Chapter 2

“And she said that he’d keep shrinking!” Alexandra was saying animatedly into her phone as she drove back home, with Billy sitting sullenly in the passenger seat with his arms crossed. It had been hard enough when he was just dealing with his stepmother’s overprotectiveness…but Alexandra’s mother getting in on the act!? It was the last thing Billy needed right now. He just wanted to get back home to his apartment to collect his thoughts. But Alexandra’s voice was blaring in his ears.

“Are you kidding, mom?” she was saying. “Of course you need to come over and see! You don’t believe me? Come over and see for yourself. We’ll be there in ten.”

She hung up, sighing and shaking her head. “Can you believe it?” she asked Billy, readjusting herself as she continued driving a little erratically, clearly flustered. “She doesn’t believe me!”

“I…yeah, mom, I actually can,” said Billy, staring out the window. “This isn’t the kind of thing that happens everyday, you know.”

“Now there’s no reason to get smart,” Alexandra tutted, taking a wide left turn at an intersection. “You know that your grandmother and I are only so attentive because we care so much.”

“Mom, I know, you always say that,” sighed Billy, feeling literally and metaphorically trapped in the passenger seat. “You say it so often that I think you both forget that I’m a literal adult who has a job and can take care of himself.”

“Well, evidently not,” countered Alexandra, making another wide turn and diverting the car down another side street, “You’ve developed this condition…god knows why…and so it seems to me that now isn’t the best time to be overly assertive about your independence.”

“Overly assert-” stammered Billy, catching himself and taking a deep breath, before he launched himself into another clash with his stepmother. “Look, I know I’ve got this…thing going on, or whatever. But I feel fine! All I really wanna do is just go home and…and take it easy and collect myself, ok?”

“Well not before Eleanor sees you,” maintained Alexandra decisively. “As someone prominent in your life, who sees you all the time, and who helped pay your way through college, I think she deserves to know when something like this is happening to her grandson. Or am I going too far here?”

Billy sighed again, hating that he felt petulant in this situation. He was already feeling humiliated and small enough, now that he was only 5 feet tall and 120 pounds. He glanced to the side and saw that he had to avert his head slightly up to look at his stepmother’s face. She had her eyes fixed ahead on the road, her lips pursed in determination. Even just watching her like this, Billy felt his resistance wane a little. Was it because he was both smaller and shorter than her now? He really didn’t know…and he really didn’t want to think about it. He sighed again, realizing that he had to get out ahead of this thing and make a compromise.

“Fine,” he declared, sitting up as straight and tall as he could in the passenger seat, “Eleanor gets to…examine me…or whatever it is she wants to do. And then I’m going back home, ok?”

“What about tomorrow?” asked Alexandra, turning onto their home street.

“What…about tomorrow?” asked Billy cautiously.

“You’ve got to call Shanna and tell her you have to take an extended leave…or at least work from home.”

Billy couldn’t believe it — Alexandra was being that blunt!? Talking about what he needed to tell his boss??

“Haha, you’re out of your mind, mom,” laughed Billy, laughing down the strange dread that was creeping inside him. “I’m going to work like normal tomorrow.”

“Oh no, no!” replied Alexandra immediately, shaking her head incredulously as her eyes went a little wider, pulling into her driveway. “No, no, no, Billy! That’s a terrible idea — you can’t go to work normally anymore!”

“Wh-why…why not?!” he asked, still smiling over at her. What on earth was she getting at, jumping the gun like this?

“Because!” she declared firmly, putting the car in park, thrusting her foot down on the emergency brake, and turning the car off as she turned to face him directly. “You’re sick, Billy! And sick people shouldn’t go into work! They need to be taken care of, not worked to death!”

“You’re…haha…you’re waaaayyyyy overreacting, mom!” chuckled Billy, shaking his head as he took his seatbelt off. He was trying and failing not to notice how much larger Alexandra looked in the car seat next to his as she faced him down. To avoid the direct comparison, he simply turned and got out of the car.

“Well when you go waltzing off home,” replied Alexandra, getting out of her own side of the car and rounding to meet him, “And you’re 4-and-a-half feet tall the next time I see you, we’ll see who’s overreacting then.”

