I walked up to Karyn with Jon. I was a little concerned that he might have made a bad mistake, so when Karyn greeted us in a clearly friendly way, I was glad. "Hi guys!" she said with a smile. "What's up? Figure out anything new about the rock?"
At that point my joy, meager as it was, dropped like a hot potato. Have you ever held a hot potato? I did, once. I had microwaved it and tried to pick it up without a mitten. It proved that cliched phrases weren't just something authors made up. Anyway, I had to wonder. "Excuse me? What's going on?"
Jon looked at me. "I don't get either, Betty. Karyn, how did you know that Betty knows about the stone?"
"What do you mean?" she replied. "You told us. We're your friends."
"But I never..." he said.
I copped to the answer at once, of course. "Jon! It's okay. You wished for someone to be friends with you first. It's me." I let off a giggle. "I'd have hated to see you suddenly be Sarah's friend." But wait a minute, I had just really met Jon. Why would I have hated to see him do anything? No, it was affecting me too. We really were friends."
"This is confusing," said Karyn. "You never had time to figure out my problem, Betty? You can figure out almost anything."
"Sure I'd be glad to help," I said, "it's the hair and bosom, right?"
There I was, using my detective story affectation right in front of Karyn. Nobody says "bosom" in a high school. But I hadn't become stupid enough to make private jokes at completely inopportune times. I just felt that it was okay to play around like this with Karyn and Jon. They knew me well, and wouldn't care if I did something like that. Only they didn't.
"Uh-huh," said Karyn.
"Well, I guess I'll take on your case," I told her. "I suppose this is going to be another freebie. How can a detective ever pay the bills? Now let me think." It wasn't that hard, really. "You wished for long blonde hair and a big bosom. It doesn't matter whether it's attached to you. Interpret the wish so that it's long blonde hair on a wig and big breasts on a padded bra."
"Hmm, interesting," said Jon. "I wish that Karyn's long blonde hair and breasts are removable like that."
"It worked!" exclaimed Karyn. "I can feel that I'm wearing them." She touched her chest, presumably to convince herself that they were still normal size under the fakes. Then she reached up to the back of her head and pulled her wig off to reveal short red hair.
"Is that what it looked like?" I wondered.
"Yes it is," said Jon. "Karyn, we've had a little wish trouble, so don't mind if Betty doesn't know things she's supposed to, okay?"
"Okay. Now for the payback," she said. "About that 'case' you wanted me to help you research...."
This would be good, I thought. If different people were friends, different things might have happened. So I didn't even know if this 'case' was something I was investigating before I became friends with the two most powerful teenagers in the world, or at least on the block. Butterfly effect and all that.
I shut my lap and listened to this dame give me the scoop.
