I met her one night when the Kijeks came over for dinner. 

We just moved in, boxes still filling up the corners of our house that still felt new and strange and had the faint sense of previous owner. When they knocked at the door, my parents asked me to greet them on the doorstep and let them inside. My mom caught my eye an extra moment to check I understood what I had to do, considering I’d never done it before. Then she gave me a ‘be really polite’ look.

I was nine years old. 

When I got the door, a couple were standing on the doorstep, in the doorstep light, with the sun going down below the street level. It was our neighbors. They were dressed casually and looked as natural as if they were moving in. They had lived here longer than us, they knew this house even better than we did. 

Even to such calm people, introducing myself on the doorstep was the trial of my entire career as a shy nine year old.

Midway through my fumbling attempt to greet them, Mr and Mrs Kijek smiled at me warmly, like I was doing just fine. He stepped forward – bounding right over the top of my sad unfinished ‘hi’ – and took my hand and shook it. My tiny hand was lost inside his larger one but his hand was just as dad-like as my dad’s, and his eyes twinkled kindly.

“Hi, there, son.”

“Yes,” I said. Then blushed. I thought he was going to say ‘Can we come inside’?

The Kijeks pretended not to notice. 

“You must be Tadley.”

“Uh-huh.” I nodded.

As they went inside, Mrs Kijek touched my shoulder and said:

“See, Alex? He’s not so scary.”

A young girl wandered into the landing after them. Our eyes met. She took me in, inquisitively, how I fit in her street. I stared back at her.

She was nine, like me, wearing a football sweater that was probably her older brother’s, but from when he was much younger. Her hands were shyly bunched up in the loose sleeves. She surveyed everything without reaction, including me. 

I was struck by her eyes; they were brown but very pale, almost orange or pink, and absorbed me boldly, and went through me like I was somehow lacking, smaller and less impressive than she imagined. Back then, to my nine year old self, girls could be cute at most. Alex was cute, and she just was, and I hated it.

As I wondered what to say, my tiny dog bounded up past me, barking, to leap at her. 

                             [author’s comment: may be confusing but the dog is female]

Alex didn’t know whether my dog was a princess or a gremlin. I tried to stop her but I was too late. She leaped up and Alex smoothly caught her in her arms. My dog shrieked in surprise, wiggled like a landed dolphin, and bounced out again. 

“Oops,” she said.

“Sorry,” I mumbled as my dog crept around and peered at Alex from a gap in my legs. “My dog is nice, actually.” My face went red. Redder.

“I’m serious,” I added, as my dog’s back leg trembled. I wished my dog could be like a normal face-licking dog. My dog was supposed to be my bodyguard but wasn’t very good at it.

The girl had mellowed. She smiled and bent to lure my dog out from behind me, but she didn’t move. 

“Hi!” she said. “I’m Alex. What’s your name?” 

“Tad,” I said without thinking. She looked up at me. I blushed again; she was talking to my dog.

After dinner, as my parents carried on talking with the Kijeks. The conversation trailed into the living room, where I switched on the TV. 

Suddenly I realized Alex was on the sofa, and my dog was on her lap. She managed to get her trust by tickling her and then pretending to ignore her. My dog didn’t seem to like the tickling, but kept running back to her with a self-conscious tail wag when playfully ignored, only to get tickled again. My shy dog was a patience project but Alex was obviously a natural with dogs.

Suddenly we were playing video games and laughing about stupid things. That was when I realized she was actually okay. She was sarcastic but not in an annoying way. 

Alex went to my school all along, but she was in different classes. She was shy, yet popular, it was a paradox. I saw her, sometimes, talking and laughing with the other girls. Alex didn’t play up her cuteness at all. She was very dry, cool, and smart. And sometimes very funny. They told her all their problems and she made helpful sarcastic remarks, gave them perspective, everyone laughed and loved her. Girls gravitated to her, but she chose only one as her best friend, and that was Bruna.

Bruna Kadare had started mid-year, her parents were immigrants who fled the Bosnian War in the 90s, and were liberally Islamic. Bruna was shy, occult. She wasn’t cute and cool like Alex, but she had this faraway prettiness that other girls found unfriendly. But not Alex. Alex was a kind of cool that attracted cool, and she thought Bruna was cool and edgy.

I saw Alex after school. Our lives were a Venn diagram with a tiny overlap that contained only the two of us and we liked that. Since she came over to my house a lot, we didn’t hang out at school, it was too weird, like hanging out with your sister. We politely pretended not to know each other at school, passing in the corridor, catching glances in the cafeteria, or in the school yard at recess. It would have been uncool for my best friend to be a girl. And I couldn’t explain to anyone, Alex wasn’t just a girl, she very cool.

After school when Alex came over to my house, she opened a flood gate of gossip about kids in her class, and her teachers. Everyone told Alex everything. And then she came home and told me everything that everyone had told her. 

We met at the skate park, and sometimes with Bruna. It was a weird triangle; I wanted to hang with Alex, Bruna wanted to hang with Alex. We both awkwardly tried to get Alex’s attention, and Alex was cool as usual. I wondered why I was trying so hard to get a girl to notice me.

I offered to teach Alex how to skateboard, she gave me a polite, disaffected shrug, and sat cross legged on top of the quarter pipe ramp and tried to sketch things. Bruna borrowed my skateboard without asking, teased me and tried to find out which girls I liked – did I like Alex? – when I looked at her she always met me with a fierce stare. I resisted her, which she found hilarious. She teased me harder. Sometimes Alex came with rollerblades. Then it was back to school, and we didn’t know each other.

One day the three of us were at the skate park, and it was getting late. The girls glided around on blades. They were good now, graceful, and could even do some tricks on the ramps. Alex bladed dreamily, blowing bubble gum. She seemed distracted. Bruna offered me some gum. She didn’t tease me as much anymore, apart from coming up behind me and playfully tugging my hair sometimes.

Alex did a swift turn and stopped to face us.

“Where are you guys going next year?”

Her eyes shone with sudden interest. We were twelve, with all the awkward years ahead of us, to grow into our bodies.  I was a boy, and they were girls, although usually they weren’t even girls to me, but ‘accidentally not boys’. Friends who – wouldn’t you know it – happened to be the opposite sex. They were loud, colourful  and tomboyish enough to get away with it and I tried not to think about it much. I naively thought it would always be this way, that one day I would introduce Alex and Bruna to my future girlfriend…

The fact they were going to grow up into women, with women’s bodies and the attitude and shape of older women I saw in movies, was too abstract to accept. 

“Hello? Which one are you going to?” Alex asked again. “High school—?”

“St Justina, probably,” I mumbled, knowing what it meant. It was a Catholic private school and no one I knew was going there. 

Alex skidded away, not before shooting Bruna a look. Bruna just shrugged discreetly as if to say, ‘He’s lame. Oh well.’

“Oh,” Alex said, “cringe. Why?”

“My parents want me to. It’s okay,” I quickly added, trying to salvage my image, “they’re not serious.”

Alex meditated on this, gliding directionlessly, before circling vaguely back to me.

“I…dunno. It’s kinda…” she made a face, “—okay and I’m just saying what I heard, but I mean, no one I know would know anyone there so...” 

“Where’s everyone else going?” I asked.

Alex did some wide figure-eights around me. She had flicked the gum away and was now applying lip gloss while blading. I didn’t know why girls always had to be doing two things at once, and usually things that weren’t connected to each other, like putting lipstick on while driving like my mom did sometimes.

Bruna announced:

“My parents were going to make me go to this Greek high school even though I’m not even Greek or anything. But –“

Alex finished for her:

“Her parents let her do anything she wants and now we’re both going to Day Prep.” 

‘Day Prep’ was ‘Dayford Preparatory Academy’, which was the main high school in town, the one everyone went to. Alex went on:

“So…Now all my best friends are going to Day Prep, which is awesome. I mean,” she passed by again, eyeing me quickly. “It could be awesome. You know...but…”

She let out an unsubtle sigh.

I don’t know why it mattered since we didn’t even talk to each other at school anyway. We mostly just glanced at each other in the halls, at recess, awkwardly, not at the same time. We could still hang out like usual. I said:

“I haven’t figured it out yet.”