“I…mom, how can you be sure I’m just gonna…just gonna keep…shrinking so fast?” Billy’s question trailed off, because he saw his grandmother’s grey 1990 Lincoln Town Car streaking down the street. He felt his heart sink a little; it was impossible not to feel trapped at this point. He was already planning his eventual escape when his grandmother, Eleanor, pulled up swiftly alongside Alexandra’s car and got out, slamming the door swiftly behind her.

“Oh I don’t know,” Alexandra said sarcastically, with a hint of concerned exasperation in her voice, “Maybe because that’s what Dr. Bassett said would probably happen?”

“What did the doctor say?” asked Eleanor, coming up behind her daughter and making a beeline straight for Billy, peering at him through her glasses. She came over to her daughter’s house so often that Alexandra wasn’t even surprised to hear her mother walking up behind her.

“It’s like I said over the phone, mom,” Alexandra said, putting her hands on her hips and shaking her head as she faced back towards Billy. “Dr. Bassett said that there was good reason to believe that he'd have another shrinking spurt really soon…but of course Billy’s just trying to downplay the whole thing, because he’s an adult.”

“I…geez mom, would you just chill out for a minute?” asked Billy. He had noticed that, as usual, his grandmother had on one of her bikini-style tops, which revealed the flesh of her lower stomach, punctuated by the prominent hole of her bellybutton right above the belt buckle of her tight jeans. Billy had to admit that, for a woman who was in her 60’s, Eleanor had somehow still managed to hold onto her figure.

“Let me get a good look at you,” said Eleanor, advancing on him. Billy watched her approach, standing with his hip slightly cocked to the side. He knew that he had to present a strong exterior to his grandmother, or else she, just like his stepmother, would start walking all over him. But at 5’5, Eleanor was a couple inches taller than her daughter, and currently 5 whole inches taller than Billy. As she marched up to him, she seemed bigger and bigger to Billy, and he involuntarily backed away a bit.

“Hold still,” said Eleanor, actually reaching out and grasping him by the shoulder. “Let me see what we’re looking at here.”

“Gosh, no need to…Eleanor!” complained Billy, again feeling slightly absurd because of the situation he was stuck in. “You don’t have to hold me like I’m gonna…run away or something.”

“You looked like you were about to run away,” replied Eleanor immediately, her eyes going up and down his body. “Oh my god,” she murmured, her greying eyebrows furrowing together, “Billy! Look at you! You actually ARE smaller!”

Billy rolled his eyes as Alexandra came up behind her mother. “What did I tell her, Billy? After all these years, she still doesn’t listen to me.”

Eleanor didn’t seem to be paying attention to Alexandra. Instead, she had extended her hand over the top of Billy’s head, measuring it against her own body. Billy couldn’t help but notice, as he looked down, that Eleanor’s belly button was level with the top part of his stomach. He felt his grandmother’s palm graze the top of his head, and he felt a wave of humiliation pass over him.

“Not even up to my eyes!” exclaimed Eleanor in wonder. “This is…this is actually real, Billy!”

“Yep, it’s real,” he said dryly, looking anywhere but up into her face.

“Like…you were always small to me,” Eleanor continued, “But now…gosh Billy! You’re a little shrimp!”

Billy’s nostrils flared a little and he blinked into the distance, sighing out as he braved the situation and looked up into his grandmother’s face. Her penetrating eyes, a slightly deeper and striking blue just like her daughters’s, narrowed slightly over her still-ample breasts. Even though Billy was trying to face the circumstance head-on, there was no getting past the raw power of his grandmother’s scrutinizing stare — the fact that she was a full 5 inches taller than him was certainly not helping things.

“Well it’s nice to get that diagnosis,” Billy replied sarcastically as he stared up at her. He turned to Alexandra. “Ok, she saw me — can I go now?”

“Wait, wait!” exclaimed Eleanor, this time actually shooting out both of her hands, one to each shoulder, completely encompassing them both in her palms as she held him fast, “Let me actually look at you, Billy!”

