"Wake up, Brett." Nancy demanded gruffly.

Brett bolted awake. It was still dark outside. What time was it? His wall clock showed it was 6:42. After rain last night, the sky was partly cloudy and the sun had barely emerged. It was destined to be a slightly drizzly, but very humid day. The sun would emerge gradually.

But gradual was not to be the form for Brett's Saturday morning. After finishing up with three finals this week, Brett was basically home free. Just a presentation in his last English class next Monday. There were hazy memories of how he had gone out very late and partied with some seniors at one of their houses where there had been liquor for a couple hours before they were shooed away. Some awkward exchange. He had seen some girls there, and had been bold enough to talk to Zoe, a short-haired blond girl with a piercing giggle. But he hadn't remembered it going anywhere.

"Brett. Stop malingering. It's time for my day with you shrunk. I've made my peace with your little side job and all the damage that it's caused. But we're doing it as promised."
The boy stood groggily and wiped his eyes to more clearly see her. She was wearing bright green athletic shorts and a thin white V-neck tee. He hair was rumpled and her face had no makeup. Though she had a few wrinkles and her skin was looser than it had been 20 years ago, Brett could see fierce determination in her fiery green eyes.
"I made you breakfast. You'll be eating leftovers. Now get undressed. I don't care if you're wearing the leotard. You're shrinking on the count of 15."
Brett suddenly scuffled. There was such visceral irritation in her voice that he knew she was serious. And he had no idea what was planned. So he dropped his pants and underwear with reckless haste.
"14. 13. 12-"
Brett scrambled to find the leotard naked, his mom standing imperturbily in the center of the room as he tore around like a wild animal trying to find hidden prey.
"9. 8. 7. Better hurry, brett. 6, 5-"
He finally spied the old leotard under a pile of clothes. He hadn't washed it yet since last time. There was still the hope in his mind that his mom would let him off easy. But as he jerked the tight garment up his body, fitting his thighs snugly, that hope was replaced with panic.
"4, 3, 2, 1 - blast off!"
Just as he got his shoulders through the leotard, he was shrunk down with intense rapidity.
WHOOOOSH! The pitch was higher than before. It was as though she had learned how to disable all the gradient controls and shrink him as fast as possible.

She picked him up, with just the faint smell of soap on her hands. She held him up to her face and made a strange visage as her lips shuffled around thoughtfully. Her eyes moved about as she continued to move her lips and jaw about. He realized that she was licking something in her mouth.
"Your breakfast is currently wedged in one of my molars. I can feel a few molecules of chewed up bacon in there, that should be plenty for you. And if you get thirsty, hope you like the taste of spit. You've already had it from most of my coworkers, why not your mom too?"
Seeing him flailing and start to protest in an infinitesimal volume, her lips widened into a grin as she chuckled slightly.
"Oh, and we're going to go on a run together. I've got my own route, about 3mi, before I head to practice with the girls today. You've got a big day ahead."

He saw her open her eyes wide and stare at him as a big, foul-smelling tongue came between the parted lips and flatten itself as if to accept him as an offering. A human sacrifice to be devoured by his mother's mouth ripe with morning breath and barely tinted by a few strips of bacon and a few sips of coffee. As she dropped him onto the tongue, the fall from above was short and his landing abrupt. On the rough tongue surface, he landed and was instantly stuck to the sticky tongue as if by fly paper. It was too difficult to peel himself off to crawl and he was simply stuck until she salivated more. Brett gasped and took in the pungent odor of the mouth as Nancy pulled her tongue inside. Light dwindled as she slowly closed the lips and brought him into his tongue prison.

Nancy rolled over her tongue and tried to perch him gesturingly right at the back of her molars, even though it put him terrifyingly close to her throat. She felt some wriggling and resistance, but he wouldn't have the energy to keep it up for long. All of his efforts were for nought, and may have actually stimulated the production of sliva in her mouth. She grimly vowed to take no heed of his motions and just subject to him to this, as he must somehow like it.
As Brett was tossed around, he was finally pressed against the edge of the molar and used his wrist device to illuminate the tooth. It indeed had crumbs of bacon tucked into the gaps.
Then came a quick message on his wrist device.
"Brett, I don't feel you freeing that bacon. If you don't eat it, fine, but your job is to do some cleaning up in my mouth. So get to work. I don't need to tell you that I can make things worse for you, do I?"
Held in place, Brett quickly tapped out a response. "No mom. But this is so disgusting."
She didn't reply, and strode out the door to start her run, slamming it behind her.