“I didn’t know you were Catholic,” she snorted. “What, do you want to be a priest when you grow up? Don’t tell me you go to church every weekend? – does it suck?” 

Bruna tried not to laugh, which was annoying, since any mention of her parents own liberal Islam made her blush and avert eye contact.

“I’m not but my mom is,” I said. “I think. Also, my best friend is going to Justina,” I said, stopping to sit down on my board and think about it. “He’s Catholic.”

“Well, maybe he should quit being Catholic,” Alex flashed me a defiant smile, “and go to Day Prep and get cool sometime. Like us. And you should too, dork.”

Pretty soon Bruna’s dad picked her up, and then another car drove up by the skate park and idled. It was Mrs Kijek, coming to pick up Alex. My mom was supposed to finish shopping anytime now, and pick me up too. 

Alex paused by the car to take her blades off, while Mrs Kijek’s window dropped and she leaned her head out. 

“Sweet ride, Mrs Kijek,” I said, trying to sound cooler than Alex gave me credit for.

“Ohh yeah,” Alex said smoothly, somehow also mocking me.

“Hi, Tad,” said Mrs Kijek. “This is Toby’s ‘ride’ –” that was Alex’s dad, “—it’s mine for the weekend. He’s away at a work conference. Tobe put some features in here himself. So I think this car is smarter than I am. That’s the way of the world now, isn’t it?”

“Are there robots in the car?” I perked up. 

Alex nodded.

“That is so cool!” I said. 

Alex beamed smugly.

“Up for a test ride?” said Mrs Kijek. “Since it’s the weekend tomorrow, you’re welcome to stay over this night as well.” She glanced at Alex, “Room for three?”

Alex didn’t say anything. She stood by the car, watching me.

“Right now?” I said.

Before I could ask, Mrs Kijek explained:

“Alex has been trying to talk us into letting you over for some time,” – Alex shot her mom a warning look – “but Tobe has the basement locked down as a workstation. It’s only this weekend he’s away, so now’s your chance. What do you think?”

I didn’t need to think.

“Sure!”

*

“Where are all your dad’s robots?” I said. “And where are all your seats, cheapo?”

Alex was on the bed, looking way more comfortable than I was. She put me on her beanbag.

“Hey,” Alex pouted. “That’s a really good beanbag your butt is on.”

It was fluffy and pastel, and very low on the ground. Her bed was quite high so I had to look up at her.

“It’s girly.”

“I’m girly,” she said defiantly. 

“Not really.”

“What is that supposed to mean? You’re more girly than me?”

“Shut up.”

“You shut up.”

“You can sit on my bed too,” she said, trying to be nice.

She was lounged all over the bed and there was no more room. Plus it would be weird. And I got embarrassed when Alex was nice to me. It was so much simpler when she just teased me.

I looked away, sinking further into the beanbag. 

“Never mind.”

She shrugged and began to critically examine her nails.

“Can I see your dad’s basement Lab?” I said suddenly, terrified she’d ask me to paint her nails for her. “You know, robots.”

Alex said:

“My dad keeps it locked whenever he goes out.” Her eyes had a defiant gleam, “But, so what? I know where he keeps the spare key. So there.”

Her mom was out shopping. As Alex slipped in and out of her parents’ bedroom closet with the spare basement key, her mom’s car rolled into the driveway.

“Quick!” Alex said. She unlocked the door and pushed me into the basement landing, bundling inside after. She switched the light on and shut the door. A set of stairs went down. It was white, lit, anodyne, not dark and dusty and crowded like other people’s basements. 

We were now standing on forbidden ground, and I felt an invisible timer ticking down when her mom inevitably found us. Or, if we were fast, not.

“What if your mom found out we were in here?” I said.

Alex giggled in a way that reminded me she was a girl.

“Don’t worry, I’ll protect you!” 

That didn’t answer my question. Cautiously, I followed her downstairs.

It was true; her dad really had retrofitted the space into a makeshift laboratory. Although it wasn’t like a cartoon laboratory with beakers and test tubes. It was like an engineer’s laboratory. There were some computer monitors and robot arms set up, which was absolutely cool. There were machine parts taken apart and spread over a desk, and a couple of cameras set up, like he did video call demonstrations. There was also what looked like a small shower cubicle, but futuristic.

Alex saw me staring at it.

“That’s called the re-fab,” she said matter-of-factly. “It does something really cool.”

“What?” I said. She paused for drama.

“Something you won’t even believe. I have to show you.” She went over to a big monitor and looked at something on the screen. She seemed very comfortable around the tech, so I decided to trust her.

“Check this out!”

She typed something on the screen and the cubicle door slid open. I started at her.

She said:

“You have to get in, dumb nuts.”

“Oh.”

I stepped inside, and as soon as I did, panels inside the cubicle lit up. The door slid closed behind me. Inside, the glass walls tinted everything murky and frosted, like I was in an isolation chamber.

“I’m gonna start it!” came Alex’s voice. “Get ready!”

“Okay!” I said. “I’m ready!”

The cubicle filled with warmth and the air vibrated, right into my bones. My head was filled with buzzing. Then a crazy thing happened; the cubicle walls started expanding, spreading up and away, like a weird movie effect. Whatever the re-fab was doing clearly was messing with my head. What a crazy mirage. It felt like I just got shot into space, but without windows so I couldn’t see anything.

“Hey!” I yelled out, “Wait! – !”

As I yelled out, my voice got higher and softer, and higher, until it broke off in a squeak. I really hoped Alex didn’t hear that.

Then it all stopped, the cubicle powered down and it was quiet. The vibrating warmth slowly seeped out through vents in the floor.

I heard Alex calmly come up to the cubicle, and her form shadowed the front window. My body went slack with shock, unable to believe it. Her silhouette was expanded like everything else. I waited for the mirage to clear, but it didn’t.

The door slid back and she stood in the doorway. She was a dazzling and tall, adult height compared to me. I was now the size of a two year old.

She looked down at me and smiled:

“Goodbye, big Tad. Hel-lo, little Tad!”

“How?!” I said. My voice was definitely higher, and it caused Alex to giggle. “This is just a really weird effect, right? When does it wear off?”

“It’s real,” she said with pride, “My dad shrinks things.”

She stepped over to me, examining my height. Without warning, she slipped her arms under mine, squeezed me to her chest and lifted me clean off the ground, giggling as I squirmed.

“Hey!”

She placed me onto a little shelf in the corner of the cubicle, which was surrounded by some smaller glass panels. It looked like a second cubicle, in miniature, and since I was now a person in miniature, it seemed obvious Alex wanted me to go in there.

“What is that?” I said.

“Don’t move, okay?” she said, sliding the panels around me to form a second closed glass cubicle.

“Why?” I said, marvelling at the fact she just picked me up. She was strong now, and I was light, weak. She placed her larger hand on my shoulder and gave it a squeeze.

“You gotta go again, that’s why!”

“What?!” I stared up at her.

“It gets even cooler. Just wait ‘til you see this—!”

She closed the cubicle and dashed back over to the monitor.

It was always me trying to impress Alex. Now she wanted to impress me. I was secretly flattered. And I rarely saw Alex this excited over anything. She must have been waiting a long time to show someone this stuff. And now since her dad was out, it got to be me. Once he came back, the lab would be off limits again. It was all irresistibly secret, exciting, forbidden and I decided to go along with it, while I could. Anyway, Alex was already launching the program a second time, giving me no time to think what would happen.

The inside cubicle sealed; there was a palpable pressured feeling this time, through two layers of glass walling now, the cubicle and the container. The air stopped and tightened. Then the buzzing came back, and pulsating warmth. The glass panels of the smaller cubicle were locked tightly and I couldn’t have gotten out if I wanted to. I was about to be launched into space again, the air pressed close trapping me between, and there it was…

…Each wall of the cubicle began to stretch away, and the floor gradually expanded. When the squeezing feeling stopped, I stared around, shocked all over again.

When Alex had lifted me into the second cubicle, I had fit. Now the container was twice as tall, filled with empty space that had materialized out of nothing.

I was about the size of a newborn baby; literally everyone would be bigger than me, even the littlest of kids. This was starting to get too insane for my brain to make sense of. Yeah, it was fun and all, but I had to ask Alex to reverse it; being this small could get really weird.

