The next morning went by uneventfully. Aubrey was still in a good mood, and actually seemed excited about going to school.  When we went about our ritual, I noticed she hesitated a moment before putting her hand on me, but I figured she was just preoccupied.

That evening she returned with a box, carrying it with her back to her room.

“What’s in the box?” I asked curiously.

“Uh, just some extra uniforms,” she replied. I walked over and looked inside. They were uniforms, but in all different sizes. Small all the way up to the largest I’d seen, a girl’s uniform that seemed big enough for a male basketball player.

Aubrey nervously snatched the uniforms out of my hand and stuffed them messily back into the box. “It’s just in case, y’know,” she stammered, “I told the nurse I was having a growth spurt so…it’s in case I grow out of the extra small ones,” she pronounced the last few words with quiet disdain.

Not wanting to make her feel bad I dropped it. If she wanted to daydream about XXL schoolgirl uniforms, it’s alright. Our parents left behind more than enough money, so extra sets of clothes were nothing. And her current one was looking a little tight, especially around her thighs and developing bust. I, I really shouldn’t be looking there but, it’s just what I’d observed!

More and more the next few days, she seemed lost in her own world. I’m not complaining, I was glad she was enjoying herself and the new world she had been thrust into. I know a teen girl’s free time shouldn’t revolve around her older brother. But I couldn’t help but be curious about one thing, a notebook she spent most her nights looking through and occasionally writing in. She had kept a diary before, but this was different. So one afternoon when she was gone, I took it upon myself to sneak a peek.

Alyssa 5’3”

Jasmine 5’7”

Rachael 5’5”

Yun 5’2”

Amber 5’10”

It went on like this for a few dozen names. It was apparently a list of all the girls in her grade and their heights. I sighed, she really hadn’t gotten over it at all. Turning the page, I saw a sort of chart she had made, with simplistic drawings of all the girls arranged by height, up against a measurement axis, like a lineup of police suspects. My heart sank for my poor sister; I didn’t think she would become this obsessed about something as inconsequential as height.

I spent the rest of the day trying to think of what to do. I needed to bring it up somehow, but I didn’t want to admit to snooping in her notebook, or embarrass her. But I can’t let her go on like this. Being an older brother and a parent all at once is tough, and I just don’t know how to handle it sometimes. It was Friday, so at least we’d get a chance to spend some time together over the weekend and maybe sort this out.

That night, I intercepted Aubrey before she could escape to her room.

“Hey, it’s the weekend so you don’t have to do your homework right away or anything. Why don’t we play a game or something,” she nervously avoided my gaze as I walked closer, “you can be player 1 or wha-“

“Ok, fine.”

On the couch, playing games, she seemed more open. She especially took delight in beating me, so I let her.

“Haha! Take that, big bro!” she’d laugh and stick her tongue out at me, standing up triumphantly before the next round, eventually even taking the opportunity to loom down on me while I was sitting.

“Heh, yeah you got me that time. H-hey, what’s the news on that growth spurt of yours? I’m worried you’re gonna be taller than me soon,” I joked awkwardly.

“I, uh, soon….” She stammered.

“Soon?” I was confused.

“Well yeah…I just think so…”

“You can tell? What does it have something to do with the motion of the stars or whatever? That stuff is way over my head…” I tried to playfully chide her.

All she could manage was awkward mumbled sounds, looking around and slumping, face blush and soft blonde hair falling over.

“Aubrey,” I shifted toned to be more serious, “you don’t have to keep anything secret from me. If you’re worried about something-“

Suddenly, she look at me and dove forward, placing her feminine hand forcefully at my neck. She appeared to concentrate for a second, and I was too confused to do anything. Suddenly I felt the familiar white hot pain, but a little worse than even the incident several days ago.

“Agh!” I yelped from the sudden jolt of pain, and stood up from the couch. “What the hell are you doing Bree!?” I yelled, looking straight into her own shocked eyes. It took me several seconds to realize that I shouldn’t have been able to do that. I fell backwards out of surprise.

“W-what…how….did you….”

Aubrey, still standing and with her hand frozen in position, looked down at me. Tears were welled up in her eyes, and her expression was somewhere between shock and joy.

“I can’t believe it really worked. I thought that was what happened, but I wasn’t sure,” she thought out loud, “I really stole his height…”

“Um, Bree, I’m right here,” I interjected, heart beating a mile a minute but trying to regain control of the situation.

Snapped out of her thoughts, Aubrey’s half-smile fell and she placed her hands on my shoulders.

“I didn’t mean it the first time, I swear! I didn’t even know I could! I just thought about how I wanted to be a little bit taller at the same time I was siphoning….I didn’t know how it could have happened, but I figured it out over the last few days, and this proves it,” she explained. “Please don’t be mad….”