    AUTOMATED MESSAGE - This is the ShrinkProtect app. It has been detected that you were shrunk. If you have authorized this, press Y and your 6-digit PIN. If you have not, press N. If no message is received within 10 minutes, escalation measures will be taken.
    
    Y*****
    
    Thank you for confirming that you authorized this shrinking.
    
He instinctively entered his info into the app, as his skin was sloshed with his mom's thickening saliva and he was bounced around in one corner of her mouth. To his surprise, it seemed like Ms. Issakinen was still paying attention to his input, as she replid with a personalized message.
"Hey Brett, it's Loren. Who's got you today"
"my mom. Not super happy about it but it's her turn technically."
"Hang in there. It's your last day, right?"
"yes" Brett said, struggling to keep the screen in vision.
"That's great. Well, I'll contact you tomorrow, OK? I had a question that I wanted to ask but I wanted to ask in person."
Brett's spirits were momentarily buoyed as he read those words. What did Loren want to say to him? It must be important if she wanted to say it in person.
His spirits sunk down just as rapidly as Nancy used her tongue to shove him into the corner of her cheek. There was not much free moisture in the mouth and every surface was becoming sticky. He realized he was going to be stuck in this little pocket of her mouth as she ran, with nothing to breathe but her sour workout breath. Every so often the tongue came and slaked across him, depositing more sticky, mucusy slobber on his person. By the time the run was wrapping up, he felt like he was swimming in rubber cement.

He did reach over, pick out and eat the bacon, as his stomach was starving and he desperately wanted to avoid filling it with gallons of his own mom's saliva. It was moist with her mastication, but still tasted of bacon at least. Hoo boy, what a day already, he was thinking to himself.

----

The run had ended, the pace had changed, and he was now in the car with Nancy going to the school. But he still remained in her mouth. Slowly the stickiness subsided and her fresh, wet saliva began to replace it.

Why had she not let him free yet? The run was long over! What was she doing now? He heard a door close. It sounded like a bathroom door. And then he was unceremoniously spat out into the sink into a napkin.
"Okay Brett. Time to wash off. You're not done for the day, but I will let you bathe and drink from the tap."
He looked at his surroundings and saw the massive walls of the porcelain sink 10 feet tall around him, with his mother towering over them.
The lukewarm water came out, greatly refreshing Brett. He stood underneath the torrent and quenched his thirst greedily underneath the stream of clean water, imagining he was under a divine waterfall.