The cubicle door slid back, and my best friend once again entered, this time with slight caution as if she wasn’t sure whether it worked a second time…or what the result was. She was even bigger; oversizing me threefold, not just in height but width ,volume. She was turning into a formidable mass of girl. I felt positively miniature, small and thin, less substantial, toy-like. She could have my tiny body surrounded twice over in a hug. If she had laid on me she would have completely covered me from view.

When she spied me in the second container, sized me up, smile broke out on her face. She came right up to the glass, slid the panel back and reached in for me. I was quickly outmatched by her large hands, which slid under my arms – much more comfortably now – and lifted me out of the container.

She held me up and checked me out all over, weighing me in her hands.

“Hey, this is weird!” I said. My voice had even less bass than before. Alex smiled and managed not to laugh.

“Goodbye little Tad,” she announced, “Helloooooo tiny Tad!”

“You made me tiny!” I accused, but my insides were soaring at the feeling of being held up in the air. Alex was having a lot of fun, and I was being caught up in it. But she decided she could stand to impress me a little more.

“You’re so tiny you could fit in my mom’s handbag!” she sang out.

“You jerk!” I said, not knowing whether to laugh or be angry.

Alex got suddenly got all demure:

“Um, Tad…” she said, “…would you be really annoyed at me if we…like…did it again?”

“Wait, what?”

“Well, it’s not done. The program can just run again.”

 “Wow,” I said, humbled by the thought of getting smaller. Alex mistook my tone for interest, and surged on:

“Yeah, pretty amazing actually – my dad shrinks things sooooo little, that you can hold them in your fingertips.”

I felt a small shiver of something like excitement, struggling to even imagine being that small.

“That’s insane!” I said.

“But so cool,” she corrected me. This whole time she had been holding me up level with her chest, and I was ultra conscious of the warmth of her hands, big and firm against my ribcage. My legs dangled in mid air and the lack of ground beneath them was starting to become disconcerting, but I was too embarrassed to ask her to put me down.

“I really want to see it again,” Alex said. “Let’s see how small the next one goes!”

She did it. She stoked my curiosity. She was getting a kick at my astonishment every time I found myself even smaller, and I sort of liked it.

“I guess so!” I said, keen for her to put me down. I wasn’t sure if I could take another one, but I wanted to try, as long as we did it quick and then reversed it. Once Toby came back, I might not get this opportunity again in a long time. It was definitely something to brag about at school to kids; a special secret Alex and me could share, and no one else would be in on. I imagined on Monday, how Bruna would ask us what we did over the weekend, and we’d just say we played with Toby’s robot cubicle, and coolly pretend it was no big deal, and Bruna would get annoyed and demand we tell her what happened. But we wouldn’t, it would be our forever secret. And Bruna would get increasingly annoyed and say she wasn’t going to be our friend anymore, but she’d be lying. It was funny to imagine.

“This is a lot of shrinking though,” I said.

Alex placed me back inside the container and shut the panels.

“Yeah, but I want to see what comes after tiny Tad,” she insisted. “Like, maybe puppy-size Tad, and then baby bird-sized Tad, and then marble-size Tad, and then—”

“Wait! You can’t make me too small, it’s weird!”

“Don’t be a lame-o!” Alex rolled her eyes. “I'll make you big again, I promise. One more!”

I waited in the container while Alex rushed back over to the terminal. My nerves jangled with anticipation.

The buzzing vibration rattled me this time, and the warmth plunged through my body like a feverous river. I felt a wave of wooziness and willed myself not to pass out.  Once again, the cubicle walls pulled away in every direction. The floor descended and the ceiling climbed up. Everything expanded in size, all together. Except me.

It looked like everything was growing, but I knew it was me who was shrinking, it. It finally stopped, and the cubicle powered down. I examined my surroundings, swallowing hard, feeling out my new tininess.

The door slid back and Alex stepped inside the cubicle. Her size was totally outstanding, and almost knocked me over in shock. She really was like a fairytale giantess now, taller than any adult, actually impossibly big.

And I was impossibly small. Smaller than the length of her forearm, roughly the same height as the length of her foot. And given she was twelve, she had small feet. No human was as small as me; I was the size of a toy. She shrunk me even more than I expected, actually beyond what I imagined was possible.

It had worked though, and she looked elated.

“Hello teeny weeny Tad!”

She bounded up to me and swooped me up. This time when she took me under the armpits, my entire ribcage fitted neatly in her palms like I was a drink bottle and had me completely in her control. My little body was at her mercy like I was an object, not a person.

“I’d love to keep you for a day,” Alex said, “but I guess you probably want to grow back now.” She playfully ruffled my hair. “Goodbye, teeny weeny Tad.”

“Goodbye, ginormous Alex,” I said.

She left the cubicle and went back to the monitor. A minute passed, and the door hadn’t slid shut.

“Oh…that’s weird,” she murmured.

“You ever shrunk stuff before?” I said. My voice was so soft I had to call out again, at the top of my lungs, and then it came out in an embarrassing squeak. Alex laughed:

“Oh, Tad…you sound totally adorable." She mockingly threatened me: "Don’t make me wanna squeeze you again.” Then sighed, thinking. “Anyway, yeah, I shrunk a basketball, and then made it normal size again. That was different...It’s a tiny bit harder to shrink a person. And kinda very hard to grow a person back.”

“What does that mean?” I said, innocently.

“Um…” Alex began, and then footsteps came down the basement stairs.

“Oh shit!” Alex yelped, rapidly typing into the terminal.

“Excuse me?” came Alex’s mom’s voice, across the room, “’Oh shit’ what?” The tremor of bass in her voice fluttered in my head. I held my breath, feeling trapped, tiny, helpless, and probably grounded forever.

Alex was silent.

“Alex,” mom emphasized in clear ‘mom voice’, “’oh shit’ what…?”

Alex’s mom stopped mid-room, staring at Alex trying in vain to shield the monitor from view, and then saw me standing in the small re-fab container inside the cubicle. She put her hands on her hips.

“ALLEEEEXXXXX!!!!”

*

It wasn’t Alex’s fault. She was just twelve. She had seen her dad re-fab things and then scale them back up, but no one ever told her re-scaling up didn’t work on living beings.

I went to hospital but the doctors didn’t know what had happened to me. After receiving a very strange phone call from Mrs Kijek, my parents showed up at the hospital, although they were just relieved I was okay. Mr Kijek was called back from his conference, and consulted with the doctors, but he explained, he couldn’t grow me back. He then spoke to my parents privately.

Now, I sat at the head of my truck-sized hospital bed, even the pillow outsized me. Doctors came in and out, checking me out intemrittently, while my parents and Mrs Kijek stood around my bed, trying to figure out what they could do. Alex sat demurely to one side of my bed, trying to look bored enough to be credibly guiltless.

Finally Mr Kijek came back in from consulting the doctors. They all agreed my diagnosis: tiny for life.

“Well, Alexandra,” he said dryly. claming surveying his daughter, “I think this caps it.”

“I’m sorry, daddy!” she said loudly. 

“Don’t be sorry. But try to be careful. Tad is going to need to recover now, just be mindful of his small stature from now on. You’re very big compared to him, and he needs you to be very gentle.”

“Whaaaat?” she exclaimed. “I’m the most gentlest person ever!”

“You’re also the most groundedest person ever, young lady. Starting now.”

"No, dad, come on!" she whined. "All my friends go out."

"All your friends also know not to get into their dad's secret work business."

"I'll do a billion chores, anything!"

Mr Kijek tossed a look at my parents, and then stroked his jaw.

"Well, your mother and the Flynns and I think we know one way you could shorten your punishment. You can start helping Tad get to school."

"How do I do that?" she said. "I can't drive."

"You're going to visit the Flynns house every morning before school, and take Tad to the bus stop with you, and he'll ride the bus with you. You can slip him into your school bag, so he's safe."

Alex looked relieved the 'punishment' wasn't more onerous. 

"Okay, dad."

On the way home, the backseat seatbelt was too big and I kept sliding around on the seat with each turn. Mom observed this and said:

“My little man needs a new seat,” she said. I prickled at ‘little man’, although she used to call me this before I got shrunk. Of everyone, my mom got used to my size the fastest, maybe because she always saw me as her ‘little man’, and probably always would.

