Being as big as a building was surely helpful to move faster. Elsa could not believe they had already reached the slopes of the mountain this shortly. The roads had been almost empty if not for some abandoned vehicles in the area near the beach and the growth crater. It was also not this easy to move at this size. They had more than one accident along the way. Turning from the main road to a side street, Carol could not prevent herself from flattening completely a small minivan with her foot. She could only hear the not so pleasant crunching sound and look down at the tires that had jumped out of their spots. The car didn’t oppose much resistance to her wight. The same side street became a problem also for Elsa that could not pass through it if not walking sideways. And even that way she managed to completely eradicate some balconies with her ass. When they finally reached another larger road they decided for the future to better estimate the size of the passageways. And still, ten minutes later, after just three more cars and a newsstand crushed, they exited the urban area to start the climb of the mountain side.

Elsa knew she would have needed both hands to grip the steep surface. So, she stopped a moment to ponder where to put Arthur during the ascent. She thought of putting him on her shoulder, but she could not grant to hold a stable position and prevent a bumpy ride. She also meditated if he could stand the whole ride in her mouth. But she wouldn’t try the way of the alligator mom. Eventually she came up with the best solution, or better, she followed her itch. She was getting sweaty for the difficult walk, especially on her shoulders because her hair, now set free from the fact that the hair band didn’t grow with her, kept sticking to the sweaty skin. She was going to wear them in an improvised chignon. And with a smile on her face she used her miniature boy to hold it up. She was the most careful not to make it too tight, but still she wanted it not to loosen during the climb. The child protested a little but Elsa didn’t mind excessively once assured he was perfectly fine. When she had fixed her hair she followed Carol that was already on her way.

The climb was hard as well. She tried holding to the trees but most of them were too small to hold her weight. They came off like bad weeds in her grip. Sometimes they encountered a secular pine on the route and they could hold on it. But for the most part they had to count only on the small planes where young people used to have summer evening in the forest around campfires. They were not completely allowed but not strictly persecuted. Therefore they had become during the years sort of a ritual for the youth in the city. Most of the traces of recent nights out were going to be obliterated soon under the steps of the two giant women climbing the mountain. Most of the mountain trails suffered the same fate.

In the little square at the border of the upper city, the shadows had become long and soft now that the afternoon sun glowed right over the edge of the small wall where tourists used to take panoramic shots. There were some people in the street discussing of the impressive events of that day happened in the coast city. There were more than fifty women and men chatting, around a small fruit stand and some kiosks, about the unusual spectacle and wondering what could have happened down there. Some also lamented the fact that the giants had destroyed the transmitting station causing a communication and internet black out that authorities seemed to have not still resolved.

All these talks were silenced by the sudden rumbling over the edge of the mountain. Only the bravest ones got near the small wall to peer down. They had not even the time to reach it that a hand bigger than a cottage emerged covering the sun and plunge the square into darkness. People reacted as fast as they could and run for their lives. Some of those that were too close to the edge fell to their feet and put one or two hands in front of them in a vain attempt of seeking protection. Luckily for them, the hand was not looking for a prey but for a good handhold. The small brick wall trembled and creaked, but resisted the effort. The head of Carol emerged from the same depth where her hand had come from. She looked at the small square and at the remaining people too scared to move. She didn’t mind them too much and put her other arm around a building to lift her body over the edge. A foot came that broke through the wall causing some screams among the crowd. After some more push and pull she could finally stand. She looked down again and smiled seeing the terrified look of the people. Some drop of sweat fell from her nose right unto the square forming a big pond, the resulting splashes sprayed some of the bystanders. She smiled again, than she looked back at the mountain side to see where Elsa was.