"Hi Nancy~~!" Mrs. Gu hollered as she popped into the ladies room. She looked down at Nancy fidgeting with something in the sink. "Er... what are you doing there?"
Nancy shrugged and replied casually with a friendly smile. "Hi Wendy. I've just got Brett here, he is getting a bath after having a little mouth journey. I finally tried it myself."
"Ohhhh Brett! He is still a shrinkee! Why is he still doing it?"
"I donno Wendy. I thought he'd have learned better by now. What are you doing in the office on a Saturday morning?"
"Hehe I forgot some supplies I need for home, Nancy. I was only going to quickly go in. How are you doing today? Why are you in?"
"Oh I'm just doing some extra practice with my girls today. And then there's the softball game in the afternoon."
Wendy looked excited. "Ohh your athletics girls! That's great. By the way, did I tell you my sister Yuan was in town?"
Nancy looked puzzled. "Wait, I thought she was back in China?"
"No, she was there for a few months but now back. She does consulting and advertising in the city sometimes. Sometimes they need a face for certain ethnic products, right? And she is a face for Chinese sports."
Nancy nodded. Of course she knew. Yuan Gu was an Olympic athlete who had had set some distance running records back in Beijing 2008. She had somehow gotten some fleeting popularity among western audiences for a big, emotive smile and publicly warm friendships with competitors on the American team, and it led to some low-key advertising deals with sports brands that Yuan took advantage of while she could. Now working on both continents, Yuan was no longer a full-time athlete but still dabbled; mainly, though, she was trying to create an indigenous Chinese athleticwear brand that would be competitive with US or European designed gear, and figured that staying close to NYC with its large Chinese-American population would offer the best chance at both developing the right products to a receptive audience, and striking up the right business contacts.
"That's fantastic! Do you think you could bring her to see my girls? I'd like to give them a role model. Just a quick speech?"
"Oh ho Nancy... I don't know. Her English isn't that great, she doesn't like speeches."
"Oh come on! She doesn't have to say much. I'll do most of the talking."
"Well... I will message her."
"Did Brett get a chance to meet her when he was with you?" Nancy probed. Brett, hearing the conversation in the sink, perked up his head and started paying rapt attention.
Wendy looked surprised. "No unfortunately not.... it's a pity, she was very interested in the idea of a shrinkee."
"Oh I didn't know! Brett would certainly be willing to oblige."
Wendy just tilted her head back and laughed. "Hahaha are you serious Nancy? Doesn't Brett get a say?"
"Oh, he's already told me. Brett would be completely fine with it. He's told me he would be honored to serve the feet of such a prestigious lady." Nancy lied with a big smile on her face.
Brett looked up, aghast. He tried to hit the walkie-talkie button but his mom had disabled the audio output on her phone and the shrinking remote. Nobody heard him.
Wendy looked amused but unsure. "Well.... he did kind of volunteer earlier to be a foot shrinkee for Yuan but I think he didn't understand how bad it would be. I mean, she treats her feet really badly. I always thought they were so stinky haha! And I think... she might be a bit rough and mean. She is a very dominant lady. She doesn't speak English that well, she may not communicate well."
"Have no fear Wendy. I assure you that Brett is ready. You bring by Yuan this afternoon and I'm sure he'll do his best with your sister, whatever she wants to do. I tried to talk him out of it, but he was actually adamant that he have a chance to meet her."
"Wow really? What a guy! I wish he offered me a second chance too, hah!"
Nancy laughed with her. "I'm sure he wouldn't mind adding you to the list, maybe next week."
"Oh you're too kind Nancy. Really. I would want to ask him personally I think. But thank you for letting Yuan try it, she always wanted to try a shrinkee."

---

Out on the field, Nancy gathered her girls. This wasn't a full session; there were 6 there today. All of them were doing some brief sprints early in the day, but some of them were cross-country specialists and had long distances to cover afterward.
Brett, cradled in his mom's pocket, could hear all the dialogue but could see nothing. He had to go by voices, identifying girls as they spoke up.
He could not fail to hear the cackle of Amber, who self titled herself "The Amazing." The winningest high school athlete in Westwood history, the 18-year-old red-haired Amber had shown some prowess at state last year. Now a senior, she was still still thirsty. Where she lacked raw intellectual prowess, she possessed an abundance of ruthlessness and cunning.
Then a familiar voie- the giggly Zoe was also there.
But he couldn't make out the other girls yet. Until his mom pulled him out of her pocket and set him on a table.
"So... girls. This is my no-good son Brett."
"Hey loser!" Amber shouted.
"Haha hey loser!" Jenna cried. This was Amber's minion.
"Whoa, what happened to you Brett?" Ada asked, concerned. His heart skipped a beat to hear some interest in his wellbeing from his gorgeous crush.
"Long time no see!" squeaked Zoe, laughing as she had just seen him recently.
Dominique, a tall, quiet Sudanese girl, was nonplussed. "What's up with this, Miss Nancy, why did you shrink him?"
Ayla was silent, but she looked very interested.