Once the car pulled into the driveway, mom plucked me off the seat and carried me inside. It was like I was a baby again except that I was smaller than a baby. I was like a little doll in my mom’s hands. She was even bigger than Alex, queen fairytale giantess, and handled my little body like I barely weighed anything.

It was late, she put me on my bed in case I needed to rest from all the time I was at the hospital, being questioned by the medical team. I couldn’t rest; so I

One perk of being small was that my phone had a big screen now, like a computer, which was kind of cool.

My dog jumped up on my bed and cautiously approached me to figure out who or what I was. When she got my scent, her tail whipped happily. She was confused over my size though, like she wondered if I was a toy that her owner had accidentally gotten his scent all over.

She yipped at me, and tried to poke me with her nose. Then she got playful, trying to goad me into chasing her. Finally she lay against me and started trying to lick me all over, and her tongue was so big now it practically smothered me. She was very powerful now, and hard to resist.

This new size thing was obviously going to take some getting used to.

Monday morning came, and it was time to head back to school. It was a regular day for any other student, but for me school was going to be different from now on. Very different.

Before school even started, my mom had to rescue me from beneath my dog’s butt, since she decided to jump on my bed and sit on me and whip me up with her wagging tail. Mom also had to make me up a bath in a little plastic tub. Then it was my new breakfast routine. I couldn’t get my own breakfast now, I had to sit on the kitchen table and my mom served me something like what I used to have, except tenfold smaller. I drank out of a plastic egg holder, and even that was still too big. Mom had bought me small utensils, but they were literally doll toys, and I was still too embarrassed to use them. So egg holder cup it was today.

After breakfast I watched some TV, while my dog tried to again figure out how to climb onto my lap without squashing me again. She was starting to learn to sit next to me instead, but if I petted her or gave her the slightest encouragement, she would eagerly scoot closer and plonk her big furry butt on my legs, and while keeping me pinned, try to lick my face half off. She’d also started trying to grab my sweater in her mouth and drag me around the house like a toy, until Mom had once again rescued me.

The doorbell rang. My dog perked up and dashed down the hallway to see who it was. A second later, my mom went over to the lobby and got the door. I went over to see.

Alex was waiting there, with her school backpack on. I wandered up and stood by my mom’s tall legs, which were now like tree trunks, and my dog stood protectively beside me.

Alex looked down at me and my dog and giggled like she’d forgotten how small I was. . She put her hand to her mouth to try and stifle it. I looked like a little rider next to his horse, beside my mom who utterly dwarfed me, and made me look much smaller by comparison.

Alex looked like she wanted to say something – probably a jab at my size – but quickly composed herself and got serious.

“Hi, Tad,” she said, maybe realizing that laughing at me in front of my mom was not a good idea. Without thinking, my mom bent and scooped me up under my armpits.

“Mom!” I groaned, flaming red with embarrassment as I was cradled affectionately against my mom’s ample chest.

“Hi, Alexandra,” mom said, while stroking my hair and ears.

“I just hoped you’re doing okay, Mrs Flynn,” Alex said with a bright smile, “And I hoped Tadley is too. And I just was wondering if he can come to school with me today. My dad said it’d be good for me to help you rehab him so he’s doing normal stuff like the big kids.”

She scuffed her battered looking hi-top lace-ups, looking angelic.

My mom considered this and said:

“Yes, I remember we had that discussion with Tobias. That’s very kind of you to offer to look after Tad,” my mom was surprised. Alex came across as disarmingly confident and mature given everything. It was probably reassuring, plus a counterpoint to the reckless side of Alex who put me in the re-fab in the first place.

“We should talk about the specifics another time; you probably need to be going very soon,” mom said, “otherwise you might miss the bus.”

Alex pulled her backpack off and opened it up, and before I could say or do anything, my mom slipped me into the bag opening, where I dropped down out of sight, and landed softly at the bottom of the bag. To my surprise, Alex had cushioned it with a blanket, and her Nintendo Switch, even though it would get confiscated if the teacher found it. The tiny controls of the switch were playable for me despite my size.

The bag smelled like a combination of books and Alex’s personal brand of bubble gum. There were even some wads of chewed gum at the bottom of the bag, but luckily they were all scrunched up in used gum paper so it couldn’t get on me. I got comfy on the blanket and leaned against her books.

“I think I can trust him with you, Alexandra,” my mom’s voice came from outside the bag. She seemed emboldened by Alex’s dazzling confidence.

“Don’t worry, Mrs Flynn,” Alex said brightly, “he’s not going anywhere while I’m around.” She made a show of saying:

“Do you like it in my bag, l’il Tadster?”

“It’s okay,” I said bashfully. It was dim lit in the bag, and I didn’t even know what I was touching. My foot came down on something squishy, like a raisin. I hoped it wasn’t gum.

“’Okay’..?” Alex challenged me. “It’s way better than ‘okay’!”

Apparently this also did not satisfy my mom.

“If you want, Tadley,” she said, “we can get you a special little harness that Alex can wear, so you can be attached to her for most of the schoolday.”

“Mom, no!” I groaned. “I love it in Alex’s bag! It’s really great!.”

Alex chuckled.

“I’ll look after him, Mrs Flynn,” she testified solemnly. “I promise.”

After saying bye to my mom, Alex headed back down my front path and went on down the block, toward the bus stop. The bag lifted and dropped gently around me with her steps, it felt a little like being inside a moving elevator. I couldn’t see anything except the sky straight above, through the half unzipped bag opening. Cars droned past, and Alex hummed to herself.

Finally she meditated out loud:

“I feel like your mom doesn’t think you can do a single thing on your own. Like, what is the harness for …does she think I’ll lose you or something?”

“I don’t know, she’s my mom. That’s what moms are like.”

“Poor l’il Tad. I got worse though.”

“How?”

“I can’t go out on weekends. And I got to look after you now, weeny butt.”

She stopped moving; we must have reached the bus stop. Some other kids were chatting nearby; I couldn’t see them and I was too embarrassed to let them see me. One of them was a guy I used to ride the bus with, his name was Cody, we talked sometimes and sat together. Suddenly, he said:

“Hey Alex, where’s Tadley?”

Many of the kids had been told what happened to me by now, but it sounded like Cody had accidentally not been told.

“Well ,” Alex began all self-importantly, stringing him along, “maybe he’s right here with—”

Alex’s hand swept in and went to wrap around my middle. She wanted to take me out and show me off to the kids and they’d say ‘wow!’ and step in for a closer look. I desperately pushed and kicked on Alex’s intruding hand until she got the message and some decency, and retracted it again.

“—Actually,” she said smoothly, “I just remembered; I don’t know where he is. Probably sick.”

Pretty soon there was the squeak of bus brakes. Alex got on the bus and took a seat, and placed the bag on the seat next to her, on the window side.

A guy from my class passed our seats on his way down the aisle. He must have heard from someone what happened to me and that I was with Alex, and he leaned in:

“Hey Tad…How you like being Alex’s G.I Joe? Are her Barbies your girlfriends now?” he said.

There were stifled chuckles as if he was dared to say it, and just fulfilled his dare.

Alex twisted around in her seat, pulling her bag closer.

“Least he has way more girlfriends than you so shut up!”

The other kids thought Alex’s dad was a mad genius and ribbed her for it. She was used to it and quick to bite back. But it seemed like when they went after me, it hit a nerve with her. I wasn’t used to this kind of attention.

“Sorry,” she said, glancing at me.

I didn’t know if she was sorry for the outburst, sorry for what the guy said, sorry for shrinking me, or sorry for all three.

“It’s okay,” I shrugged.

She tried to relax, patted me on the head, and then gently pushed me back inside her bag. Whenever she reached in her bag for something she gently knuckled my head to annoy me. The third time I decided to annoy her back by trying to karate kick her fist. She got wiser and stuffed her hand right inside the depths of in her back and started trying to hold me down on the bag floor and tickle me. I couldn’t laugh because if the kids heard it would have been the most embarrassing thing ever. I fought to tolerate it in silence. After persisting for a few minutes, Alex finally gave up and I won some peace and a break for the rest of the bus ride. I played her Switch while she texted on her phone – which also would be confiscated if found, but she only took it out for recess.

My school was told what happened to me but no one was prepared for my new size. Kids stared at me like I was the flavor of the week.

