The figure behind her was a slouching, round thing in dirty clothes, topped with a face covered in acne scars, things that would soon be acne scars, and topped with a mop of disheveled, greasy blond hair. Leonard Drullers. Great.
I know I'm the last guy to judge, being geekier than most, but Leonard was a real weirdo. I was pretty sure he had some kind of mental disorder. He was completely incapable of socializing. It wasn't just that he was shy, even people who he knew shared his interests were left facing a stuttering, stammering wall. Well, not facing. That would imply Leonard could look you in the eye. But that was the least of his problems. He'd certainly look at your other parts, as Karyn could attest. When he did speak or act, instead of just hunching up in a corner of the classroom, he was utterly without tact or an understanding of things like privacy or personal space. And to top it all off, he only seemed to bathe once a week. I could smell him already.
"Karyn...what is he doing here?!" Leonard flinched as if he'd been slapped. Karyn just blushed even deeper.
"I'm sorry...he overheard us. Earlier today I mean. When I had my...accident? Can we just come inside?" Wordlessly, I held open the door for them. They made to sit on the couch, but I had to intervene.
"Not here. Mom will be back in about an hour. Let's do this in my room." So we did.
"Sorry...I...I just overheard...and.." Leonard always talked like that. It was extremely difficult to get a complete sentence out of him.
"How?" I asked, a bit sterner than I'd intended. "We weren't exactly doing this in the middle of the school auditorium."
"I-I...I was..."
Oh God. "You were stalking Karyn, weren't you?" The girl in question blushed again, uncharacteristically silent. This wasn't the first time we'd caught Leonard following us. It creeped me out more than I could say, but Karyn seemed to think he was harmless. She could take care of herself. Or so she always told me. "So, what do you want?"
"I was just..." Leonard gulped. His eyes were wet. Ok, maybe I was being a bit harsh. Leonard was just a poor manchild after all.
"He was just curious." Karyn finished for him. She'd always had more pity for Leonard than I had.
"I'm sorry." Leonard said finally. "It's just...how could something like that happen? I saw you turn the branch blue. I saw Karyn turn herself into a...a blonde..." He blushed.
Sighing, I took the stone out of my pocket and gave him a good look. "I got this from my grandfather. It's a wishing stone. It does...exactly what the name implies, within certain limits. Now the question is, what are we going to do about this?"
