Fortunately, not much tearing was needed -- Jon found the wishing rock in the drawer of her bedside table. She also found a feminine wallet in there, giving her the evidence that her name was Jennifer, and she apparently went by Jen. I guess I should have figured that, she thought.
Jen was looking through her school papers and whatnot to check out any other changes -- not many were obvious, aside from definitely feminine handwriting -- when she heard, "Oh, my God, it's true" from behind her.
She turned to see Karyn, her hand to her mouth, who then quickly crossed the room to hug Jen. Jen struggled out of the hug. "Karyn, this is no big deal. I've still got the rock, so we should be able to fix it."
"But what about the consequences, like we talked about last night?" asked Karyn.
"We've got all day together to think," pointed out Jen. "My mom's probably off to work soon --"
As if on cue, Susan came in and gave a tearful goodbye to her new daughter, sadly explaining that she'd used up her days off for the quarter, "but please call me if there's anything you need that you and Karyn can't deal with." She finally left after several kisses. Jen wiped her mouth and cheek once her mother's back was turned.
"Listen, I did some research on these fairies before I went to bed last night," said Karyn. "First of all, there's dozens of 'em! As you might have guessed after encountering the Feminine Fairy."
"Wait, what? Where did you --"
"Wikipedia, where else?"
"Holy crap, I gotta see this." Jen booted up the computer on her desk and brought up wikipedia.com. "Just under 'fairy'?"
"Yeah, that's the main article," said Karyn, "but there's a whole list on a separate page.
Jen began to read through the information, with Karyn pointing out the highlights to her. "They mostly visit adolescents -- the thinking is that they're primarily attracted to sexual energy....It's not too uncommon for their 'pixie dust' to spill over onto other people in the household, which is what supposedly happened to my mom....No one's ever seen one, and they haven't been captured on film or video, despite tons of tries over the years....It is really rare for them to 'mess up' and give a guy boobs, or give a girl a penis, or, uh, what happened to you, but it happens enough that it's not a total surprise --"
"Yeah, my mom seemed reasonably okay with the whole thing," said Jen. "Not totally shocked, at least."
"And when your mom called, my mom seemed pretty together," said Karyn. "Although she -- well, I guess I can tell you this."
"Tell me what?" asked Jen.
Karyn grinned. "She told me what had happened to you, and then she said, 'I want to know why all these fairy visits all of a sudden. Between your and my boobs two nights ago, and last night with your friend Jon and your fa--' Then she stopped, and I must have really looked curious, because she sighed and said, 'Your father woke me up at 2:30 this morning to tell me he must have been visited by the Cock Fairy. I looked down there, and...' Then she shut her mouth and just nodded."
"Ew!" exclaimed Jen. "Too much information!"
"Tell me about it." Karyn rolled her eyes. "They're my parents." She turned back to the computer. "Anyway, look at this whole list -- pretty much any characteristic you can name. There's a Height Fairy, an Ass Fairy, a Muscle Fairy, a Beauty Fairy, a couple of different varieties of Hair Fairies -- none of those change reality, but then there's a bunch that do, although it's mainly inanimate objects, people's possessions, that change -- uh, as you've noticed, I guess. There's your Feminine Fairy, and a corresponding Masculine Fairy, there's a Jock Fairy, a Geek Fairy --"
"Whoa!" exclaimed Jen. "I can't believe I just thought of this -- my mom even mentioned the Masculine Fairy, said it changed one of her friends in high school into a boy. Why don't we just get it to visit me?"
"'She,' not 'it' -- fairies are always considered to be 'she,' but nobody knows for sure," Karyn said, mulling over Jen's suggestion as she scrolled through the Wikipedia article. "This talks about the same fairy visiting the same person more than once, and it talks about complementary fairies visiting the same person -- like girls who get visited by the Boob Fairy, the Beauty Fairy, and the Exhibitionist Fairy almost all end up working as strippers -- but it doesn't really talk about two completely opposite fairies visiting the same person. Must not happen very often. Maybe not at all."
"Call it an experiment," said Jen. "Let's see -- how should I phrase the wish?"
Karyn held up a hand, palm facing Jen. "Whoa, slow down before you reach for the rock. We don't know how the rock's magic is going to affect their magic. And, might I add, they always show up when people are asleep -- we don't know what could happen if you summon a fairy to visit while you're awake. And, if the Masculine Fairy really does show up, I want to get out of the line of fire. There are methods listed here that aren't guaranteed to bring a fairy, but they do supposedly increase the odds quite a bit. You could try one of those tonight -- or even try one now and then take a nap while I leave the room."
Jen thought about the options.
