(felt I had to follow up that last posts, and had some odd ideas I wanted to put down.)
We were wrong! The police were wrong! The scars, finger prints, dental records and retinal scans were all terribly, horribly wrong! This...can't be my little girl! My angel! My little princess!
Kyla McMillain just stared at her. At the...jolly behemoth who had replaced her sleek and sassy daughter. The...thing who was trundling about the kitchen, frying ham and cracking eggs in the grease, singing along with the radio and being generally a big, stupid...loser!
Sarah was dressed in a blanket - wrapped about her bulging body like a sarong and held in place with a safety pin - and chatting with Nathan about landscaping she wanted to do, expanding her little garden and even building on an addition to the house!
"You 'member sayin' tha' you wanted t' build a rec-room, daddy? Well, gimme a couple a days, an' I kin get started on that. Jus' gonna need th' supplies..."
"And...how would you go about doing that, Sarah? You don't know anything about construction or..."
Sarah snorted in derision, and gave Kyla a look like she was from another planet. It was the same look Sarah used to give when someone questioned her fashion sense.
"Ma..." she said, rolling her eyes and setting a plate of scrambled eggs (yokes removed), hashbrowns (pepper. no salt), lean ham and toast with the crusts removed. "...it aint like it's real difficult. We jus' take some pictures of the side of the house we gonna build on down t' th' Zoning Office, an' make a sketch o' th' lot where th' house is. Then - once we get permission - we start th' foundation an' open the side..."
She started to rattle on about electricians and plumbing...sounding for all the world like any contractor telling a homeowner about the costs and needs of a job, but sounding not at all like the girl she'd been two days ago. Her body language shifted as she spoke, becoming less...girlish and more...well, it was hard to say. Mannish didn't seem quite right...but it was close. She turned away from the stove with a platter piled high with scrambled eggs (golden heaps of buttery, heavily salted and peppered cholesterol fluff), fried ham, bacon, sausage, homefries and hashbrowns, butter-drenched toast and a pitcher of orange juice. She started shoveling the food into her mouth, eating with gusto and zest as she flipped on the kitchen television. It was set for Nathan's favorite morning viewing - the ESPN Morning Show - and Sarah watched with great interest as they went over the sports highlights.
Nathan ate the eggs (sunnyside up) bacon (crisp) and toast he'd been served, quietly watching his daughter as she inhaled her food. She shoveled in a fork full of eggs and ham, then a slice of toast with jam, shaking her had and muttering "Fuckin' Lions gonna suck again this year..." as the sports caster mentioned the Detroit Lions change of logo and font. Sarah shook her head and chuckled in amusement at the idea. "Fashion ain't gonna turn you aroun', yah piss-ass losers. Gotta get a real quarterback, get some guys who can hold th' line an' keep 'im safe...fuckin' morons..."
She continued to discourse first on the subject of American Football, then on Hockey, and finally asked her father if she could come bass fishing with him and his friends this year.
"We'll see honey..." he muttered, obviously in a bit of a daze over the mornings events. In just the last 24 hours he'd seen his daughter become a completely different person. From Pampered Princess to Working Class Lout in no more than a day. She'd actually changed while he'd watched her this time, and he could see that this...lumbering she-brute had developed a unibrow in just the last hour. Her eyebrows becoming thicker and growing together. In fact...her legs and arms were somewhat hairy and she had a faint sprinkling of dark hairs on her upper-lip and chin. She looked and acted...well...
"Sarah?"
"Yeah, pop?" she asked, giving him a smile and mopping up the traces of grease and butter with her last slice of toast.
"Are you...don't be insulted, but...are you a lesbian?"
Sarah looked back at him blankly, then burst out with great, belly-shaking laughs. She brushed tears from her jowls, and snorted "Tha'd be a shock ta my boyfrien', now wouldn' it!"
"And...who's your boyfriend again?" he pressed, feeling he had to know.
She looked puzzled at his tone, then said "Biff Meadows. Me an' he's been together since 'bout our Freshman year. I'm still wearin' his ring, ain't I?" she said, pulling a chain from around her thick neck, showing the ring that could no longer fit around the thick, powerful fingers.
"I just wanted to be sure..." he said, taking a dazed Kyla by the arm. She'd eaten what her daughter had set before her like she was sleepwalking, and when he'd pulled her out of the room...she'd gone in just the same way. Like she was hypnotized. Like she was sleepwalking.
Nathanial lead her down the hall and to the bedroom, and said "That's our daughter. I watched the changes this time. As I was with her, I saw...things change. I saw her body language change and the way she talks just..."
"Like...like...she acts like..." Kyla began to mumble "...like she's a guy....or maybe a dyke...or..."
