Zoe looked up from her book. She looked her clumsy brother up and down, as if trying to find his good points and not coming up with much.
"I don't know why I thought you could have had a girl in there with you. Obviously it's more likely that you caught soprano-itis, or that all the Mickey Mouse Club you've watched caused your voice to jump up an octave." she reached down and picked up the stone. Jon's head was wet from sweat. Or maybe the shower. He wasn't nervous, other people were nervous.
Zoe handed the stone back to him, and leaned forward, whispering. "I do wish that when you bring some girl to our shared bathroom for some sexy times, you at least tell me so I can keep mom distracted." Jon blushes at Zoe's tone. It was a bit of teasing, sure, but there was some genuine sisterly offer of assistance in her words.
"Right, I'll be in the bathroom for a bit. When mom calls me for dinner the third time, tell her I'm in the shower, k?" Zoe said with a mischievous smile as the bathroom door shut.
Jon let out a massive sigh of relief. As unlikely circumstances go, the scenario Zoe mentioned was probably really unlikely. There was a lot of specifics in it. It probably wouldn't happen. And even if it did, the consequences weren't horrible. An awkward conversation that would lead to Zoe learning about the wishing stone, other types of magic, and the existence of April.
Okay, that would be less of an awkward conversation and more like the end of life as he knew it, from embarrassment and humiliation. Plus, Zoe would probably find some way to blackmail him into giving her some sort of powers or having a go on the stone or something. She was always gung-ho about magic and had gone as a witch for Halloween for years until it was secretly funnier for her to get mad at people calling her a witch as if the layman would know the difference between a witch and a wiccan priestess. Jon was pretty sure they were often proud of being witches, but that was neither here nor there.
Homework was boring. And it was hard to do when all Jon could think of was April. The margins of his history notes developed some actually interesting notes as he drafted the wording of a wish or two. He hadn't considered other people needing to use the bathroom, he realized as he wrote down the bolded names with the associated sentences that the textbook felt would be crucial to the upcoming quiz. The fantasy was more about the becoming, and less about what went on after. He drew a timeline and added the dates, noticing when he had gotten 1976 and 1967 reversed on it.
The wish to make reality change was big. He hadn't thought about that part before, because he hadn't thought magic could work that way. Another door opened by the stone. Jon was tempted to write the date he inherited the stone on one of the charts of the textbook but resisted.
He wanted to see April's room, he realized, as he filled in the terms on the worksheet. He'd never thought about her room before. Would she have chosen different colors for the bed? Would she care enough about games to pick the same posters? Would she be a clotheshorse, with all sorts of dresses barely fitting in the closet, all sorted by color? Would she insist on a princess bed, with a hundred stuffed animals that surrounded her as she slept?
That was up to Jon, he realized as he closed the textbook and put it back in his backpack. Science was next. He could make her anything he imagined, and the world would compensate. It wasn't quite as powerful as the stone, but where was the limit? Could be fun to test.
Somewhere between Chlorophyll and Cytoplasm, Mom called for dinner and dutifully, Jon headed down. It was the regular circus. Mikey was talking about Harper pushing him over at school, and Mom was getting more and more antsy at Zoe's absence before the fireworks started. No one noticed Jon's head in the clouds all during dinner, and while doing dishes after.
Mom stormed back into the kitchen, the shouting and the threats and the grounding having all been concluded. Jon tried to think of a reason that he could explain a second shower, but nothing came.
"Jon." He gulped at her tone of voice and thought of all of his recent sins. Which was sizable, actually, depending on how you wanted to count.
"Yes mom?"
"Did you shower."
"Yes?"
"Why is your hair still greasy?"
Jon blinked in surprise, then felt his head. Yeah, okay, his hair was a bit greasy. But how could he explain that he spent most, okay, ALL, of his time in the shower today with someone else's hair?
"I didn't think about it." he said, the truth being surprisingly convenient.
Mom sighed. "You're a growing boy, Jon. Boys your age need to shampoo every day, whether you think you need to or not." She sighed again, the steeled her voice, as if locking away the feelings of her children growing before her eyes, and becoming different people every day. She pointed up towards the bathroom. "March up there and take a quick shower. Hopefully, your sister left you some hot water. If not, well, perhaps that'll help the lesson stick. Wash your hair and get to bed."
Jon concealed his grin with a hug. "Yes Mom. I love you."
She melted into him a bit as she hugged her eldest son back. Moments like these made it worth it, right?
