(Follow up to “Babysitting Blues”)

“Hey Dylan, are all the boxes moved in now?” Emma yelled from upstairs to her husband Dylan who was marching up the stairs with three boxes in tow. He reached the room Emma was unpacking stuff in and plopped the boxes on the ground. “Yep, these were the last ones. You know, I don’t remember you having this much stuff in our apartment Em.” He said while stretching out his sore muscles.
That’s because I stored a lot of this stuff in a storage facility so I didn’t scare you off when we were dating. Now that we’re married, what’s mine is yours, and that includes all of my extra stuff. No take backs.” Emma said with a cute smile and wink at Dylan which responded with a laugh.

Newlyweds Dylan and Emma had finally decided to move out of their apartment in town, and were just finishing up unpacking their belongings in their new gorgeous home, which was almost too good to be true. Dylan was a 27 year old red head that worked for a nearby tech firm on all sorts of new technology that was state of the art. Even though he was very athletic, Dylan was a little shorter than the average man, and had always heard the constant Leprechaun jokes because of it.  But he made up for his lack of height with his humor, sarcasm, and fun personality.

Emma was a 27 year old with long curly red head as well, and matched Dylan in height almost exactly. She every now and then would tease him about his height just to watch Dylan get all flustered.  She matched him almost note for note when it came to wit and sarcasm, but she was always a bit more adventurous then Dylan. And clearly had a hoarding problem. As for work, Emma hadn’t been able to find a substantial job out of college due to the marketing industry being very saturated currently. She worked at clothing stores and other small jobs intermittently, but after marrying Dylan, she went back to being unemployed.

A couple days after moving in, Dylan and Emma were in the attic sorting through the final boxes from move-in. “I still can’t believe this incredible house is all ours now! Tell me again how you stumbled across this house.” Dylan asked.
“I told you, my grandmother Jennifer was really close friends with the previous owners. She said they gifted the house to her one day since they didn’t have any of their own kids and then they just disappeared. That’s when my grandma decided that this would be the perfect home for us to start our lives together in, so she passed it on to me. Oh, She also mentioned her friends leaving some stuff behind up here that were really cool and would supposedly add a little more fun and excitement to our lives.”
“Oh that must be what’s over in the corner covered up. Wonder what it all could be?”
“Well I think we finally unpacked the last box so why don’t we take a look at what they left us?”

They went over and removed the big grey blanket draped over everything, and were surprised by the lack of actual items. There were only three things to be precise: a gold stylish purse, a giant towering piece of clay, and what looked to be a metal cube with a button on it. “Umm, are these the things that are supposed to bring us fun and excitement? Because all I see is scrap metal, a purse, and a piece of clay.”
Emma walked over to the items looking perplexed. “Yeah, these are definitely the items my grandmother told me about.” She said, picking up the purse. “My grandmothers friends must have a different definition of fun.” She said while chuckling.

Dylan walked over and inspected the metal cube and the clay. “That’s weird. I mean, the metal cube looks like it’s in pristine shape for being decades old material, and this clay is still rather moist.” He took a big chunk out of the clay and squeezed it in his hands before slapping it back onto the rest of the clay.
Emma looked over the purse as well. “Yeah, this purse is in amazing shape too. Almost like it’s never been used.” She unzipped the purse to look inside and saw a sticky note stuck to the inside lining. “Huh, looks like they left a note in the purse though. It says, ‘WARNING! Must keep one item inside the purse at all times. Failure to do so will upset the Harmony of the purse.’ Hm, that’s an odd note to leave in a purse.” She looked through the rest of the purse and found nothing else. “Well, there’s nothing in the purse anyways, so what, is it gonna explode or something?” She looked at the purse for a bit longer but still nothing happened. “Oh well. Hey, what about that metal cube? It’s got a nice shiny button on it... You should push it.”

Dylan picked up the cube and looked it over. It looked like a simple metal box of some sort, but the only feature it had was the shiny red button on top of it. “I don’t know Emma. What if it’s a bomb or something?”
“Oh come on, there’s no way that’s a bomb. Aren’t you curious what it does? Heck, if it’s like the purse, it probably won’t do anything.”
Dylan looked hesitantly at the box. “I guess. But maybe we should-“ before he could finish his statement, Emma swiftly reached over and pressed the button on the cube causing a loud ‘BEEP!’. “Emma! What the heck!”
“Oh relax. Look, see, nothing happened. Just another lame gift from the previous owners.”

Suddenly the metal cube started to rumble and make some mechanical noises before it quickly transformed into a small metal stick like object with a star at the end. Dylan and Emma were completely taken by surprise seeing the new object in Dylan’s hand. “Whoa, that was cool! What is it?” Emma asked.
“I’m not sure, but it kinda looks like a toy magic wand you would see children play with.”
“Ooh yeah, I had one of those toys as a child. I’d always dress up as a fairy princess and swing my magic wand around like I could change anything with a simple tap of my wand. Mmm, good times.” Emma said while recollecting her childhood.