“I’m not mad, of course not,” I said, trying to wrap my head around what had just happened, that I was now 6 inches shorter than I should be, “but we have to tell the doctors about this. I mean no way is this an intended effect, it shouldn’t even be possible….”

“No!” she screamed, tightening her grip on my shoulder and pulling herself in closer, “That will ruin everything! They…..They’ll take us in for a bunch of tests! We won’t be free for months, maybe years! I just started school and this will ruin all of that! You can’t, you can’t….” she pleaded, crying.

She was right, it wouldn’t be fair to ruin our lives, which were the closest to being on a normal track as they had ever been, to go back to some medical research facility and get poked and prodded by needles and run through loud machines.

“Alright, not now then. But they’ll have to know some day.”

“Oh, thank you big bro!” she wrapped me up in a hug. We’d hugged hundreds of times before, but it was strange to do it with her being the same size and nearly the same strength. The tiny girl I was used to grabbing my waist, and slouching down to envelop her upper back, was now constricting me as an equal, with perhaps a little too much enthusiasm. She didn’t know her own strength.

We barely spoke for a few hours after that, just lying together on the couch with the tv on. I couldn’t help but notice how small her pajamas had become. The pants only came halfway down her calf, and her bellybutton and part of her flat tummy were exposed by the ill-fitting shirt. Even her meager breasts seemed to strain the fabric a little. I was sitting and she had her legs resting across my lap like usual, but they felt much heavier than usual. Every so often I caught her looking at me, mentally comparing my size to the furniture and herself. I guess I really hadn’t solved anything about her obsession, just added an entire new dimension to it.

As the night grew later, Aubrey began reminiscing.

“Remember when you’d visit me in the hospital and we’d lay there together…”

“Yeah, I was suited up like I worked at a nuclear power plant and completely sterilized for germs. Real comfortable,” I joked.

“Well I liked it,” she said wistfully, continuing, “Remember when you snuck in candy?”

“Uh-huh”

“Remember when you’d,” she looked away, smiling but embarrassed, “paint my toenails?” She wiggled and flexed her feet that were dangling on the other side of my lap.

“Hey, I only did that cuz you couldn’t!” I snapped, face glowing bright red.

“Oh….” She whispered, dejected. I couldn’t take the sad look on her face, it sucked me right in.

“W-well, it’s not like I minded either or anything. I was happy to do it for you,” I corrected myself, and she perked up.

“Then, will you do it now?” she asked hopefully.

“Uh,” I resigned myself, not wanting to disappoint her, “sure. Go get the stuff though.”

Aubrey squealed in joy and sprang from the couch, skipping into her room and back out a second later with the polish. She handed it to me and positioned herself on the couch’s opposite end, sticking out her legs with her feet right in front of my face when I turned around. Her milky white soles caught me by surprise and completely obscured my field of vision.

“H-hey!” I playfully batted her feet away and she giggled, moving them down to a more reasonable position, pausing for a second, and then swooping them into my own foot. “What are you…” I asked before realizing she was interested in comparing the size of our feet. I begrudgingly complied to this weird game, placing mine sole to sole with hers in the middle of the couch. To both our surprise, I could nearly an inch of her toes peaking up over mine. I blushed without knowing why, and her eyes lit up. I mean it made sense, her feet were always slender and long and a little out of proportion with her otherwise tiny size. But I couldn’t help but feel belittled.

“Ok ok, enough of that. Do you want me to paint them or not?” I groaned, and she complied, humming and smiling as I painted over the chipping previous paintjob of each cute little toe. She really enjoyed me doing it, which I assumed was just a girl thing.

As I finished the job, placing my hand on her sole to stabilize the foot and check over my work, I felt a familiar sensation and actually watched as my hand appeared to shrink on her on the foot. I jumped back, she stuck out her leg and planted the foot on my face. From forehead to chin the sole blanketed my entire face. I could feel a slight warmth radiating from it, and very feint smell like old lotion and sweat, but not unpleasant. In the distance I heard Aubrey giggling.

“Gee thanks big bro, but where did you go? I can’t see you past my-“

“AUBREY!” I yelled, pulling the foot off me, “C-change back right now! Give it back!” I commanded, seething. Her smile immediately faded and I could see her becoming guilty.

“S-sorry,” she said while reaching out her hand and returning the few inches to me, “I was just trying to see if I could do it with my foot too….” She whispered and trailed off.

“It’s uh, it’s alright. Why don’t we both go to bed now, it’s late.”

As she walked off to her room, something popped into my mind.

“Um, Bree,” I asked stopping her outside her door, “how did you know you could give me back the height at all?”

“I…I just knew,” she replied hastily before shutting the door. I tried to believe her, even though I knew she didn’t really know. My stomach turned for a second thinking about being left like that without anyway to return, but I tried to not think of it anymore.