A little girl finds the wand (and gives it to her nanny).

Megan sat and looked wistfully over at her charges, playing with the other children in the playground. She remembered playing in this park as a little girl. She remembered the playhouse, now torn down for being unsafe, that was her castle when she was a warrior princess, her pirate ship and her base when she was a spy. Back then she had friends, but when they had moved on to more 'adult games' Megan had lost herself in books where she could continue to be the hero in a world of magic or danger or both. That was probably why she now wore glasses, why she had spent almost every Friday or Saturday of her high-school life babysitting and why, even now she was eighteen and going off to college in the fall, she was still playing nanny to a group of ankle biters.

"Megan! Megan!" came the little girl's voice "Look what I found!"

"What's that, Jilly?" asked Megan to the girl running toward her.

"I'm a fairy princess and this is my wand" said the little girl. "And it really works. Tommy was teasing me so I wished his nose would get bigger and it did!"

Megan looked over and saw Tomas ('the terror') Phillips, Jillian's older brother, holding his nose. "Oh God!" she thought running over to him "He's pushed Jillian too far and she's poked him in the face with a stick!"

"Let me see!" she said to Tomas who was holding his face and crying (which was new, since he was usually the one making other children cry and laughing at them). To Megan's shock, when Tomas moved his hands away from his face she saw that his nose wasn't red or bleeding or anything else that would indicate he had been poked in the face, it was just three times larger than it had been this morning.

"See!" said Jillian "I told you! I made a wish and his nose got big!"

"Can I have a look at your wand please, Jilly?" Megan asked very carefully, not wanting to scare the girl into doing whatever she had done to her brother to Megan.

"Sure" said Jillian and handed it to her, causing Megan to thank her lucky stars that Jillian was such a nice and generous child. The 'wand' was a smooth stick covered in weird symbols that looked as much like a magic wand as Megan could have possibly conceived. But it couldn't be, if there was one thing that Megan had been told since she was 13 and 'too old to believe in silly stuff like that' it was that there was no such thing as magic.

Still something had made Tommy's nose grow to three times its size and if it wasn't this Megan didn't know what it was. If it was this 'wand' then it stood to reason that it could undo it. She tried to think of what she should say. Jillian wouldn't have known Latin or anything so she'd probably said 'Biggus Nossus' or something like that. Actually why not ask her?

"Jilly?"

"Yes Megan?"

"What did you say to make Tommy's nose grow?"

"Nothing. I just wished it and it happened"

Megan pointed the 'wand' at Tommy, who flinched, and thought I wish his nose was back to its normal size

There was a flash and when it passed Tommy's nose was normal again.

"Oh poop!" said Jillian "Why did you do that?"

"Because I didn't want you to get in trouble with your mother." Said Megan 'or me either' she added in her mind.

"Oh!" said Jillian who obviously hadn't realised.

"Yeah?" said Tommy "Well I'm telling!"

"Brat" thought Megan "No you won't" she said "In fact I think it would be best if you both forgot about the whole thing" Suddenly a light appeared from the stick, split in two, and struck Jillian and Tommy in their foreheads. They looked blank for a moment then Jillian asked "Hey Megan, what's that?"

"Nothing" said Megan stuffing the wand in her bag.

She started walking back to her seat but when the children had turned around she took out the wand and thought "I wish Tommy was a nicer brother to Jillian".

A light shot out and hit Tommy who went from being about to jump out and scare his sister to standing up and giving her a hug (which seemed to scare her almost as much).

"Wow" thought Megan "This is a honest to goodness magic wand. I wonder what I can do with it?"