Tabitha sat on the bed with Klondike and Jasmine. "I...I met a lady in the park today," she said. "She said she was a genie, and I said I didn't believe her. So she proved it by making my hair grow out. She said she'd grant me a wish if I got her a soda, and I couldn't pass that up. So I got her a soda, and for my wish I said I wanted to be older and really good-looking."
"A genie?" Klondike asked incredulously.
"That's what she said," Tabitha nodded, "and after she made my hair grow out on command, I didn't really see any reason to doubt it. Anyway, after I made my wish, she got this really evil look on her face, and then..." She choked up, and almost broke down in tears. Klondike put a reassuring hand on her shoulder, and she pulled herself back together and continued. "She turned me into a girl, like I am now, only without the 'cat' part. She claimed that counted for my wish because I was older than I had been and I was good-looking."
"Basically, Jasmine murmured, "she was a djinni like in Arabic folklore. Not a genie like we think of them today."
Tabitha nodded. "I should have caught on after that, but I never did read much mythology. Anyway, I was upset and I complained to her and asked her to change me back. She said I'd had my wish and told me to leave her alone." She sighed.
"But you didn't," Klondike ventured.
"No," Tabitha said. "I wish I hadn't, but I chased after her and begged her to change me back. 'You can't leave me like this,' I said, 'because nobody will believe I'm me.'"
"Oh, no," Jasmine said.
"Yeah," Tabitha sighed. "She got really mad, but she acted like I'd convinced her. She said she wouldn't leave me like that. I shouldn't have believed that, not for a minute, but I really thought she was going to change me back. Then she made me a catgirl, and changed my clothes into girls' clothes. Then she said that since I'd complained about nobody believing my story, she'd changed my records to match, and made sure my parents would accept my change. Then she walked away, and I just stood there, and..." Her voice trailed off as she recalled that horrible thud.
"And?" Klondike prompted.
"She got hit by an ice cream truck," Tabitha said solemnly.
The other two catgirls sat straight up. "An ice cream truck?" they said in unison. Tabitha nodded.
Jasmine just sat there speechless. Klondike burst into laughter. "It's not funny!" Tabitha protested.
"Yes it is!" Klondike laughed. "Oh yes it is funny! It's very, very funny! Oh, what a way to go!"
"I think what she meant," Jasmine said, "is that it's not funny because the genie's dead and can't change us back."
"Oh yeah," Klondike said. "Yeah, I suppose that is a bad thing. For you. Still, it totally served her right."
Jasmine and Tabitha stared at her. "What do you mean, 'for you?'" Jasmine asked. "You...you don't want to be a girl, do you?"
Klondike looked thoughtful. "I don't know," she said. "I don't want to, or at least I didn't want to. I'm not transsexual, or I wasn't beforehand, if that's what you mean. But being a girl doesn't seem like such a terrible fate. I just...this is an opportunity nobody else has ever gotten. Without any operations or hormones or anything, we've all become physically complete girls, attractive girls at that. Except for the 'catgirl' thing, nobody would ever think something was unusual about us. I'm not necessarily saying I want to spend the rest of my life this way, but I don't think I want to change back right away and miss my chance to see what this is like."
Tabitha and Jasmine sat silently, thinking about wat she had said. "Anyway," she continued, "what about that crystal-thing? Where does that come in?"
"I found that by her body," Tabitha said. "I didn't think it was hers, I just thought it was an interesting object, so I took it. Then I ran off before the cops could get there, and I came here, and it fell and the floor and broke and did this to you guys. Maybe...maybe when she saw she was going to die she made that so she could get back at me...or my friends, I guess. I'm sorry, really I am! I didn't mean to drag you into this mess too!" She burst into tears.
Klondike put her arm around Tabitha's shoulder, and Jasmine placed a hand on her thigh. "It's alright," Klondike said. "It was our fault that it hit the floor in the first place, and there was no way for you to know this would happen. Besides, if she really was a genie I don't think you could have stopped her from getting revenge even if you had known." Tabitha didn't stop crying, but the sobs turned to sniffles as she smiled at her friends through her tears.
"So what do we do now?" Jasmine asked. "What about our parents? What will happen with them?"
"The genie said they'd 'accept' the change, right?" Klondike asked. Tabitha nodded. "That probably doesn't mean," she continued, "that they won't notice, just that they'll be okay with it. As to what we do now, I guess we live with it, and if we want to change back then we should start researching genies and magic and stuff."