Trisha peeked around the corner and said "Help! My clothes! Get them back to me!"
Jennifer was puzzled, but said, "What happened here? I thought maybe you spilled something on your clothes and you had to take them off but there's nothing wrong with them."
Trisha said, "Never mind" and grabbed the clothes.
'James' realized what had happened and said, "That's not Trisha. Get her."
Jennifer replied, "What do you mean? Are you saying someone who looked exactly like her stole her clothes, put them on the floor, and claimed to be her in order to put them on again? That doesn't make any sense. Even if she did have a lookalike, why wouldn't the lookalike just take the clothes immediately and put them on, instead of saying 'give me back my clothes'?"
'James' replied, "Because he used the medallion and it takes a while for the medallion to make him into a lookalike. We have to get her! It's not really Trisha! It's the real James!"
Jennifer said, "You're making no sense. Medallion? Real James? What are you talking about?"
'James' said, "All right. My name isn't James, it's Steve. But let me tell you that I was always Steve the entire time I knew you. It's not as if you met someone else and I replaced that person. It's been me all along; you never knew any other James."
"So you changed your name, Steve? You never told me that. I suppose I could live with someone who has a different name. You're still you, after all. It's just a name."
Trisha appeared again. She fastened a button on her blouse as she said, "All right, that's stupid. If it was me I would have shrugged it off and not explained it. But Steve explained too much. Well, here's another explanation, but this one's going to be weirder." Trisha walked towards 'James' and Jennifer.
'James' said, "Stay away!"
Jennifer said, "James, or Steve, what's the matter? I've known Trisha for a while. You're acting like she's going to hurt you."
Trisha said, "I'm not going to touch either of you.
'James' said, "He's lying!"
Jennifer said, "He? What? Trisha's a woman."
'James' backed off and said, "If we can get to the door...."
Jennifer said, "You're scaring me, Steve. First you tell me your name is really Steve. Then you're afraid of Trisha for no reason that makes sense. Then..."
'James' said, "We have to go!" He pulled open the back door. Suddenly Princess jumped on him. The dog had an amulet around its neck. "Get this... dog off me! She's dangerous!"
Jennifer said, "Oh, come on, she's just friendly. I can see that she isn't biting you. And you've had her for a while. I understand dogs, that's not a dangerous dog."
The dog touched James with the amulet and abruptly ran off. 'James' had an expression of horror on his face and was crying into his hands as he realized it was too late.
Trisha said, "Let me tell you the truth. I'm James. The real James. The medallion that you just saw is a magic medallion. If you wear it and touch it to clothes, it makes you into a version of yourself that fits the clothes. If you wear it and touch it to someone else, you swap bodies. The second person doesn't have to wear it, or even touch it more than one time, for the swap to happen. James really is Steve. He didn't like his life, so he decided to replace me and turn me into a dog."
Jennifer looked at Trisha in disbelief. "That's sci-fi stuff. James is really..." Then she looked at James. James was already beginning to get smaller. His face was covered with hair and his nose was turning into a dogs. He didn't fit in his clothes. "It's like he's...."
"Yes. Let me continue. I ended up a pregnant dog. The medallion doesn't work if you're pregnant and I didn't have it anyway. I didn't give birth until today. But today I gave birth and managed to swap with Trisha. Trisha is the dog now. She just managed to swap with Steve. You'd better get Steve into the dog pen, before his body is complete."
Jennifer looked at Steve again. His body was half dog-like and he was beginning to develop fangs. "If what you say is true, he's a really bad person. All right...."
'Trisha' relaxed. "Okay. You do realize that even if he wasn't lying to you about who he was, you were about to marry someone who you met less than 60 days ago? That's a very short time. Now, would you marry someone who turns people into pregnant dogs?"
"I... I suppose I wouldn't."
"Unfortunately, the medallion won't let the same person transform until twelve yours have passed. So I'm stuck as Trisha until then, and Trisha's stuck as a dog. Only half of her swap with Steve worked."
"What about me?"
"What? I'm not the villain. I'd appreciate some help here, but I'm not going to do anything to you. You had no way to know, and it's not as if anyone would believe anything you told them."
The dog knocked the door open with her snout and entered, dropping the medallion on the floor. 'Trisha' picked it up. It wouldn't affect her before twelve hours passed anyway.
"What do you want me to do?"
"Can you go to the store and get me a few things? I won't be able to use them until twelve hours have passed."
Jennifer returned early the next morning. By this time, James and Trisha had changed back to normal. "I'm sorry," said Jennifer. "I didn't know James, I mean Steve, was such a creep...." She put down a package on the table, along with a fishbowl. In it was a single goldfish.
James said, "Help me get Steve."
James and Jennifer managed to get the new Princess muzzled, and then put the medallion around her neck. Then James dumped the goldfish out of the bowl and touched the medallion to it. Soon Steve/Princess and the fish began to turn into each other. He put the new Princess back in the dog pen and Steve in the fishbowl. "That's that. Steve can't get out of the bowl, and he can't wear the medallion even if he did. I don't know what you can do with a fish turned into a dog, but you're a dog groomer, you have to know someone who needs a dog. And now the last thing...."
There was a smaller dog pen with four newborn puppies in it. "You'll have to make sure they're leashed and tied up in the right way. It wouldn't do for the medallion to fall off in the middle of a transformation, but it also wouldn't do for the medallion to be on so tightly that when they change size, they'll be strangled." Together they put the medallion on each puppy and touched it to a small shoe. Soon, the puppies had become four human infants. "They're my babies. If I'm human, they should be too. I'm going to have to figure out what to do with them...."
