The Christmas break had ended. Tom was beginning his last 5 months in 8th grade, before moving on to high school. It should have been a time for him to be excited about moving up, yet something started to gnaw at him. He would be in high school, and Cindy would be on her own going into 4th grade. He thought that even though she would be over 7’, he still wouldn't be there to look out for her.

Cindy was feeling a little down for a different reason. Her family was going to have to move because of her, and get a new vehicle to drive her around,? especially to school. She wouldn't be able to hang with her friends on either the ride to school, or home from school. She understood about both. The house’s ceilings were only 7’5” tall, and she had no room to stretch her arms if she was standing, and she was forced to duck her head when going through the doorways.

The car was worse. Even though her dad was about 5’10”, he couldn't move his seat up far enough for her to get comfortable in the back seat. So she had to sit up front, and even then, with her legs getting longer, the seat would only go back so far.

But on the next to last Saturday in January, the Carpenter family piled in the car, and headed towards a section of town that Bill and Susan hadn't visited in years, when there were businesses that would sell anything and everything that one could think of. But hard economic times happened, and all the shops eventually closed up. The area had been deserted and run down for years.

It took the introduction of the GH-X2 formula for the area to be revitalized. Bill and Susan had gotten occasional updates on the progress of the development, especially the letter stating that a new school was being built that would house the elementary school on one side, and the high school on the other. There wasn't enough extra land for there to be separate buildings.

They finally made their way to the entrance of where the new construction had taken place. Wide streets, wide sidewalks. They were the widest they had ever seen. Then there were the shops. Windows 20ft tall, and 5ft wide seemed to be on every business. The doors seemed that they were 15ft high, and as wide as the windows. 

Cindy recognized some of the people walking on the sidewalk as her classmates, moving with the parents. It never struck Cindy that what she was seeing was what walking with her parents, or Tom looked like. It was as if her classmates were the parents, and the parents were the children. She thought it was funny, but she wasn't about to tell her family.

Bill finally turned down the street leading to the houses. The road was as wide as the street with the shops. They saw the representative waiting outside a large house that looked like the shops they just passed. It was one story, but the floor looked to be twenty feet tall. The front door was of the same height as the doors on the shops, and just as wide. There was a garage to the left, again with a door that looked like it was the same height as the front door, but five times as wide.

Bill parked the car, and they all got out. The lady introduced herself as Jane, and she said that she worked with the real estate company that was part of the lab’s business. She looked at Cindy and smiled. Jane was probably only about 5’5”, and she asked the girl how tall she was. Cindy replied that the last time she was measured, just before Christmas break, she was 6’10”. 

Jane asked Cindy how old she was, and she said she was 8 and a half. Jane complimented her on her height, and with that the tour of the house began.