"Stop!" Jon and Karyn screamed in unison. "Mom," Jon continued in a stern voice, "give me the rock now. You were just about to wish again, while holding it, after we'd just explained and showed you the letter. I want to fix what you've done, not intensify it. If you'd kinda-sorta repeated your wish, but not exactly, you could have tightened up any wiggle room I might have to try and fix things."
"Oh, Jon, I'm so sorry; I didn't think," his mother said as she gave him the rock and continued staring at it like it was a venomous snake. "Holding that thing is like carrying around a loaded gun with a hair trigger. Perhaps you should make a wish to give it a safety mechanism, like a gun has."
"That sounds like a good idea, Jon," Karyn added. "Maybe you could make it so you have to say a phrase to turn the stone on and then have another one to turn it back off."
"What do you mean?"
"Well," said Karyn, "maybe you have to hold the stone and say something like 'Wishstone Active' before it will react to any 'I wish ...' comments. Then when you're done using it, you can say 'Wishstone Dormant' to put it back into standby mode."
Carefully putting the stone down on the table so he could discuss things without an inadvertent wish, Jon offered, "So, maybe say, 'I wish that if someone touching this stone in the normal manner necessary to make a wish were to say "Wishstone Dormant" then this stone would ignore any new wishes as if they had never been made until someone says "Wishstone Active" while touching the stone in a similar manner.' What do you think?"
Nodding, his mother replied, "That ought to do it. I'd feel much better about you having such a thing if you were to make it accident proof."
"Too bad there isn't any way to make it idiot proof," Karyn teased smirking at Jon.
"Hey, be nice or I won't wish that your parents discover they can afford to get you that new iPhone you wanted after all."
"Oh, wow! I'm sorry. Where you really going to make a wish for me like that?"
"As long as we can figure out a minimum backfire way of wording it."
"Son, before you get distracted, shouldn't you make that Wishstone Safety wish?"
"Oh, right, Mom." Picking the stone up, he repeated the wish they'd discussed word for word, hoping there weren't any disasters they'd missed in that wish. It made it slightly harder to use the stone in an emergency situation, but he hoped never to have to make a wish in a hurry anyways, and a two-word delay in making wishes was worth the trade off of a greatly reduced chance of accidental wishes, especially by people who had no idea of the power of the stone. Wishes like the one his mom had made had, hopefully, just become completely impossible, assuming he never forgot to turn the stone back off.
Thinking about it, he had a few more safeguards he wanted to add. He hadn't yet said "Wishstone Dormant" so, by the wording of his wish, he didn't yet need to activate it. It was still "on". "I wish that I will never accidentally lose this stone, nor have it stolen, nor be forced to give it away, nor tricked into giving it away. I wish that if I lend this stone to anyone they return it to me immediately after they finish making a wish with it unless I intended to lend it to them for a longer period, in which case they promptly return it to me after that period has elapsed. Wishstone Dormant."
It was only as Karyn and his mother released the breaths they were holding that Jon realized they'd both tensed up the moment he'd resumed wishing.
"Don't scare me like that," Karyn said as she swatted his upper arm. "You were supposedly going to make one wish and you go and make three. What happened to making sure wishes had minimum potential for backfire before actually making them?"
"Jon," added his mother, "I'm not going to tell you that you can't use your stone. My dad gave it to you; he obviously thought you could handle it. But I want you to promise me you'll be very careful and think through every wish before you make them."
Jon shook his head. "No, Mom, I can't promise you that."
"What? Why?"
"I agree I have to be careful. Like Stan Lee says, 'With great power comes great responsibility.' But I don't ever want to break a promise to you and if I have to make a hasty wish to keep you or Karyn or somebody else I care about from getting hit by a car or something, consequences be damned, I'm going to save you and worry about damage control afterwords. Hell, I might even do it for a total stranger, if it looked like I was their only chance."
"Okay, Jon, I trust you, just try not to have too many emergencies. I've got enough grey hairs."
Looking in confusion at his mother's vibrant, auburn tresses, Jon said, "You haven't got any grey hair, Mom. You look great."
She just exchanged a sly grin with Karyn that wordlessly said, "He obviously is not familiar with the wonders of Clairol." Out loud all she said was, "Thank you, Jon it's nice of you to say so." Changing the topic of conversation, she said to Karyn, "Should I call your mother and see if it's okay for you to have dinner over here again tonight or are you going to scoot on home?"
"I probably should be going Mrs. Kendall. Mom's making her famous spag bol and she'd be upset if I missed it after she cooked the sauce all day. See you tomorrow, Jon."
Karyn's new look had not gone unnoticed by Mrs. Kendall, nor did the way Jon watched her as she headed for the door. Once she was on the other side of it, she asked, "Did you do that to her or did she?"
"What?"
"I couldn't help but notice her new hairstyle and her, ahem, other changes."
"Oh, that," Jon said, blushing, realizing she'd caught him staring. "Karyn had her own accidental encounter with making a wish despite just having been told how the stone worked and having it proved to her. So don't feel bad, we reacted so vehemently to you because we already knew how easy it was to inadvertently wish. Her wish was rather vague, so if she decides she doesn't like the results we're going to see if we can figure out any way to mitigate its effects, but she wants some time to get used to it and see if she prefers things the way they are now. Speaking of which, now would be a good time to let me know exactly what you said, as near as you can remember, so we can see if I've got any room to maneuver."
