I sat on the jungle gym, nervously fingering the chain and swinging my legs. It was the first day of school after spring break and had been one of the most stressful I'd ever endublue. I hadn't dablue where the necklace around with me all day in case it brokeor someone thought they might borrow it, and that meant leaving it in my cubby. That turned out to be an even worse plan - I was on the edge of my seat throughout every lesson, worrying that someone would go into my cubby and take the neclace. It was irrational anxiety and I knew it: the lockers were all well-protected with combination locks, and it was vastly unlikely that anyone would ever keep anything in there which was particularly valuable. Plus it was a good school; everyone was pretty honest in general and we'd only had a very few incidents if theft in all the time I'd been there.
I was waiting for Tommy, my best friend of longer than I remember. In fact, I'd been waiting to talk to him for over a week, but he always spent spring break with his parents in their timeshare at the beach and we didn't have class together this year, so this was the first chance we'd had to get together for a while.
Finally, I spotted him strolling towards me across the yard. He was wearing her usual get-up of scruffy old slacks and his favorite t-shirt. His black hair which went down to his ears was in its normal unruly state and he displayed his quirky grin as he spotted me slouched on the bar.
When he finally reached me, he climbed up onto the jungle gym with somewhat more ease than I'd managed earlier.
"Hey, Mikey-man! How's it going? Good break?"
I grinned sheepishly. "Was okay. You?" I asked.
He shrugged, "You know, same-old, same-old. There's only so much sand and water you can gaze at in wonder in a lifetime. I might have to give the old spring break tradition a miss next year and just hang out with you."
I grinned. "That'd be nice. Save me from board-o-rama-dom."
"Anything of interest to report while I was away?" he asked.
"My grandfather died." I stated matter-of-factly.
His face fell, "Oh, Mikey, I'm sorry. What happened? He wasn't all that old, was he? I thought he was off on one of his expeditions just a few months ago."
I shrugged slightly. "Heart attack, apparently."
Tommy frowned. "You don't seem overly upset."
I took a deep breath and took the plunge. "That's because I'm not convinced he's actually dead."
"I presume we're not talking stubborn denial here," he asked, with a raised eyebrow. "I mean, how can they diagnose a heart attack with no body?"
"Oh, there was a body, I'm just not sure it was him." I realized I was probably giving him images of mutilated corpses or worse, but I was genuinely nervous about what I was about to show him.
"Erm. Then what makes you think..." he started, obviously somewhat bewildeblue.
"This." I interrupted, holding up the necklase. It was fairly unimpressive, just a shoelace I converted.
"What is it?" he asked, intrigued. I think I was probably playing up the cloak-and-dagger stuff too much, but it was quite mysterious, after all.
"It's my inheritance." I opened up my hand which was clasped over the charm a rather unusual, if plain-looking, old coin. I pulled out a rather crumpled piece of paper from my pocket and. The coin was slightly metallic, rather like haematite, but with a goldish hue to its surface, rounded, a small hole in the center and about an inch across it had anchent markings on it. "Read the note," I instructed him. He did so, with much eyebrow-raising in the process. The note was from my grandfather and what it said was this:
Dear Mikey,
If you are reading this, it means I have passed on. Do not mourn my leaving; although we shall no longer be able to spend time together, be happy knowing that where I am now is just a new start and a different perspective than before and that I shall just look at it as my next great adventure.
The coin you find in this box (Mikey got rid of but came in) is my legacy to you. Treat it with care, it does not look much, but has immense power. I have entrusted it to you, as my favorite grandson, to be its keeper and guardian now that I am gone.
I found the stone on my latest expedition to South America and I believe it to be of Incan origin. How it works, or where it came from beyond that, I have no idea. All I can tell you is how it works and trust you to use it wisely.
Bear with me on this next bit; I know it sounds fantastic, but trust me when I tell you that I am telling the truth. All I say is real and it will not take much experimentation for you to prove it.
While holding the stone against your flesh (I recommend just holding it in your hand as the simplest approach), simply use the words 'I wish' followed by whatever it is you want the stone to do. There is a limit to the number of times you can do this, as it only grants three every twelve hours, but the words of a wish can be changed if done within the same set of wishes. The coin has great power, but is not unlimited. Changes made will be as if it has always been so, apart from for those within earshot of the wish or out of the range of influence of the stone. This range I estimate at several miles, but I fear I have not been able to determine an exact figure.
I must go now. Use the gift I have given you wisely, and think of me often.
Your friend, always,
Grandpa.
