They spent a bit of time window shopping next; Mikayla didn’t have anywhere in particular she wanted to go, and various stores would grab Mason’s attention, but they rarely walked around for more than a few minutes before he realized it wasn’t super fun when he couldn’t interact with the merchandise. He did like Yankee Candle though. It wasn’t hard for Mikayla to let him smell all the various scents—she even bought a small one for his room (although it was still so big compared to him, he’d have to keep it outside his cabin house).
But eventually, after a little more walking around, Mason’s face lit up as he saw the store Mikayla was heading for. It was a small chain store that sold items made for shrunken people like Mason. He’d been to one of their other locations several times, but had no idea they were here at the mall. “Wait, did you know they had a store here?” he asked excitedly, gazing up at the giant sign passing by overhead as they headed inside.
“Yeah, totally. Or actually… no I didn’t. Whichever one makes me look better,” she smiled. There was a section of the store that was blocked off with glass walls, but with a 6-inch gap at the floor, ensuring that shrunken people would be able to come through while keeping normal sized people out. This allowed for the walled-off section to be much more compact with its aisles and shelving. The store wasn’t very big to most folks, but in here it seemed the same size to what regular people experienced at other stores. Mikayla grinned as she set Mason down on the floor and let him run inside, checking out all the various items on display, from clothes to electronics to furniture. It was basically a department store contained within a space the size of a McDonald’s.
“Holy shit,” Mason muttered to himself as he approached a corner of the area, where a fenced-off miniature pond had been set up with several boats and jet-skis floating along a dock.
“Here, you just have to sign a waiver in case you break it or get hurt,” one of the store employees said, a woman standing nearby who was just as small as Mason. He smiled over at her, and then glanced around, just now noticing all the other shrunken employees of the store. There had been shrunken employees at the other location he’d been to, but this one was much bigger and significantly more staffed. In addition to all the customers who were shrunken too, he couldn’t remember the last time he was in a room with just people his own size. When he’d been walking through the mall, he’d felt like everyone around him was bigger than him, yet here they were all along. Probably all riding along in pockets or purses (or boobs) or on shoulders like he had, but going unnoticed by him.
After signing the form, Mason hurried over to one of the jet-ski’s and hopped on, and within seconds was zooming around the pond. “Let’s gooooo!” he cheered, and Mikayla laughed at how excited he seemed. “Hey Mikayla!” he shouted over at her after stalling his ride so she could hear him. “Bet you guys don’t have any stores like this for your size!”
She chuckled and shrugged, shaking her head. Several other regular sized people stood along the glass walls too, watching their own siblings or children or spouses or friends. The thought occurred to Mikayla that she kinda felt like she was at a daycare, and all the big folks were watching their children having fun in the play pen. But she kept that thought to herself.
After the boats, Mason checked out a full-sized (to him) house that was set up in another area on display, with sets of furniture that was also for sale stocked inside. “Hey, you should get one of these houses,” Mikayla told him, looking at the sign that displayed the details. “You’d have to save up, but I could help you build it. It looks a lot better than your cabin though,” she laughed. “No offense.”
“Yeah, but would it be made of super glue like mine is?” he asked triumphantly.
“What, you’re scared me or Skye or Mom would be able to squash it?”
“Well you just gave me a pretty close-up view of your butt earlier,” he said, a bit quieter so the surrounding people wouldn’t hear. “So I know that thing would crush it if I didn’t make sure it was glued together.”
Mikayla squinted her eyes, marginally offended by her brother’s comment. “I can give you a way closer view of it on the ride home,” she scoffed.
Mason was about to make a retort when the two of them suddenly heard some commotion coming from the front of the store. Some woman was angrily yelling down at the counter, where two boys (probably her sons) stood cowering beneath her gaze.
One of the shrunken employees, a guy in his late 20s who worked in tandem with one of his full-sized coworkers at the register, stepped towards the boys defensively and held his hands up. “Ma’am, you need to calm down or take it outside.”
