Jill looked through the suitcase and took out all of Melannie's clothes. She shook each article of clothing and even turned the suitcase upside down. Isabella didn't like the fact that Jill was apparently having trouble finding the medallion. At last she looked up and said "It's not in here."
"It has to be there!" Isabella said a note of panic in her voice. "I can't be a girl!"
"I'm sorry Isabella but it's not here" Jill said.
"How could it just disappear?" Bill asked. "The trunk was locked."
"I guess it was the Brotherhood of Zulo" Jill said. "One of them must have sensed it and took it from the car when we carried the girls in."
"But I wasn't gone for more than a minute or two" Bill said. "How could they open the trunk, dig out the suitcase and open it, take the medallion, close the suitcase and put it back, close the trunk and disappear before I got back to the car?"
"I have no idea" Jill said. "It seems a lot to do in just a couple of minutes. The fact remains that the medallion is gone. Without it Isabella can't change back to Ian."
"So I'm stuck like this" Isabella said hanging her head and starting to cry.
Jill sat next to Isabella and gave her a hug saying "We'll figure something out. It may take awhile but we'll change you back. For now try to enjoy being a girl. We'll need to buy some more clothes for Isabella Bill."
"We can't have another kid" Bill said. "It will be difficult to explain how we have two daughters instead of one."
"The only ones that we have to explain this to are our families and Janet and Mark" Jill said.
"But it will be difficult to explain" Bill said running a hand through his hair.
"I don't care how difficult it is to explain" Jill said. "I'm not going to abandon her while she's a four year old girl."
"But what about a birth certificate?" Bill asked. "There's no birth certificate for Isabella."
"Uncle Jonathan can take care of that as well as immunization records" Jill said in a note that clearly said she wasn't going to change her mind.
"I can see that I'm not going to win here" Bill said. "What are we going to do when people notice they haven't seen Ian in some time?"
"Take my clothes back to my car" Isabella said formulating a plan. "Place them in the backseat or something. Hopefully whoever finds my car will assume that I just disappeared. Just make sure that you take them out of the bag."
"How is that going to help?" Bill asked.
"People go missing all the time" Isabella said. "Perhaps some of them are the result of the medallion transforming them. If that's the case then I'll be just one more person who mysteriously disappeared."
"I remember Uncle Jonathan saying something like that" Jill said. "He said that he works with the government to establish new identities for those that have been transformed. It's like the Witness Protection Program only he called it the Transformational Identity Program."
"I've never heard of that" Isabella said.
"It's a secret program" Jill said. "Technically I wasn't supposed to know about it. I'll call Uncle Jonathan again and let him know that the medallion has disappeared."
Isabella didn't like the idea of just disappearing but she had little choice now. The medallion was gone and she was a four year old girl. At least her parents weren't around to worry what had happened to her and she had been an only child. Perhaps this god Zulo had manipulated things so he would get lost, run out of gas, find the medallion, meet Bill and Jill, and have the medallion touch Melannie's dress. What was the purpose of it though? Was it to give her another shot at life? Was it a sick joke? One thing she was certain of, things were falling into place too neatly for it to be a coincidence.
She jerked out of her thoughts when she heard Jill say "It's me again Uncle Jonathan. The medallion's gone... It was in Melannie's suitcase and I've looked all through it and her clothes... Well I was thinking that... You know that I've wanted more than one child... I'm sure about it... He'll go along with it... Well besides our families there's Janet and Mark... We have her old clothes in the trunk of our car... I'll ask. Isabella, what was your full name?"
"It was Ian Daniel Keever" Isabella said.
"It was Ian Daniel Keever" Jill said returning to her conversation with her uncle. "She picked Isabella herself... I think that's a good name... Ok I'll ask. Isabella, what do you want your middle name to be?"
Isabella thought for a couple of minutes. What should her middle name be? A few possibilities came to mind. There was Lynn, Ann, Sue, Marie, and May. "I think Isabella May sounds nice" she said.
"I do to" Jill said then returned to talking to her uncle. "She decided that her middle name should be May... That's right, Isabella May Wicker... Well Melannie had worn that dress just a few hours before... So she's a few hours younger than Melannie?.. I see... Melannie was born at 12:12 am on October 31... Ok, thanks Uncle Jonathan... I love you too. Bye." Jill hung up the phone and said "A Sgt. Peters will be here to pick up Isabella's old clothes. Uncle Jonathan said that we can trust him. Evidently he's seen some transformations for himself."
"Well ok" Bill said. "At least we don't have to worry about schools wondering why Melannie suddenly has a twin sister."
"I'm sure he could come up with a story to explain it" Jill said. "Now Isabella, you're going to have to act like a four year old girl. You think you can do that?"
"I think so Jill" Isabella said.
"You'll need to call me Mommy and Bill Daddy" Jill said. "Your name is Isabella May Wicker and you were born a few minutes after Melannie. You have an uncle named Marty and an aunt named Sophia. Sophia is my sister and Marty is your daddy's brother."
"I can remember that" Isabella said.
"I'll go get our suitcases" Bill said.
"Ok hun" Jill said.
Once Bill had left Isabella yawned and said "I'm really tired now."
"Well it is time for you nap" Jill said. "Though when you say that try saying me sleepy. That's what Melannie says. You're supposed to be too young to really know the proper use of words. Now I want you to go potty before you take your nap."
"Alright" Isabella sighed.
"Don't say alright" Jill said. "Say ok."
"Ok" Isabella said. "This is going to be harder than I thought."
"Well you'll get the hang of it" Jill promised. "Now go potty."
Jill took the potty chair into the bathroom and had Isabella use it. It was strange sitting on it so close to the floor. When she pee'd it felt strange coming from a small slit between her legs instead of out of a dick. Jill had to remind her to wipe after she was done. Before she had pulled up her underwear Jill had her take them off and put on something that had snaps on the side. Jill explained that these would prevent a mess on the bed if she had an accident while taking her nap. She pulled then up and then Jill carried her to the bed. She changed Melannie's underwear to the nap-time one without waking her. Bill had come back in by this time and was hanging up the wedding clothes.
Isabella fell asleep wondering what would happen next.