Good Night, Sleep Tiny!
Poco

Lisa and Linda, Corrinne and Jeanette had been looking forward to this slumber party for two weeks. This Saturday night was the night. At 8:45 they gathered at Linda's house for a night-time of fun. They weren't there long when Linda said something that made the rest of them giggle with excitement.

"We've got a new security system in this house," she said. "It doesn't keep the boys out, but it makes them wish they'd never gotten in."

"No panty raid?" said Corrinne.

Linda thought for a second, then smiled. "I just can't see that happening."

"Half the football team knows we're here," Lisa pointed out.

"We're counting on that", Linda said, "would you like to know more?"

Linda explained that the boys who wanted to crash this slumber party would find their way to the most inviting entrance, one that looked like the easiest way in.

"They'll come in that way, and we'll catch them," Linda continued.

Lisa, Jeanette and Corrinne quit stirring their Rice Krispies treats and looked around.

"You can't be serious, Linda! Once the boys come in, they'll wreck the slumber party!!

Linda was stoic. "Let them come. We'll see." The other girls didn't understand her tone.

Tony, Charlie, Phil and Buddy huddled outside the house. Tony spoke first. "They're in there, guys, right in there, wearing practically nothing."

"How do we get in?" wondered Charlie.

"I've been casing this place for days, dummy. You see that little place right there? That's it, right through there!"

"Right through there" is exactly where the girls wanted the boys to go. It was a tunnel, and a bit more. They walked in, and on and on. Tony had a flashlight.

"What is this?" Buddy finally spoke. "No house has anything like this!"

"Obviously, this one does. You're new in this town, Buddy. Way back during the Cold War, some of the people here, who could afford to, built fallout shelters. Probably wouldn't have saved them, but it made them feel better. This one is special; it connects directly into the house. What we're in now was originally designed as an escape tunnel, in case the house was vaporized."

Buddy wasn't impressed. "I heard once that if the bomb ever did come, only rats and cockroaches would be left! Well the bomb never did come, and I don't like the noises in here. Phil? Charlie? You still here?"

Tony, carrying the flashlight, pushed them on. "C'mon! Keep walking!" They walked on and on.

There were actually very few rats or other creatures in the tunnel, at least none that could do them any harm. They couldn't have imagined why that was, but it would all become terrifyingly clear soon enough. It would also explain why the tunnel seemed so long. To them, it seemed they were walking much, much farther than the 150 feet or so that the tunnel entrance was from the house. In a way, they were.

At long last, they saw a light. Approaching it, they saw a crossbar grill. Huge bars. They could also hear the laughter of nubile, vivacious teenage girls. Perhaps it was the tunnel effect; they had been hearing it for some time. Now it was quite loud.

Good. The sound would cover their surprise entrance. Tony, Charlie, Phil and Buddy had now arrived in the shelter itself.

Phil, who had said nothing until now, could contain his words no longer. "Tony, what kind of a bomb shelter is this? It's just an empty room! Shouldn't there be some supplies...food and water...or something like that? It's just an empty room!"

"Cut it out!" said Tony. The Cold War ended years ago. We were in elementary school then. They probably cleaned out all the supplies so they wouldn't rot, or something."

Buddy wasn't satisfied. He felt the walls as the flashlight beam bounced off of them. "Tony, I wasn't alive then, either, but I can't believe they had this kind of plastic in the '50's. Why would they use plastic at all? It feels a little like the cat carrier that my sister uses to take Allie to the vet."

Charlie chimed in. "It's too big, too. Shine your light up. This ceiling must be 10-feet high! Nobody did that, no matter how much money they had. I read a book about this once. A bomb shelter was cramped, so they could put as much earth as possible on top of it. It was radiation protection!"

"Yeah!" agreed Buddy. "And there are no shelves, no lights, no place where lights might have been before, it's just a big, plastic shell. And what's with these bars in front?" He peered through them. "I can see a room, with furniture, but it all looks so far away. And listen...listen...can you hear the girls whispering and laughing? It's some kind of trap!"

The flashlight swung across Charlie's face, revealing an instantaneous expression of stark terror. At least, on the football field, you could see what you were up against. "Tony, I vote we leave, right now. Right now!"

Phil and Buddy voted with Charlie. "This is weird, man, just too weird. I don't care how cute the girls are, nothing's worth this!"

Tony was a bit embarrassed by a plan gone bad, but his friends' words pretty much matched what he was thinking. He swung himself and his flashlight around. "Maybe some other time. Let's get out of here."

"Where's the tunnel?"

"It's gotta be here, we just came in this way!"

"WHERE IS IT!!!"

"You idiot! You asshole! Up yours! Find it! Find it!! IT'S GONE!"

The plastic room started to rumble, just a little at first. The ceiling thundered, then the walls vibrated, then the floor shook as if in an earthquake.

Now Tony totally freaked. "WHAT'S HAPPENING!!" WHAT'S HAPPENING!!! He dropped his flashlight. It didn't matter. Much more light was streaming through the huge, cris-cross bars now, which illuminated now tiny, terrified faces.

A much larger face appeared on the other side of the bars, gazing at them with total fascination. A face the boys knew. It belonged to Corrinne. Buddy passed out from fright. The other boys ignored him; they had moved to the back of the little pet carrier, whimpering and trembling.

Corrinne set the box down. "There they are! Aren't they cute!"

Linda and Lisa's eyes joined Corrinne's. Tony saw an immense hand with long nails reach toward the bars. The box shook again, there was a scraping noise, and the bars swung away.

Linda's voice sounded mildly thunderous, and quite patronizing. "Come out, come out little boys. We've been waiting for you!"

Tony was too afraid. So were Charlie and Phil. Buddy was still lying motionless. Lisa was out of patience. She banged on top of the box, setting up reverberations inside that caused the three conscious boys to scream.

