Over the next half hour, Natalie and Julia relaxed on the couch: enjoying their movie, laughing at the humorous situations, and occasionally taking small bites of reheated casserole from their respective bowls. Natalie, in particular, was thoroughly enjoying herself, finally taking her sister’s advise to decompress and ease her mind. It felt so good to just kick back and let her worries go for the night like her sister had suggested, knowing that there was nothing she could do about her son’s current situation until the next morning. All she had to worry about at the moment was the situational comedy on the TV, and scratching a tiny, persistent itch on the bottom of her foot.

     Meanwhile, Tim was still struggling to pry himself off his mother’s sole. He’d managed to free his arms and head, but despite his best efforts, he couldn’t dislodge the rest of his torso nor his legs from his mothers flesh, as the mixture of sticky floor residue, sweat, and tattered remains of his makeshift toga all combined to form a gooey paste which firmly adhered him to the underside of her foot. In desperation, he constantly pounded and scratched at his mother’s sole, hoping she’d inspect her foot and spot him, but his mother had yet to give so much as a fleeting glimpse.

     His efforts, however, hadn’t gone completely unnoticed: Tim’s constant squirming was causing his mother’s sole to itch, and Natalie would occasionally reach down to scratch the underside of her foot with her massive fingers. Each time she did, her tiny son would scream hysterically, watching in terror as his mother’s sharp fingernails kept inching closer and closer to his body with each subsequent scratch, threatening to slice him in half in a split second. To make matters worse, her fingers proved too far away for the tiny teenager to reach out and touch, and the closest they came was just within range for Tim to brush his hands unnoticeably against one of his mother’s fingernails.

     Tim wasn’t deterred, however, and refocused his energy to work himself free from his mother’s foot, opting to save trying to contact her until he wasn’t plastered to her sole.

     Natalie started feeling thirsty. She hadn’t touched her wine since Julia topped off their glasses and set them down on the coffee table earlier. She slowly leaned forward and reached for her glass, hoping she could grab it without having to get up, but it was too far out of reach. Dying for a satisfying sip of wine, Natalie uttered a frustrated sigh, set her bowl down on the couch cushion next to her, and uncrossed her legs as she lowered her feet to the floor…

     “Whoa!” Tim exclaimed as he suddenly felt his mother shifting above him. Her foot raised up slightly, then began lowering itself to the floor.

     “OH, NO! MOM! WAIrmpf—!”

     “Uhn,” Natalie groaned as she put her feet on the floor and stretched out her right arm to grab her glass of wine; unfortunately, she quickly realized that to grab it without making a mess, she would have to stand up…

     Tim screamed in agony as the weight on his mother’s foot increased dramatically, pressing him into the floor and threatening to pop him like a grape…

     Now that she was on her feet, Natalie moaned and took the opportunity to stretch out her arms and body. She’d been sitting for a while now, and her left leg had developed a slight cramp from being sat on for so long.

     “You okay, sis?” Julia inquired with a chortle.

     “Yeah,” Natalie replied, flexing and shaking her left leg out beside her for a moment. “I was just trying to get my wine glass…and then my leg started cramping.”

     “You need me to massage it for ya?” Julia offered jokingly.

     “Don’t laugh, or I might just take you up on that offer,” Natalie chuckled.

     “I know,” Julia joked, chortling. “Maybe we could get Tim rub it for you? Like I said, he’s become quite resourceful, despite his size.”

     “I’ll be fine, Jules,” Natalie replied suspiciously, shooting her sister a look of annoyance. “Thanks.”

     “Hmph, suit yourself,” Julia shrugged, “but you don’t know what you’re missing.”

     “Uh huh,” Natalie uttered with discontent, leaning over to pick up her wine glass, “Jules, I’d better not be hearing anything about you forcing Tim to give you foot rubs again.”

     “Okay, Nat…” Julia chortled, sloughing off her sister’s warning. “…you won’t hear about it.”