"Brett is doing shrink training with me. He isn't my son today, but a worker for the school. A contractor, if you will. And since I already know my way around a shrinkee well enough, I'm pretty much done with him. As the team captain, I'm nominating Amber to dispense his punishment amongst you girls."
She walked away and left Brett standing on the table, handing Amber a slip of paper as she walked away.
The girls all crowded around, but were somewhat reticent to touch him. He could barely look around and make out all the figures around him. Thin, muscular, toned girls who were almost all out of his league.
Amber read the piece of paper and started laughing hysterically. She fought off the fawning attention of Jenna and composed herself.
"Okay gang. We're supposed to punish Brett. He is going to go in our shoes. Each one of us for at least a few laps."
There are at least three voices cheering and whooping in that moment. He could make out Amber and Jenna, but couldn't decide if the third voice was Zoe or Ayla. Dominique was laughing, assuming it was a joke. "Amber, you're crazy. It has to be a joke. He can't go in our shoes. He'll be crushed!"
The laughter and ebullience by Amber and Jenna evaporated and they looked among themselves spouting lame excuses. "No, it doesn't work that way. They're tougher! He'll be fine."
The heretofore quiet Ayla piped up. "She's actually right. Principal Lee-Reilly posted on this in the school newsletter. The shrinking process increases the resistance to impacts and pressure far more than their size would normally permit. Think of him like a little scorpion. Small but well armored."

"Very good, Ayla!" Amber said approvingly. "Thanks for backing up your captain." Some of the other girls rolled their eyes at Amber's cockiness.
"For that, you get the first lap."
Ayla could hardly contain herself as she leaned over and started to unlace her shoe. The thin, pale lips of the long-faced brunette let out a little smirk.
"Hey wait wait wait!" They heard from the nondescript remote control that Coach Nancy left on the table. "Don't I get a say in this at all? I didn't sign up for this!"
"It's the loser! How is he talking to us?" Jenna asked warily.
Brett decided to taunt them. "I've tapped into the RF frequency of the device and I'm sending it an encrypted audio signal. If you don't let me be, I'm going to activate its self-destruct feature."
Ada was the only one who laughed. She shook her head. She had long heard Brett try corny, nerdy deflections.
"That was a pitiful attempt, loser. You tell me the truth or I'm going to crush you like an insect." Amber was starting to get angry for real, raising her palm intimidatingly over Brett on the table.
Dominique touched Amber's arm and tried to gently physically restrain her. "Hey Amazing, chill out." Ada added "Yeah, we're not part of this. Just let's do what the coach asks of us and be done with him."
The response from Brett came back suitably unnerved by the threat. "Okay okay okay okay... I'm using a special wrist-mounted communicator. I can talk to you any time on the remote you have there.  But you don't have to use it, since I can hear you fine at your normal tones. But seriously! I don't want to be here anymore than you want to be involved with me. I was doing work for the principal, and my mom got involved-"
"Why were you volunteering to shrink, Brett?" asked Ada in a kindly tone. She alone seemed to be sincerely concerned for him.
"Because the principal wants the teachers to be trained in it. That's all, I swear-"
"That's bullshit. You don't want them to shrink all of us for punishment, do you? What do you get out of it, twerp?" Amber asked unbelievingly.
"Well, I get a scholarship and some extra credit. But I don't think they're going to just do it like that-"
Groans all around. Dominique exhaled sharply and sucked her teeth. Zoe asked "You're selling us out for THAT? Not gonna lie, but boy you're naive."
Ada was shaking her head, evidently saddened. "Not cool, Brett, I'm sorry to say."

---

As the girls arranged for the order they would share him in, most of them went back to their previous workouts. Ayla was alone with Brett for the moment. She sighed and then launched into a strange diatribe.
"So, tell me the truth - do you seriously believe you'll escape the wrath of Lee-Reilly? She understands power. If you remain the sole volunteer, you're safe for now, but if they find someone else to do what you're doing, you are screwed. And you better hope that your training with the other teachers stands up to audits, because they're going to look at who co-signed their applications if those audits fail. You could be liable."
Brett swallowed. Why hadn't his mom ever put it in those terms? She made it sound pretty stark.
"Well, I don't think any of the teachers will fail audits. And I do believe that I'll be safe until I'm out of here. Just one more year to go." He said carefully, trying to cling to some credibility. In the back of his mind, he was thinking about Loren's ShrinkProtect app and how it might be his protective aegis if there were untoward activities by unscrupulous actors who had shrinking technology. And he was still a minor. He felt that the contracts would be tossed out if it ever came to a bona fide lawsuit.
"You're a simple dweeb, Brett. You deserve to go on a sock ride. Ready to go?" Ayla wiggled her toes in unison as she displayed before him the inside-out sock that she had already soaked through with her sweat. Gripping him with the toe section, she turned the sock back inside-out, and he was rudely shuffled until the sock came to rest and her long toes probed their way into his prison.