Tony ran out of the box first, right into Lisa's open hand. Charlie was right behind him; Linda's hand was right there. Phil suddenly found himself squirming between Jeanette's thumb and forefinger. Buddy was coming around, but he never saw Corrinne's hand reach in and pull him out. The air was filled with giant giggles and teeny-tiny screams. "Look at them struggle! Just look at them struggle!"

The screams and struggling finally died down. Linda spoke first: "Welcome to our slumber party, little boys. Wouldn't you like to know what happened to you?"

They did, but couldn't stop trembling enough to nod. Each of the football heroes was crying, but tears so small the girls didn't notice. Not that they would have been especially moved. They knew why the boys were here. Linda reached into the box, pulled out the inch-long flashlight. It was promptly crumpled like a small piece of aluminum foil.

Linda began: "The so-called 'tunnel' you walked through was part of our new security system. It was actually about the 150 feet you thought it was. Why did it seem so long? Because as you walked through it, it got smaller and so did you. What seemed to be the last few hundred feet was only about 10 feet. By the time you got to the "shelter," you were at the 5-inch height you are now. No wonder the kitty-cat carrier seemed 10 feet high, no? Linda laughed, loud enough to cause the tiny boys to cover their ears.

Buddy was still sobbing. Corrinne picked him up, almost sympathetically, and took him into the kitchen.

Lisa, holding Tony, was much more sarcastic. She said: "Big, big football players, who think they're better than any other boys. Well, we've dated some of those other boys, and we like them! They appreciate us! They bring us flowers. Write us love notes. They come to the door instead of pulling up and honking. We're important to them. They're around when we need a friend."

As she lectured Tony, Lisa's grip tightened more and more. Tony tried to beg for forgiveness, but didn't have the breath until Lisa's mighty, manicured fingers loosened a little.

Lisa dumped him on the carpet. He managed to get to his knees, and from somewhere below her own kneecap, begged for his life. She granted him that, for now.

Corrinne returned from the kitchen, an empty Coke bottle in her hand, Buddy in the pocket of her night-shirt. "S'mores will be ready in a few minutes! But we've got boys here, so lets play 'spin the bottle!'"

Linda liked that idea. She gathered all four of the minuscule "macho-men" into her cupped hands. "Isn't that why you're here, fellas? Smoochies? A little kissy-face?"

The girls sat in a circle on the carpet. Linda set the boys down in the middle. To them, she said, "strip!"

The boys didn't move. Linda motioned to the other girls to each pick up a boy, and less than a minute later, stripping was unnecessary. It had been done for them. Each was now holding a naked, trembling figurine in her hand. The bottle started spinning. It stopped at Jeannette, who lifted Phil up to her lips and gave him such a long, passionate kiss he passed out. Lisa did the same thing to Charlie. When they were done, all four boys were lying on the carpet in a daze, their giantess "dates" towering above them like office buildings.

Corinne went back into the kitchen, and returned with the chocolate, marshmallow and graham cracker sandwiches. Jeanette held a few crumbs in her palm, and told the boys to eat. They had regained some of their composure now, and no longer had to be told twice.

Lisa, still snacking, said "OK, little ones, lets talk about lunch."

The boys tried to pretend that they didn't understand, but they did. Several of them were involved in an incident the previous month that resulted in several of these now very, very tall girls getting faces-full of whipped cream. At the time, it was funny.

Lisa now produced a 12-foot high can of aerosol whipped cream. "We like whipped cream. We like teeny little boys. What can be better than putting them together?"

Corinne had spread a plastic bag on the carpet. Enormous fingertips poked the boys into the center of it. The girls took turns; each blast from the can was as if from a firehose, scooting the boys around until they were little white fluffy blobs. The giantesses took lip-smacking pleasure in cleaning up their little cuties, one lick at a time.

Linda was still hungry for something sweet. A wink to Corinne, and in a moment all four boys were in a mammoth mixing bowl. A moment later, they were covered in hundreds of gallons of honey. As each shrunken-stud managed to get a hand above the amber goo, he was promptly plucked out and giantess-cleaned.

Jeanette was philosophical: "Kind of gives new meaning to 'The Agony and the Ecstasy,' doesn't it?"

The tiny guys had had far too much of both to consider it. Luckily for them, the girls were satiated.

Linda plopped all four of them back into the honey-bowl. "Bath-time, and then sleepy-time. It's late."

Lisa had already run a sink-full of tepid, soapy water in the kitchen. It produced eight clean girls' hands and four clean, itty-bitty boys to fit into them. Their bed for the night was a shoebox, lined with cotton wadding, covered with a hole-punched lid, secured by several wraps of masking tape.

Four giantess girls looked at one another and almost at once, said "Yes!"

"Are we going to let them go?"

"At their size, they might have a problem getting a cab."

"We could send them out the way that they came in. No one would ever believe their story."

"No, but they'd be full size and plenty mad. We wouldn't be safe."

"No way could anyone prove they were ever here. Even the police would be looking for full-size people, not mice."

"Exactly. And I think they should stay our own little mice from now on. We'll have to feed and care for them, of course, but it won't be nearly as hard as taking care of babies. Plus, they can earn their keep."

"How?"

"Wouldn't you like a manicure every day? Your jewelry cleaned? Put him on top of an open schoolbook until he learns the material, then he can help you with your homework! After tonight, he'll do what he's told."

"What a great idea! Let's each take one home tomorrow!

No one ever figured out what happened to the four football players. Linda, Lisa, Corinne and Jeanette suddenly did seem to have more self-confidence, and dated anyone they wanted, any time they wanted. The connection was never made.

And for some reason, all the boys were much more polite and respectful to all the girls.