That night at the party Jon sat back in an arm chair. Stacy had just opened her presents. It was mostly the usual family type gifts, clothes and other things the family thinks you need, but she did get a few CDs. Stacy had just roped Jon into going back to her room to listen to one of them, apparently Selena Gomez was more than just a bratty kid on a Disney show. He'd told her to give him a few minutes and he figured he'd milked that for just about as long as he could. It was time to get up and face what passed for music for thirteen year old girls.
As Jon stood up he looked over at the rest of the family. The adults were all sitting together telling tall tales and reminiscing about their youth. Zoe, Jon's 14 year old goth sister was texting and listening to music on her cell phone. There was only a little over a year's difference between Zoe and Stacy, but the two of them couldn't be more different. Zoe barely tolerated her cousin. Mikey wasn't much better. At 10 he still thought girls were icky. That left John to hang out with Stacy. He actually enjoyed hanging out with her, but it was getting harder to pretend to be into the same things as her.
This would be so much easier if Aunt Lisa would just let Stacy invite a few of her friends over, Jon thought. He was just about to Stacy's room when a thought crossed his mind. He had the wishing stone with him, maybe he could wish up a friend for Stacy. He didn't want to alter reality too much. After what happened with Karyn, he needed some kind of out. That was why he didn't think it would be a good idea to just wish Stacy's friends over. Sure reality would alter to make it seem like they were supposed to be there somehow, but he couldn't control every variable in that situation. There were too many ways that could butterfly effect out of control.
He couldn't wish that Zoe or Mikey enjoyed hanging out with Stacy either. That could end up changing their personalities or worse, if he did it to Mikey he might change into a girl. That got Jon to thinking, though. What if he did it to himself? What if he made himself into a 13 year old girl? Suddenly, his curiosity was overpowering his common sense. Jon ducked into the hallway bathroom and pulled out the stone.
