Suddenly I was sitting on the ground in just my t-shirt and a feather scattered feathers. "What happened?" I asked, dazed.
Karyn looked a me, then blushed and looked away, and I realized I was nearly naked. I yelped and tried to cover myself, then noticed the other kids and folks along the street were staring at us. "Karyn, use the stone!"
"Uh..." Karyn looked around nervously, then took a deep breath. "I wish that no one would notice or remember or record anything unusual about us this morning, and would just think that everything was normal." We held our breath as things rippled around us, then Karyn muttered, "I wish Jon was dressed in his clothes again, too."
I sheepishly stood up and looked at myself, then brushed some feathers from inside my shirt. "Wow... did I become a bird?" A couple other kids from school walked by us, hardly paying any attention to us two.
Karyn nodded and put the stone back in the box. "This is really dangerous," she said. "I think you wanted to be a bird, and you became an eagle, but the eagle didn't want to be you again."
I blinked. "Wow." I sat back down again suddenly, shaken. "That would have been bad. What did you do to get me back?"
"I, um, wished that you wouldn't want to be anything I didn't want you to be."
I blinked again. "Oh." I thought about it for a moment. "Well, I certainly don't want to be a bird again."
"I don't want you to be a bird again!"
"Uh... does this mean you're controlling my mind?" I asked, feeling suddenly alarmed.
Karyn looked at the box in her hand uncertainly. "No, just what you don't want to be I guess."
"Isn't that the same thing?"
"I ... I don't know." She frowned. "Is it?"
"I mean, what if you don't want me to be me any more?" I asked, starting to worry a lot.
"Then... I'd guess you'd become whatever you wanted to be that wasn't you that you wanted to be and that I didn't not want you to be." Karyn paused and repeated that sentence to herself again. "Did I just say that? That's a mouthful."
"Yeah." I blinked and tried to think of a wish that would work with all of that. "I guess I'll have to think of something to wish to fix that."
"Like what?" Karyn asked doubtfully. "It's getting really complex."
"I don't know yet!" I exclaimed. "We better hurry, or we'll be late for class. Just don't want me not to want to be me."
"Why not?" Karin asked and looked at me curiously.
Suddenly I had problems thinking of an answer. I mean, I could be anything I wanted that she didn't not want, so why would I want to be me? I could be anything else. I vaguely guess that Karyn must be curious enough to see what I would become to want me to not be me, but that didn't change the fact that I suddenly really didn't want to be.
I looked around for inspiration on what I wanted to be...