     “I’m not kidding, Jules!” Natalie repeated staunchly, pointing her finger, “I told you earlier: Tim’s had way too many close calls this week as it is, and I don’t want us taking any unnecessary risks…especially when I’m so close to curing him! Now, we’ve got less than 24 hours left before this whole shrinking mess’ll finally be over, and the last thing I need is for you and your big, stupid feet to screw things up now!”

     “Alright, sis, I’m sorry!” Julia replied defensively. “Geez, lighten up, would ya?! I was only kidding…and would you please stop making snide remarks about my feet?!”

     “I will when you learn to keep ‘em to yourself!” Natalie retorted smartly, “Now, I mean it, Jules: no….more….foot rubs! You got it?!”

     “Yeah, I got it, Nat!” Julia replied indirectly.

     “Good,” Natalie nodded her head, handing Julia her glass. “Now, hold this a sec while I make myself comfortable…”

     The pain was unbearable: Tim’s mother had been standing on top of him for what felt like forever, and every time she shifted her weight onto her right foot, he would scream in agony as the pressure on his tiny body increased exponentially.

     There were a couple of times when Tim felt the pressure on him lessen, and thought he might finally be in the clear…but they were only fleeting reprieves where his mother merely readjusted her stance, her foot stepping back down onto the floor a second later.

     Tim felt his strength waning, and the frustration towards his mother’s inattentiveness steadily growing:

     How could mom be so oblivious?! he wondered. With how many times she’s reached down to scratch her sole, you’d think she’d have discovered me by NOW…or at least glanced at her foot to see what was causing her itch?

     “For fuck’s same, mom!” his mind implored her, as if trying to somehow contact her telepathically. ”Would you please sit down already?!”

     After handing off her wine glass to Julia, Natalie took a few moments to fix the couch cushions and shift them back into place, placing her knee on the couch to fluff up the ones on the backrest…

     After nearly a minute of continuous, excruciating torture, the pressure finally subsided…

     A split second later, Tim suddenly felt himself being jerked upwards. By the time he was stationary again…Tim realized he was upside down. Unfortunately, he couldn’t see anything: all the pressure his mother’s foot had applied from her standing on the floor for so long had firmly re-adhered his tiny body back to her sole, burying his face into her flesh again. Tim immediately resumed squirming, wondering if his mother might have finally felt his presence on her foot, but he honestly couldn’t tell whether his mother was inspecting her sole because she realized he was there, or if she was just getting a better angle to scratch the bottom of her foot. All Tim hoped what his mom spotted him before he was sliced in twain by her fingernails…

     With the couch cushions back in order, Natalie retrieved her bowl of casserole from the coffee table and took her seat again; this time, swinging her right leg beneath her as she sat back down…

     “Wrmmmm…!” Tim exclaimed as he felt his mother’s foot feeling his flying through the air.

     “…MMphf!” he cried out again as he came to an abrupt stop.

     “Mmh,” Natalie sighed at she collapsed onto the sofa, setting her bowl down on the couch cushion abutting her upturned foot, unknowingly concealing Tim’s presence from both herself and Julia, who most likely would’ve noticed her tiny nephew had she been staring at her sister’s sole, nor holding Natalie’s wine glass which was partially blocking her view of Natalie’s foot as she shuffled and shifted about.

     “Comfy?” Julia inquired with a chortle, watching her sister shifting in her seat.

     “Yeah, getting there,” Natalie chortled back as she put a throw pillow behind her back.

     “Ah,” Natalie sighed contently, “that’s better.”

     “Good,” Julia replied, handing her sister back her wine glass and gesturing to the TV with her head. “You want me to rewind a bit?”

     “Please,” Natalie acknowledged as she accepted her glass, taking a much needed drink of her wine. “Just the start this scene over, would you? I was so distracted, I hardly paid any attention.”

     “Sure, no prob,” Julia chortled, grabbing the remote from the coffee table.

