Sarah's mother paused. What would she wish to test the stone? There wasn't much that would make sense for both the mother and baby. But it didn't matter anyway; it's not as if the thing was real.
"... would be on the other side of the room."
And Sarah vanished to reappear on the other side of the room.
"It does work!" said her mother.
"I told you so!" replied Sarah.
"Now what were you saying? You wished your friend Jon inside you? I don't understand that at all."
"Why not? It sounds strange, but you've seen what the stone can do."
"Well, for one thing, Jon's a teenager. I didn't know you had a lot of high school students for friends."
"I'm 16, Mom. I wished that I would look more mature. The wish made me older. You don't remember any of that, because that's how the wishes work."
"Oh, come on, memory loss?"
"Mom, I don't want to argue with you. You know the stone is real. You saw it. If you want to wish to know if I've been telling you the truth, go ahead."
"I don't need to, Sarah. Now that I know the stone works, I really don't have much choice but to believe you. But if that's true, shouldn't you change back? You don't want to lose nine years of your life and all your friends. I might even be younger too once you reverse your wish."
"The wishes don't reverse, Mom."
"Sure they do. I wished you to the other side of the room, but you could still walk back, right?"
"Well, of course."
"So you might be able to reverse that wish. How many times did you really try?"
"Well, just a few times."
They discussed it and finally came up with something that might work. "I wish that I was only a day more mature than I was before I made the wish about being mature."
And, magically, it worked. Sarah de-aged 8 years and 364 days. So did her mother. And Sarah regained her original breast size. Mostly.
Yet all wasn't over. First, Sarah was still pregnant with Jon. And second... Well, Sarah had been age 25 for the past few weeks, and as far as the rest of the world was concerned, it had always been that way. She had found the experience very different from being in high school. She wasn't queen of the class, she was just... a person like anyone else.
Not that adults didn't have similar things. Many of them struggled for higher positions, popularity, whatever. But she, as just a lowly secretary, newly hired, was pretty far down in the ranks when it came to office politics. She had to survive on her skills alone. And she certainly couldn't get away with being too bitchy. Not to mention that she had to get used to all the little responsibilities of being an adult, even such things as having to shop for her own groceries.
It made her see high school in a new light. Manipulating people and being nasty for no reason no longer seemed the be-all and end-all of life. In other words, being an adult for a month had let Sarah mature.
And she didn't particularly like being a secretary either. She'd have to study harder, so she could have more job choices later on....
So now Sarah was 16 again. Tomorrow Sarah would return to school as if she had only been gone a day, but she would be different. Her classmates probably wouldn't know about the pregnancy, but if they did, they might blame the change in her on it. But they would be wrong....