Alex dropped me off at my homeroom before quickly heading off to her own before class. My homeroom teacher got an aide – an older student – to pick me up and carry me to my first class, which was math.

Mr Carlson, my math teacher, was fascinated by what happened to me, and even used my shrinking as an example to demonstrate some of the calculus we were learning. Which was kind of embarrassing, although it made the lesson really clear for me to understand.

After math class, I had English, and my aide returned as the kids got up and shuffled out. Although I wanted to try walking to class, by the time I got there I would be late. My aide picked me up and carried me anyway. It made my size more public. Kids noticed me and some who never spoke to me before said: ‘Hi Tadley.’ Most guys were okay, although I felt like some kids were trying to be nicer to me which was annoying. When I dropped a pencil off my desk, someone quickly picked it up for me, even though I could technically get it myself. Some girls smiled at me and giggled or said ‘Awwww!’ which was even more annoying. I hoped Alex didn’t see that. I hated to think kids were coming aside and asking her weird or funny questions about me in class.

The aide took me into my next class, English, and I was put on top of my desk because I was too small to sit in the chair. I had a miniature notepad to write my work in and miniature pens and pencils. One girl who sat next to me let me borrow her Harry Potter keyring, which was a working quill that was ridiculously tiny size, 20% pen and 80% feather. I didn’t need to, but she leaned over and pushed it into my hands anyway, because she thought it would be really cute if I used a pen with a giant feather, like some tiny wizened scholar, or fairy or something. Within a minute I realized she just wanted an excuse to talk to me.

I saw her in class before but she never talked to me. Now she was staring at me like I was a new student, an exchange student from a foreign land.

“You have really cute shoes,” she said, reaching down and squeezing one of my feet. I was just wearing a pair of sneakers and hated to admit they were actually doll shoes.

She corrected herself with a small smile:

“You have a really cute everything.”

“Um…thanks,” I replied, looking at my shoes, and not at her. Girls didn’t talk like this to guys in class. I felt weird.

These were my classmates; the same people I’d sat next to on a regular day. Now they saw me as a toy person. It was right out there. Just another thing to get used to, I guess. Kids love oddity and my size drew kids in like moths to a light, inviting them to poke around in and interrogate my miniature existence like it was a self-guided tour. They couldn’t imagine what it was like and needed me to fill in all the spaces for their imaginations. Some kids just wanted to check I was real, the same person. I was, but they needed convincing.

When the bell rang for recess, the kids began filing out of the classroom in haste. I sat on the desk while the teacher came by to see if I needed to call for another teacher’s aide to take me outside. This was my chance to walk outside on my own if I wanted. I wouldn’t be ‘late’ for class. I mulled over saying ‘No’, even as the thoroughfare of foot traffic surging along outside the classroom door made me hesitate.

Then there was a knock at classroom doorway, a special coded knock that I immediately recognized.

“It’s okay, Mrs Landry, I’m taking Tad out to recess today.”

Alex had stopped by the classroom. She was assigned to be my school ‘buddy’ for outside breaks. Or had assigned herself.

Satisfied, the teacher went to get her things and head out to the break room.

Alex sidled up to my desk, tossing me a laidback smile.

“Hey, ya weeny,” she said, “you wanna hang out with the cool kids today?”

Without warning, she grabbed me and held me up, level with her chest. She held me with one hand wrapped around my chest, and her other palm supporting my butt like a seat. She then carried me unselfconsciously in her arms, through the school halls.

We came outside and went across the school grounds, while kids played and ran around in their own worlds. Only in weird forgetful dreams did I hang out with Alex at school, and now we were hanging out in real life. It was like hanging out with your sister or cousin, though Alex was neither. She was just close enough with my parents, with me, and I saw her more than my own aunt, uncle, and cousins. And since she didn’t have a brother herself, she had space for an ‘imaginary’ brother.

She took me around the field, where kids were running sports matches. To the side, the ‘gym girls’ and cheerleader girls had a matt out and were practicing.

“She’s going to try out with them,” Alex said, with a hint of disdain. “So don’t laugh, okay, or you’re dead.”

She was talking about Bruna, who was sitting off to the side, watching the gym girls avidly. Gymnastics was not really Alex’s thing.

“We’re hanging out now?” I said. I had suddenly noticed Alex was heading over to where Bruna was sitting.

“Yes, Tadley Flynn, we’re hanging out now,” Alex said mechanically. “If you really want to.”

She said this with an edge, as if to test whether she was cool enough for me. Way cooler actually, but I would never admit that.

“Okay,” I said. Then felt my stomach shrivel up the closer we got to Bruna, and the realization sunk in. This wasn’t just today. It would be every day.

My best friends at school were girls now. No more playing with the boys. No more being just one of the boys. My parents must have talked to the school and said they were concerned I could get hurt if I played sports and stuff. So they must have arranged with Alex’s parents that Alex would make sure I hung out with her and Bruna and kept me away from the more physical games. All my guy friends usually played basketball during recess, there was no way I could join in.

No one told me any of this, probably to not embarrass me. Which was somehow worse, since it was like I couldn’t make decisions for myself anymore, was very sensitive, and a couple of girls had to mind me at school like babysitters.

As I thought over this, Bruna looked up and saw us.

“Hi, Alex,” she said automatically. And then she glanced down at me and her eyes widened before she caught herself staring. “Hi…uh…Tad…ley...”

Alex drawled back:

“Hi, Bruna Sad-as-frick Kadare.”

Bruna’s middle name was ‘Sadaf’ which Alex found hilarious, and more hilarious in retrospect since, in three years, Bruna would plunge into the goth scene.

“Oh, and it’s ‘teeny weeny’ Tad now,” Alex explained, matter-of-fact. “And he’s going to hang out with us from now on so all the big boys don’t tread on his teeny weeny toes.”

I cringed, hating that she was so honest.

“Oh…okay!” Bruna said lightly. There was a note of surprise in the way she said ‘okay’. Seeing how casual Alex was, Bruna’s curiosity came out all at once and – just like plenty of other kids before now – she stepped in closer to get a good look at me up close. Only, this was my friend, so it felt extra awkward.

Alex held me up a little to give Bruna a better look.

“I heard what happened,” Bruna said to me, although it felt like she was hovering majestically somewhere up over my head. “Her dad told my dad.”

“Well, my dad is such a liar sometimes,” Alex scoffed. “What honestly happened is me and Tad were trying to do a really cool experiment but then it got way too genius for anyone to even understand, so we had to stop, unfortunately.” She looked down at me and grinned. “But I think we’re both pretty glad with all the findings we got and stuff.”

“He’s so – ,” Bruna couldn’t even keep a straight voice for giggling so much, “—he’s like, just too tiny! What does he feel like? He must be really light now!”

Bruna’s laughter made Alex laugh.

“He feels like just the same as usual,” she said, weighing me with her hand, “but he’s lighter than a lighter bulb.”

I squirmed in her grip, trying not to think that I probably felt like a doll to her. Her thumb casually grazed around my shoulderblades, and then my ribcage, delicately feeling every rib, which must have felt utterly tiny to her. Meanwhile, on my other side, Bruna was tentatively touching the side of my head, and petting my hair. She then gave my hair a playful tug the way she used to do.

“I could pick him up with just my pinky strength probably,” Alex bragged. “You want to hold him?”

Before I knew it was being passed from Alex’s grip into Bruna’s, which was very soft and gentle since she’d never held me before.

“Wow,” Bruna said solemnly, feeling my diminutive weight in the palms of her hands. She spluttered into laughter. “I can’t believe you, Alex! I can’t believe you actually did it to him! You shrunk him!”

“Well, he wanted to go to the next level of smallness every time!” Alex countered. “Don’t tell his mom, but we were going to make him even tinier before we had to stop,” Alex said. “Imagine if we kept doing it, Tad,” she exclaimed to me. “You could be as big as a marble now. Then I guess your parents would make you go to school in my pocket.”

She savored my discomfort. She was not serious and was actually trying to rile me up a little, and could see it was working.

Now Bruna was starting to experiment with squeezing me a little, to get a firmer grip on me. She avoided squeezing my chest t too much and pressed the firmest around my stomach since it was soft and could take it. Alex’s nails were quite short, but Bruna’s were a fraction longer, and it was a little strange and uncomfortable to feel her nails digging slightly into my torso but at least she had a good grip and I didn’t feel like I was going to fall out.

