Joan was waiting for her old friend Karyn, who had been spending spring break in the mountains with her parents. Soon Karyn came by. She was wearing her usual get-up of scruffy old slacks and her favorite worn old green jumper. Her long blonde hair looked as gorgeous as usual. Fortunately Karyn didn't care that her best friend was also attracted to her. Perhaps she even had some feelings back.
"Hey, Joan, how's it going?" asked Karyn. "Good break?"
They talked for a bit and Joan explained the wishing stone. She held up a crumpled piece of paper and a roundish, reddish, rock. She handed the note for Karyn to read, and Karyn was flabbergasted.
"Is this a windup?" she asked. "It's not funny if it is. If this note is real, your grandfather faked his own death or something similar and has left you a magic Inca stone which grants wishes."
Joan nodded. "Yup. I'm going to test it. I wanted to be very careful... the note said that people who aren't around think the new reality is the way it always was. I wanted to have someone else around who knows what I wished."
"But you can't really believe that," said Karyn.
"I've always known strange things happened around Grandpa. Maybe this is why. So you're privileged to see my first use of this stone...."
Karyn waited patiently, if skeptically.
"See that branch?" said Joan. She pointed up into a tree. "That tree has one blue branch. It's hard to see, but it's dark blue. Let's make it two. I wish that that branch over there was blue too."
The branch turned blue.
"Now, I wish that both branches were brown."
The second branch turned brown again. The first stayed as it was.
"Huh?" said Joan. "I was going to tell you about the weird part, but it got weirder."
"Wow!" said Karyn. "I didn't think it would really happen. I guess I have to believe you if you can do something like that, but it's weird enough. There's a weirder part?"
"The weird part," said Joan, "is that Grandpa's note said I can't reverse wishes. I was going to show you that a reverse doesn't work. But it worked anyway. Are these instructions wrong?"
"Maybe your grandfather decided to help you," said Karyn. "He could say something like 'I wish that Joan have carte blanche to wish for anything, whether it was already wished for or not.' I mean, why would he leave you a stone with limits, when he could unlimit it for you?"
"But then if he said that, why wouldn't he tell me in the note? And what about that other branch that I couldn't turn brown?"
"That's easy," said Karyn. Maybe last time he was here he used the stone on the tree. He only made the carte blanche wish after that, and it affects wishes made after that."
"I think I should be sure of that," said Joan. "I wish to know whether there was a carte blanche wish, and whether I can only reverse wishes made after that."
A voice rang in Joan's head. "YES!" it said.
"Wow," said Joan. "You had it on the nose. You're pretty smart for a blonde."
Karyn frowned.
"Okay, okay, no more blonde jokes... but anyway, now we have the most incredible magic item in the world. Imagine what we could do with it...."