     While Julia fiddled with the remote, Natalie set her wine glass down on the corner of the coffee table and picked up her bowl, taking one last bite of her casserole before setting it back down next to her again and retrieving her wine glass. Although Julia’s attention was centered on the TV, for a brief moment, out of the corner of her eye, she spotted something on the underside of her sister’s bare foot just before Natalie set her bowl back down next to her, obstructing Julia’s view once again. Before Julia could vocalize or investigate any further, her sister interrupted her train of thought:

     “Yeah, this is good,” Natalie spoke up about the movie scene. “I kinda missed it the first time.”

     “Huh…?” Julia uttered, her mind snapping back to the present. “…oh…yeah, me too.”

     “…You okay, Jules?” Natalie inquired, slightly confused by her sister’s response.

     “Oh…yeah,” Julia replied with a shrug, setting the remote back down on the couch cushion in front of her. “Sorry, I….just got….distracted, that’s all.”

     Julia pushed the recent thought out of her mind, and both women shifted their attention back to the movie.

     After a few more seconds of shifting around, his mother’s foot had finally stopped moving…

     Tim could tell his orientation had changed again: this time, it felt like he was lying on his left side. Thankfully, despite Natalie’s recent actions which had re-adhered Tim to her sole again, the impact of her foot with the couch cushion had loosened its grip on the tiny teenager’s body; after several more agonizing minutes of shifting, wriggling, and tugging, he finally managed to free not only has arms and head, but the rest of his body from his mother’s flesh.

     “Uhn…Oof!” Tim uttered as he pushed his body the rest of the way mother’s sole, landing on the couch cushion a moment later. He slowly brushed himself off and staggered to his feet, surveying his surroundings:

     Tim found himself shrouded in the shadow of a large protrusion extending out overhead, stopping just shy of his mothers foot. As he looked up through the semi-narrow opening, he could just barely make out his mother as she sipped wine from her glass, her attention apparently on the TV off to her right.

     “Mom!” Tim called up, cupping his hands over his mouth. “MOM!”

     Unfortunately, Natalie didn’t give any inclination she’d heard him. Tim stumbled along the cushion and moved towards the ball of his mothers foot, trying to get out from under the rounded ceiling above and find a better vantage point. He emerged into the light a few seconds later, waving and jumping up and down, attempting to get his giant woman’s attention again:

     “MOM!” Tim shouted up, “Hey, mom! Down here!”

     Alas, Natalie couldn’t hear her tiny son over the volume of the movie. Still receiving no response, Tim frantically looked around for another option, his eyes soon alighting on his mother’s foot…

     “Mom’s toes!” Tim said aloud, almost tumbling forward into the indentation his mother’s foot was making in the cushion. “Perfect! All I have to do touch mom’s toes; she’ll feel me for sure!”

     Tim scrambled towards his mother’s toes, reaching out to grab her pinky toe once he was close enough…

     Tim hesitated. He apprehensively looked back at the bowl behind him, gritting his teeth and nervously biting his lip as he suddenly remembered who was sitting behind it. Tim immediately scrambled over and crept around the underside of the bowl, staying under the lip until the other side of the couch came into view:

     Sure enough, there was Aunt Julia’s giant figure sitting nonchalantly on the other side of the couch.

     Tim slunk back out of sight, taking several deep breaths to center himself as he contemplated his situation:

     If he got his mother’s attention now, Aunt Julia could easily snatch him up and ferry him away before he could say anything…he’d be right back in his cage…or worse. He’d just spent the last half-hour stuck to the bottom of his mothers foot; he certainly wasn’t ready to be stuck under Aunt Julia’s again. Of course, that was if Aunt Julia didn’t follow through with her threat to squash him.

     “But she was just bluffing,” Tim reassured himself quietly. “Even with everything she’s done to me this week, it was just an empty threat. Aunt Julia wouldn’t actually…”

     Tim’s voice trailed off. He took another quick peek back at his aunt sitting on the couch.

     “…would she?” Tim gulped nervously.

    “No, she’d never get away with it,” Tim reasoned. “Mom’d kill her. Besides, she wouldn’t try anything with mom literally sitting right there…”

     “…She wouldn’t have to,” he sighed dejectedly. “All she’d have to do is claim she was taking me back to my cage and making it so I couldn’t get out this time…then, I’m as good as taped to her sole again.”