After Ayla's turn was up, she came back and handed over to Dominique. The tradeoff was undramatic, as Dominique did not relish the punishment she was inflicting, saying quietly "I had nothing against you, but the coach is telling us to do this so I guess I'm going to go along. You shouldn't have started this, Brett." He saw the ebony-black skin of her feet slide glisteningly out of her shoes and socks, and she grabbed him with her toes before putting the sock back on and then giving him another round on the track. She was a brutally fast sprinter, with the end result for Brett that he was soon swimming for his life above the sweat pooling under her sole.

Zoe was up third. As before, she was mostly unsympathetic. "I guess Amber and Jenna were right, you are a loser Brett! I can't believe I actually used to think you were cute." The short-haired, slightly mousy blond giggled piercingly as she dropped him into her sweaty sock and gave him a few new laps. But throughout, to Brett's surprise, her feet held up surprisingly well, with her sweat having only a minor odor and not completely overpowering the lotion that she had applied to her dry soles in the morning.

Jenna, the fourth girl, sandy-haired and always bearing an impressively deep tan, was up next. He had never known her terribly well, but starting in 5th grade she had crushed on him intensely. She finally cornered him in 7h grade in a supply closet and asked him to ask her to go out with him, speaking with great confidence and presumptuousness. That event had replayed in Brett's mind so many times over the ensuing years, as Jenna got taller and tanner and developed very desirable curves. But going back 4 years, Brett didn't see any of that. He would never dream of dating, was more of a class clown, and he'd not been prepared for the advance and had bungled the event with great crudeness, and in the process deeply offended her in a lasting way. Though he would much later try to recant and make amends and get to know her, it was for nought. Jenna acquired a diametrically opposed persona in high school, becoming a bully herself, and to Brett she was always the penultimate tormentor next to the Amazing Amber herself. Publicly a right-hand woman to Amber, she was actually the more creative and intelligent one, as well as gifted with a sensitive side that she had lately gotten very good at hiding.
Yet Jenna's foot captivity betrayed the latent affection for him that she still somehow felt deep down. Or at least, that's what Brett reasoned must be the case. Her footfalls were shallow and slight, her pace diminished, as though she were simply not truly prepared to do him physical harm. He again grimly regretted that he had made an enemy of Jenna, as she was evidently not incapable of small private mercies. She gave him the closest thing to a respite he'd had since he woke up this morning.

Amber herself went fifth. He considered her the architect of his present misery more than anyone else, and he could tell she relished that role.
"Why do you have it out for me, Amber?"
"That's Amazing Amber to you, loser. I call 'em like I see 'em. You used to be harmless, so you got just a little bit of mocking torment. But your mom is right that you've been insufferable lately. So this all makes sense."
"Insufferable because I've developed some self confidence?" Brett asked caustically.
"Whatever you wanna call it. Now are you ready?"
"Wait. One more thing. Nobody else is around, so tell me honestly - did my mom write that on the paper or did you make all this up?"
Silence from the huge redhaired girl standing above him. She squinched her lips, furrowed her brow, and stoked her chin as if carefully considering the question. Finally, the answer came with a resigned shrug.
"Much as I'd like to take credit for all the evil you come across, Brett, I can't tell you I made this up. Your mom wrote to do this stuff. And she told me personally that since I was the captain, I was in charge. And I am currently in direlection of my duties if I don't force you to inhale the smell of my sweat-soaked feet and give you a bath with them."
Ten laps of hell under Amber's punishing digits, clutching him as though trying to squeeze out his essence.