Elsa meanwhile was completely covered in sweat. She had neither the athletic shape of Carol nor her youth and the climb had been a hell of struggle. Carol knelt on the square hitting two parked cars making them roll away of their place and stretched her arm toward her exhausted partner. Elsa grabbed Carol’s arm but slipped and in the attempt to hold with her foot she excavated a good portion of the mountain side making several trees tumble down. She checked for her hair, in order to control if Arthur was alright. When she felt him stuck between her hair and responding to her touch. She grabbed Carol’s arm again and also the mountain’s edge with her other hand. With no little effort she managed to reach the square. First on all fours, then standing. In the process she crushed more than one car on the side of the street and also knocked down a small memorial. But she was too tired at the moment to care too much. She stood, looked at Carol and dried her forehead with her arm letting her sweat drop to the ground in far bigger amount than the younger giantess had done before. The second drop of sweat hit the people and the small fruit stand hard enough to send some to the ground and overthrow most fruit baskets. The poor stand owner rushed to recover his products just to find himself standing right between the two giantesses. He slowly raised his head only to encounter Carol’s amused look. She hinted him to go away with a slight movement of her head and he accomplished the task as fast as he could.

Both women were now standing in the small square. Elsa untied her hair and took Arthur back. Reassured about his conditions she turned to Carol.
“So, where do we go now … babysitter Carol?”
Carol stared at her a little pissed. “First of all, never say that word again! Second, we have to reach that park up there. Beyond it, there’s the building we are looking for.”
Elsa looked at the park Carol was talking about. To her horror the park lied exactly beyond the oldest part of the city, with all its narrow streets and small squares. “You’ve got to be kidding me!” Elsa commented more to herself.
“Do you want to go first?” Carol suggested smiling.
Elsa moved back, hitting with her heel an already half-crushed vehicle and letting the alarm start. After a little confusion she silenced it covering the rest with her sole and planting it deeply and firmly into the ground. The whole effort excavated a small crater where scraps of the car lied silent.
“Well, you know the way. It’s better if you go first. I’ll … I’ll follow your steps.”
Carol shrugged her shoulders with a sharp “As you wish.” And then started her walk. The small streets of the upper city center were difficult for two cars to pass at once and only the skilled inhabitants could transit through them with few efforts. One foot of Carol was wide enough to flatten two cars. Every step became, therefore, the cause of multiple minor crumbling. Small balconies were teared down and whatever in the streets was not moved fast enough ended crushed under her sole. Elsa envied Carol’s thin feet. Hers were demolition devices in comparison. Where the first giantess hit the second came to finish the job. More than one facade crumbled completely to the ground, leaving to the giant mother only the sensation of falling sand.
Both giantesses tried their best to make the longest step possible, spreading their legs as much as they were able to in order to reach the wider spots between the buildings. In the streets there was substantial chaos. People were seeking repair in the shops where they could. But most streets where completely composed of private houses. For this reason the two giantesses could not move very fast since they continuously had to control where to put their feet without trampling anyone.

For the most part, they could avoid casualties. A fisherman was trying to bring inside his shop the fish exposed on the street, but he was too greedy and Elsa’s foot squashed him and a barrel of anchovies he was carrying. Carol reached a small square full of bars with a very long and difficult step and she could not see how many customers she crushed under her sole. The giantess looked at her foot and the red stains on the floor for a moment, then shrugged her shoulders and kept moving. Elsa saw the whole scene from behind and was horrified three times: first by the sheer fact that Carol had stepped on people; then when the other giantess looked at her foot and she feared a hysteric reaction; finally when the hysteric reaction never followed and was instead substituted by Carol’s complete indifference to the massacre under her sole.