     Tim looked back towards his mothers foot. He’d been trying to talk to his mother all evening, and now that he finally had the chance, was he really going to pass up this opportunity?

     “No!” Tim uttered assuredly, standing up straight, and turning to face his mother’s foot. “I’m not letting Aunt Julia torment me anymore. I’ll MAKE mom listen, and I won’t rest until she does!”

     Tim marched over to the edge of the bowl’s shadow and peered out under the rim: his mother’s attention was still focused on the television. He nodded his head assuredly, took a deep breath, and…

     Tim found himself unable to move; he still couldn’t overcome his body’s innate sense of self-preservation. Even though his mind kept saying to screw his aunt’s threats and contact his mother right now while he had the chance, his heart wasn’t ready for his body to be squished.

     Tim clenched his fists in frustration. Why was this so damn complicated?! he fumed. If only that giant bitch weren’t sitting…

     Tim snapped to attention; he suddenly came to an obvious solution:

     All he had to do was just wait until Aunt Julia wasn’t sitting nearby to contact his mother; she wasn’t going anywhere at the moment. He only needed a moment when Aunt Julia went to the kitchen—or to the bathroom, even better. He knew there was a risk in waiting, but at the moment, he felt his best option was to stay out of sight and wait for an opening.

     As Tim started backing further underneath the bowl, a familiar aroma suddenly wafted into his nose: it was the first thing besides feet he’d smelled for the last half hour…

     It was the smell of food—Mrs. Peterson’s casserole, to be precise. Tim remembered the aroma from the small amount Aunt Julia had brought to his cage earlier, and it was making his tiny stomach rumble. For the first time that entire day, Tim actually found his appetite, and it was voracious.

     The only issue was how he could get a bite to eat without Aunt Julia nor his mother noticing. Once again, Tim found himself in the middle of a decision that could’ve easily been rendered moot if he’d just stop being so stubborn and contact his mother like he knew he should have in the first place. Alas, against his better judgment, and although his mind told him he would ultimately regret it, Tim decided to stick to his plan: wait to contact his mother until Aunt Julia left the room.

     Tim took a quick look up to make sure the coast was clear, then jumped and grabbed the rim of the bowl, eventually pulling himself up and rolling onto the lip. His head shot back and forth, shifting his gaze between each of his giant relatives to see if either had noticed him; both their attentions, however, hadn’t wavered from the TV screen. The tiny teenager crawled across the lip of the bowl, then carefully slid downwards into the basin, scurrying closer to the pile of food on the opposite side of his mother’s plate while doing his best to stay low and out of Aunt Julia’s sight line. 

     The huge mound of casserole was only lukewarm by the time Tim reached it, but it still smelled quite delicious, and he was regretting not eating any of that small portion his aunt had left in his cage earlier. Tim took a huge, satisfying whiff of the casserole; then, he dug in his hands pulled out a handful of meat, and began heartily chomping away. The salty meat tasted so good coated in the creamy sauce that dripped down his hands, and Tim closed his eyes, chewing slowly to savor each delectable bite.

     His appetite was so voracious that even after downing the whole nugget of meat, Tim wanted more. He dug into the pile of food in front of him, pushing aside huge strands of noodles and taking tiny bites from smaller scraps of beef as he searched for his next ingot…

     He soon found his treasure, but it was wedged in pretty good. Tim pushed his body in a little further, standing on his tiptoes and shoving his hands around the chunk of meat to begin working it free...

     “Hey sis,” Julia spoke up, rocking forward from her reclined position against the couch’s armrest.

     “Hm?” Natalie uttered, turning her head to her sister.

     “Pause it for a second, will ya?” motioning to the remote on the middle cushion as she reached over to the coffee table to grab her empty wine glass. “I wanna freshen up my wine and use the restroom real quick.”

     “Huh?” Natalie uttered as she looked down at the cushion on the other side of her bowl where Julia was motioning. “Oh…sure.”

     Natalie quickly reached down and grabbed the remote…as she pulled it back up, however, her hand accidentally knocked against the lip of her bowl.

