"First," Jon said. "Let's turn that noise off."
Jon rushed out of the room, and into Zoe's room, where she turned off Zoe's stereo. Normally, Jon complained about Zoe playing that music too loud. Now that Jon's regular personality was in charge again, he once again considered the hard rock/Goth metal to be way too much of a distraction.
Jon did, however, note that he was comfortable now with both the male and the female set of pronouns, and alternately thinking of herself with either set. Jon wasn't entirely sure what that meant, but it was something he could talk about later.
Jon then went to the other bedrooms and the living room to turn off the TVs, pausing only to take in some of the news broadcasts. "Oh my God..." she said to herself. "This is really crazy."
She turned off the televisions, and headed back to her room, where Karyn and Sarah were waiting.
"Okay." Jon said. "Now we can make our wishes in peace and quiet."
"You saw the news?" Karyn asked.
Jon nodded. "The Transformation Guns are everywhere. They've replaced regular guns all over the world."
"I know. I don't know how to feel about it." Karyn said. "On the one hand, it's good that there's at least a few billion less deadly weapons in the world, but on the other hand..."
"People can now change each other all the time with these crazy things." Sarah finished, as Karyn nodded in agreement. "God help us if the wrong person in the wrong place at the wrong time gets hold of a Random Gun."
"And the thing is, we can't fix it." Karyn said. "The stone has a range limitation."
"She's right." Jon said. "My grandfather said in his letter it had a range limitation, but he claimed he didn't know what it was. He said it was a few miles at the very least, though."
"Well, if this stone of yours is so great, couldn't you just wish we knew what the range limitation was?" Sarah asked.
"That's a good idea." Jon said. Jon picked up the stone from the shoebox where Karyn had placed it after making her previous wish. "I wish we knew what the range limitation of the wishing stone was."
The stone glowed, and in an instant, all three of them knew the answer. "90 miles." Jon said.
"90 miles." Karyn said.
"90 miles." Sarah said. "That's still quite a large range."
"Not large enough." Jon said.
"Jon's right." Karyn said. "If the Transformation Guns were just something that was happening at the school or at your father's business, we could just wish the whole thing away, and everything would be as if this whole mess never happened. But we can't now, because it's gone way past the stone's range. It's international news now. The world has changed."
"What about just wishing everyone here back to normal?" Sarah asked.
"I don't know." Karyn said. "Does everyone WANT to go back to the way they were before?"
"There's also the fact that the stone alters reality." Jon said. "It'll make people forget what happened. But since this has gone way beyond the stone's range, there's bound to be inconsistencies. People are going to be asking questions, there will be all kinds of confusion. And this whole situation is crazy enough already."
Sarah paused. "Okay, you have a point. I just wish we knew how everyone at school felt about all this."
"That's a good idea." Karyn said. She thought about the right way to word the wish, and then picked up the wishing stone. "I wish we knew how everyone at school felt about today's events."
The stone flashed.