The girls sat down to watch the rest of gym practice. Alex crossed her legs and sat me up on one of her knees. They took turns asking me which girl each boy in class liked.

“I don’t know!” I said. “Why would I know that?”

“You’re undercover now, you have to tell us everything you know.”

“I don’t know anything.”

“Then maybe you just have to tell us who you like. Actually,” Alex changed her mind mid-sentence. “You have to choose: who do you like more; me or her?”

At this, Bruna clammed up like the both of us were complete strangers.  

“No one,” I said loudly.

“Trust me,” Alex alleged to Bruna, directly over my head, “he likes someone. He’s just not telling. I bet we could get him to confess though – you hold his legs.”

She was planning on tickling me until I screamed out a name. I tried to jump off Alex’s leg, but she grabbed me around the middle and squeezed so I was trapped.

“No!” I yelled, fighting in her hand, as she began trying to tickle under my arms as a joke.

“I told you!” I said. “I don’t know – I mean – don’t like anyone!”

Alex hesitated, and exchanged a look with Bruna, who had gone very shy.

“Don’t you want to find out who he really likes?” she demanded.

“No,” Bruna said in a very small voice.

Alex looked puzzled, but let me go.

“You’re saved today, weeny,” she said. “But you’re not saved forever. I just know you really like someone, and we’re gonna find out one day.”

I tried to look unconcerned, but I was secretly wondering if the rest of my school days would be a constant battle of trying not to be teased by Alex in some way.

“What do you guys do all recess?” I said, keen to change the subject, “Do you ever play ball or anything?”

“We can play ball,” Alex said. “We can do it anytime we wanted. You think girls can’t do that? Don’t be a dork.”

“I can’t,” Bruna butted in, “if I kick a ball it’s going to ruin my pedi.”

“You got a pedi?!” Alex lit up, “You did not!”

“I got it at the salon when my mom thought I was getting my hair done. I’ll show you after school.”

“Beauty queen!” Alex thrilled. “Did your mom have a meltdown when she found out?”

“She doesn’t know about it,” Bruna started laughing. “So shut the eff up, okay?”

“Did she see the polish I accidentally spilled on the prayer rug?”

“No, I flipped it over.”

“Savior!”

Both girls laughed loudly.

“Are we still playing ball?” I said hopefully.

We did not play ball. We played gossiping about some of the other girls in Alex and Bruna’s class, and I played the Nintendo switch, and then Bruna shyly asked if I’d come over to her house one day so she could paint my nails, ‘or you know, something’, while Alex laughed mockingly.

“Don’t say that!” she exclaimed. “Then he’ll never come over.” She looked at me inquiringly, playing innocent:

“You want to go to her house and get a makeover“ – she said this like it was death – “or you want to come to my house and do something really cool like get in the re-fab again?”

I was horror-struck; the last thing I needed was to be tiny and have painted nails. I also could stand to not be shrunk again, but having painted nails was even worse than being tiny. The guy on the bus wouldn’t just call me G.I Joe anymore; he’d ask if I was trying to replace Alex’s Barbie. No one would take me seriously ever again.

Worse, the girls could hold me down and paint my nails if they really wanted. Maybe this wasn’t really a great idea after all; being doll sized and hanging out with a pair of girls. Did my parents ever consider that?

Bruna was blushing furiously now. Her jaw was set like she regretted ever saying anything. Alex not only teased me, she teased Bruna sometimes as well. Bruna normally took it like it was nothing – and dished back – but for some reason it hit a nerve today and she wasn’t acting herself.

Alex must have registered my discomfort, but she thought I was growing bored with the gossiping. She took her dual Switch controller out and slipped it into my hands. I played on my own for a little while and then took turns playing against Alex and then Bruna.

Then the bell rang. Alex stood and dusted herself off and glanced at us.

“Well…Sad as frick,” she said, glancing from Bruna to me, “Small as frick – are you coming?”

Once school ended, Alex came and found me again. She put me in her bag we got on the bus.

Back home, Mom was waiting at the front door for us. Alex lifted me out of her bag with one hand clutching around my abdomen, and showed me off to my mom, as if to prove how looked after I was.

“He did really good today, Mrs Flynn,” Alex exclaimed. She patted my head with approval, before lifting me up so mom could take me back in her arms.

“See you tomorrow, Tad!” Alex called back to me before heading to her house.

“Sounds like you had a lot of fun today,” Mom said, taking me back inside. She sounded relieved that I wasn’t pushed around or had too much difficulty getting to class.

“Yeah, I guess,” I said. “It wasn’t so bad.”

“Alex seems to like you a lot,” mom observed without a beat. “Or she’s trying to be extra nice.”

“She’s just…nice,” I said non-committedly.

“So it looks like it’s not so bad to hang out with a girl at school?” Mom ventured. “And it’s okay if Alex had to take you to school every day of the week?”

“I guess she’s okay,” I shrugged. “She looked after me and stuff.”

“I know it’s probably a little embarrassing for you to be carried in a girl’s bag, but you seem pretty happy with it so far so maybe we’ll keep trialling this system, until we figure out something else.”

Mom put me in the living room and I sat down and did my homework, which was a little hard since my dog would try to walk across it and sit on it, and also try to sit on me.

I thought about the rest of the week, that every day was going to be like this, and the next week too, and the next. Each week would get a little easier, a little more familiar. The end of the year was coming up, and then high school. If my high school days looked like this, it might not be so bad. I would slowly forget what it was like to be regular size, and giant people would gradually start to look normal to me. When I was very young all adults were huge and that was normal, but as I grew and got taller, the size difference began to lessen. It was like that, but now in reverse. I had to slowly get used to being small again. It seemed intimidating but less, with Alex. We would both grow up together, and that was kind of cool. She didn’t treat me any different. She teased me, but then, she always had, and about things other than size.

Right before graduation, one afternoon my mom came into my bedroom with something to tell me. She had enrolled me in St Justina’s boarding school. I would be staying on school campus, where they had the best facilities and support system for someone my size.

I remembered the day at the skate park, before I went to the Kijeks and shrunk. How Alex had intently peppered me with questions about which high school I was going to, and her sighs of frustration when I didn’t give straight answers.

Remembering this, my heart sunk.

“What about Day Prep?”

“Dayford Preparatory?” mom said dismissively, as if she’d barely heard of it before. “Oh, it was alright before. But there’s obviously been a change of circumstance for you. And not a little change.”  

“What about Alex?” I said.

Mom replied:

“I think it’s too much to ask Alex to be your minder every single school day, every year of high school. She’s going to have her own responsibilities soon enough, Tadley, and her responsibilities are only going to grow as she gets older. And what if she gets sick or goes on vacation?” Mom came over and gently sat beside me on my bed. She was so humungous that her weight depressed the cushion and made me fall into her leg.

Without a pause, she scooped me up under my arms and put me on her lap. Then she held me with one hand and began rubbing my shoulders with her thumb and fingertips.

She explained patiently:

“The staff at St Justina are going to look after you, sweetie. They’ll assign you some special buddies to take you to classes and return you to your room. They have a small team of wonderful helpers and feel so incredibly confident about it for you.”

“I guess you’re right,” I mumbled. Maybe it was unfair to put all the responsibility on Alex. And I didn’t want to strain our friendship and make her resent me for needing her each day.

After dinner, I got a call. It was Alex. Her parents must have told her what was happening, that she didn’t need to buddy with me next year, or ever. Over the phone, she sounded dismissive.

“My parents are just dreaming,” she reassured me. “I think they forgot how small you are already. I bet you a million bucks the teachers at Day Prep make me buddy with you anyway. Sorry, weeny,” she chuckled, “but you probably gotta keep riding in my bag all the way until we graduate.”

“I’m not going to Day Prep,” I said hesitantly. “My mom says I got to go to St Justina.”

“Since when?”

“Since I shrunk, I guess, my mom’s serious now. She’s enrolled me already.”

Alex sighed in sympathy.

“Well, that’s kind of a big heap of crud, Tad, for your mom to go do that without asking anybody. No offence. But Justina’s ways out of town – you do know that right?”