     “Whoops…!” Natalie cried out as her bowl lifted up slightly, then dropped back down onto the couch cushion, her fork clinking along the inside.

     The sudden jostling disrupted the stability of the food in the bowl, toppling over the casserole mound in which Tim was currently submerged. With a surprised squeak, the tiny teenager disappeared beneath an avalanche of noodles, meat, and sauce.

     “Whew,” Natalie sighed with relief, “that was close. Almost made a mess.”

     “You want me to take that outta your way?” Julia inquired, motioning to Natalie’s bowl.

     “Yeah, I think I’m done…” Natalie answered, picking up her bowl and gripping the fork with her thumb to stabilize it…

     “…Eh, maybe just one more bite.” she reconsidered, pulling the bowl closer and picking up her fork…

     Tim struggled to unbury himself from the mountain of casserole currently on top of him, but he could barely move. With all the weight pushing down on him, his arms were pinned out in front of him, and he couldn’t move his legs more than just a few millimeters. 

     “Hlmpfmn…” he cried out, trying to expel the food that kept intruding on his mouth. “Help…AMpf!”

      The whole mountain of food suddenly shifted again, burying Tim’s face in a massive noodle that quickly wrapped itself around his head and upper torso. He tried shouting for help again, but with the soft, mushy noodle invading every facial orifice, he could barely breathe, let alone muster the air necessary to scream.

     Suddenly, the weight on top of him intensified, and everything around him started to shift about. The next thing Tim knew, he was being flipped end over end, turning upside down over and over again…

     “Oh, Jules,” Natalie added as she folded the mound of casserole over on itself with her fork a few times to mix it up, “while you’re up, would you mind looking in on Tim? I’m sure his movie’s over by now.”

     “Sure, sis,” Julia replied with a wide grin, “No problem.”

     “Thanks”, Natalie grinned back with a nod of acknowledgement as she scraped her fork along the bottom of her bowl and scooped up one last sizable bite…

     Tim could feel himself suffocating. He struggled desperately to remove the noodle from his face, but he was completely disoriented from all the flipping and shifting upside down. He couldn’t tell exactly what was happening outside, but he distinctly recognized the sensation of being hoisted into the air.

     “Hlmnmf…” Tim shouted with futility through the wet noodle, struggling to free an arm, or a leg, or anything else that could use to pry it from his face. “mrm…hlmmn…”

     Natalie raised the scoop of casserole up to her mouth and slowly parted her lips. Her tongue welcomed the incoming fork, gently cradling the utensil as her lips daintily closed around it. When she slowly pulled it out a second later, her bite was completely gone.

     “Mpf, I’m done,” Natalie said as she chewed her last bite, passing her bowl to her sister.

     “OK,” Julia replied as she grabbed her own fork and stacked her sister’s bowl on top of her’s.

     “I’ll just dump the rest of this into the garbage disposal,” she said as she picked up her nearly empty wine glass from the coffee table and started off towards the kitchen.

     “Oh, actually, Jules, could you just to scrape it off into the trash?” Natalie spoke up as she continued chewing her last bite.

     “Why?!” Julia asked in confusion, stopping in her tracks as she turned to look back at her sister. “That’s what garbage disposals are for.”

     “I know…” Natalie explained as she swallowed, taking a second to tap her chest as something in her last bite irritated her throat on its way down. “Mpf…but I don’t like putting greasy stuff down the drain.”

     “But I just took the garbage out yesterday,” Julia argued. “That means it’ll be sitting in the trash can all week. What if it starts to smell?”

     “It’ll be fine,” Natalie rebutted. “It’s not that much.”

     “Alright, whatever,” Julia sighed, rolling her eyes as she continued on into the kitchen.

     “Honestly, I don’t see what the big deal is,” Julia grumbled to herself as she walked through into the kitchen, setting her wine glass down on the counter as she passed by on her way to the nook where the trash can sat. “If it’s not that much, I don’t see why I can’t just put it down the garbage disposal?

