I sat on the wall after class, nervously fingering the box 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 endured. I hadn't dared carry the box around with me all day in case I misplaced it or someone thought they might borrow it, and that meant leaving it in my locker. That turned out to be an even worse plan - I was on the edge of my seat throughout every lesson, worrying that someone would break into my locker and take the box. 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. Worse of all I had had a dream the night before about using the rock and ending up as a girl and currently the day had been exactly the same as in the odd dream.
I was waiting for Karyn, my best friend of longer than I'd care to mention. In fact, I'd been waiting to talk to her for over a week, but felt like I had only spoken to her yesterday. That couldn't have been right, she had been away with her parents for spring break.
Finally, I spotted her strolling towards me across the yard. She was wearing her usual get-up of scruffy old slacks and her favourite worn old green jumper. Her short red hair was in its normal unruly state, I stared at it imagining how she would look with long straight Blonde hair, then she spotted me slouched on the wall. The overall effect, I thought, was pretty cute. I'd always thought she was cute, but we'd never been more than friends. There are some friendships you just don't want to complicate.
When she finally reached me, she leapt up onto the wall with somewhat more ease than I'd managed earlier.
"Hey, Jon-boy! How's it going? Good break?"
I grinned sheepishly. "Was okay. You?" I asked.
She looked at me troubled "You know, same-old, same.... Sorry... I guess there are only so many snowy mountain peaks you can gaze at in wonder in a lifetime. Sorry John. I just keep getting the strangest feeling of déjà vu today."
I grinned. "Yeah me too, guess it's the effect of returning to school after a week of couch-potato-dom"
"Anyway anything interesting happen while I was away?" she asked.
"My grandfather died." I stated matter-of-factly.
Her face fell, "Oh, Jon, I'm so sorry. I know you were close. Was it a heart attack? 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 "yeah it was"
Karyn 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 adolescent denial here," she 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 realised I was probably giving her images of mutilated corpses or worse, but I was genuinely nervous about what I was about to show her.
"Erm. Then what makes you think..." she started, obviously somewhat bewildered.
"This." I interrupted
"The STONE" Karyn interrupted as I held up a box.
"Umm yeah" I looked down at the box in my hand, Had I kept it secret today, who else knew.
"is there a note too" She exclaimed, I handed the note to her, I was planning to anyway but things were starting to feel really odd... Feeling you had done something before after it happened was one thing, but déjà vu for things that were not happening just felt strange.
She read the note to herself smiling, I could tell she had worked something out, "Open the box and change the colour of that branch to blue... WAIT no orange" she was getting excited as she pointed at a tree that I recognised for some reason.
"Ok" I said as I opened the box, I really would rather turn it blue, it felt more natural. I shrugged off the strange feeling "I wish the bark on that branch was orange." I said.
Karyn didn't look at all shocked, she was jumping from foot to foot doing a little clap. "don't tell me" she grinned "you cannot change wishes... The umm stone has a limited range of... What was it, 25 miles... No just several miles and people have to hear the wish not to be effected by it... Am I right" I just nodded I was thinking about the Nightmare that had woken me up this morning that I had so desperately been trying to avoid. Did it matter now anyway, things were changing.
Karyn was clearly astounded. "This is great. Scary but great. We can have lots of fun with this." She looked confused for a second like she had said something wrong then shook her head and smiled.
I really wasn't so sure. "I dunno, Karyn, 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." She paused. "How about this" she said slowly thinking carefully "look I know you are worried, but if we screw up we will just meet back here and get rid of the thing, come-on it's to exciting to let bad dreams get in the way."
She must have had a simililar dream, but I didn't want to bring it up, it was to strange."Okay. We'll use it for today, but not for anything drastic. We'll have a little fun and nothing more. Agreed?"
"Cool, so can I have a go?" I knew she'd ask, and I'd never had any intention of saying no, but she did seem far to over-excited about it. In the end I knew I trusted her and handed over the stone.
Karyn fingered the stone, holding it in her hand as though she had held it before, feeling its smoothness. The first thing she tried was wishing the branch blue, with no success as I had predicted. She was just contemplating life with big boobs and blonde hair when we were interrupted by a high-pitched laugh.
It was Tiffany Sanders from the year above, the school slut and class-A bitch, was wandering across the yard with her friends and followed by her usual entourage of drooling, overmuscled football players and other assorted testosterone-fueled flunkies.
Karyn looked really confused and really unimpressed. "Can you explain to me why men are so shallow? Everyone knows that Sanders is a total Slut. Yet, because they think it's easy to get in her pants, every guy in the school spends half his life dribbling down her cleavage, in the hope of her being their next conquest."
"Not every guy," I noted, although I had to admit that Tiffany was hot, even though I'd never associate myself with someone with a reputation for sleeping with the whole football team.
"Okay, most guys. There's only one of her; why can't she just pick one and let the rest of us have a go?" She sighed.
I grinned. "Got your eye on anyone in particular?" I asked, trying to sound nonchalant.
She scowled at me. "No. Just a general feeling. God, I wish I was the school slut, then I'd finally get some attention."
I think it dawned on us both at the same time what she had said and we just looked at each other, a look of slight shock covered my face, but Karyns shock was more of disbelief "No, I take it back, It should have been Karyn, I wasn't ready." But it was to late and I found I had to look away from Karyn, as I got something in my eye, or so it seemed.
For the first time today I really had no idea what to expect when I looked I looked back at Karyn.
To be honest Karyn looked pretty much the same, still in her favourite baggy green sweater and with her messy short red hair, then. I noticed her trousers... They were gone. In there place a skirt that was barely visible beneath her sweater and tights that went down to her now platform heels.
Karyn looked down, pulled at her skirt and rubbed her knees togeher. "Fuck."
"Indeed. This is why I wanted to lock this thing away. This sort of thing was bound to happen." I sighed. "what did you mean about it should have been Sarah? Didn't you hear she was off sick today?"
"No" She snapped, "It doesn't matter, I thought I could change things, but they just ended up the same." She sighed and then looked disconcerted as she grabbed her breasts, causing her now larger nipples to unexpectedly grow erect in her bra. "Wow that feels so strange, at least they arn't any bigger I guess it 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, Let me work out what went wrong. I think we both have an idea of where we could end up if we don't think about what were doing. Let me go home and sleep on it, then 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.
I couldn't help but stare at the way she was walking in her new heels, her baggy green sweater actually looked sexy now. I had seen her in it hundreds of times but not it was like a wrapper covering unknown goodies beneath. I looked away embarrassed and annoyed at myself for sexualising my friend.
I looked down at the box and shoved it in my pocket. I decided that tomorrow I would call for Karyn early with the stone and see how we might protect ourselves from wishes, my mind returned to a blonde Karyn with big breasts and being a young girl. I shuddered! maybe I should have stayed in bed this morning rather then getting excited about sharing the stone with Karyn.
I looked around the now deserted yard and decided it was time to slope off home. Tomorrow was a new day... Or was it?