“Yeah...”

“Know how long the bus is going to take each day?” she emphasized, “And I hate riding the bus – but it was kind of fun when you rode with me, now it’s going to be so borrrrrinnnggg!”

“It kind of was fun,” I admitted. Riding in Alex’s bag on the bus – and off the bus – was basically my favourite part of the school day. When she carefully packed me in with her books and pencil case, and gave my head a small affectionate pat, it felt good. I would never admit that, of course.

She went on thoughtfully:

“I guess we could still hang out after school, like normal. But probably later once you get off the bus ‘cause it’s going to take you a looonnnng time to get home. Poor l’il Tad. But it’ll be okay, I guess. I’ll ask my mom if you can sleep over more often.”

“I’m not catching the bus,” I said. “My mom’s making me board there. Because my mom says they’ve got special—”

Alex interrupted me:

“Then we can’t hang out.”

Her tone had totally changed. It was completely flat now, finally understanding.

“I could come home during breaks. Probably.”

“That’s months away. I can’t believe it. Your mom hates me.” She said this like it was an incontestable fact.

“She’s just kind of being my mom,” I said.

“I said I was sorry,” Alex emphasized. “But she still hates me!”

“My mom likes you,” I said.

“Yeah, right!” she complained. “Don’t you get it? This is punishment because I got you shrunk. If I never shrunk you, you wouldn’t have to go to Justina. But it’s ‘cause I shrunk you—”

“You didn’t, really,” I said. “I said to keep doing it. Remember?”

“No,” she snapped. “But you should have told me not to, you jerk. You’re not supposed to act like it’s okay, and then go run and tell your mom on me and make her think it’s all my fault.”

“I never told, and my mom knows that’s not all your fault.”

“It’s not all my fault but it’s most of my fault.”

“It’s no one’s fault but we both did it.”

“—And then let your mom think you need all this help and I can’t help you anymore. And now your mom hates me. Do you even wanna go? I bet it’s way dumber at Justina than it sounds.”

“I’ve got to go there, there are special facilities—”

“Like harnesses?”

“—plus my mom already enrolled me, and the school has everything ready.”

Alex was quiet for a moment.

“Oh, okay.”

She didn’t sound okay.

*

Alex was her usual self for grad, although she didn’t talk about me or her, but talked lightly about things that had nothing to do with us. After the ceremony we sat in the cafeteria which had banners up.

Bruna was excited to start Day Prep because of the fierce competitive gymnastics and cheerleading and she wanted to try out, and kept telling us multiple times, except when her parents came by, then she went quiet. Once her parents passed to talk with some other parents, she went back to talking breathlessly about it. I never heard Bruna talk so much.

“Your mom is going to freak over what you have to wear to practice,” Alex said in undertone.

“You think so?” Bruna grinned.

After the grad ceremony, Mr Kijek came by to talk with me, to wish me luck for next year.

“We understand,” he said, “and, don’t worry, Alex understands as well. Justina is going to be great, but of course, Alex is going to miss you a lot. When she heard, you could say it deflated her evening. But you’re going to be very supported at St Justina, and don’t worry about her. She’ll be fine.”

“Thanks, Mr Kijek,” I said. With all the banners and celebration going on, I didn’t feel so much in a celebratory mood. I wasn’t sure how I felt.

Bruna then invited her parents to meet my parents, which they had never properly done before. While they chatted with Alex, Bruna sat down and leaned down to whisper in my ear:

“Wanna go for a walk?”

I stared up at her; not understanding at first. I couldn’t easily go for a walk with her among the crowd of parents.

Without explaining, she gently picked me up and carried me out to the courtyard in front of the cafeteria. There was some hedge gardens and railing, and it was out of the noise and main congress of parents.

The grad was basically over, I could see parents were funnelling out of the school, down the pathways. We would all be leaving soon. I wanted to talk to Alex but I didn’t know what to say.

Bruna put me down on a table in the paved court area and took a seat. She also seemed to want to talk, but didn’t know where to begin.

“Um,” She began to go pink before she even finished her sentence, “I guess…see you when I see you, Tadley.”

There probably wouldn’t be a next time that I saw her, although it didn’t feel real yet. She tentatively placed her hands around my body, and lifted me, drawing me into her for a hug. More often these days she smelled like a cloud of incense. She held onto me a moment longer, squeezed almost all of the air out of my body, and I found myself nearly smothered in long black hair. 

She placed me back on the table. Alex shuffled over, noticed Bruna blushing more than ever, and smiled faintly. Then she looked down at me. 

“Hey, this sucks and everything but stay cool, Tadster,” she said, giving me a high and low fiving me with one finger, and a very gentle fist bump with her whole fist.

She was ice cool as always, as if it was just a regular Friday and we would see each other on Monday, as usual. She and Bruna had more in common than she let on. In a couple of years, it would hit me that Alex’s ‘coolness’ was not confidence, but very well played shyness.

“Too bad you didn’t get smaller,” she said, with a tiny smile. “Like, soooo small. Then I could take you back home in my pocket and hide you in my room. Then you wouldn’t have to go away. You could live in my room and I’d feed you and show your mom that I can look after you without anyone else’s help.”

We both knew that wouldn’t work, but she seemed to relish the thought.

“Why do you get to have him?” Bruna interjected. “You have to let me keep him sometimes, too.”

“Okay,” Alex humored her. “We could share.”

Our parents then came out into the courtyard, and spotted us by the benches. Alex looked at me, somewhat self-consciously:

“You’re going to let me squish you?”

Before I could answer, she bundled me up with both hands and squeezed me fiercely, knocking my breath out again. I did my best to hug Alex back, just as fiercely.

“See you around, weeny,” she said.

=====================================================================================
                                                                TWELVE YEARS LATER                                                                      
=====================================================================================

I was scrolling on my phone; which doubled as my computer monitor, looking at job listings. It wasn’t promising: Warehousing , Sales – I was too small to lift stock. Office clerking; I was too small to use the office supplies.

There were plenty of tutoring jobs for senior students facing finals. Seniors were still teens and I avoided teens. I hated hanging out with people younger than me, they always underestimated my age. Of everyone, teens were the boldest and most curious around me. Sometimes they pointed me out and giggled, other times they bent down and condescended me with a bright baby-voiced greeting and acted like the tiniest thing I did was a living marvel. They treated me in a way they would never treat me if I was regular size.

“Yoohoo!” a girl’s voice came through my front door. Tas let herself in and found me in the living room.

Even with a messy ponytail, no makeup and casual clothes, Tas always found a way to look good. She liked to grab me and wrap me up in her sweaters. At first it annoyed me, but I grew to love it.

She stopped in the living room.

“So you still want to do this with me?” she said, “Right now?”

“Let’s do it,” I said, pushing my phone aside.

She fished around in her bag.

“It’s going to be a crazy ride, but you’re going to love it.”

“I’m ready for anything,” I said, trying to sound pumped.

“I’ll fill you in, just enough so you can enjoy it. But I think you’re a quick learner, and you probably will pick stuff up pretty fast just by watching.”

“How long is this going to go on for?”

She smiled.

“Ohhh…we could be a while at this. Up to you. You can still back out, there’s still time. But once we start, you’re not going to want to stop.”

“You keep telling me how amazing it is. Just show it to me already!”

She switched on the living room TV and got onto Netflix, and dropped onto the sofa.

“There’s 12 seasons and it’s not going to really pick up until season 3, but 3 will hit just right only after you see 1 and 2.”

Tasmine was my best friend; we met at Justina, when she was my student buddy. I had several student buddies over the years, but Tas was special. We clicked almost immediately.

As my buddy it had been her job to carry me between classes and take me back to my dorm room after school. She eventually began staying in at my dorm and walking home later. She had slept in my bed a few times since it was normal size, while I slept on a miniature packable mattress, which she brought over. I loved it when she slept over because for the next few days my bed smelled like her.

We remained friends even after I graduated. When I first met her, I constantly compared her to Alex. But I didn’t do that anymore. Tas was very gentle and sweet and my size brought out her generous, nurturing side, and I was pretty certain I was falling for her. Not only that but, she had hinted she was into me a few times.

Now she had let herself in and put some food in the fridge. It was the long awaited weekend and she planned to introduce me to her favorite TV show, and binge the seasons with me.

