Finding Karyn

As it turned out, she didn't have to look far. As she stepped out of the bathroom, the door to the boys' room just down the hall opened and out stepped a boy doing the stiffest, most awkward gunslinger walk she'd ever seen. If she had trouble walking with broader hips, she guessed this was probably what someone *used* to having them would move like without them, though she was at a loss to explain his exceedingly delicate, cautious steps, or why he looked so nervous. "*Karyn?*" she asked. The boy's head whirled. "*Jon!*" he said. Jon snickered. "Why are you walking like that? I think you stand out more than *I* do." Karyn scowled. "It's because..." He trailed off, glancing nervously around the hall. "Look, just get in here, okay?" Karyn motioned her across the hall, into an empty little study room, and shut the door behind them. He frowned. "It's because I'm *trying not to set the damn thing off,* okay?" he hissed. Jon raised an eyebrow and glanced down at his crotch, then burst out laughing. "I don't know what's so funny!" Karyn protested. "I can't figure out how to make it go away!" Jon slapped her knee. "You wait it out, that's how," she giggled. "Try controlled breathing. Or you could, y'know, finish it off. How did you wind up with that, anyway? Some girl catch your eye?" "*No!*" Karyn fumed, tossing his head and not realizing that the effect wasn't nearly as dramatic with the short-cropped hair he now had. "It was...*ugh,* it was whoever this guy was, okay? He was..." He flushed. "He was whacking off in the boys' room before we arrived. You think *I* had anything to do with it?" This set off a fresh round of laughter from Jon. "What's wrong, Karyn?" she asked. "Too *torturous* having to wait it out? Oh, no, let me guess, you don't think it's terrible, you just don't want to *be* a boy, that's all!" "Ha *ha,*" Karyn said, scowling. "I don't want to be *this* little pervert, at any rate." At that, Jon looked back at him, her laughter gradually dying down. "Little," indeed - he was maybe four inches taller than her. Lightly built, too, though not exactly scrawny, and a soft, boyish sort of face, exactly the kind that a sixteen-year-old boy would hate to have, topped with mousy brown hair. She laughed. "You're *short!*" she said, giggling to herself. "I am *not!*" Karyn shot back. "I'm taller than *you,* little miss." Jon snickered. "Yes, but thanks to you, *I'm* a *girl,* and it's not *half* the stigma for them. Not that you'd *understand* that, since you've never *been* a boy. And *you* talk about preconceptions... I'm just short, you're **Short** with a capital **S**." Karyn huffed. "Oh, who cares, anyway? And look at *you,* I can hardly even tell you *are* a girl." "You ought to *know,* it was *you* that made me one," Jon said, getting a little irritated now that her merriment had died down. "Oh, which reminds me-" She sprang forward and slapped him hard across the cheek. "*That's* for getting us into this mess!" Karyn scowled. "You...you...*rgh!*" He stifled his anger, nursing his stinging cheek and realizing with a little pang of remorse that she was right - even if he wasn't really sorry for trying to teach Jon a lesson, *he* was the one responsible for his winding up in this body. "It's only a week, anyway," he said, as much to remind himself as to retort to her. "*Oh?*" Jon said, crossing her arms underneath her breasts (she hadn't intended to do that, but muscle memory took over when she folded them.) "And I suppose you haven't given any thought to what's going on with *our* bodies right now?" "What do you mean?" Karyn said, frowning. "I wished they'd..." He trailed off. "I...I didn't..." "Oh *yes* you did," Jon humphed. "You didn't wish anything *about* them! For all we know, our bodies are lying in a coma back home, or better yet, *these* people might be in them! How do you think *that's* going to go down?" Karyn paled. "But...oh God, I don't even *want* to know what this little perv is doing to my body! We've gotta switch back!" Jon laughed bitterly. "Too late for *that!*" she said. "You already set it for a week, remember? Plenty of time to teach a lesson, don't you think? Anyway, *look* at you. He's probably just stuck dating Rosie Palms 'cause he's too timid to even *approach* a girl, like hell he's got the guts to *try* anything. I'm more worried about what happens when they try to tell our parents that they're not really us." Karyn fished around in his pocket, gingerly doing his best to keep his hand away from his fading erection. He pulled out the stone. He opened his mouth to make a wish, but Jon scoffed. "Oh, *right,*" she said. "You haven't checked where we are, have you? You just specified 'someone in the US!' We're in *Oregon,* Karyn! We're two time zones away, and the stone doesn't reach past a mile! God *knows* how it even got us here. We can't just wish the problem away and get on with the week, we have to actually get back home!" Karyn paled further. "But...we don't have that kind of time! What if he's...?" Jon laughed. "We don't have to take the bus, *jeez!*" she said. "We have the *stone!* But there's at least half an hour of school left here, and I dunno about you, but *I* don't think being kept after class for ditching is going to help us get there in a timely fashion." She snatched the stone from Karyn's hand. "We'll go *after* school. In the meantime, you can just suck it up and deal with the uncertainty."