Jokingly Dylan reached out and presented the wand to Emma. “Well then my princess, I present to you your magic wand.”
Emma giggled a bit at there little role play. “Why thank you. For retrieving my wand, I shall grant you one wish. What shall it be?” She said enjoying every bit of their little game.
“My lady, I shall be whatever you want me to be. I am here to serve you faithfully.” He said with a grin. It was silly to him, but he still enjoyed seeing Emma have so much fun.
“Well now, a faithful servant you say? Hmm, well I’ve always wanted a cute puppy by my side, so that shall be your transformation.” She went to gently tap Dylan on the shoulder with the wand. Dylan was laughing at her choice a bit. “A puppy? Isn’t that a bit of a stretc-EEP!” Dylan was cutoff by an abrupt changing in his body. All at once he felt his body twist and press in on itself from all sides. He also felt something fuzzy growing all over his body, and before he had time to process what was happening, the transformation was complete, and sitting on the attic floor in front of Emma was a cute fawn colored Pug staring up at her with its big puppy eyes.

Emma was petrified at what she just did to her husband. “Dylan! Oh my god, what have I done? You’re... You’re an actual puppy! No... No, no, no, that’s impossible.” The small pug was looking around frantically, clearly confused by what had happened to it just now so Emma reached down and picked it up. “Shh, shh, shh, it’s alright Dylan, you’re ok. Everything’s gonna be alright.” She gently stroked the puppy’s fur which quickly calmed dow the dog. She set Dylan back down on the ground and he circled before sitting down and staring back up at his wife still trying to figure out his new form. “Ok, so I turned my husband into a dog. It’s fine. We’re fine. I just need to calm down and think this through.” She took a big deep breath and cleared her head. “Ok, it should go without saying that if the wand turned him into a dog, then it should be able to change him back too, right?” She thought that was the only logical solution to this crazy set of events. “So I guess I’ll just use the wand again on Dylan, and hope this wasn’t a permanent transformation.” She grabbed the wand and turned towards the puppy once again, ready to turn the pug back into her husband. “I must say you do make a cute pug Dylan. But no matter how cute you are, I want my human husband back, so here we go.”

With a tap of the wand, Dylan’s body grew and morphed back into his human body, and Emma was ecstatic.
“Oh thank goodness! I was so worried that what I did to you was permanent.” She gave him a big hug.
“Whoa. That was a trip. Never thought I would experience being a dog in my life. The weirdest part was being so much smaller. Looking up at you was like looking at a giant, but at the same time, it felt right to see you above me. Almost as if you were my owner. Oh well, I’m just happy to be back to normal.” He looked at Emma who was staring at him like she was in a trance. “Emma, hello.” He snapped in front of her face which brought her to.
“What. Oh, sorry.”
“You were thinking about me as a dog again weren’t you?”
“Noo... Ok, yes. But you were so adorable. And now that we know that it’s reversible, aren’t you curious what it would be like to be a dog for even longer?”
“I mean, yeah it would be cool...But maybe we she take it slow with the transformations. We just found out about this wand. Heck, I didn’t think magic like this was even possible a couple minutes ago.”

Emma looked disappointed at Dylan’s response. “Oh come on, we have a real life magic wand, and you want to take it slow? Where’s the fun in that. I want to try out so many transformations with this thing.”
Dylan saw his wife getting antsy. “Emma I know. I’m excited too, but maybe we try to learn more about it first and then we can have more fun with it.”
Emma was not going to accept defeat. “Dylan, why are you being such a fuddy-duddy? Look, I’m fine with you not wanting to be changed again so soon because you were just a dog unexpectedly, but I think now it’s my turn, and I want you to transform me into something. So here, take the wand.”
Emma force the wand grumpily into Dylan’s hands.
“Emma, I don’t think-“
“Exactly, don’t think. Just transform me into the first thing you think of. And don’t change me back right away. I want to see how long transformations can last.”
“Are you sure Em? That could be a day, week, or even longer.”
“Dylan, stop being such a stick in the mud today, and do this one thing for me, your wife. You know, you can be such an ass-“ That was all Emma could get out before Dylan got fed up with her belittling comments and hastily use the wand to transform her into the first thing he was thinking.

Similar to his change earlier, it was clear what the first thing was that came to Dylan’s mind, as there was now a female Pug sitting on the floor staring up at him from where Emma was just standing. He quickly reached down and picked the new dog up and held her gently in his arms. “I love you Emma, but you can be such a B-word sometimes. And now I guess you really are one.”
The dog whimpered a bit looking at the much bigger human holding her. Emma was not expecting Dylan to actually transform her so she was a bit shook up by the whole situation. Meanwhile Dylan was softly petting his wife’s newfound fur, which helped calm her down a bit. “I must say you are the cutest dog I have ever seen Emma. I might have to keep you like this for a bit.” He started scratching the pug behind its ears causing Emma’s eyes to close in pure relaxation and peace. “Besides, based on how your tail is wagging and the fact that you’re not trying to bite me, I’d say you really like that idea. So I’m gonna do what you were asking for earlier, and keep you like this to see just how long these transformations actually last. Once it seems like it’s a lasting change, then I will change you back, sound good?” Emma responded by licking Dylan’s face over and over and then staring deep into his eyes while draping her tongue out of her mouth in a big puppy smile. “I’ll take that as a yes. So why don’t we go downstairs and get our house puppy proofed so you don’t tear it up too much. Because if I know you, you’re gonna be tough to train.”

As Dylan carried his new puppy downstairs he made sure he brought the magic wand with him as he figured it would definitely be helpful with fixing up the house. Meanwhile the clay and purse were left in the attic. Dylan definitely wasn’t expecting to be prepping his house for a new puppy, but every time he saw his wife’s smiling muzzle he would be filled with joy and excitement for their future together...