Ryter Worppe was approaching the age of seven, and had lived for over two years in an orphanage in the United States of America. The orphanage had been set up in the early 1900s initially for girls, and had acquired the land next door and raised the funds to build a boys building in the 1950s and begin taking on boys as well.

In May 1975, he was adopted by an elegant recently widowed lady in her 50s, who told him that she had been a teenage orphan there in the depression years of the 1930s, and wanted to give back some of the love that she had received by adopting a boy. The lady had aged beautifully, and young boys were often programmed to have crushes on significantly older women until they reached adolescence and then homed in on girls their own age.

For the next eight years, the lovely woman cared for Ryter, as her own daughters had grown up and moved away from home. She was very affectionate, and the strongest bond formed across the generations between the widow and the child. In fact, in 1982, the lady showed Ryter through her old photograph albums, including her wedding photographs.

“That’s extraordinairy,” said Ryter, “I could swear that back in the early 1940s, you looked just as Wonder Woman does now.”

“Exactly as Wonder Woman looks now, and as she looked back then,” said the lady, “My maiden name was Diana Prince. I was engaged to be married, but couldn’t get away overseas to do it. Wonder Woman had just arrived in America. She hadn’t aged visually for thousands of years, having stopped aging in her thirties, but she looked identical to me in my twenties. We met at a time when she was seeking an identity to hide her Wonder Woman persona. I’ve never told this to anyone else, but I should be able to tell my own family, as I’ve always treated you. I know I can trust you. I left the country to get married, and Wonder Woman put her hair up, took my glasses and became, for all intents and purposes, Diana Prince.”

“What a fantastic story!” said Ryter, who had admired Wonder Woman for years, “To think that Wonder Woman’s World War Two history is tied in with your engagement and marriage.”

“Well Wonder Woman fought the Nazis throughout the war, along with other criminals,” said Diana, “But I grew older and had children, while she stayed young and unmarried. There were many rumours about a romantic involvement with a man in military intelligence named Steve Trevor, but he aged normally and died in the late 1970s. Wonder Woman went on, looking as youthful as ever, and is now well known to be dating her erstwhile nemesis Mouse Man.”

Diana’s photographic tour of her past revealed the fact that she met her fiancé in her early 20s, and that she had already begun to look very attractive in her teenage years. Nobody would ever know what Wonder Woman had looked like as a teenager, as it had been thousands of years earlier. Whether she would have resembled the Diana Prince of these photographs was something reserved purely for speculation. However, the 1930s pictures of the teenaged Diana Prince had catalyzed feelings in Ryter which had been forming in the back of his young mind for seven years. How he wished he could have known her back then. He knew that she was destined to meet her fiancé and get married in her twenties, but he had visions of her beautiful adolescent self growing up in the orphanage which had also housed him in his early years.

In April 1983, now into her sixties but still very attractive, the elderly Diana died, leaving Ryter orphaned once again. He wrote a letter to Wonder Woman’s post box address, explaining his foster mother’s history, to establish the connection between Ryter and Wonder Woman, and asked her to contact him.

Wonder Woman responded, introduced him to Mouse Man and included the boy in her close circle of friends. It took only a month to convince Wonder Woman that she would be fortunate to adopt the boy and carry on where her former doppleganger had left off. Keen on having a man to talk to about his infatuation with the photographs of teenaged Diana Prince, Ryter turned to Mouse Man.

“My size is permanently reduced,” said Mouse Man, “But I once used a slightly modified approach to temporarily shrink Wonder Woman down to my size, back when we fought in the 1960s. I’m sure it would work on you too.”

“How would that help?” asked Ryter.

Mouse Man told Ryter about his adventures in the Time Pool, which could only send someone the size of the Mouse Man through it into the past.

“I could give you the reduction treatment, have Wonder Woman send you back to the orphanage in the 1930s, and bring you back later. You’d be able to have dates with teenaged Diana Prince in the 1930s, and then come back here to this time and be restored to full size the same way that Wonder Woman was in the 1960s. It would work, if you don’t mind the size difference. Trust me, it’s fun dating my own Diana Prince at this size.”

“I’m sure it would be,” said Ryter.

Mouse Man discussed the idea with Wonder Woman, who looked at Ryter and smiled at the implication that Ryter was attracted to a younger version of herself. Flattery, if nothing else, motivated her to use the Time Pool in the desired manner, and Ryter was soon reduced to tiny size.