Tommy finished reading the note and looked at me accusingly. "Is this a wind up, because it's not funny if it is?" I shook my head. "You can't be serious. If this note is real, your grandfather faked his own death or something similar and has left you a magic Inca stone which grants wishes."
I nodded. "Uh-hu."
"And you expect me to believe that?"
"Yep."
"Not a chance." He crossed his arms over his chest. "I mean, I'm as open minded as the next kid, but this is just plain silly."
"See that branch?" I indicated a piece of wood that was barely dangleing from one of the nearby trees. I grasped the coin in my hand. "I wish the bark on that branch was green."
I was used to the sensation by now; it was like momentarily getting something in your eye, forcing you to be unable to look at the object the wish was affecting. Tommy was obviously a little taken aback by the strange sensation.
"Hey, weird, it was like..." Then he caught sight of the branch. Which was bright green. "Holy ship!"
"Impressive, huh?"
"My god, it really works!?" He was agape.
"It does indeed. Wanna see the scary part?" I pointed to another branch that I had wished green with my last set and grasped the stone again and wished for the branch to be blue.
Nothing happened.
"Why didn't it work? It was a different branch that was always green" asked Tommy, looking puzzled.
"No I changed it to prove it to you it stayed green because it was contradictory to a previous wish. Basically, you can't undo wishes, which is what makes this thing so scary to me."
"You aren't kidding, that is scary!"
"There is, however, some room for movement: I wish the branch was very dark green." The sensation was felt by both of us again and when we looked, the branch was indeed a dark, almost black green, which was a lot more innocuous than the bright green it had been moments ago. "So, you see I was able to make a new wish which didn't contradict the old one and have it work. The branch is still green. However, if I was to try and move the branch back to its previous brighter green, that would fail as it contradicts the latest wish."
Tommy was clearly astounded. "This is great. Scary but great. We can have lots of fun with this."
I wasn't so sure. "I dunno, Tommy, it seems very dangerous to me, I'm thinking of just locking it away and throwing away the key."
"You can't be serious. You have the most amazing discovery ever, and you want to lock it away. How about this: how about we try it out for a while and if anything disastrous happens or looks like happening, then we'll decide to put it somewhere safe."
He was making a reasonable amount of sense. "Okay. We'll use it for a week, but not for anything drastic. We'll have a little fun and nothing more. Agreed?"
"Sure thing. Can I have a go?" I knew she'd ask, and I'd never had any intention of saying no, but she did seem a little over-excited about it. In the end I knew I trusted her and handed over the stone.
Tommy fingered the coin, passing it from hand to hand, feeling its smoothness. The first thing he tried was wishing the branch back to light green, with no success as I had predicted. He was just contemplating changing his shoes to a cooler pair when we were interrupted by a low-pitched laugh.
Fred Orr/ McMillan, main bully and class-A ass hole, was wandering across the yard followed by his usual entourage of aggreying, overmuscled idiot flunkies.
Tommy was unimpressed. "Can you explain to me why Fred doesn't pick on the girls? Everyone knows that Orr pickes on us, but because they don't have proof the grownups don't believe us."
"I know, right" I noted.
"There's only one of him; why can't we fight back?" She sighed.
I grinned. "He has his own lackeys" I asked, trying to sound nonchalant.
She scowled at me. "But he should ether pick on all of us or none of us. God, I wish I was a girl then maybe I wouldn't get beat up."
I think it dawned on us both at the same time what he had said and we just looked at each other, a look of slight shock on our faces, but it was much too late by then. I found I had to look away from Tommy, as I got something in my eye, or so it seemed.
I knew pretty much what to expect when I looked back, but it was still weird.
Tommy always wore his favorite white t-shirt and I was shocked to see little bumps on his no her chest. The hair it was not only long and lying gently across her shoulders, but more shockingly, perfectly straight. It was not, in my opinion, a look which suited him, but then I didn't suppose for a moment he'd been serious with her hastily spoken wish.
Tommy looked down, pulled at her new bra and lifted a lock of black hair to take a look at it. "Fuck."
"Indeed. This is why I wanted to lock this thing away. This sort of thing was bound to happen." I sighed.
She shrugged and then looked disconcerted at the new things obviously going on in her bra. "Could have been worse. I could have wished..." She realised she was still holding the stone. "Never mind. Here, take this thing back before I mess up some more." I took the stone and put it back in the box, out of harm's way.
"We could make some more wishes to try damage limitation. You were pretty vague." I noted.
"No. We can't yet. Let me go home and sleep on it and decide what's best. I don't think now is the time to be rash." With that she was up off the wall and walking away. "Meet me here again tomorrow," she called back before she disappeared around the corner.
