The wishing stone's new owner wasted no time in their changes for Jon's school. Within the first five minutes the building itself had tripled in size, becoming a massive building of mansard design, its rusty brown color changing to pristine white. While the school itself had absorbed a good portion of the grounds, the outlying grounds themselves began to expand, the outlying sidewalks and streets breaking up into dust to make way for well trimmed grass fields with hedge lined walkways and swaths of neatly kept white rose bushes.
The first building affected by the school's expanding borders was a small apartment complex which sat on the other end of what used to be 7th street. When the wave of grass touched the base of the rather shoddy apartments, it too began to take on some drastic shifts in architecture. It shrank vertically a bit, down to a mere two stories, while the overall quality and craftsmanship grew until it had the same grandiose design and bleached color as the main school building.
At this time of day, the apartments were mostly empty, though a few tenants were there for the building's transformation. Two such witnesses were Agnes Chester and her young granddaughter Dana. Dana's parent's were out of town, leaving the elderly woman to care for their daughter, who at three years of age possessed far too much energy for Agnes to keep up with. A moment before the wave of change came across the building, Agnes had been half asleep in her armchair, while her granddaughter seemed determined to beat the vacuum cleaner into submission using a plastic spoon and sheer willpower.
When the wave did hit, however, both Agnes and Dana seemed to be roused from their respective ruts, not noticing the shifting dimensions of the apartment but inspired to action nonetheless. Looking around, Agnes felt the strange notion that she simply must clean up a few things around here. Rising from her chair and heading over to the various baubles and toys Dana had strewn around the room, Agnes was surprised to find her granddaughter possessed a similar intent, gathering up several of her playthings into her little arms.
As Agnes went about her cleaning, she found the usual pains that constantly plagued her in her twilight years seem to fade as she worked, and each ache was forgotten a few moments after it went away. Similarly, the young Dana found her job growing easier as her body seemed to grow, her reach growing longer, etc. And of course, the room itself seemed to contribute a great deal, as it rearranged itself from a crowded three room apartment to an expansive suite with two king sized beds and luxurious decor throughout.
Agnes' pace increased as her frailty became but a lost memory, and she found herself beginning to hum an old tune. Dana's rapid maturing was somewhat less expedient as her grandmother's regression, but her unnatural increase of age was still far too evident.
The pair's originally sizable age gap continued to decrease, going from a three year old and a eighty five year old to sixteen and fifty four in just under seven minutes. At this point the pair paused, going to the bathroom and fetching two sets of clothing from the cupboard. Both Dana and Agnes donned the black and white uniform without the slightest question as to why passing through their heads, and in fact they both wondered for a moment why they had been out of uniform in the first place. Now properly clothed, the pair went on to touching up the bathroom, as their changes progressed further and further.
Agnes' return to youth carried on, as the gray in her hair was replaced by its original black, her wrinkles gave way to smooth skin, and her body seemed to shed its flab to return to a taunt, youthful shape. Her humming had continued throughout her work, growing in volume until she burst out into outright song, in a melodic voice she had not truly had for over thirty years.
"Must you sing every time we're working?" Dana complained. The former child's march to adulthood had continued as well, until she had become a woman almost identical to her rejuvenated grandmother. Though they were far to close in age to be grandmother and granddaughter anymore, and in fact at twenty six Dana was two years older than the new Agnes. No, now Agnes and Dana, along with everyone else caught in the stone's spell, remembered them as sisters, of the closest sort despite their constant bickering.
"Oh, but why can't I? It helps me enjoy my job," Agnes quipped.
"Well, it also seems to help you not do it, either. I mean look at the time! School will be out in just a few hours and we still have over half the dorms to do!"
"Oh, big sis, you worry to much. We'll get this done in no time..."
As the young maids continued on with their duties, similar episodes occurred throughout the expanding radius of the school grounds, former bystanders changing into maids and butlers and groundskeepers, and every sort of menials needed to run the most prestigious of institutes.