Finally it was Ada's turn. Brett had been enamored with her ever since she had shown what he thought was fawning appreciation for him in algebra, helping to save her grade on a few occasions where she struggled to learn before she had finally dropped out. Despite all her physical blessings, her relatively tall stature, energetic, lithe body, black straight hair, black eyes, with a complexion and accent that made him ponder what part of Earth she might have come from, his favorite part was her very feminine, slow, deliberate, caring voice that always seemed to capture his attention. Especially when she used it to ask questions or laugh at his jokes. God how he'd wished she would give him a sign that he could take it to the next level, but she had always gently turned him down when he'd tried to venture that direction.
He wasn't super surprised to see her sympathetic to him. "Poor Brett. We're shoving you into our shoes while we work out. That's gotta be rough."
"Not gonna lie Ada, it has been-" Brett started, but to his surprise she cut him off.
"Well... I could let you off easy. But I am disappointed in you. You aren't standing in solidarity with the students, but you're trying to undermine student rights and empower those who would bring about new punishments that will make school harder for kids everywhere."
Brett was flabbergasted by this response. She had never spoken to him with such eloquence. He'd never thought of her as a heavy philosophical thinker.
But she continued. "And I need to tell you something more. I once thought you were a great guy. But you thought you were helping me while you were very often finding ways to confuse me. You enjoyed misleading me, and you hovered over me so much that people thought we were dating."
With all credibility lost, he resorted to joking. "WAIT wait wait- if you're going to break up with me before I've even asked you out once, please not here."
Ada scoffed. "All of these girls here know that you like me. I told them you had a decent side and you were once a good guy. But you made it hard to defend you. You stopped tutoring me like a friend who seriously cares, and started just trying to make me feel stupid until I gave up and cried in your arms. You can't win someone by belittling them, Brett."
"I... I can't believe it Ada. I didn't know any of that. I thought I was helping you. I never meant to belittle you."
"Maybe you didn't mean to, but you did. I dropped that class because of you. So I'm not that torn up about putting you in my shoe right now. Sorry but not that sorry, Brett."

The next few laps under Ada were the worst, not from her efforts directly, but from the cumulative strain. Brett's tiny form was starting to show evidence of its pummeling under the six girls. He felt airsick from all the lifting and dropping into shoes, nauseated by the unending variety of foot odors and salty intrusions into his mouth, and weary from the heat and lack of oxygen within most of the girls' shoes.

---

Finally some relief. Ada had freed him and shown some remorse, and even carried him gently in her palm and given him a quick rinse in the sink as they all hit up the locker room to convalesce after some tough training. But Amber ordered them all to stand by for the next set of orders with their shrunken charge. There was audible groaning as everyone wanted to be done. Brett had a few visible bruises and except for among Amber and ostensibly Jenna, there remained little appetite for punishing Brett.
"C'mon Amber," Zoe challenged. Wiping her brow, she added "He's totes had enough. Besides, I'm exhausted. I desperately need a shower."

"I agree!" came the delighted blaring walkie-talkie voice of Brett underneath running water, sensing he was about to be freed.

Amber hissed. "Ugh, who turned that thing back on. We don't need to hear from him. Anyway, girls, there is one more thing we need to do." She waved the crinkly piece of loose leaf paper around above her head as though it were a historic telegram.
Switching to a calm, matter-of-fact voice, Amber continued. "Coach Nancy, the loser's mom, says that we need to make this loser clean our feet."
"Haha, how's he going to do that at his size?" Dominique asked. "Does he have a tiny shrunken bottle of bleach? My feet are so ripe right now."
Amber held the paper up to her face, cleared her throat, and read verbatim from the page, as though she was already certain she wouldn't be believed.
"Brett is to stick his head in between each of you girls' toes and ingest every visible molecule of toe jam. He must chew and swallow all of it. Then he must lick the underside of each one of all your toes over all the surface area, and clean underneath your toenails if they contains anything extra."

Gasps and gags started to resound. Jenna cackled, Dominique looked surprised, Zoe was dazed, and Ayla was expressionless. Ada, flustered, spat out "No way, you're not serious Amber."

"I am 100% serious girl." Finally turning over the piece of paper, all of them clamored around it to read if it was actually written there. They found that it was. The writing was unmistakably that of the coach.
Ada shook her head, looking for some more support among the other surprised and confused girls. "Ayla, is that even possible?"
Ayla, something of a wizard with estimation problems, had already pulled out her phone to do some back of envelope calculations. "Well... based on the number of grams of loosened skin likely produced over the given surface area during the time we've been working out, and scaled quantity of perspiration, adjusting to his size at 1 inch height... well, it would be a tight squeeze in his stomach, but Brett could probably eat it all."
Amber continued with fake solemnity while secretly she was stifling a smile and looking at Jenna who was doing the same. "She has also said it's my job to make sure that this gets done. If he doesn't get his job done, it's going to be my fault, so please don't fight me on this girls."