Carol was the first one to reach the large square with the park and she stopped a moment to admire the sight of the city in the early evening. Elsa, still pondering full of concerns for what she just witnessed, completely misjudged her position in space and slammed her foot right into the second floor of a small building in front of the park’s entry. She looked back full of guilt for her clumsiness. Carol laughed at her.
“Wow, you sure came in like a wrecking ball.”
Elsa was mortified and kept excusing herself with the people on the street which have just fled out of the crumbling building.
“Oh gosh! It is impossible to move at this size. It’s like walking on the eggs the whole time! Now I understand why those two never leave the sea. And the people fleeing, they make it even worse!” She lamented.
“Yeah, not surely a piece of cake. And we are just like the toy version.” Carol observed carelessly.
“What do you mean?” Elsa asked with a worried tone.
“Well, if your plan work … if we succeed at finding the honey, and it works. We will become as big as ‘those two’.” She concluded gesturing quotation marks with her fingers.
Elsa was struck by the sudden intuition of what Carol said. If it worked, they were going to become enormous, far beyond their actual size.
She asked mostly to herself: “Where will we put such big bodies?”
“Well, we will easily make some space ourselves.” Carol answered with a subtle grin.
Elsa didn’t want to think about it at the moment, especially now that they were so close.
“So, which one is their building?”
 “The yellowish one, on the left!” On the northern side of the park there extended a series of residential buildings.
The one Carol was pointing to, was a six story building with a couple of apartments on any floor. Exactly when they were about to move a flash hit them both. Elsa looked down and saw a man pointing a camera at them, he himself with a surprised face, maybe forgetful he had not deactivated the flash light.
“What the eff, do you think you’re doing?” Carol shouted enraged to the miniature voyeur.
She stretched forward “Give me that stuff right now!” The man was already running away holding the camera to his chest. Unfortunately his step were extremely short compared to the bus-long ones of Carol. She reached the man in less than four steps and grabbed him like a fleeing marble.
“Don’t you now it is extremely rude to take picture without permission? Give me that thing!"
She tried to collect the small object with her fingers. She could hold it only for a moment before reducing it completely to dust.
“Ahh – she snorted – too fragile … but well deserved. Do you think it’s funny to photograph people. Or did you want to have a picture of us naked? You pervert!”
She kept shaking her hand with the small man which was doing his best to hold.
“Carol! Carol! What are you doing?” Elsa asked worried for the safety of the man.
“What?” Carol asked still in anger. Elsa could notice her eyes were kind of misty, and paused a moment worried. Carol inhaled vigorously and sighed even harder. She squatted and dropped the man on the floor. He got up with much effort and immediately threw up.
“Ew! Disgusting pervert!” Carol commented.
Elsa was in shock. “What was that? You could have hurt him!”
“I … I don’t like perverts. I … don’t like them. But … I’m sorry. It’s fine. He is fine.”
Elsa looked at the man that was trying to get away from them more crawling than walking.
“It’s fine. - Carol repeated, completely unconvinced by her own words – We should go.”
Then they started walking through the park, only the taller trees could rival their height and they were still extremely thin in comparison, like broomstick planted in the ground. The earth was soft under their foot and both women could notice they were leaving a trail of footprints that attracted the few people still in the park. It was a short walk until they reached the building. They didn’t even had to leave the park to stand right in front of it, having the balconies within reach of their hands.
“Which floor?” Elsa asked shyly. She was still worried for the tantrum Carol had leashed out shortly before.
“Let me think.” She put two fingers on the road and mimicked two legs walking up the stairs. The fingers stopped on the third floor.
“And the kitchen should be – she span her index in the air a little – this one.” She was pointing at a closed pair of door-size wooden blinds enclosing the entrance to the balcony.
“Darn they closed it. They always close it in summer to keep the sun out.” Carol said.
Elsa pondered it for a moment. Then she asked Carol to move out from the balcony also hitting her with her hip to make herself more space. “Let’s try this.”
Elsa was generally an elegant woman. She used to wear suits at work and preferred skirts never shorter than knee-length. And still she liked to have long varnished nails. And she just had a treatment right before her vacation. She pointed her finger at the blinds and tried to put her nail between them. When she encountered resistance, she pushed, breaking the latch with a snap. Retracting her finger the blinds followed opening and revealing the domestic scene inside.