“You might like something I made for you,” she said two days later.

Wonder Woman handed the tiny boy a smaller version of Mouse Man’s costume.

“Have a nice time in the 1930s, …. Mouse Lad,” she said.

“Mouse Lad?” asked Mouse Man.

“I’m honoured,” said Ryter.

Soon he had discarded his casual clothes and changed into his Mouse Lad outfit. Wonder Woman placed Mouse Man gently on her shoulder and set the Time Pool for the year in which Diana Prince would have been 16.

“There’s one more thing you should probably know,” said Wonder Woman, “Just for the sake of seeing how origins tie together.”

“Really?” asked Mouse Lad, “What’s that?”

“The name of the orphanage you gave me was Midvale. Around a quarter of a century later, it became the earthly home of the secret identity of Supergirl. I became friends with the Girl of Steel in the 1960s and she told me a few of her background details. You can take a lot more joy in where you’re going for these dates,” said Wonder Woman.

“Both Supergirl and Wonder Woman are connected with the late Diana Prince’s past,” said Mouse Lad, “I’m thrilled, and ready to go.”

Wonder Woman activated the Time Pool, while Mouse Man waved goodbye.

Mouse Lad was sent back to Midvale Orphanage in the 1930s. He dropped out of the Time Pool and landed in the bushes. It was around two o’clock and he could see a number of teenage girls in sports uniforms playing baseball. He looked around the field, straining his tiny eyes to see recognize Diana Prince from his recollections of the photographs that her elder 1980s self had shown him in 1982. Some of the girls had their backs to him, as they stood in their fielding positions.

After two strikes, the batter hit the third ball and began to run. The ball came flying over the heads of the girls and landed in the bushes just behind Mouse Lad. The nearest girl turned around and came running towards the bushes that concealed him.

“It’s gone into the bushes! I’ll get it!” she called.

“Home run!” called the lady teacher who was umpiring the game, when the batter had no trouble clearing all four bases in record time.

Mouse Lad saw that the beautiful girl running towards him with dark hair bobbing and teenage eyes twinkling through her glasses was none other than Diana Prince. She stopped and saw him and gaped in surprise, snatched him up and put him into her shirt pocket and searched around for the ball.

She shook her head wildly as she reached down to pick it up, and her glasses flew off her head and into the bushes. Diana retrieved the ball and threw it back to the pitcher.

“My glasses fell off!” she called, “Someone else substitute for me on the field, while I look for them in the bushes!”

She set Mouse Man back down on the ground, lay down on her stomach, lifted her head and rested it on her palms, with her elbows touching the ground, and smiled down at Mouse Man. She was his Diana, the woman who had taken his child self from what would become the orphanage’s boys wing next door, but now only two years older than him.

“Hello little boy,” she said, beaming admirably, “Did you make that costume yourself?”

“No. My … foster mother did,” said Mouse Lad truthfully, “I’m Mouse Lad.”

He thought it best not to tell her his real name, lest a more complicated time paradox be created by her elder self recalling their 1930s meeting when she came to adopt him in 1975.

“You look really cute in it,” she said, “Why are you so small?”

“My foster mother’s boyfriend invented a shrinking process,” said Mouse Lad.

“Where do they live?” asked Diana.

“It’s hard to say,” said Mouse Lad, “Geography becomes so unfamiliar when you’re this size.”

“I suppose it does,” said Diana, “I’ll have to get back to the game soon, or the teacher will become suspicious. I’ll hide you in my pocket again until school’s out.”

That night she hid him under her pillow until the lights were turned out, and then let him snuggle against her cheek on her pillow. He whispered that he loved her, and she felt about for him in the dark with her lips, and pressed them against his face. It was the culmination of his wildest dreams and more. She had years before she’d meet her fiancé and future husband, and these were his years to enjoy.

Wonder Woman pulled him back to his own time during the day, while she had left him in her dormitory and gone to classes. From then on, his visits to the past were timed for her after school hours and weekends.

One Friday afternoon, he asked her if she would like to go steady with him.

“I don’t think I could go steady with someone your size,” said Diana, “But as a matter of fact, I was thinking that you’d make a steady diet.”

She smiled mischievously.

Mouse Lad was stunned and then incredibly aroused. To think that his sweet friend from the 1970s and 1980s, who had raised him so responsibly was this carefree and sneaky back in her teenage years. She was going to eat him with great amusement.