"What's that?" Prudence asked as she stopped and bent down to retrieve what looked like a piece of costume jewelry from the gutter.
Next to her, her best friends Shannon and Geneva peered over her shoulder, looking at the medallion and after a moment, Geneva exclaims, "Hey! I think I have heard of this. It is supposed to be some magickal amulet," and seeing the incredulous look on Shannon's face, she added, "It supposed to be called the Amulet of Zulo of something."
Flipping over the medallion, seeing the word Zulo printed on the other side, Prudence asked, "How do you know what this thing is and what exactly does it do?"
Still looking at the amulet, Shannon explained, "I stumbled onto a blog on the internet about it. Supposedly the Amulet of Zulo has the power to change you into any person or object, so long as you are touching something that belongs to that person or object."
"And what if that something never belonged to any person or object?" Shannon asked, the incredulous look still on her face.
"Then you become a form of that object or person," Geneva replied and then explained, "Suppose I touch a pair of pants that are intended for a male, but have never been worn by a male. Then I become a male version of myself."
"Yeah right," both Prudence and Shannon exclaimed.
Sighing, Geneva took the amulet from Prudence, careful not to touch the other girl while she still had the medallion and then said, "I'll just have to prove it to you. Come on. We still going to your house for the weekend, Prudence?"
Nodding, but unsure about the amulet, Prudence replied, "Yeah. My parents are out of town for the weekend and I'll have the whole house to myself, if Cole decides to go over to his friends house."
Responding, Shannon made a comment about Prudence's fifteen year old brother and as Geneva started to laugh, the three seventeen year old girls continued on their way, their conversation mostly on the strange amulet and how it could supposedly transform a person into another person or object.
Home, Prudence noted that Cole was in the living room watching the telly, and telling the other girls, "Let's go up to my room for now," she kicked off her shoes, dropped her backpack on the floor and moved across the house and started upstairs.
In her room, Geneva took the amulet out and casting about for something, she exclaimed, "I'll prove this thing does what people claim it does."
Sitting down in front of Prudence's vanity, Shannon scoffed and said, "It's probably an internet joke," as Prudence closed the door.
Reaching up onto one of the shelves Prudence's father had built for when she had been about nine or ten, Geneva reached down a baby doll and looking at Shannon, she replied, "Watch," as she touched the amulet to both her hand and the doll.
Immediately Geneva's hand and arm started to take on an off colour as it shifted from something made of flesh to something made of plastic.
Before the two other girls, Geneva's hair receded and shifted until it was also plastic as her eyes took on a blue shade and her mouth formed an O. As the girl started to shrink, her other arm shifted to plastic as her head also made the same change.
Shrinking more and more, her clothes ballooning around her, Geneva's torso turned to a soft, cotton like fabric as her legs and arms stiffened into place.
Within moments the girl that was Geneva was gone, leaving an exact replica of Prudence's baby doll from when she had been younger.
Picking up the doll, turning it over, Prudence listened as Shannon first said, "I don't believe it," and then after a moment, "Do you think she can still hear us," as she pushed aside Geneva's clothes and picked up the amulet, careful not to touch anything that had belonged to her friend.
Shaking her head, Prudence said, "I don't know," as she picked up the clothes and after a moments thought, tossed them on the bed.
Looking at the amulet, Shannon flipped it over and then asked, "So how do we turn her back," as she traced the wording and tried to sort out the picture on the front.
Setting the doll on her bed, Prudence picked up Geneva's blouse and replied, "I suppose the same way she did it."
And laying the blouse on top of the baby doll, she carefully took the amulet from Shannon, touching only the chain and not the actual medallion part and moving over to her bed, she touched it to the soft torso section of the doll while touching it to the blouse.
When nothing happened, she started to panic and looking at Shannon, Prudence tried touching it to other parts of the doll and then blouse.
Wanting to cry, thinking this must be some sort of sick joke, Prudence dropped the amulet on the bed and exclaimed, "What the hell. Are we doing something wrong? Did Geneva forget to tell us something."
Shrugging, sitting back down in front of the vanity, a look of fear crossing her face, Shannon asked, "And what are her parents going to say when we tell them their daughter is now a doll that you haven't played with in years?"
Sighing, Prudence looked at the amulet and then the doll and finally said, "We'll just have to go to the library," and then stopped when she noticed the time.
Sitting down on her bed, careful not to touch the amulet, she thought for a minute and then explained, "We'll have to go to the library tomorrow and search the internet," and standing, she cursed Cole and his need to look up porn on the web.
A knock and turning toward the door, Prudence called out, "What."
Opening the door, Cole handed her the phone, telling her, "Ellie is on the phone and I'm wondering if your going to get order something for dinner like mom suggested or if I should go over to Steven's place for dinner."
Taking the phone, watching as her brother sat on her bed, she placed it to her ear and listened as Ellie explained that she wasn't going to be able to make it and that her parents wanted to go camping that weekend. And nodding, Prudence passed on the message to Shannon as she told Ellie, "See in school Monday."
Hanging up the cordless, she turned to her brother and was about to ask what he wanted for dinner, but stopped when she was confronted by what appeared to be Geneva wearing her brother's clothes.
Confused, she listened as Geneva demanded to know, "What is going on here!"
Unsure, looking back at Shannon, as Geneva/Cole cried out, "Why am I a girl! I can't be a girl! What is going on here?" Prudence quietly said, "I think our problems have just gotten even bigger," as Geneva/Cole started to cry, hiccuping out every once and while, "I don't want to be a girl."