"Next time, on Dragon Ball Sup--" the television announcer didn't get to finish his sentence before the screen went dark. Linda's hand lingered on the power button for just a moment, her eyes glazed open. The stillness of her body belied the furiously spinning machine that was bouncing from one side of her brain to the other.
Then she broke.
"I can't believe Vegeta--"
"I know, and that bit with Whis? He's so--"
"Yeah! But I can't believe they left Gohan out of this sto--"
"But Future Trunks--"
"I love Future Tru--"
Linda almost couldn't tell which were her words and which were coming from the sandals that she was still inexplicably wearing, but she understood the conversation in a way she could never have imagined just half an hour before. The exchange continued, until finally Linda remembered: "You said we were going to fix this!"
"Right!" the shoes said. "See, I told you we'd have plenty of time."
Linda found her feet walking around Jon's bed, deftly avoiding the debris on the floor, and moving a slat of baseboard to reveal a small cavity in the wall that held a slightly reddish stone.
"That's a wishing stone," Jon's voice rang in Linda's head. "Pick it up and say 'I wish that Jon Gibson would return to his normal self, as though unaffected by Sarah McMillan's shoes.'"
Linda knelt down and held the stone in her hand. "I wish--"
Pain. Searing, instant, shooting pain centered in Linda's feet. Pain that lasted less than half of a second, but felt like an eternity nonetheless.
"No," a voice that Linda somehow recognized as Sarah McMillan's gasped, "you are not going to make that wish."
The pain flew from Linda's feet like a ripple, like a wave of energy lapping itself over her body from toes to knees to hips to shoulders to mouth, where it finally left her, pulling five words out behind it: "I had a cuter wardrobe."
Sarah panted. "Good. That's the kind of wish someone in my shoes would make." She was clearly losing steam. "Now go try on your new outfits, just like someone in my shoes would. I'm out."
And with that, Sarah disappeared, leaving Linda Gibson alone in her son's room, wearing a pair of chestnut-colored suede Ugg boots in precisely Sarah's size.