     “But…whatever.” Julia sighed again as she gathered up the forks and stepped up to the trash can, pressing her bare foot to the pedal to flip open the lid…

     Tim had been shouting muffled cries for help for the past minute or so, the wet noodle still wrapped around his head. He still couldn’t tell what was happening outside his casserole prison, but he’d been able to feel the deep reverberations from someone’s giant footsteps carrying him to his unknown destination.

     “Hlmpf…Hlmpf…!”

     The tiny teenager kept shouting for help, struggling to move his body, but his air was running thin, and he was on the verge of passing out…

     Then, gravity unexpectedly shifted; everything suddenly tilted to one side. The entire mound of food moved abruptly, and Tim realized he was falling. He screamed in terror as he descended, still blindfolded by the wet noodle wrapped around his upper body.

     “Mmpf!” Tim cried out as he landed a second later in what felt like plastic net.

     Before he could recover, there was a loud, clanging sound that resonated above him…

     Julia scraped the leftover remnants of casserole from Natalie’s bowl into the trash can and removed her foot from the pedal, letting the lid slam shut; then, she walked back to the sink to quickly rinse off the dishes, leaving them in the basin as she went to the fridge to grab the now over half-empty bottle of wine before retrieving her glass and heading back into the living room.

     “Alright,” Julia said to Natalie as she quickly stepped over to the coffee table and set down the bottle of wine and her glass. “Would you mind topping me off while I pee, sis?”

     “Sure,” Natalie chortled as she moved to grab the bottle of wine. “Just don’t forget to check in on Tim on your way back.”

     “I won’t forget, sis,” Julia dismissed with an offhanded wave of her hand as she strolled through the living room. “Would you relax? I’m sure he’s fine….

     “.…right where I left him,” Julia added under her breath after she stepped into the hallway.

     Tim frantically clawed at the noodle covering his face, digging his fingers into the soft, wet surface to clear his mouth…the moment he’d finally made a hole, Tim gasped a huge breath of air, coughing to clear the stray noodle pieces from his throat.

     As he struggled to catch his breath, he continued wiping and rubbing the noodle remnants away from his eyes…

     Tim kept blinking and wiping, but strangely, even when the starchy substance had been completely cleared from his eyes, he could only see blackness.

     Tim was confused: he should’ve been able to see at that point, but wherever he was was completely dark.

     His other senses seemed to be working just fine, however: it was all quiet, except for the sounds of him moving and shifting about, and his entire body felt greasy and slimy from the casserole sauce. But what really tipped Tim off as to where he was was the odor: he was most definitely in the trash. Thankfully, the stench wasn’t that bad, as Aunt Julia had just taken out the trash the day prior, but that also meant that the trash bag was mostly empty; for Tim to get out, he’d once again either have to wait for someone to open the trash can again—and hope they saw him (hopefully, not Aunt Julia)—or start another long climb.

     “HELLO?!” Tim shouted up in futility on the remote chance someone was in the kitchen and could even hear him. “MOM?! CAN ANYONE HEAR ME?! I’M IN THE TRASHCAN! LOOK IN THE TRASHCAN!”

     “Ugh, great,” Tim uttered in frustration and disgust as he moved onto his hands and knees and began blindly crawling towards the side of the trash bag. “This has been worst week of my life! I swear, if I ever get big again, I’m never going snooping in mom’s hiding place in the back of the fridge ever again.”

     Like a video game character who’d just lost a life and was forced to start a level all over again, Tim once again found himself in the bottom of a huge, dark container, forced to scale the walls to climb out, only this time, he’d have to do it in utter darkness and on a rather unstable surface, relying solely on his other senses to find the incline and start climbing.

     “Perfect,” Tim sighed sarcastically as he dug his hands into the sides of the trash bag and slowly started climbing upwards. “First the laundry hamper, now the trash can…Why couldn’t Aunt Julia have tossed me into one of these stupid things when it was full?!”

