"Are you sure you want to stay as Jon?" Karyn asked Jon on the way home.
"You mean my name?"
"Yeah. I saw how you were being teased during the day. Sarah McMillan was the least of your worries."
"I would never be able to take a different name seriously. Kind of like my 'French' name, in French class."
"That's because your 'French' name is Jean-Luc Picard."
"I take being captain of the Enterprise deadly seriously, Karyn. Deadly serious." Jon made a serious cat face.
"Am I your number one?"
"You're way cuter than Riker. Also your facial hair is sexier than his."
Karyn quietly pouted at the comparison between her now furry face and William T. Riker's beard. "So Jon..."
"What?"
"Are you going to change Sarah into a boy?"
"No Karyn. Don't you think just being a cat for the rest of her life is excessive enough? She hasn't been a nice person to us, or anyone else, but how much do you think she should pay for it, for the rest of her life? She might change into a better person later. I have half a mind to call it off, we might be ruining her life."
"You can be a buzzkill sometimes."
"Let go of the hate, Karyn."
"I don't hate her, I just... come on, Jon, you're talking as if what has happened to you would be a terrible punishment, you can't act like it's so horrific when you're holding up so well and genuinely enjoying it. And besides, you might be giving her a life that's better than it would have been."
"Karyn, I've been holding it in all day. I don't even know if I can do it using a public toilet, I don't know what kind of a mess it would make, how I would clean up afterwards. This may be an adorable body that I like in principle, but it's also is a mighty inconvenient one. That thing in the shower was just a quick fix. I can barely hold a pen or a pencil, it keeps slipping out from between my fingers since they're so much shorter now and because of their shape. People were afraid of talking to me today. The ones who did talk to me, did so out of a sense of obligation to talk to me at best, or morbid curiosity, or malevolence. If I seem like I'm keeping my cool, it's because I'm a good actor Karyn. A good actress!"
"I'm sorry Jon."
"Don't apologize, it's my fault! I'm sorry Karyn."
"At least you're cute."
"Yeah, there's that."
When they got to Jon's house, they met Jon's mom outside, taking weeds out of the drivewalk.
"Hi mom," Jon said in her new high, sweet voice.
"Hi Jon. That voice is hard to get used to," she said back.
"You don't like it?"
"It's a beautiful voice. I'm just amazed that it is coming from my son Jon. It's a disarming voice, I have to keep reminding myself you're the same person."
"Mom, if you didn't have to worry about your responsibilities, would you choose to become like Karyn and me?"
"Oh, sweetie. Are you really seeking validation that your life isn't ruined? Because my honest answer is that I don't know, but I want to be there to help you be happy."
"No, I just, I really wanted to know what you would think about it? In case you catch it. Your honest opinions."
"All right. I would rather not end up on four feet, if I could choose which parts to mix and match. I kind of want to keep my thumbs. That would be the dealbreaker for me."
"Oh, we still have thumbs, see?" Jon showed her, flexing her right front paw in various ways to show that she still had a fairly decent amount of dexterity.
She marveled as she closely examined one of her ex-son's paws. "Still, the structure of your hands is pretty different. I don't think you can grab something using your thumb, it's not an 'opposable' thumb. It can't be easier like that."
"Yeah, you're right. Though it is kind of fun. So other than that, you would like it?"
"Sure, I think so. If we could just live in luxury as millionaires without a care in the world. But I have to live in the real world, and it's not like I would get to pick and choose the traits I want. So please don't sneeze or cough around me, and look away from me when you talk to me, and try not to touch everything, just in case you're still contagious. According to the articles I found about it, at this stage, there are only traces of the virus left in your system so the odds are low, but we would be screwed if I was unable to work. You also have your siblings to think about. Their futures. Though technically it would make them minorities and that might make it easier for them to get into college and get a scholarship. But forget I said that. Don't even think about it."
Back in Jon's room, they stood in front of the stone. Jon put her right front paw on it. "I wish over the next 6 hours, my mom would change into a catgirl like us, except she would keep her hands, though they would become fuzzy and she would get retractable claws instead of fingernails, and also she wouldn't become a quadruped, her hips would remain well-suited for walking on two legs. Oh, and also I wish that her biological age would regress to become 18 years old like us. As if that won't be awkward as hell. Also, I wish that the people at her work would be so smitten by her new appearance that her boss would give her a promotion and the other employees wouldn't resent her for it. Also, I guess we need to support our little lie of a backstory. I wish that as she changes, she would have really minor flu-like symptoms, but nothing dangerous or too unpleasant. Now, what to do about Sarah. Do you want the same thing as my mom?"
"No! Give her paws!" Karyn objected. "I want to see her on all fours. She deserves as much mercy as she showed me this morning. She could have been supportive, she could have acted like a human being and shown some sympathy, but the first thing she did was to antagonize someone who she had every reason to believe was hurting, even if I really wasn't, she didn't know that, the first thing she did was try to rub it in. She isn't a human being inside, and she has lost the right to hands."
"Yeah, I guess I can follow that logic," Jon admitted.
"Can I do it?" Karyn asked.
"Promise me you won't change her into a boy."
"Fine. I promise."
"All right, Karyn. Do your worst. Well, no, not quite your worst. Don't be too cruel."
"Don't stop me or interrupt, ok?"
"Paws off," Jon said, holding her fluffy paws up in the air for effect, "it's your show."
"I wish that - over the next 6 hours - Sarah McMillan would change into a catperson, like us. And that she would be horribly sick the whole time, and vomit a dozen times and have explosive diarrhea. But not to life threatening levels."
"Lovely. Karyn, I notice you didn't specifically say catgirl, you said catperson."
"Just leaving ourselves some freedom to change her later, in case she does something to earn it."
"Fine," Jon groaned.
"Oh, and one more thing," Karyn said. Her paw on the stone, "I wish it really would be a virus, that was communicable by bodily fluids, and that all four of us really would be infectious, with our own strains of the condition, though I guess your mom's is the only one that's different, oh and I wish that Sarah's strain wouldn't normally cause explosive diarrhea or extreme stomach sickness, it would only happen in her particular case, and that anyone who has it would remain infectious throughout their lives."
"Karyn!? What was the point of that!"
"Just making it interesting."
