"Good thinking, Zoe," Ken said. "Okay, I wish that none of the other note victims would be able to take the stone from me against my will. Now, about these other victims..."
"Dad," Jon interrupted, tugging at Ken's dainty, feminine hand, "before we go changing reality, I...I want to make sure Karyn doesn't forget. She's my best friend, my one real close friend, and I want her to remember things the they were...the way I was." Tears were welling up in her eyes as she clutched her sort-of-father's hand.
Ken smiled at her new daughter. She knelt down and embraced Jon as she thought about the request. Jon was going to have a hard enough time being a teenage boy in a little girl's body without being robbed of her closest friend, and she knew Karyn was a trustworthy young lady. "Sure," she replied, holding the little girl tight. "We can trust Karyn with this. And," she said, addressing Zoe and Mikey, "I suppose it's only fair to extend the invitation to you two as well."
Mikey shrugged, shaking her head in dismay. "Thanks," she said, "but...all my friends are eight-year-old boys. Even if they knew this was me, I don't think they'd be okay with being friends with a girl." She looked over at Zoe.
"Athena," Zoe said, and Ken nodded. Athena was her former daughter's only real friend at school, another goth girl, and the only other kid in the goth subgroup there who was more than just a shallow trend-follower that happened to be on a different set of trends than most. Ken didn't really understand the whole "goth" thing, but she could tell that Athena was basically a good kid.
Ken looked to Tina, who nodded approval. "I wish," she said, "that Karyn Stoch and Athena deVries would be unaffected by the reality-altering properties of this stone."
Jon hugged her tightly, and she returned the embrace. "Now," she said, "I wish to know how many other were affected by Mikey's notes." She paused briefly. "Hmm, five. Good, that's not as many as I was afraid of. I just hope none of them got something too unmanageable."
