The weird feeling in the pit of Hitomi's stomach partially went away when Joe pulled up in front of a very recognizable house, same paint color, same car in the driveway, same everything. "I'll call you later," she said loudly over the blaring music, leaned over and kissed Joe, and got out of the car and walked briskly to the front door before he could say anything.
She held her breath, opened the front door, and walked through. She exhaled when she saw her mother -- the mother she'd known all these years -- sitting in a chair in the living room reading a magazine. "Hi, Mom," she said.
Her mother looked up. "You're home early."
Everything seemed normal, so Hitomi didn't want to stick around too long and have her mother make a wish before she could get to the rock. She talked quickly as she walked out of the room: "I wasn't feeling well, but don't worry, I'm going to take a nap, yes, I'll put my wet bathing suit and towel in the laundry room after I change clothes, I'll talk to you later, bye."
She went up the stairs two at a time and burst into her room to look for the rock, but found to her chagrin that she had completely different decorating tastes as Hitomi than she'd had as Jon, and she had no idea where she might have hidden the rock. Nothing in the box on top of her dresser except some jewelry. All the boxes in her closet seemed to contain shoes, and, wow, were there a lot of them. She started pulling things out of her dresser drawers.
"Wow, you're really making a mess," said Zoe's voice. Hitomi turned, a couple pairs of panties still in her hand, which she quickly dropped to the floor. She saw that her younger sister Zoe looked exactly the same, Goth makeup, dyed hair and all, which was heartening.
Zoe continued, "I'm telling Mom, and maybe she won't let you have the thing Grandpa left you in his will when it shows up here."
"When it shows up here?" Hitomi asked.
"Yeah, it's supposed to come by the end of the week," said Zoe.
Hitomi groaned. Of course -- Joe had wished that it was the first day of spring break again, which meant she had gone back in time, which meant that she and her family had just found out about his death a couple of days ago, when they had gotten the phone call and found out there would be no funeral per Grandpa's wishes, but that there would be a certain monetary inheritance and Jon -- no, Hitomi -- would be receiving a special box. But the box wouldn't arrive until Saturday.
"It's not fair," said Zoe. "You get everything cool because you're older, and you're adopted. Mom always pays more attention to you. I wish --"
Hitomi interrupted. "Don't say it!"
"What?" said Zoe. "You know what I wish. I wish --"
Hitomi leaped over a pile of clothes in an attempt to clap her hand over Zoe's mouth, but Zoe took off and ran out of Hitomi's room and down the hall. Hitomi ran after her, but Zoe ran into her bedroom and slammed the door, and Hitomi heard a wish coming from behind Zoe's door.
