Zoe concentrated, "I wish..."
But before she could go any further, both Jon and Karyn started yelling, "WAIT!" When she paused for a moment, they both started talking at the same time and then Jon shut his mouth and Karyn spoke.
"Please be careful with that! Wishes made can't be undone."
"What, you mean my hair is permanently blonde like yours?" Zoe looked at Karyn in outrage.
"No, no! Only for the next three days, and no one else will know that it's unusual!"
"Oh, fricken hilarious! How about this then? I wish YOU would have shiny purple hair for the next three days, Karyn."
Zoe waited for something to happen, but when nothing happened, Karyn spoke.
"Wait a minute, how do you know your hair turned blonde? You should think it's always been like that."
"I overheard you wishing for it to be blonde when I was... What the hell?" Zoe had just looked down at her towel and noticed it was pink. "Why the fuck are the towels turning pink?"
"Zoe, please listen to me, that stone is really dangerous." Jon nodded vigorously beside Karyn. "I promise, you can make some wishes, even a couple to pay us back," Jon suddenly stopped nodding his head and looked at Karyn like she had 3 heads, "just please, listen for a minute or you could kill someone!"
That got both Zoe's and Jon's attention.
Jon tried to mumble to Karyn so that Zoe wouldn't hear him, but as she was standing less than 10 feet away, it was pointless. "Karyn, what the hell are you saying she can make wishes for?"
Karyn turned to Jon quickly and said, "Shut up! Your sister has the power to do so many things, but she'll regret any of them if she doesn't understand what's going on."
"Um, hello, ditz and blondie, I'm right here. How about you talk to ME since I can kill you with this thing?"
Karyn turned back to Zoe in a hurry. "Look, what I said is true. Wishes can't be reversed, so if you had managed to turn my hair purple, it would be like that forever."
"So why is it still blonde?"
"Because I accidentally wished it that way yesterday, and now nothing will make me non-blonde. Ever."
"Right. I don't think I believe you."
"Don't be stupid," Jon blurted out. This earned him a glare from both girls.
Zoe inhaled sharply to speak again but Karyn cut her off smoothly before she finished inhaling. "Honestly, you can't reverse a wish, so if you wish for someone to die or something, that's it. You're a murderer and can't ever undo it!"
Karyn was very afraid she was going to wish something like that for Jon, with her goth attitude and her current level of ire, but Zoe stopped dead in her tracks. Whether Zoe was about to wish her brother (or Karyn herself!) dead or not may never be known, but after a short pause where Zoe looked very thoughtful, she spoke again very slowly.
"So, I wish that your hair was DYED shiny purple for the next three days, Karyn. How about, hey." Jon and Zoe blinked and looked away for a moment. "What the hell was tha... oh my god, your hair is purple! That is too cool!"
Karyn grabbed a handful of it (it was still weird for her hair to be long enough to bring in front of her face) and looked. Sure enough, the lock of hair she looked at was purple. Shiny purple.
"Well, I guess you're still blondie, but now you're a goth blondie! HAHAHA"
"Yeah, but everyone who didn't hear that wish will think things have always been this way."
"What do you mean?"
"Do you remember when my hair was red and short?"
"You've always been blonde."
"No, everyone who didn't hear my wish, which is everyone except me and Jon, believes that I've always been blonde and has memories of it. My mom even turned blonde, but she thought she'd been blonde all her life. My family pictures were changed, everything."
"So, everyone except the three of us will think that my hair's always been blonde too now, for the next three days?"
"Yeah. If you hadn't heard me, you would think so too, so it wouldn't have bothered you. And on Friday morning it would have gone back to black and only Jon and I would have ever known."
"And you two would have had your laughs behind my back, huh? Just like with these pink towels. What the fuck did you do to them?" Zoe didn't want to take the towel off in her brother's room, but it was very uncomfortable, almost like the color pink was burning her flesh.
"Um, we made them turn pink when you wear them."
"Oh, har, har. I bet Jon did that one. You two, stay here. I'm going to get dressed, and if either of you so much as open my bedroom door, I'll wi.. er," Zoe looked nervously down at the stone and then took a breath. "I'll make you two be sorry."
Zoe turned and walked out of Jon's bedroom, closing the door behind her and leaving a very worried pair of teenagers behind, one of whom had really shiny, purple hair.