"Yeah, exactly. Now...we have an appointment with a specialist, and we're going to do all we can for her. But...this is my daughter. I know she's in there. I get little flashes and glimpses and...we've got to make her feel comfortable, okay? We've got to try and make her feel...normal. Because she doesn't seem to realize what's happening to her. Do you understand? We...need to help her..."
"Hey Ma, I'm gonna get ready fer school. I gotta go tah th' store an' get some clothes first, 'cause I can't jus' wear this flippin' sundress all the time. That okay wit' you?"
"Sure, honey..." she said. Then...the two of them exchanged WTF-looks, and they both went out to confront their daughter.
She was wearing the sundress and slippers as she waddled to the door, her smart, lavender bookbag looking out of place in her huge hands.
She was wearing the sundress and slippers.
Up until yesterday morning...they'd never seen those articles.
"Where did those come from, honey?" asked Kyla.
Sarah opened her mouth to say something, but her brown wrinkled and she finally said "I dunno, ma. They was jus' there when I woke up. I...I dunno..."
She turned and waddled out the door and to her little convertible. She moved the seat back as far as it would go, then raised the steering wheel as high as it could. She wedged herself into the drivers seat, and drove off...the car sinking visibly on her side.
That was when her parents really accepted that this wasn't a natural occurrence. Not a freak accident, mutation or reaction to a mix of stimuli. The both of them accepted that this had crossed from the unnatural...to the supernatural.
Later...
Jon was considering making another wish. He wasn't sure if he should, because his badly worded wish that "...something interesting would happen." had not yet paid off. Life was just as it had been, and wishing that whatever his last wish had affected "...would now become more obvious and unusual." was still hanging fire. He'd talked with Karyn about what he'd said, and she scolded him for abusing the stones power...which he know knew he had done. And worst of all, he wouldn't be able to simply wish away whatever the stone had done if it was unpleasant or harmful. He'd really blown it. But...he was just so bored...
That changed at third period, when he noticed that Sarah - who shared his math class - didn't show up. He glanced at her empty seat and wondered if he'd killed her, crippled her or wished her out of existence. Even though he hated her, pangs of guild gnawed at him, and he couldn't wait till lunch when he could talk with Karyn about...
The class door opened...and the biggest person he'd ever seen in his life came waddling into the room. His first thought was that it was a man, but the shear size of the gargantuan breasts, the long hair tied back into a sloppy ponytail...
It was female. Just not obviously female. She wore a huge pair of denim overalls that only barely fit her (they'd been the largest pair at the "Big and Tall" store she'd finally had to shop at) and under that, a red and white plaid flannel shirt. She wore enormous work boots on her equally enormous feet, and when she dropped into the three chairs she slid together (she needed the support, as her ass was wide enough to fill a sofa) the room actually shook. She tossed a folded piece of paper onto the teachers desk, then opened the green, unadorned book bag she'd bought, and removed a math text book...
The whole class gawked at the she-mountain who sat behind Sarah's desk, and the teacher started to say "Now just wait a minute..."
The girl. The nearly seven-feet tall, 800 lb behemoth of muscle and fat who sat behind Sarah's desk. She slowly looked up, and glared at the teacher. Mrs. Finch was a tiny woman, who wasn't usually into confrontations. The massive girl - with her huge hands holding the tiny text book - rumbled "Yeah? You got somethin' ta say, teach? I'm all ears over here." in a deep, gravelly voice that was somehow not un-feminine nor un-Sarah. It sounded like Sarah might sound if wearing a voice modulator set on heavy bass.
"N-n-n-nothing, Sarah. The note...uh, is quite specific about...certain things. I...I'll continue the lesson."
Mrs. Finch went back to the white board, and Sarah went back to her text book, writing the problems on a piece of paper with a pencil that looked like a toothpick in her humongous hand. Jon watched her face - heavy lips, huge nose, thick jowls, triple chins, piggish eyes with bags beneath them, and an obvious scattering of whiskers you commonly say of certain woman - and saw no resemblance to the cheerleader he'd known.
This...was the result of his wish. This huge, hulking brute. This is what his wishing had done.
Awesome!
After class - which Sarah followed carefully, taking notes in a thick, blocky hand that was nothing at all like the loops and swirls she'd once written in - Jon handed Sarah her book bag, and she smiled at him. Ugly as she was (and she was VERY ugly) her face was animated and cheerful as she said "Thanks, Jon-o. Dis has been one fucked-up day, wit' my folks actin' weird an nobody seemin' tah recognize me. Nice tah know you ain't actin' all freaky an' shit too."
"Oh, well...you know me, Sarah. I see you've...um, changed a bit, but you know...it's for the better. You look great."
Sarah smiled again, and gave Jon a big, affectionate hug. "You think so? Man, I know I does. I mean, I feel GREAT, yah know?"
Jon smiled at the girl...unaware that his wish had not yet run it's course.
