"Don't say anything about Sarah," Jon preempted whatever Karyn was about to say as he sat down across from her with his lunch tray. "I accidentally made a stupid wish, and now I'm really screwed."
"What?" Karyn asked. "Why does your voice sound funny?"
In truth, Jon's voice hadn't changed quite as much as one might have expected, considering the fact that he was now the school's most talented soprano, but his natural speaking register was noticeably higher than usual, for anyone who knew him well.
Jon quickly ran Karyn through his morning, and what he thought was happening to him. That every time someone said something about Sarah, he would be compelled to be better than her.
"Man, that would just serve her right, wouldn't it?" Karyn stabbed at her lasagna with a spork. "Sarah's always so--"
"Don't!" Jon shot out his arms, then calmed when Karyn stopped speaking. "Don't say anything about her that I might have to out-do."
"Oh. Right. I'm sorry, I'll try harder," Karyn said between chews. "But it's like saying 'don't think about zebras.' Now all I can think about is..." Karyn paused and indicated over her own shoulder at the table where all the popular girls were sitting. "Look at them, just hanging out there chatting amongst each other like it's the most natural thing in the world."
Ping
A pit grew in Jon's stomach, and a sad look appeared on his face. "Karyn," he said as he stood up with his tray, "I'm sorry. We'll fix this all, somehow."
Then, lifelessly, he walked around their table and made his way towards the popular girls. For a brief moment, as Jon stood blankly, staring into the space above Tawny Miller's ponytail, everything felt awkward for everyone. Jon didn't know why he was there, and certainly none of the girls did, either. Their conversation just stopped, as one by one they turned to give Jon a withering look that said "you don't belong here." And yet, Jon couldn't move away. Sarah, most of all, was supremely suspicious of whatever Jon was about to do.
But then Amber Levine cut through the tension: "What the hell are you doing here, Jon." It was a demand, not a question.
But the spell broke with those words. Or perhaps, the spell was cast. Every face at that table, including Jon's, immediately became a friendly smile. Expressions softened. Disgust became anticipation.
"Oh, I just wanted to say how amazing it was to sing with Melony and Nicole and Sarah in choir this morning!" Jon said more brightly than he'd intended.
Then everybody began talking at once, a cackle of feminine voices speaking over one another in a way that almost felt coordinated. They made room for Jon, invited him in like he was one of their own, and everything just felt like it was the most natural thing in the world. Jon and the popular girls were chatting amongst each other like it was the most natural thing in the world. Just like Karyn had said.
"Look at them," she'd prefaced her statement. And since "them" included Sarah, apparently that was enough to trigger Jon's wish.
The girls all began pouring compliments on one another, which was dangerous territory for Jon. Who knows what they might say about Sarah to trigger his wish, once again.
"I love your hair today," Jon said to Cordelia Regan, whose hair was in a crown braid.
"Thank you!" she replied. "I like how neat and orderly yours looks today."
Keeping the subject on hair, Jon told himself, was safe territory because he knew he was already better at hairstyling than Sarah. Even if someone did compliment Sarah on her hair, it wouldn't change anything that hadn't already been changed. If he was being compelled to carry on this conversation, hair was a natural topic to land on. It fulfilled Jon's compulsion, and it was relatively safe.
"Oh, this is nothing," Jon found himself subconsciously imitating the girls' inflections. "Just a little gel."
"But it looks so neat," Melissa joined in. "I guess that's one of the advantages of having short hair, all you need is a little gel."
"Yeah, not like Sarah, here," Amber gave her friend's shoulder a light shove. "She lets hers grow as long as she can manage."
Jon sucked in a quick breath, unnoticed by anyone else at the table.
Except for Sarah. The cheerleader squinted at the boy, trying to read whatever he was about to do.
And then his hair grew out. One moment it was short and cropped, and the next it was halfway down his back. The expression on Jon's face told Sarah that he had not been expecting that, but only a second later his hands were working as if on instinct to gather up his hair and twist it into a simple messy bun.
Jon's hair was longer than Sarah's now. She wouldn't have put it in quite these words, but Jon was now better at growing his hair as long as he could manage than Sarah was.
But, of course, pointing out this magical transformation would have gone against the spirit of chatting naturally, and so even as both Jon and Sarah internally wanted to scream, each for their own reasons, the both of them kept on carrying the conversation that was going on around them, neither saying a thing that might be considered out of place. And despite having just made comments on how short Jon's hair was, nobody aside from Jon or Sarah seemed to notice that anything had changed.
But as lunch period dragged on, Jon could feel an urge building up inside of him. Something he had to change, had to fix. He couldn't quite put his finger on it, but there was something that felt... unacceptable all of a sudden.
Then the lunch period ended, and Jon found himself exchanging jovial goodbyes with the popular girls. And he went over to his locker, and he removed all of the hair care products he had put there in the morning. And he made a bee-line to the nearest men's room. And by the time the bell rang for his next class, Jon's hair was not only longer, but now styled better, than Sarah's had ever been.