“You already looked over me and came to the conclusion that I was a “shrimp,” so…I think we’re done here, ok?” said Billy, not bothering to hide his exasperation now. At least Alexandra would usually hide those kinds of thoughts, when she had them. Not so with Eleanor. Billy could always depend on her to speak her mind, whether warranted or not.

“Quit trying to squirm away from me and just hold still,” commanded Eleanor, tightening her grip on his shoulders and shaking him slightly. Billy was momentarily surprised; Eleanor definitely seemed more pushy than usual today…he knew that he could escape from her hold if he really wanted to (at least, he was pretty sure he could, at this point), but he didn’t want to cause a scene. He had to just stand there and take it.

“I’m just…good grief, Billy,” Eleanor was saying in amazement, her mouth open as her eyes continued to study and take in his new size. “It wasn’t just your height either! Look at your arms! You’ve always been really skinny, but now…! God, Alexandra, are you seeing this!?”

Eleanor took up one of Billy’s forearms in her hand and wrapped her fingers around it. Her fingers were able to touch at his wrist, and she went up his arm, still trying to keep her fingers locked. She was able to get about a third of the way up his forearm before she had to stop.

“Haha!” she chuckled in wonder, her eyes looking down at his, searching them out, as she shook his forearm with her hand. “This can’t be real, Billy…look how tiny you are now!”

“He’s been trying to downplay it all morning,” said Alexandra, coming around behind her mother and staring down at her stepson. “He wants to just go back to his place and…and get this, mom — he wants to go to work tomorrow!”

“He what!?” cried Eleanor, dropping Billy’s forearm as she put her hand up to her forehead. “Just like…like nothing happened!?”

“Mmhm! Sounds like straightforward denial to me,” nodded Alexandra ruefully.

“It’s not denial,” declared Billy stubbornly, folding his arms across his chest as he puffed himself up and stood up as high as he could (trying to help himself feel bigger, but in vain). “It’s just that…my job won’t be affected by a…by a little height reduction!”

“And size reduction,” added Eleanor, indicating to his whole body with her hand. “You really don’t look like a man to me anymore, to be honest.”

“Well, not that he ever looked like one all that much before,” chimed in Alexandra.

“Mom! God, come on — would you guys just give me a break!?” Billy demanded. He was almost there…he wasn’t going to take all of this much longer.

“What? I’m just being honest,” said Alexandra genuinely, without a hint of the mockery or teasing that Eleanor was invoking. “And anyway Billy, as your mother, it was always going to be hard to see you as fully grown-up anyway.”

“But now that he looks like this?” said Eleanor, again indicating to Billy’s body. “Yeah…now it’s impossible to see him like that. And if you keep getting smaller, well…it’s only a matter of time, Billy, before you can’t function like a real adult, anyway. I think your mother is right — you need her to take care of you.”

“Well as much as I appreciate the offer,” countered Billy, reminding himself to be as calm and respectful as possible, “If it’s true that I really have some kind of chronic…condition…then I’m going to need to learn how to take care of myself with it. You know?” He was already moving towards his own car in the driveway. He had done it…he had managed to squeeze himself out of the exchange.

“Well, no, actually,” said Alexandra, with her and Eleanor turning to slowly pursue him. “If you have a chronic unknown condition, it means that you — ”

“I know what you’re gonna say, mom,” interrupted Billy, opening his driver’s side door and stepping inside, “And my response is: we’ll see who’s right. You think I'm gonna shrink again. I don't. Guess we’ll see who’s right soon.”

With that, he slammed his door shut, not too hard, but with enough force to communicate to his mother and grandmother that their attempts at controlling his life had been shut down. He started pulling out of the driveway, but Alexandra ran up to his window and started hitting on it with her palm. Billy flirted with the idea of totally ignoring her blatant pleas, but he finally relented and rolled the window down, huffing an exasperated sigh.

“What is it, mom?” he asked bluntly.

“So you’re just…gonna go into work tomorrow, then?” she asked, her fingers fidgeting nervously with each other.

“Well…yeah!” answered Billy, arching his eyebrows. “Yeah, I am. I see no reason not to, mom. Dr. Bassett didn’t say this…this thing was, like, contagious or anything. She didn’t tell me to ask off work. So I’m going, ok?”

