... except maybe I can't. Remember, it's not possible to reverse the part about it being interesting. Maybe I make that wish, it messes up, and I can't fix it at all. Because if I fixed it in a way you would be happy with, it wouldn't count as interesting."
"Yeah..." What should he call the other Jon? "Yeah, Jon, but... the original Jon already wished for something interesting that I'm not happy with. I don't think you're happy with it either. If we change it it could be worse, but it could be better. I'm willing to take the chance."
"All right. I wish that Mom's experiment to make Jon-7 went bad, so Mom let Jon-7 go, but this won't prevent Jon-7 from having a normal life."
