Because Karyn was not a Karyn. No, Karyn was a Sarah.
One of the painful lessons of the Year of the Stone was that no wish was an island. No, they tangled and rippled; interfered or synergized. Naturally, it was rarely predictable and always inconvenient. To keep it short, thanks to Karyn's premier wish for "long blonde hair and big boobs" the school sorting hat (no, not really. That would just be silly) decided House McMillan was the one for her. Never mind all that fluff about personality and aspirations. Karyn was a busty blonde, so she was going to be a mean girl whether she liked it or not, at least till the end of highschool. Which, due to a complicated series of events was actually no further off than it was last year.
Of course this didn't seem like such a big deal at first. We'd even laughed about it. Besides, we had all sorts of bright ideas. "Just dress the way you always did, no one can tell you who you are," "If it's about the blonde, just get a dye-job," and so on. Big mistake. This new version of our hometown took these roles very seriously. You'd think at worst they'd label it teenage rebellion, but no. Karyn's acts of defiance brought in school counselors, triggered suspensions, even forced training time spent with the 'template holder', Sarah McMillan herself. Karyn reacted to that predictably, leading to fights between -and with- her parents, even screaming matches...finally, just before break, a tearful Karyn had confessed to me that broaching the idea of breast reduction to fix her wish-enhanced boobs had almost gotten her committed to a mental institution.
Which is why I was so nervous. It was clearly draining her, bit by bit, having everyone but me telling her she was someone else all the time. Someone she'd have hated. Karyn's parents were freaking out, and Karyn was freaking out over being stuck with them. We were both stuck in this freaky parody of our home town until we were old enough to leave. And so here I stood, freaking out over the effect this was having on my best friend, hoping she'd survived the break as the Karyn I knew.
