Tess

Sunday morning came after a fitful sleepless night. Sitting up in bed, she put her hands on her knees. She spent most of the night attempting to devise some means of getting back into the Lindholm residence to search for Tom, but couldn’t manufacture a premise she thought might work. Check out Janine’s new Porsche? Maybe go for a ride? It would get her in, but how could she search for Tom?

Looking at the table beside her bed, Tess’s phone flashed a blue light. Picking it up, there was a response text from Janine, “Thanks for coming to my party and for bringing such an amazing present. I really enjoyed the depth of our discussion last night and hope we can continue to build upon our friendship, xoxox.” Tess stared at her phone, trying to interpret possible hidden subtext in the message. Did you find him?

“You look like you’re going to wear a burn hole in your phone,” Samira said from her own bed, flashing Tess a bright grin.

Tess looked up and frowned, unable to conceal the concern bleeding from her eyes as she worried for her lost brother.

Tilting her head, sensing the emotion, “Is everything okay?” Sam asked, climbing from her bed to silently cross the room and sit beside Tess, a comforting arm around her shoulder.

Tess shook her head slowly from side to side, green eyes welling with tears.

“Oh sweetheart, what’s the matter?” she asked, tone full of compassion.

“It’s Tom,” Tess said softly.

“I thought you said it was something small?” she asked.

Tess nodded, a nervous chuckle escaping her lips, on the verge of confessing everything to her roommate.

“It will be alright, whatever it is, Tom is strong and will bounce back,” she said, trying to reassure Tess.

Turning her head, Tess mused. Here’s what’s perplexing me Sam, my deviant brother is like two and half inches tall and I’ve been secretly hiding him here for this last week. Oh by the way, the little pervert has been watching you undress and actually snuck out and swiped a pair of your worn panties for his own amusement. Then, if that wasn’t enough, I brought him to Janine’s house for the party yesterday so he could peep on her, and somehow during the course of the night, lost him. That about sums it up. Instead she frowned and said, “You’re right, he’s strong.” But is he strong enough to survive alone in Janine’s house?

Sam smiled and rubbed her hand on Tess’s shoulder. “That was one heck of a party yesterday,” she said, trying to bolster Tess’s mood and change the subject.

Tess smiled wanly, “Sure was, Injustice, woohoo,” she replied with a small fist pump.

“I know, like Aedin Stray is so totally hot,” Sam said, bright smile on her pretty. “Don’t you think?”

Tess nodded, not bothering to comment on the fact, the man had reeked of hard liquor when she had met him and looked like he could barely stand upright. “He sure is,” she agreed.

Standing up, Sam walked over to her side of the room. Back to Tess, she removed her night shirt, the one with two big kitten’s eyes and wrapped a robe about herself. Tying it she turned back to Tess, “I’m going to have a shower, you feeling better now?”

Tess smiled and nodded. After Sam left, she looked at her phone once more, contemplating. Bringing the screen to life, she opened her message list and typed in a reply to Janine, “I too enjoyed getting to see a side of you away from school and would very much like to strengthen our friendship. Maybe we could get together sometime today and we can continue our discussion over lunch, or you can take me for a spin in your fancy new car. J” Send.

Putting her phone back on her night table, she got off the bed and padded over to her desk. Opening her laptop, she pressed the power button, waiting for the device to come to life. Checking her email, she was pleasantly surprised to finally find a response from her grandfather, though marked urgent. It read:

“Hi Tessie, please, please, tell me the conditions you’ve listed in your school assignment are truly what you claim them to be, a hypothetical class project? It’s important. Please tell you and your brother haven’t been messing about in my lab in the basement. Please sweetheart.”

Tess frowned. Why would he say that? Messing about in the lab? Weird. And why the urgency? If it was that urgent, why did he wait a week to respond? She was puzzled.

Fingers dancing across the keyboard, she said yes it was only a stupid class project and not to worry, but she began to wonder, pieces clicking into place in her brain.

Leaning back in the chair, she looked at the blinking prompt on the computer screen. Her mother and father had moved Tom Sr. to home suddenly and unexpectedly, citing health reasons. So rapid, neither she nor tom actually had a chance to say goodbye. The nursing home was one several states away, where visiting was problematic and the kids wouldn’t be able to see him frequently. In fact, as she thought about it, since her grandfather was sent to the home, they had never visited him. They had chatted via video link, where he seemed his normal usual self. Why the need for extended care in a home? Then the notion struck her, a nagging suspicion in the back of her head, what if her brother was not the first one to have been shrunk by the device? What if…? She shook her head. Could it be? Backspacing her message, she simply and succinctly replied, “I find the tone and caution of your missive curious. Why do you ask?” adding a colon and back slash before hitting send. If what she suspected was true, who else knew?

Getting up, she too had a shower, getting herself ready for the day. Grabbing a bite to eat in the dining hall, she returned to her room, checking both her phone and the laptop for a reply to either of her messages. There was none. Throughout the day she lingered around her room, checking and still receiving nothing.