Of course, Karyn Black, having not been in the gym when the wish was made, thought lunch time was all normal. Of course, it wasn’t.
She went into one of the lines and ordered a slice of cheese pizza, met at the window by the same lunch men in hairnets that she always saw. As she walked back toward her table, she saw a few boys around the salad bar, giggling and chatting as usual, and heard a bout of deep laughter from some girls a few tables down.
She joined her usual crew, though today was not going to be a usual day, thanks to what had happened with Nicole.
Sarrah McMillan was attempting to adjust to being alone.
She knew nobody, and she couldn’t find much of a spot to sit. She took a table in a dim corner of the cafeteria and sat down, eating a sub sandwich while sulking in how...plain she was.
Nicole might as well have made her the most generic person in school. Everyone else had an identity. Nic played basketball. Jonatha was at least a cheerleader. Jade was drop-dead gorgeous. Her old friends didn’t exist as she knew them. They were in other circles now, having already found their own identities.
She was staring at the sandwich when she suddenly felt a tap on her shoulder. “Sarrah? You OK?” It was a girl wearing all black with dark hair, and as with everyone around her, she strained to recognize this person. “N...Nadine?” It was Nadine Ferguson, who prior to the wish was defined almost solely by her Christian identity.
“Well, I prefer Nady, but yeah… Is something wrong? You seem really out of it today.” Had Sarrah not wanted to make Nady, who must have been her friend, think she was insane, she might have commented on her goth appearance being the exact opposite of the Nadine she knew, but it seemed some people had changed quite a bit. Nady’s clothing almost bordered on being oh-so-slightly feminine, at least by the pre-wish definition.
“...I… I don’t know if I can explain. What if you were angry about something and nobody was able to understand why?”
Lunch was the perfect opportunity for Jade and Jonatha to see exactly who else had a cheerleader uniform hanging in their locker, because of course all of the cheerleaders would eat together!
It was hard for Jonatha to get a read on faces sometimes, but he managed to figure out at least a couple of the squad. One of them looked a bit like Trevor Blake, and a couple of them looked totally unfamiliar.
“Oh hey Trina, Keitha and Brandi,” Jonatha blurted out.
“Heya,” one of them replied. He kind of had a sparkly look in his long hair and even his blouse. That boy is definitely a Brandi, he thought to himself, hoping he was right. “Ready for the big game tonight? Our girls against Mount Valley?”
“Uh, yeah!” Football season was over, so this was definitely basketball. It occurred to him that he probably knew several of the people on the basketball team, like Karyn and—oh dear. Nicole.
It also occurred to him that Mount Valley was some distance from here. With the stone having done what it did, how would that work?
On the other side of the room, Karyn approached Nicole. “You’ve been giving Jon a hard time… Don’t you know when a boy says he’s not interested, it means he’s not interested?”
“I don’t think you know what is actually going on,” Nicole said. “I asked him out...he wants something I have. I just want to talk to him…”
“He’s been my friend since we were kids...if you do anything else to him...I’ll make sure you regret it.”
“If you are such good friends...why are you over here and he’s over there?”
Karyn looked a bit guilty at that. Maybe she hadn’t been spending enough time with Jonatha… Her thoughts, however, were interrupted by the sound of the bell, ushering everyone on to their next class.