“Bad idea, Billy, bad idea,” warned Eleanor, joining Alexandra by the window and shaking her head. “You don’t have to try to impress us, you know, just because you’re so small now.”

“She’s right, you know,” added Alexandra in a more concerned voice, peering anxiously at her stepson. “You don’t need to prove anything to us, Billy. We…we already love you, just the way you are.”

“I…look mom…thanks, ok? Really, I mean it. I appreciate it, ok? But…I…I just need to make these choices on my own, alright? If something happens at work, it happens. And I’ll just…I’ll deal with the consequences as they come, ok? You just really need to…to cut me loose a little, mom. I’m not trying to be ungrateful here. I just need to live my life.”

His mother looked so concerned that Billy felt himself beginning to feel bad for merely sticking up for himself and his own autonomy. So he added a quick “I love you! Talk to you soon!” before he rolled his window back up, backed out of the driveway, and drove down the street to his apartment. It wasn’t lost on him that he had to slightly adjust the driver’s seat to accommodate his shorter body.

Now alone in his own apartment, Billy looked at a few things for work, before settling into his comfy sofa to play some video games, sighing in relief at last, even as he pushed the surreal, worrying reality of his new “condition” into the back of his mind. So something outlandish had happened…so he had mysteriously lost a few inches…so what? If he thought back to that moment it had happened, the beating heart, the flashing sweats, the sickening lurch in his stomach, Billy could feel himself starting to feel anxious. It certainly had not been a good feeling when he had gotten smaller, and if Dr. Bassett was right, that was what he could look forward to again.

“But she doesn’t really know,” Billy reassured himself out loud as he played his games. “She said…it might happen…or she thought it might happen. Doesn’t mean it will happen, though.”

Billy was more exhausted than usual — generally, he went to sleep in his bed, but this particular time, as the night wore on, he found himself peculiarly fatigued. He didn’t even feel like he had the energy to get up off the sofa to walk to his bedroom. And so he laid down on the sofa, trying to cover himself with pillows for extra coziness. The lower part of his legs stuck out towards the end of the sofa, but that was pretty much it. The rest of his body was snuggled under the pillows. He closed his eyes, and was almost instantly asleep.

He dreamed that night, but of what, he was never able to recall. All that he knew was that he was waking up slowly, slower than usual, and feeling like someone who has recently come out of anesthesia. Billy’s entire body felt exhausted, but yet still, strangely, he felt safe. Warm and cozy. Gradually, he realized that he was moving his eyes around — they were open, but he wasn’t seeing anything. A stab of panic seized him, but almost immediately, it evaporated away, like an icicle held up to a flame. He was on his sofa, under all those pillows! That was why everything was so dark!

But something else was going on…what was it? It was hard to pinpoint, but something felt decidedly different than when he had fallen asleep. A few dark, silent minutes passed by before Billy realized that it was the coziness. His entire body, limbs and all, were under the pillows, all warm and toasty. When he had fallen asleep, his lower legs had been sticking out of the pillows. That could only mean…

Billy leapt out of his warm pile of pillows and swung his feet down to the floor. In the process, though, he nearly face-planted off the sofa itself, because his feet, which he had expected to touch the ground, had not. Billy found himself actually falling down a few inches towards the floor, and he landed with a stumbling thud, barely able to keep his balance as he staggered across the floor. When he managed to right himself and stand up straight, the truth became plain: he had shrunk again, and this time, it hadn’t just been 3 inches. Everything, from the sofa to the TV to his video game console to the height of the ceiling itself…looked larger. In the back of his head, Billy knew that his ceilings were normal height, but to him now, they looked like those high, fancy ceilings in mansions.

He rushed to the kitchen, where a tape measure was in the “knick knack” drawer, where he stored everything that didn’t have anywhere else to put. He was distressed to find that he had to actually stand on tiptoes to examine the contents of the drawer itself. Finally locating the tape measure, he stood barefoot up against the wall, his heart thumping in his chest as he carefully made sure his measurement was accurate. The labor and care of the measurement itself was serving as a kind of ironic distraction from the sickening dread that would have been coursing through him: Dr. Bassett…and his mother…had been right. moments later, he had empirical proof.