Elsa could see the large room now brightened by the sweet rays of the late afternoon. On the side of the balcony there was a living space with sofas circling an oriental rug and a big TV screen. Behind it there opened the dining room and the kitchen on the side. In the center, for Elsa’s joy, there stood the dining table tidied up but with a decorative basket in the center full of jars. She admired the precision of details of the model house in front of her, forgetful that it was not a miniaturized version.

Then she tried to reach for the basket. But she slammed into reality back again. Her hand, larger than a truck was too big to pass through the balcony door. Carol that was observing the scene smiled and hit her back with her hips to regain her older position. She tried to, but even if she was far thinner than Elsa, also her hand could not pass through the door exactly like a mini-van would have not. Elsa was again pondering if any instrument could have resulted helpful, like a lamppost.
“Well, I think it turned out fine for our little squirt not to grow before!” Carol exclaimed with a smile.
She reached for the boy still sitting in his mother hand and grabbed him with her fingers. She had been a giantess for a while now and her trail through the city had presented a lot of interaction with ordinary object now the size of a model train set. But holding the child with just two fingers gave Carol for the first time the real perspective of her new dimension. He was smaller than a mouse. Soft beyond comprehension. He felt extremely fragile, to the point Carol asked herself how could have Elsa not crushed him already. Arthur looked at his captor dazzled and awaiting. Carol smiled teasingly. Elsa didn’t like the image of Carol holding her son and was going to take him back when Carol put him gently but fast on the balcony.
“Ehi Artie, your Mom and I need something inside that room. It’s a honey pot somewhere there on the table. We are too big to get in but you can’t take it for us.”
Carol pointed with her finger at the table and hit the handrail with her hand causing the metal to bend under her strength. Arthur got a little scared from the force of the giantess’ hand, but he knew it was Carol and he trusted her.
“Who’s house is this?” Arthur asked innocently.
Elsa intervened: “It doesn’t matter Arthur, you just have to go take the honey pot over there.”
“But do we have the permission, mom?” Elsa could not feel more touched by her son’s protest. He was the kindest boy. But the kindest boy had already risked his life too much that day, at least in Elsa’s opinion. And she wanted to keep him safe. And the only place safe she could figure out now was at the couple thousands feet of size club.
“Don’t worry Artie! Carol knows the owners and she has the permit.” Elsa suggested.
“Oh yeah, of course, Arthur! I am the babysitter here, and the owner’s children need my supervision. I need the honey for that!” Arthur thought about it a little more.

He was not worried about the permission anymore, but it was getting dark now that the sun was down on the horizon and there was no light coming from inside the house. He had always been shy to enter a new place even when warmly invited. And the darkened unknown living room didn’t look inviting at all. He looked at the room and back at the giantesses. He decided that whatever was in there, his mother and his very cool friend Carol could have handled it pretty easily. So he moved the first step in. At first he thought the room was carpeted then, he recognized the pattern of a big carpet on the floor. There was a little commotion in the room due to the failed attempts of Elsa and Carol to reach the kitchen table with their fingers. But in general the place was tidy and lived. He walked very slowly between the sofas and reached the small wall that divided the living room space from the dining room’s one. Both Carol and Elsa were looking at the slow advancement of the child and were extremely focused in fear and anticipation. Elsa made a step forward to get closer and have a better look. By doing so, her foot came over the sidewalk and flattened completely a letter box.

She didn’t even notice it, but the noise of folding metal drew the attention of whoever was nearby. And nearby, just one floor below the apartment Arthur was breaking in, it drew the attention of Mrs. Kimki that was peacefully preparing dinner. The woman had been completely unaware of the events of the day because she had fallen asleep in the early afternoon and had woken up just to start preparing dinner. She directed herself on the balcony to have a better look at the street from where the strange metallic noise had come. When she opened the balcony’s door and looked in front of her what she saw was at first impossible to accept. The dangling right tit of Elsa and the left one of Carol covered the view of the park Mrs. Kimki was used to look at while smoking a cigarette in the fresh summer evenings. She got as closer as she could to better understand what was that stuff. Holding the handrail like in fear of falling she discovered the tits to be attached to two giant bodies. She looked down on the road at the feet as long as school buses and up at the throats and chins of the giant women. And without thinking too much the only reaction her body could perform was a loud scream of terror.

