The next day, Stacy was still thinking of sex as much as she did when she was Steve. She was planning to go with Rachel, start easy by offering to go see a movie, then...
Stacy silently screamed. Her life had revolved around getting laid but she knew what that now meant. If she had sex now, the result would be pregnancy, sooner or later. That was the whole point. But there had to be something she was missing.
Meanwhile, Karyn and Jon were busy looking things up on the computer. "You see," explained Jon, "something else occurred to me. Ms. Fletcher started doing this after I wished for something interesting. So did the stone give her the power, or did she already have it? And can the stone give someone a power greater than itself?"
"I don't see how--" said Karyn.
"Karyn, the stone has a range. If Ms. Fletcher got the power because of my wish, and if the stone can't make something more powerful than itself, then she ought to be limited by range just the same as the stone is. In fact, never mind this." He made one last search and got his cell phone out, punching in a number from the computer screen.
"Hello," said a girl's voice on the other end. "I don't know who you are but make this quick, I'm on a date!"
"Stacy Farber, right? I wasn't trying to get you. I was trying to get your voicemail, Just hang up and let me leave a message."
"What?"
"It's very important," said Jon.
"Fine." The call disconnected.
"So far so good," said Jon. "Now I have to call again." Jon put the speaker on his phone so Karyn could hear it and redialed.
They could both hear the words: "You have reached the voice mail of Steve Farber. I'm not available at the moment but...."
"Do you hear that?" asked Jon. "The voice mail of Steve Farber. That message isn't on the phone. It's on some computer hundreds of miles away. Mrs. Fletcher couldn't change it. At least not without going there so that it's inside the range, which she didn't."
"How does that help us?"
"Well, it means she's not really as powerful as she thinks she is. It may also mean that if Grandpa is still alive, he may be more powerful than her. And it may mean a bunch of other things, especially if I can get the stone to work. Let me try some more computer searches."
Fifteen minutes later, Jon's phone rang. He saw the number was Stacy Farber's and answered it. "Hello?"
"I don't know what's going on here," said Stacy, "but how could anyone be stupid enough to call someone's voice mail and just keep talking? Everything you said went straight into my voice mail. You're mixed up in this nonsense somehow. Are you responsible for Ms. Fletcher turning me into a girl?"
"No," said Jon. "Not the way you think, anyway. And if you cooperate I may be the only person who can fix it. I only called you because I wanted to hear your answer message. It proved something I needed to prove. Besides, what are you doing going on a date? I bet Ms. Fletcher wants you to get pregnant."
"I don't think I have to worry about it," said Stacy.
"How's that?" asked Jon. "You're not going to go all the way?"
"Oh, shut up," said Stacy. "It was just a crank call, Rachel," she said and hung up.
Karyn laughed. "Heteronormativity," she said.
"Now it's my turn to say 'what?'"
"For all that stuff you told me Ms. Fletcher said about function calls and computers and modern witchcraft, she's obviously stuck in some decade older than she is. Steve was going out with Rachel before, right?" Jon nodded. "My guess is that Stacy leans towards straight, or she would be drooling over me in the locker room, but she doesn't lean so much that she would just forget going out with Rachel. I bet she was still hoping she'd go all the way with Rachel, and given the rumors about Rachel swinging both ways, it occurred to her that she could still do it. And it never occurred to Ms. Fletcher that Stacy could do that, because Ms. Fletcher just doesn't think that way."