I was pretty sure this was a guise and Tas actually wanted to vent about her boyfriend, Jason, who had voluntarily downgraded himself to fuck buddy since half the time Tas didn’t know where he was anymore. I heard about Jason a little less every week, and personally, I didn’t mind. I don’t think Jason understood Tas like I did.

She lay out some snacks on the coffee table.

“I’ll just be in the shower, Taddy Bear,” she said kindly, blowing me a kiss, “if you’re asking.” She giggled mischievously. “Just hang ten, okay?”

She shut the bathroom door and then the water was rushing.

She was taking showers at my house now, and sometimes even humming. It was a good sign; not a huge leap to imagining her taking a shower here every morning. I might be tiny, but I was pretty sure I could treat her better than Jason. I was one hundred percent in love with her, and no one else on the side.

This was a really good sign. She was showering right before the movie –random – except if it meant she wanted to get close. And maybe a lot close. You didn’t shower to prepare for a hug.

While the water ran, I nervously rehearsed what to say once she got out. My brain wouldn’t sit still.

*

“…so, I’m in crisis. With Jason, with whoever Jason’s with. Oh yeah, because there’s that now.  Sometimes he says things about a girl, like ‘I would say that to her, but it’d be a lie’. And then I think, when you said that to me last week, was that a lie? And who is this girl? – Am I paranoid?”

She ate some more popcorn and then looked down at me as if she suddenly remembered I was there, sitting on her lap. We were watching episode 2, season 1, but midway, Tas’s voice got louder and the TV volume got quieter.

Now she put it on pause, not just the TV but it seemed the whole room, us, everything. She was stuck on pause and she didn’t know how to unpause.

I sighed and took her hand, or at least, wrapped my hands around her index finger.

“Tas,” I said earnestly. She quickly brought the volume down further so she could hear me. “You don’t need this confusion.” I squeezed her finger. “You’re so generous; you deserve all the love in the world.”

“You’re sweet. Just a big beautiful soul in a tiny vessel.”

“I’m just being honest.”

“Okay…” she lifted me off her lap and placed me next to her on the sofa, “then, can I ask an honest question?”

“Is there any other kind?”

“Guess not. Did you want to ask me out, Tad?”

I was taken aback. Tas knew me pretty well, but this was almost psychic. I lit up inside. This meant she was thinking the same thing.

“When you said ‘honest’ question,” I grinned, “you really want to get straight to it.”

She bit her lip.

“So…Yes or no?”

“Of course,” I blurted out. “So long as we’re being honest, I don’t want waste your time.”

“I thought so,” she said seriously. “And I don’t want to waste yours either. So, let’s just be fully honest.”

With the room quiet, totally tuned into her, I said:

“Great.”

She fidgeted her hands in her lap.

“So…yeah. It’s going to have to be a permanent thing. I mean, no.”

I didn’t understand. There was a break in communication somewhere.

“No? You just said…”

“Yes. It’s a no.”

“To a date?”

“Well,” she changed her mind, “what were you going to ask me?”

“Nothing,” I said honestly. “I thought it was obvious.”

“Maybe I’m dumb,” she said fretfully, “because nothing is obvious to me right now. I feel like the last to get it, especially with Jason.”

“Jason isn’t part of this conversation,” I said cautiously. “In fact…you said all your friends told you to break up. I was trying not to have an opinion, but…I agree. And I thought you did break up. You seemed really happy today. Like everything is clear again.”

Her fingertip was suddenly stroking my stubble.

“I love your hair,” she said – and told me ten times a day. “Wish it was longer. Would you grow a mustache? A cute little devilish one.”

I knew if I did she’d tug it all the time. 

“Tad.” She paused. “It’s ‘break’. Not ‘break up’. Rest, pause. Not ‘over’. Jason and I…we’re fine.”

“I like fine,” I shrugged. “If I could find my Jason – I mean my Tas – I mean— …uh, you know what I mean.”

She smiled sadly, a little painfully, looking like she’d rather be anywhere but here, and nodded:

“Go on.”

I pushed my voice out the rest of the way:

“If I could meet my person, and they were you – I mean, like you, mostly—”

She slid up next to me, making our size difference even more obvious and awkward. The closer she sat the more she had to hunch, but she was so graceful she did it without self-consciousness.

“And who is Tad’s person? Give me a profile.”

“You already match it, Tas,” I said.

“I mean,” she corrected, “I’ll see if I can match it to someone I know.”

“You don’t know yourself?”

She ignored this, pretended to mull something over in her head:

“Let me think…Yup. I think I got your perfect mate. Ooh, fair disclosure; she’s a little tall. But—”

“Wait, she can’t be that tall—”

Tas stopped and stared at me.

“Why? She may have, what, a couple of inches over you? Tiny difference. And you know what they say,” her voice went clandestine, “everyone’s the same height lying down.”

I couldn’t stand the thought of Tas imagining me having sex with some other girl – one of her friends? – and deciding that was the best of all possible worlds. What a terrible joke.

When I didn’t say anything she frowned.

“Tad...” she said shyly, “I love you. Really. And if something crazy happened and my whole life came crashing down, I would go to you first. Because you get me.” As she said this, she stroked my hair with her fingertips.

“Your hair is so soft. I love you too much to date; I want you for keeps. You can’t eat chocolate for every meal or you’ll get sick. And I don’t want to get sick of you. Does that make sense?”

“No, I think I get it.”

“Don’t you think us just being really cool is the greatest thing?”

“Really cool?” I definitely felt the conversation had cooled a lot, in minutes. “I didn’t think we were cool. I thought we were hot.”

“If we dated and it got weird, and then...we’re done. We’re not talking anymore. This is too special, Tad, and I’d want to keep it around forever.”

I let this sink in for a minute. The entire time, Tas shifted around uncomfortably, making me rock around on her thigh. It got annoying fast.

“Who says it would be forever?” I said suddenly, stunned. “You don’t seriously think I’m that into you?”

“Well…” Tas fidgeted with her hair, tugging it out of place and then trying to put it back in place again, “…you’re not Jason. You’re always there. You’re nothing like him.”

“Yeah, I needed you to take me places.”

“Why would you say it like that?” she said, suddenly. “Why would you say: ‘You don’t seriously think—?” she took a breath and started again. “I can be with Jason and be a best – a damn loyal friend – at the same time. Girls can be multiple things, ya dummy.”

“Yeah, that was dumb,” I admitted slowly. “This whole conversation is dumb. I don’t mean any of what I said.”

“Something, something, I’m sorry, Tas,” she muttered.

I didn’t say anything.

Tas took a breath and leaned back, looking almost comfortable, looking anywhere but at me. Finally she said, sounding calm and almost upbeat:

“Jason and I were going to Tahiti, but then we got in a fight. I guess I’ve been spending so much time with you, I forgot about Jason. But….” She sighed again, deeper. Then stood without another look. “I think I’m going now.”

“To Tahiti? When?”

“Leaving your room, your house…Just leaving. Bye.”

I considered running after her, but that would be absurd, she would be out of the house before I crossed the room.

She shut the door and was gone. She had stroked and teased my hair so much it stuck up in a brush. I tried to feel sad, but nothing. I guess I just did a massive favor for Jason.

I returned to my phone, trying to pretend my job search hadn’t been interrupted. Within a minute, the recruiter picked up and I began talking:

“Is there an opening for me?”

“How soon can you start?” the rep asked.

“I wish I’d started yesterday,” I said.

“That’s great!”

The platform was called Pocket Tutor. It was called this because it ran through a phone app. The Pocket Tutor people sent me material in the mail before my first session. Then I thought.

It was twelve years since I saw Alex, we were twelve year olds. Now I was double that – and, somewhere out there, so was she. The concept of Alex being an adult was no more real now than it had been

Within a few months of us starting high school, the Kijeks moved house. The rare times I came home from St Justina on break, the neighbor house stood empty. Then a couple moved in. If Alex, Bruna and I had been older, we might have made a long distance friendship work out. But kids can’t do distance, and they can’t do it long. They hang out with the kids they see every day. One day I had to accept that St Justina killed our trio. Alex and Bruna were probably still the best of friends, and I was a memory.

Now I needed a distraction, and it looked like this tutoring gig was it.