The giantesses were mesmerized by Arthur’s dining room exploration. But the scream awakened them. They both looked for the origin and immediately found it to be Mrs. Kimki on the balcony below. Without hesitation Carol grabbed the woman in an attempt to silence her immediately. Arthur was terrified by the screams of the woman and was running back to his mother. Carol kept intimating the woman to shut up. But there seemed to be more than one communication problem within the two of them.
“Make she stop!” Elsa ordered “Before she call out all the neighborhood!”
Carol looked at her upset for the tone and also because the woman in her hand had no ears for the giantess shushing her. Arthur was hugging his mother finger in fear of having been caught while stealing in a stranger’s house. Mrs. Kimki seemed to stop for a moment and Carol looked directly at her.
“Ok, good! Now shut the f*ck up!” The giantess commanded with her most imperative voice.
The woman didn’t understand any word very well and even more terrified now from the direct look of the giantess on her, started screaming again louder and louder. Carol was in complete panic and did the first thing she thought of. She tossed Mrs. Kimki into her mouth and closed her lips. Elsa looked in total disbelief at Carol, still able to hear the little woman’s screams behind the other giantess’ lips.
Elsa whispered “What the hell! What are you doing?” Carol looked back with complete confusion on her face.
The younger giantess opened her mouth and Elsa could see Mrs. Kimki holding for her dear life on Carol’s tongue tip and screaming even louder. Carol immediately closed her mouth again and pushed the little woman on one of her cheeks. She looked at Elsa desperately seeking instructions. Elsa made a sign with the hands to wait and turned to Arthur. The boy was even more confused and scared than before.
Elsa tried to calm him too. “Artie! Listen to me! You have to take that honey jar over there and bring it to me. It’s the only way to be safe again.” Arthur looked at his mother but didn’t seem to understand. He felt he was on the brink of tears. Elsa grasped that from his expression and tried to calm her son. She came up with the only left idea she had. She started humming.

During the years, it had always been only her and Arthur. Her parents lived far away and for as helpful as they had been financially, they were not there when it was time to change diapers or buy clothes and groceries or at school meetings. Her former husband lasted less than two years as a father, before abandoning job and family to travel the world as a photographer. Elsa didn’t need much help for the most part. On the contrary, Arthur was her safe harbor. But there had been nights when also Artie, the sweetest child on Earth, had behaved like the child he was, inconsolably crying or having a tantrum. But after many failed experiments, Elsa found the magic trick. She loved humming songs in general, especially cheesy pop songs. Once she wanted to console him and while thinking if the job fitted best to Mr. Whisker the stuffed bunny or the Olmo the colorful ball, she was humming the Smash Mouth. The celestial melody somehow hit something deep down the five years old desperately crying boy and ended slowly but steadily his sorrow. Since then, that humming had become not only a recurrent solution for the most desperate of situations, but also something like a secret call the mother and the son exchanged between each other to express reciprocal love, approval and the promise to never let down one another. So, for the disbelief of Carol, and also of Mrs. Kimki, which could hear it from her flesh and teeth prison, Elsa started humming to the note of “… the world was gonna roll me, I’m not the smartest tool in the shed ...”.

And it worked. Arthur could distinguish those notes whatever the instrument used. And even if enormously distorted by the size, her mother’s humming was the official recall to calm down and brighten up. He looked at his mother, now smiling at him and still humming, and nodded in sign of understanding. This time, with no fear in the heart, he proceeded toward the basket on the table and held the jar in his hands both like some kind of ancient relic and a well deserved trophy. Elsa could not contain her enthusiasm and exclaimed a childish “Yay!”. But was immediately interrupted by the most disturbing sound she could expect in that moment. A gulp.