Meanwhile, in the eye of the storm, the student body were undergoing their own changes more slowly. The mastermind of all the day's changes wanted to make sure the processes were handled with some measure of finesses, though not so much as the lengths they were taking with Jon.
In science class, Biff Meadows was struggling desperately to not fall asleep. Every so often his eyes would droop, only to be snapped open a moment later. What Biff, or anyone else in the classroom for that matter, failed to realize is that every time his eyes never seemed to open entirely, as Biff's eyes began to grow narrower and a bit slanted. Biff was paid no mind as the teacher's lecture began to change in mid sentence, going from a rather basic explanation of cell structure to an in depth study of the string theory. Biff remained as bored as before, though strangely enough for an entirely different reason. Whereas before the stone's changes shifted to his classroom Biff couldn't keep his eyes open due to the fact that he could barely understand the concepts behind it, now, despite the curriculum growing in complexity in leaps and bounds, Biff found himself disinterested because he found he already knew all this.
In economics class, Jay Duncan's work was interrupted by a sudden urge, a sudden need tugging at the back of his mind. Excusing himself, Jay ducked out of class and made his way through the hallways. He wasn't sure where he was going until he took a door out into the sunlight outside. Finding a rather unnoticed spot near the steps, Jay sat down in the shade before puzzling over why he came out here in the first place. But then the feeling returned and Jay knew. Reaching into his back pocket, Jay pulled out a packet of cigarettes which had not been there earlier today. He took one of the long, thin cigarettes, lit it with a lighter he seemed to suddenly have in his other pocket, and took a long drag from it. Despite never having so much as one puff his entire life, Jay inhaled the tobacco fumes like he had been doing it for years, and indeed as far as he could remember he had been smoking since he was thirteen. Jay blew out a small cloud of smoke, smiling as he felt his nerves sooth. Even if he wasn't so observed in his cigarette, Jay would likely had not paid any mind as his skin darkened until it was a deep tan. Dropping the last of the butt on the ground and rubbing it out with the toe of his shoe, Jay reluctantly turned back towards his class. Ah well, might as well get back before that Viejo verde sends out a search party.
On the other side of town, Jon finally got to front of the line and retrieved the package for Ms. Folkes. The postal worker at the counter was ringing Jon up when he did a double take. "I'm sorry, I don't mean to be rude," he said, "But are you by any chance one of Lilavati Madison's children, would you?"
Jon paused, a bit taken aback. "Why yes I am. How did you know?"
"A read an article about her in Forbes a few months back. To think we have such a successful businesswoman in our town... You look just like her, you know."
Jon blushed at the compliment. "Why thank you. As you probably know, I'm one of eleven. I hae three older siblings, and seven younger ones. All lasses, much to my da 's chagrin," Jon explained, despite the fact that this morning Jon would have said he only had two siblings, both younger, and one most definitely a boy.
"A mother of eleven kids. Wow, that would sound like absolute hell even without the massive career to balance it with. Any idea how your mom does it?"
"Well, she hires a lot of help, and simply loves to send us off to the most bonkers charter schools around."
"Ah, but you live here, so that must mean she decided to hold on to you, yes?"
"No, actually I stay at Whitelace," Jon replied, the name popping into his head not a moment before he said it.
"Oh I see, can't get a more extravagant institution than that, can you?"
"You most certainly cannot. Now if you'll excuse me, I really should deliver this to my teacher." The clerk gave a friendly nod as farewell, and Jon turned and made his way back out the store. His sensuous sway was now further augmented by his posterior, which had expanded into a bubble shape large enough to pull Jon's skirt extremely tight across his curvaceous lower half, and Jon rolled his eyes at the eyes that followed him as he walked.
The return drive saw no significant changes to Jon or his possessions, though he did not so much as blink as he found the school grounds had absorbed a five block radius of the surrounding neighborhoods. He pulled up to the iron gates, punched in a password that had just now been implanted in his mind, and began winding his sports car along the campus driveway. The grounds themselves were just completing their changes, and as Jon passed a stone emerged from the ground near the front gate, on it gilded letters proclaiming the "Whitelace Academy for Gifted Yong Ladies."
