Author's note: This is a reboot of my Gender Role Reversal series. Samantha and I have made a lot of changes since the last time we wrote anything and so we thought that it was better to rewrite the whole thing and start a new branch.
I sat on the wall after class, nervously fingering the box and swinging my legs. It was the first day of school after spring break and had been one of the most stressful I'd ever endured. I hadn't dared carry the box around with me all day in case I misplaced it or someone thought they might borrow it, and that meant leaving it in my locker. That turned out to be an even worse plan - I was on the edge of my seat throughout every lesson, worrying that someone would break into my locker and take the box. It was irrational anxiety and I knew it: the lockers were all well-protected with combination locks, and it was vastly unlikely that anyone would ever keep anything in there which was particularly valuable. Plus it was a good school; everyone was pretty honest in general and we'd only had a very few incidents of theft in all the time I'd been there.
I was waiting for Nathen, my best friend for as long as I can remember. In fact, I'd been waiting to talk to hir for over a week, but shi always spent spring break with hir family in their RV in the mountains and we had no classes together this year, so this was the first chance we'd had to get together for a while.
Finally, I spotted hir strolling towards me across the yard. Shi was wearing hir favorite Chicago Fire jersey over a pair of tatty old jeans with a few rips in them. Hir short black hair was in its normal unruly state and shi displayed hir quirky grin as shi spotted me slouched on the wall.
When shi finally reached me, shi leapt up onto the wall with somewhat more ease than I'd managed earlier.
"Hey, Zane-gurl! How's it going? Good break?"
I grinned sheepishly. "Was okay. You?" I asked.
Shi shrugged. "You know, same-old, same-old. There's only so many snowy mountain peaks you can gaze at in wonder in a lifetime. I might have to give the old spring break tradition a miss next year and just hang out with you."
I grinned. "That'd be nice. Save me from couch-potato-dom."
"Anything of interest to report while I was away?" shi asked.
"My grandmother died," I stated matter-of-factly.
Hir face fell. "Oh, Zane, I'm so sorry. I know you were close. What happened? Shi wasn't all that old, was shi? I thought shi was off on one of hir expeditions just a few months ago."
I shrugged slightly. "Heart attack, apparently."
Nathen frowned. "You don't seem overly upset."
I took a deep breath and took the plunge. "That's because I'm not convinced shi’s actually dead."
"I presume we're not talking adolescent denial here," shi asked, with a raised eyebrow. "I mean, how can they diagnose a heart attack with no body?"
"Oh, there was a body, I'm just not sure it was hir." I realised I was probably giving hir images of mutilated corpses or worse, but I was genuinely nervous about what I was about to show hir.
"Erm. Then what makes you think..." shi started, obviously somewhat bewildered.
"This," I interrupted, holding up the box. It was fairly unimpressive, about one inch by four and an inch deep, made of plain dark wood with a few obscure markings carved into it.
"What is it?" shi asked, intrigued. I think I was probably playing up the cloak-and-dagger stuff too much, but it was quite mysterious, after all.
"It's my inheritance." I opened up the box. Inside was a rather crumpled piece of paper and a rather unusual, if plain-looking, stone. The stone was slightly metallic, rather like hematite, but with a reddish hue to its surface, rounded, flattish and about an inch across. "Read the note," I instructed hir. Shi did so, with much eyebrow-raising in the process. The note was from my grandmother and what it said was this:
Dear Zane,
If you are reading this, it means I have passed on. Do not mourn my leaving; although we shall no longer be able to spend time together, be happy knowing that where I am now is just a new start and a different perspective than before and that I shall just look at it as my next great adventure.
The stone you find in this box is my legacy to you. Treat it with care, it does not look much, but has immense power. I have entrusted it to you, as my favourite grandson and friend, to be its keeper and guardian now that I am gone.
I found the stone on my latest expedition to South America and I believe it to be of Incan origin. How it works, or where it came from beyond that, I have no idea. All I can tell you is how it works and trust you to use it wisely.
Bear with me on this next bit; I know it sounds fantastic, but trust me when I tell you that I am telling the truth. All I say is real and it will not take much experimentation for you to prove it.
While holding the stone against your flesh (I recommend just holding it in your hand as the simplest approach), simply use the words 'I wish' followed by whatever it is you want the stone to do. There is no limit to the number of times you can do this, as far as I can divine, but beware, for the words of a wish can be reinterpreted but not changed once the breath is over. The stone has great power, but is not unlimited. Changes made will be as if it has always been so, apart from for those within earshot of the wish or out of the range of influence of the stone. This range I estimate at several miles, but I fear I have not been able to determine an exact figure.
I must go now. Use the gift I have given you wisely, and think of me often.
Your friend, always,
Grandma
~~~~~~~~
Nathen finished reading the note and looked at me accusingly. "Is this a wind up? Because it's not funny if it is." I shook my head. "You can't be serious. If this note is real, your grandmother faked hir own death or something similar and has left you a magic Inca stone which grants wishes."
I nodded. "Yep."
"And you expect me to believe that?"
"Yep."
"Not a chance." Shi crossed hir arms over hir chest. "I mean, I'm as open minded as the next gurl, but this is just plain silly."
"See that branch?" I indicated a piece of wood that had fallen off one of the nearby trees. I grasped the stone in my hand. "I wish the bark on that branch was blue."
