With five minutes before the final bell, and Jonatha and Buffie’s sketches completed, it was time to start packing up. Mr. Hanford instructed the class to turn in their sketches for a grade. He almost went to hand his in before he realized that he had written Jon Gibson, not Jonatha, on the back. He noticed as he made the fix that his handwriting had become that of this world’s Jonatha, as he’d seen on a couple of the earlier notes in his binder.
“Well, I dunno if I’ll go to the game, but if I do, it’ll be nice to see you,” Buffie mentioned to Jonatha. “You’re... pretty nice, it turns out.”
“You are too, Buffie! I’m glad we got to talk,” he replied, figuring Buffie was probably a casual acquaintance more than anything. When the bell rang, Jonatha went for his purse and pulled out, for the first time since the whole wish began, his smartphone. It was in a rose gold case that pre-wish Jon would never have been caught having on his own phone. He turned it on and entered in the passcode — luckily, the same one — and learned he had a new text message.
It was from his sister Zoe, who at least seemed to have kept her name. “Meet you in the parking lot. Is Jade coming with?” Jonatha realized he lived close enough that Jade might carpool from time to time, particularly on game days, or stay over for a few hours.
Trying to cover for the fact that Jade might not even know this, he replied, “Hold on a sec. Need to make sure of things and grab my stuff.” He quickly called Jade, who pulled out his own phone walking away from the music room — that pink sparkly case was a sight to behold, he thought — and answered.
“I guess in this world you carpool with me sometimes. Mind meeting me in the parking lot?”
“Sure I guess,” he quickly answered. A few minutes later, after Jonatha took his cheerleader uniform from his locker, the two headed toward the lot, not quite sure what to look for.
“Jonatha! Jade! Over here!” The voice came from an older white Toyota Camry Solara parked on one side of the lot. The convertible quickly pulled out and met them at the curb. Much to Jonatha’s amazement, Zoe was driving. Did she get a car because she’s a girl, even if she’s a little younger? Jonatha thought.
“Hey sis,” he said. “What’s new?” The two boys got in the back seat of the car.
“Not much, though we gotta pick up Mikelle from school,” she quickly added. “Mom’s gonna be late.” As she said that, Jonatha realized Zoe wasn’t nearly as dark and Goth as she used to be, and that his younger brother must have changed dramatically with a name like that.
On the car ride toward the elementary school Mikelle went to, Jonatha took the opportunity to look through the contacts on his phone. There were some of the people he met today — Keitha, Brandi, Buffie, Nicole, and surprisingly, Sam Gomez — but no Karyn and no Sarrah. He also realized as he put the phone back in his purse that he didn’t have a driver’s license, probably another consequence of being a boy in a world like this.
The convertible pulled up to Sandalwood Elementary, where a boy who looked about 9 or 10 was standing, one of the last few on the curb. He wore a light pink My Little Pony shirt, and his long hair was tied back into two pigtails. “Hey, Mikelle!” Zoe called out to him, and at that moment he realized that his little brother had changed quite a bit.
“Hey Zoe and Jonatha!” he called back as he got in the front seat, in a voice that was befitting of a little girl—or rather, in this reality, a little boy.
“How was your day, little bro?” Jonatha asked him.
“Well, at recess today, we played house! It was so much fun!” he excitedly replied. “And I got to read some of a chapter book about fairies!”
Jonatha wondered how in this reality, he might have grown up doing some of the same things, but he couldn’t show that he couldn’t relate. “Sounds cool! Reminds me of when I was little,” he fibbed.
From Sandalwood Elementary, the drive home was a short one, and a few minutes after picking up Mikelle, the Gibsons (and Jade) were pulled in the driveway. Sure, the house looked the same from the outside, but all the rooms inside were sure to change that impression pretty quickly...