Amber nodded. "Who's going to go first?"
Jenna piped up "Ooh ooh, let me go first! I can't believe I'm going to get a chance to do this with a shrinkee."
Expecting this, Amber nodded and then asked. "I knew I could count on you Jenna. But who else is going to volunteer?"
After a moment of silence, Ayla was the next to crack. "Fine, I don't care. Let me go second so I can get cleaned up. I would really rather have a shower now, but I guess having a tiny tongue work on my sweaty feet is better than nothing."

The first two in line established, Amber let the locker room fall silent and serenely walked out of the locker room to confer with the coach.
The remaining girls were expressing various degrees of apologetic and exculpatory pleas to the shrunken boy near them.
"I... I don't have a choice, Brett. I'm sorry." Ada added.
Zoe had some silly optimism to suggest. "Maybe it won't be so bad, Brett? I'm hoping for you. Though at our size it smells pretty awful in here even at a distance, I can't imagine that it's any better while shrunk. I guess you've been under lots of teachers' feet at this point, but I bet nothing like this."
"Sorry little dude, it appears you have some really unsavory work ahead. But I hope you can be OK with it, as it is kind of a big moment for girls to get their own shrinkees for this kind of thing." Dominique said.
"Yeah Brett!" Zoe piped up. "You know, it may suck for you, but at least we'll all get a chance to try something new. Thanks for your sacrifice."
Ada resisted "Zoe! I don't want to try this particular new thing. Why are you acting happy about this?"
"Well, you said it yourself - we don't have a choice. And neither does he. He's going to have to eat all of our foot crud and if we don't do it, Amber is going to make us do it. We're doing what she says he needs to do to get through the shrink training. Coach Nancy came up with a process and we're just doing as we're told. At least we can try to enjoy ourselves a little bit while doing it."
"Zoe is right." Dominique said quietly.
Ada shook her head but didn't resist further.

Brett swallowed hard. As he was dried off pointlessly from his sink bath, he was placed on the floor in a circle of socked, damp feet that had just been exhumed from their shoes seconds ago. The humidity of their heat and perspiration was so intense he felt he could see vapor rising from their feet.
The girls took off their socks, taking care not to disrupt any of the gunk between their toes so that it would be there for Brett to consume. They lined up their feet again in a circle around the trapped boy.

Seeing walls of toes, with the whole spectrum of color of skin from pale white through olive tan through deep ebony, he could make out defined veins and sock marks around the ankles for all of the girls. All had some hardening or calluses on their soles, all had at least some clumps of gooey grime between their stinking toes.
He could not fathom how he'd eat all of this, and why his mom was putting him through this. This must have been the lesson she threatened. She thought this would break him. She thought he'd be disenchanted with shrinking by the experience of being abused by young, attractive girls. But he would persevere, and he would later tell her how viciously and unsuccessfully she'd tried to dominate him without even having the courage to do it herself.

Meanwhile, the halfway-sympathetic equivocations of the girls were starting to get more insistent. They tapped their toes on the floor, and continued to ask with increasing pressure.
"No way around this, loser. And go to my toes first. I painted them just yesterday so enjoy the view. You should be honored to be eating my foot secretions, I know you'll find it tasty. If you get hungry again, I can run around and get you some more too, sweetie." Jenna said with a fake sweetness.
"Okay Brett, start eating. I'm sorry that you've got to do this, but I don't want to be here all day." Ayla said demandingly.
"Sorry, kid, you've got a lot of work to do. I'm going to have a big load of toe jam for you, so just be ready. Sorry in advance, you'll be getting your sodium intake for the day that's for sure." Dominique added, smiling sheepishly.
"Same here. Sorry that your mom is making you do this, but wow what a weird punishment. My feet smell like moldy cheese, according to my little brother. Come to think of it, I'd rather be doing this to him than you hehe! But at least you get to be a shrinkee for your favorite classmates hehe! Nobody our age can afford shrinkees unless they're like daughters of Saudi royalty, so you're really doing us a big favor." Zoe blabbered, trying to defend their actions.
"Brett, I'm also sorry. I hope you don't get sick." Ada said blankly as she spread her stinky toes wide.