I was used to the sensation by now; it was like momentarily getting something in your eye, forcing you to be unable to look at the object the wish was affecting. Nathen was obviously a little taken aback by the strange sensation.
"Hey, weird, it was like..." Then shi caught sight of the branch. Which was bright blue. "Holy shit!"
"Impressive, huh?"
"My god, it really works!?" shi was agape.
"It does indeed. Wanna see the scary part?" I grasped the stone again and wished for the branch to be red.
Nothing happened.
"Why didn't it work?" asked Nathen, looking puzzled.
"Because it was contradictory to a previous wish. Basically, you can't undo wishes, which is what makes this thing so scary to me."
"You aren't kidding, that is scary!"
"There is, however, some room for movement: I wish the branch was very dark blue." The sensation was felt by both of us again and when we looked, the branch was indeed a dark, almost black blue, which was a lot more innocuous than the bright blue it had been moments ago. "So, you see I was able to make a new wish which didn't contradict the old one and have it work. The branch is still blue. However, if I was to try and move the branch back to its previous brighter blue, that would fail as it contradicts the latest wish."
Nathen was clearly astounded. "This is great. Scary but great. We can have lots of fun with this."
I wasn't so sure. "I dunno, Nathen, it seems very dangerous to me, I'm thinking of just locking it away and throwing away the key."
"You can't be serious. You have the most amazing discovery ever, and you want to lock it away. How about this: how about we try it out for a while and if anything disastrous happens or looks like happening, then we'll decide to put it somewhere safe."
Shi was making a reasonable amount of sense. "Okay. We'll use it for a week, but not for anything drastic. We'll have a little fun and nothing more. Agreed?"
"Sure thing. Can I have a go?" I knew shi’d ask, and I'd never had any intention of saying no, but shi did seem a little over-excited about it. In the end I knew I trusted hir and handed over the stone.
Nathen fingered the stone, passing it from hand to hand, feeling its smoothness. The first thing shi tried was wishing the branch back to light blue, with no success as I had predicted. Shi was just contemplating updating hir jersey to the one from last season when we were interrupted by a low-pitched squeal.
Cherry Marinez, junior cheerleader from the bois’ school and class-A dog was running across the yard and leaping into the arms of hir gurlfriend, Cynth Cook. Following close behind Cherry was hys usual gaggle of boifriends who were equally impressed and fawning all over the junior quarterback.
Nathen was unimpressed. “Can you explain to me why bois are so shallow?” Shi whined as we watched one of the bois run a hand over Cynth’s muscular arms. “Everyone knows that Cynth is a total jerk and yet, just because shi has big boobs and is on the football team every boi fawns all over hir like some kind of Goddess.”
“Maybe it has something to do with the fact that they don’t get to see a gurl all day,” I mused, smiling a little. Nathen sighed, nodding gently.
“I guess you’re right, but there’s only one of hir and shi’s already taken. Why can’t the other bois leave hir alone and give the rest of us some of that attention?”
“Got your eye on anyone in particular?” I asked nonchalantly, trying to hid the grin forming on my face.
Nathen scowled at me. “Not really, just a general feeling. Goddess, I wish I had a six pack and big boobs and then maybe I’d get some of the attention.
I think it dawned on us both at the same time what shi had said. We just looked at each other, a look of slight shock on our faces, but it was much too late by then. I found I had to look away from Nathen, as I got something in my eye, or so it seemed.
I knew pretty much what to expect when I looked back, but it was still weird.
Thanks to the bagginess of Nathen’s jersey there wasn’t anything immediately noticeable that had changed. It was only when shi lifted up hir jersey that we both gasped at the new and improved Nathen. Unlike the other gurls on the soccer team Nathen wasn’t one to brag about hir breast size but even I could tell that they were bigger than before. Before the wish I would have guessed that they were a B cup but now they looked at least as big as Cynth’s and as everyone knew, shi was a D cup.
Moving past hir breasts, the other impressive change to Nathen was hir body structure. Although being on the soccer team meant than Nathen was fitter than the average gurl the stone obviously didn’t think shi was fit enough. Shi now had a noticeable six pack in hir stomach, muscles bulging out of hir arms and shi was built more like a bodybuilder than a soccer player.
Nathen dropped hir shirt and started flexing one of hir arms, staring at it in disbelief. “Fuck.”
"Indeed. This is why I wanted to lock this thing away. This sort of thing was bound to happen." I sighed.
Shi shrugged and then smiled slightly at hir impressive new build. "Could have been worse. I could have wished..." Shi realised shi was still holding the stone. "Never mind. Here, take this thing back before I mess up some more." I took the stone and put it back in the box, out of harm's way.
"We could make some more wishes to try damage limitation. You were pretty vague." I noted.
"No. At least not yet. Let me go home and sleep on it and decide what's best. I don't think now is the time to be rash." With that shi jumped off the wall, unsurprisingly with a lot more athleticism than before, and walked away. "Meet me here again tomorrow," shi called back before shi disappeared around the corner.
I looked down at the box and shoved it in my pocket. I decided that tomorrow I was going to leave it at home, well-hidden from Dad. I figured it was less likely to cause more trouble if it was less directly accessible.
I looked around the now-deserted yard and decided it was time to slope off home. Tomorrow was a new day and there was only one way to find out what it would bring…
