"That'll be forty-five dollars, please," the cashier said after scanning a woman's product standing in front of Melody in line at the department store checkout.

"Of course," The woman smiled, took out a wrinkled five-pound note from her wallet, and handed it to the cashier. She looked slightly annoyed over her shoulder when her ten-year-old daughter tugged at her dress hem.

"The ribbons too, please, mom." The girl waved with a box in her hand. "Leo says he likes the colors."

Melody's eyes drifted off to the other hand of the girl, dangling next to her body. There, she saw a teeny figure – roughly the size of her son – tightly trapped in a fist. Melody pitied him as she saw him hanging there in a horizontal position, which must have been relatively uncomfortable.

"Not now, Eliza," the woman replied.

"But you promised!" Eliza stomped her foot in a tempered outburst.

"Hey! Do I need to ground you again?" The mother scowled down at her daughter. "Stop this foolishness at once!"

Eliza jutted her arm out, punching her fist – containing the little figure – nearly in her mother's face. "But he wants it too, mom!" Eliza whined.

All Melody could hear were squeaky yells of protest coming from the tiny boy. He clearly did not concur with what his giant sister was telling their mother.

All cranky, the mother conjured a glass jar out of her pocket. "You want to take care of them? Huh? Do you, Eliza? You know what a chore that is?" Her hand – holding the jar – trembled in front of the girl's face.

Eliza shook her head fiercely. "I want to take care of Rob! Not of a bunch of lice people!" The girl's lips twitched with disgust.

"Mark your words, young lady! This is your family!" The mother replied, pointing at the jar containing several dots teeming about.

"Was my family! Now they're just lice-people." The little girl scowled while crossing her arms defiantly.

Melody could not believe her eyes. Here she saw a mother and a daughter discussing their family members as if they were pests. All because fate had chosen them to be shrunken down to the pitiful size they were now.

These specks were too tiny for Melody to discern their movement properly.

She envisaged them shaking with terror and prostrating themselves in front of the immense female visage that was taking up their whole field of vision beyond the glass.

While having this thought, Melody's attention jerked right back to her husband. She'd forgotten all about him. The last time she checked him, he was prostrating to her on her shoulder like she was some divinity.

"Fuck!" Melody said out loud – reaping startled faces from people around – when she could not see his pitiful existence on her shoulder. She frantically searched the rest of her body, groping about her clothing. Perhaps he fell off and was dangling now for dear life on some loose hanging thread.

"You've lost something, miss?" The cashier asked.

"Yes, my husband," she said. Melody dropped everything she held in her arms and rushed off to the parking lot.

She stepped in her car, started the engine, and drove home. The last time she recalled seeing her husband was at home just prior to her conversation with her daughter.

Melody was taken aback as she opened the front door. Her glare stopped at the floor, where they wandered from the hallway of the house to the living area further inside, where she was confronted with a raunchy disarray that was so chaotic it could have rivaled a pigsty. There were muddy footprints everywhere!

There could be only one who could have done this.

"Miley!" Melody screeched as her boots clattered on the tiled floor. "Miley! Come down here, this instance! Miley!" she yelled while peering upwards through the staircase hole. Julie showed up, coming out of her room.

"Where is your sister?" Melody asked.

Julie shrugged. "I haven't seen her since I got back from school."

"Are you alone?"

Julie shook her head. "Milena is in her room."

"Tell her to come down. No, wait, I'll go to her instead." All fired up; Melody stomped up the stairs. Julie quickly stepped to the side upon seeing the fierceness in her mother's eyes.

Someone is going to get a severe dressing-down. Julie thought as her mother scuttled past her. I'm glad it's not me.

"Follow her," The squeaky voice of Julie's shrunken brother standing on her shoulder spoke in her ear.

"While she's like this? Are you crazy?" Julie replied, peeking at her minuscule brother standing on her shoulder.

"Please, I'm yearning to see this," Lennard said. Julie looked reluctant still.

"I will tickle your feet for two straight hours if you do," Lennard added. That convinced Julie.

Melody did not take the trouble of knocking. She simply barged in by slamming the door open. It clanged against Milena's closet.

Milena leaped up from her bed. "What the hell, mom?! Where is the fire?"

"Come here!" Melody screeched, pointing her finger.

"But–"

"Now!" Melody screeched harder, whipping Milena into action. "Did you know about this?" Melody pointed at the messy floor.

Milena had an angry expression on her face. "It was Miley and her companions who caused all the mess - they came blustering in, tracking mud everywhere and turning the house into a complete disaster."

"I know it was Miley! But you saw it all happening, didn't you? What did you do about it?" Melody said, crossing her arms, awaiting an answer.

"What?! Why are you assigning this to me, mom? I just stated that it was Miley who caused this!"

"But you're the oldest in the house. The one who bears the responsibility when I'm not home. You should have stepped in."

"I did step in, mom! I told her to clean it all up."

"And yet, the mess is still here," Melody replied.

"What do you expect me to do, mom? Do you want me to forcibly pull Miley around by her hair and use it as a cleaning tool?"

"I want you to act like a grown-up for once."

Milena snorted. "Like you? With your lack of control over your emotions. You're sniffing through your nose like an amped-up pig over mud."

SMACK!

"That. Was. Epic." Lennard's squeaky voice spoke in Julie's ear after seeing their mother's open hand swinging wide to clatter hard on Milena's cheek. He found the look on the latter's face priceless.

"Where is your father?" Melody looked about on the floor. "I think I've lost him here somewhere."

"He's on my desk worshipping my bra," Milena squeezed through her teeth while rubbing the painful spot on her cheek.

Melody looked at her daughter, startled. "He's worshipping what?"

"My bra, mom! Are you deaf?!" Milena stared daggers.

Melody considered giving her daughter a corrective smack on the other cheek but thought better of it and entered Milena's room. She walked up to her daughter's desk. There, she sank on her haunches and zeroed in on the crumb-sized figure teeming about at Milena's black bra. She caught sight of her husband and was filled with dismay. Her husband was indeed venerating Milena's black bra. Just like she said.

"Have you forced him to do this?" Melody asked as Milena walked up to them, taking a seat on a chair. "Because if you did-"

"Of course not!" Milena snapped sharply. "He's doing this all by himself. Ask Lennard if you're in doubt."

Melody placed a finger on the table, presenting a long nail as a big spoon to her pitiful-sized husband. "Roland, are you coming? It's me,"

Melody noticed her spouse pausing his adoration rites for a bit before resuming them. As gently as possible, Melody moved her finger closer. Her crumb-sized husband stopped. Only this time, he stood up and scurried away from her while at the same time moving closer to his daughter – whose face was looming over the desk also.

Melody eyed Milena and noticed an almost imperceptible smirk forming on her lips.

"I'll take him!" Melody reached out and scooped up her unwilling husband in the nail of her finger.

Milena shrugged. "But I'm still his Goddess." She smiled mischievously at her mother.

"But you won't stay that." Melody rose to her feet and was about to leave Milena's bedroom when a disorienting sensation rushed from her core to her skull, harshly overbearing her with a wave of lightheadedness. She knew what it meant even before it happened. She was going to shrink. Her glare kept plastered at the door as she saw the thing rising higher and higher until it appeared like a monumental door Jack Spriggins must have witnessed when he climbed the beanstalk and stumbled upon a gigantic creature living up in the clouds.

After climbing out of the mountain of her clothes, standing atop on it naked, Melody pivoted carefully and felt her throat tighten as she beheld the tremendous size of Milena, who was gloatingly staring down at her with a gleam of joy in her eyes.