Her head swiveled towards him, her temper flaring even more. “Where the hell do you get off telling me how to parent my kids?” she snarled. “You think that just cuz you have a job and all, you’re not still a little fucking bug?” Before anyone could respond, she reached her hand out and forcefully flicked her finger straight into his stomach, sending him tumbling backwards so far that he fell off the counter. The other employee quickly reached out to catch him before he fell to the ground, gasping with shock at what the lady had just done. She seemed to be a lot younger, like this was her first job, and had never seen a shrinkee get treated like that in-person before. She was too stunned to do anything, and gawked at the woman who was laughing down at man she’d just struck, who was now gasping for breath in the palm of his coworker.
“Brenda, call security,” another one of the shrunken workers told the girl, “I’ll go get Matthew.” He ran into the backroom to get the manager as the girl from the register snapped out of it and quickly picked up the phone from the counter.
“Come on, we’re leaving,” the woman grunted down to her sons, roughly grabbing the two boys and practically tossing them into her purse before marching out of the store.
The other full-sized patrons, who had all been just as stunned as Brenda, started waking from their trance as well. Some went over to see if the injured man needed any help, some looked towards their own shrunken persons that they’d brought to the store, and some just continued to stand there, amazed at what had happened. For the most part, people with relatives or close friends who were shrunken were a lot more sympathetic and less likely to be as sizist like the woman had been. But at the same time, there were some people who were bitter about the hand they’d been dealt, and the rate of parents who were abusive to their shrunken children was higher than their average counterparts.
Mikayla awkwardly looked at Mason, who was frozen in place and waiting to see if the shrunken man would be OK. He could even hear a shrunken kid crying from somewhere else in the store, petrified from what they’d just witnessed. Mikayla suddenly felt guilty about the threat she’d made to Mason; it had been a joke, although it wasn’t like she hadn’t sat on him a hundred times before. But she’d never done anything like what the woman had done. “You know I was just joking around when I said that, right?”
He looked over at his sister and nodded. But it wasn’t a very enthusiastic one; like her, he was plenty aware that it wouldn’t be out of character for her to not have been joking. Being toyed with was just a part of life for him.
Several people quickly left the store afterwards, but Mikayla patiently sat with Mason as he waited to see what would become of the man. The paramedics ended up coming to take him to the hospital, although the man was conscious and seemed to be moving on his own by the time they arrived. They still wanted to take him in to see if any major damage had been done to his organs though.
“I’m really sorry you had to see that,” Mikayla said. “I won’t mention what we saw to Mom or Skye if you don’t want.” Mason just nodded. “You wanna head out now?” He nodded again, and she held her palm out for him to step on, thinking it might be a little nicer than having to be picked up even if only for a few seconds. After setting him on her shoulder, she stood up and turned to the shelves along the wall, which were stocked with some of the bigger items that shrunken people weren’t able to carry out on their own, like the house Mason had checked out. Her eyes settled on a box for a miniature electric car that was a couple hundred bucks. “Here, I wanna get you something so you can at least have something good to come from today,” she stated, taking it to the register.
“Thanks,” he said quietly, feeling a tad guilty that he wasn’t as excited as he knew he should be about her gift. But Mikayla didn’t blame him.
Instead of heading home and having to end on a sour note, Mikayla decided the best way to end off their day would be by watching a movie at the cinema. Going to movies was one of Mason’s most common out-of-the-house activities, since it didn’t require almost any work on his family’s part to keep track of him. Sometimes his sisters would stuff him in their cleavage as his seat for the movie, or just to get him past the ticket booth, so Mason was glad that his older sister knew better than to try any shenanigans this time. She just let him hide in her bag from the clothing store until they were in the theater, and then she set it on her lap once she’d sat down so he’d have something he could lean back on for the next couple hours, unlike with her shoulder.
They’d both enjoyed the movie, and it had definitely given them enough time to lift their spirits. But there was still a palpable feeling in the air on the car ride home, even during their conversations. It wasn’t as if neither of them had ever seen a shrunken person get assaulted before—there were plenty of videos of that on the internet. But witnessing that kind of hatred and prejudice in person was an entirely different experience, and they both hoped they’d forget the troublesome details by tomorrow.