As I heard Jill's key in the front door lock, I looked at the glowing orange numbers on the front of the cable TV box. 12:42.
I heard her shoes clip-clopping across the floor. No need to totally hide her late entrance as she might have done in the past, but she was still obviously trying to be a little quiet, so she whispered when she saw me. "What are you still doing up?" She caught a glimpse of the channel I'd been watching. "And since when do you watch basketball?!"
I sighed and turned to face my older sister. "I think we need to talk, in your room," I whispered as I turned off the TV and stood up. She shrugged, and we went upstairs.
She shut the door behind us as we walked into her bedroom. "Okay, what's up?" she asked.
"Remember the rock Grandpa left me?" I asked.
She nodded. "What about it?"
"It's magic," I said. I held it in my palm for her to see and said, "I wish the sheets on your bed were red." The stone flashed, and her sheets changed from blue to a deep ruby red, exactly the shade I'd had in mind -- same color as the glossy sheen her lips were painted.
Her eyes widened. She reached down to feel the satin surface of her king-sized bed. "How -- how -- I mean, wow, if I hadn't seen it -- can that do anything?"
"It just can't reverse its own wishes," I said. "So if I said, 'I wish your sheets were back to blue' -- nothing. Grandpa thought it had a limited range, but as far as I can tell, it affects at least the entire planet. And it changes reality -- when you make a wish, only the people who hear it can tell anything has happened."
"Sounds like you could get into trouble with something like that, if --" At that, Jill put a hand -- inch-long manicured fingernails and all -- to her face. "Oh, my gosh, I wished that you'd think and act more like a typical guy! But I guess it could have been a lot worse."
I just looked at my sister, and how she'd been affected by the typical-guy wishes I'd found myself making over the course of the evening. Her coal-black hair, now shorter and styled into a bob, framed a face heavy with makeup, still looking perfect at the end of the evening. She wore a tiny blue top that laced up the front, barely containing her melon-sized breasts; her skirt was little more than a scrap of black fabric; she stood on spike heels with what must have been 6-inch platforms.
"Maybe you'll let a few more girls get a piece of that," she continued with a smile and a nod toward me. I looked down at the tanned, muscular body I'd given myself. Well, she hadn't noticed the changes to herself, or to her bedroom, so of course she thought I'd always looked like this. I wondered if I'd be able to satisfactorily explain to her that she and the rest of the female population of Earth hadn't always looked and dressed like strippers, hookers, and/or porn stars.