“4-foot-6!?” he spoke out into the still air of his apartment. His voice sounded odd…was it a bit higher? His body definitely looked smaller…he had lost more weight; there was no question about that. For minutes on end, Billy just stood there gaping, half-committing to going back to bed, or to calling his boss…he had no idea what to do.

‘What am I doing?” he said aloud suddenly, straightening up. “I..I feel fine. So what if I’m…a little smaller? Nothing else has changed! I’ll find something to wear, and I’ll just…go to work!”

Billy knew that he was acting irrationally — he knew that the right thing to do would be to call Dr. Bassett immediately and then go straight to the doctor’s office for inspection, and probably for more tests. But Billy, generally good about making thoughtful life choices, balked at this one. If he did all that, it would mean admitting that Alexandra had been right. It would mean admitting that her micromanaging of his life was somehow justified. And he wasn’t anywhere close to being willing to concede that to her.

Half an hour later, a tiny figure in oversized clothes could have been spotted shuffling quickly into an office at the Braden, Inc software engineering firm. Billy was careful not to be seen by any of his colleagues, most particularly his boss, Shanna. His job usually didn’t involve lots of personal interactions anyway, so Billy was hoping that he could last a while before anyone found out. His aspirations of secrecy, however, were crushed five minutes after he sat down at his desk (with his feet dangling off the floor).

“Stetson!” crackled Shanna’s voice over the intercom, scaring him out of his wits and setting his heart pumping uncomfortably.

“Uh…yes?” he asked, pressing the intercom button.

“Pop down to my office,” came Shanna’s voice, “Gotta review a few glitches on the JavaScript you wrote for the last program.”

Billy winced and exhaled. This was the last thing he had wanted to happen. But what choice did he have? A minute later, he was pushing the door of Shanna’s office open, and there she was, standing there in her full brown business suit, her arms folded across her impressive chest, staring down at him like…like she expected exactly what she saw!? Billy was taken aback; he had been preparing himself to respond to Shanna’s shock and surprise. But now that he was being met with her slow, analyzing gaze, he didn’t know what to do, so he simply stood there, his oversized khakis rolled up around his ankles and hopelessly bunched up around his shriveled legs, his loafers looking like clown shoes compared to his stature.

“Huh,” said Shanna, breaking the silence as she strode over, going deliberately slowly as she began to circle Billy like a shark. “She wasn’t lying, heheh…good god, just look at you.”

Billy was about to ask “who” hadn’t been lying, but now Shanna was standing directly in front of him again, her hands transferred from a folded position to her thick, wide hips. Shanna, like Dr. Bassett, was already a relatively tall woman, at 5’8, and she too liked to wear heels. Today, she was wearing a pair of 3-inch pumps that boosted her up to 5’11, a full 17 inches taller than Billy was currently. He found himself staring straight into the top of her stomach — he had to actually raise his eyes to look at the underside of her boobs. Before he knew it, Shanna had reached out her arm, measuring the height of his head with her outstretched hand. Both of them saw that the top of his head didn’t reach the highest extent of her prominent cleavage.

“Unbelievable,” Shanna muttered. “And to think, you thought you’d try and sneak this by me.”

“N-no, Shanna, really,” began Billy, feeling strangely apologetic even though he knew he didn’t have anything to apologize for, “I just thought that I needed to get straight to work to get the next program all sorted and—”

“Ok, ok, geez,” said Shanna, holding out a quieting hand that was as high as his face, even though her arm was at a resting right angle. “Did shrinking make you more talkative too? I knew you were going to try and sneak in today.”

“Wha…? How?” asked Billy.

“How do you think?” came his mother’s voice from behind him. Billy shut his eyes, wincing again, and in tandem, Alexandra shut the office door. Billy turned to face her and saw that she was wearing a bikini top and tight jeans…her bellybutton was now even with his nipples.

“Now, since I was obviously right about everything,” Alexandra said, advancing on him, measuring the top of his head over and over again against the top of her shoulders for emphasis. Billy could only stand there and take it.

“I think it’s best,” continued Alexandra, looking up over his head to his boss, “For Shanna and I to discuss your situation.”