Sarah realized it was probably best to clue her friends in on what happened the previous night. Before she did so, she looked around carefully. There was enough noise from other people chatting at various other tables in the food court, and the general mall background noise, to make it so that most people probably wouldn't overhear what she said to her friends.
"All right." Sarah said. "But you'd better not tell anyone else about this. I don't want it being spread around right now."
She then told of what had happened the previous night. After she left Jon and Karyn, she had briefly gone home. And it was then that Sarah and her mother Susan McMillan, tired of the lack of information about what had happened at McMillan Tech Industries, visited the HQ themselves to find out. She told what she had seen happen, and what the four tech geeks had told everyone about the events of the day.
"So let me get this straight." Nicole said, attempting to summarize what she had just heard. "This group in MTI's Research and Development department came up with some homebrew RPG during their break time, and imagined all the Transformation Guns. And then yesterday morning the Transformation Guns went from being fiction to reality, and no one knows how or why it happened?"
Sarah deliberately omitted any mention of the wishing stone. Nicole knew about the stone, but Melissa and Chrissy did not, and she had promised the others in the 'Sisterhood of the Stone' (as Jon's Goth sister Zoe called their little group) that she wouldn't speak of the stone to anyone outside that group. So she didn't mention that Jon's errant wish that "something interesting would happen" had caused the Transformation Guns to become real.
"Yes. I know it sounds crazy, but it's true." Sarah said. "No one over there knows how it happened."
It was Melissa's turn to speak next. "Sarah, I'm so sorry about your father. No wonder you were so freaked out. If it were my father, I'd freak out too."
"I don't want to talk about it anymore in public." Sarah said. "It's bad enough people are spreading rumors about what happened."
Sarah had heard rumors about her father being injured, or actually being the cause of the chaos. She hoped the rest of the world did not know yet about her father being transformed into a cheerleader by the Random Gun, and then by the Cheerleader Gun, and the resultant change in personality.
"It's going to be revealed to the public anyway." Nicole said. "We can't help that. It's only a matter of time. The only question is whether MTI goes public with it, or whether someone leaks it."
"Anyway, it's why my mom and I were yelling at each other this morning. My mom's really paranoid about us losing our money over this, and thinks Denise Brewster is a witch or something who used some magic spell to make all this happen, as part of some evil plan to take over the company." Sarah said. "I told her she relies too much on dad's money, and we probably would have kept screaming at each other if you hadn't called me."
"Wow." Melissa said, after a pause. "Looks like we kind of saved you."
"Given a choice between a shopping trip and a shouting match, I'd pick the shopping trip every time." Chrissy commented.
"I've never met this Denise Brewster, but it sounds to me like she didn't cause any of this. She just happened to be the highest ranking person who wasn't dead or suffering from transformation-related trauma." Nicole said. "I'm willing to give her the benefit of the doubt, but we still don't know what's going to happen to your dad. Have you heard from your dad since last night?"
"No." Sarah said. "I don't know when the doctors will be letting us visit. I don't know if I want to, but I know I have to."
"And they can't change him back because they're worried he might go crazy?" Melissa asked.
Sarah nodded. "And it's not just the whole Random Gun changes thing. They're worried about how the whole Cheerleader Gun thing affected the transformation that was already there because of the Random Gun."
"Okay, let's sum this up. Your dad already had that cheerleader persona given by the Random Gun, and then got zapped by the Cheerleader Gun. And now Ricki - the cheerleader your dad has become - is acting like this cross between a company CEO and, well, you?" Nicole said.
Sarah nodded.
"You should talk to the tech people. You know, the ones who came up with those things in the first place. Jay Duncan's mom, Kyla's cousin, and their friends." Chrissy suggested. "If anyone knows how these things work, they should."
"I know, but they're probably VERY busy today." Sarah replied. "They probably won't have time to talk to us until whenever they show up at the school."
"And that won't be until at least tomorrow." Nicole said.
Melissa spoke. "Sarah, I'd like you to know that we're there for you. I'm sure everyone else will be there for you, too. Amber, Jessica, Erika, Allison..."
"It's fine." Sarah said with a sigh. "Don't feel like you have to walk on eggshells around me."
"Look, it's no different than if your father were just ill, or in a more conventional accident or something like that." Nicole said. "We're here for you, and if we can help you, just let us know."
Sarah nodded. She also exchanged a glance with Nicole to indicate that the two of them had things they needed to talk about between themselves. Melissa and Chrissy were well meaning, but they did not know of the stone or the wishes, and Sarah needed to keep it that way.
"All right, then." Nicole said. "Let's not talk about Sarah's parents for the rest of this trip. Let's just chill out and have fun for a while."
And so Sarah, Nicole, Melissa and Chrissy ordered some soft drinks and turned their discussion to other matters. Sarah's problems with her parents were subjects to talk about later. And while Sarah knew just how the Transformation Guns became real, she could not tell anyone due to the promise she had made to Jon, Karyn, Athena, and Zoe.
She suspected, however, that Jay's mother, Kyla's cousin, and their friends were even now trying to solve the mystery of the Transformation Guns' origin on their own.