     As soon as she was done peeing, Julia flushed the toilet, hurriedly ran to the sink to wash and dry her hands, then eagerly stepped over and opened the door to the master bedroom. She positioned herself over the laundry hamper, grinning arrogantly at the closed lid….and the thought of her little nephew still trapped inside.

     “Enjoying your evening, Tiny Tim?” She taunted playfully, chuckling as she opened the lid and peered inside.

     Julia’s smile quickly dissolved: the hamper had been stuffed with more clothes than when she’d left it earlier.

    “Oh, shit!” Julie exclaimed quietly as she grabbed the her sister’s bathrobe and quickly pulled it out of the hamper, anxiously scanning the interior of the hamper. “Tim?!”

    She frantically stared inspecting and shaking out the bathrobe in her arms in case he’d been tangled up in it, and checked the floor around her feet for her nephew’s tiny form.

     “Tim, where are you?!” Julia called again softly, tossing aside the bathrobe and digging through the rest of the clothes in the hamper, searching for any sign of the tiny teenager; unfortunately, it was hard to tell where he was with all the extra clothes that had been stuffed inside, and Julia only grew more concerned and frustrated as she dug towards the bottom.

     “There’s no way…” she affirmed aloud to herself, “There’s no way he could’ve gotten out. Unless…”

     Julia dropped to her hands and began inspecting the sides of the hamper near the floor, maneuvering it away from the wall as she looked for any holes large enough for her tiny nephew to fit through.

     “No holes…” she confirmed aloud, inspecting the wicker mesh to see if it was possible Tim could’ve forced it apart, “…well, at least none he could’ve fit through.”

     “Damn it, Tim, where are you?!” Julia called again in frustration, lightly pounding her fists into the floor as she quickly rose to her feet and started scouring the hamper again.

     Alas, there was no sign of her tiny nephew, nor any evidence he’d escaped.

     “Alright, don’t panic,” Julia reasoned aloud, trying to logically work through the situation. “Now, there’s no way Tim could’ve gotten out of this thing on his own…but if he did somehow get out….it had to have been when Natalie put all these extra clothes in here, and she would’ve said something if she’d found him…

     “…Naw, he’s gotta still be in here,” she continued, scanning the hamper with her eyes, “but if he was, I surely would’ve found him by now!”

     Julia’s gaze fell back upon the pink bathrobe she’d tossed aside a few moments ago. She quickly stepped back over and reinspected it, picking it up off the floor and looking at the carpet that was beneath it.

     Julia bit her lip anxiously, forcing herself to think quickly as to Tim’s possible and most logical whereabouts. She dropped to the floor again, peeking under the bed on the off-chance he was taking shelter there…

     “Nothing,” Julia sighed with disappointment, sitting up on her knees. “Well, if he did somehow manage to get out of the hamper….

     “ ….he’ll head straight for his mom,” she induced, scrambling to her feet. “I’d better get back before he gets to her.”

     Julia hurriedly gathered up the clothes she’d tossed on the floor and quickly stuffed them back into the hamper, quietly closing the lid when she was finished.

     “Hmph,” she uttered, tapping devilishly on the hamper lid as she spoke, “well, if you ARE still in there, Tiny Tim, let’s hope you don’t suffocate under all those extra clothes…”

     “…And if you’re NOT in there…” she continued with a fiendish chortle, “…well, you’d better hope I don’t step on ya!”

     Julia stepped around the hamper, giving it a swift, playful kick with the side of her foot before heading out of the bedroom. Then, she made a quick stop in Tim’s bedroom, reaching into his cage to start another movie on his phone, just to help cover her tracks in case Natalie happened to walk by; finally, she re-covered the cage, closed the bedroom door, and headed back down the hall towards the living room, casually scanning the floor, keeping her eyes peeled for her tiny nephew.

     Julia considered calling out like she was pretending to say goodbye to Tim as she left his bedroom, but on the off-chance he’d somehow already made it to and contacted his mother, she didn’t want to expose herself nor her subterfuge, opting to retain the ability to feign ignorance and maintain her innocence.

     “Hey,” Natalie called out from her comfortable position on the couch, her wine glass in her hand as Julia stepped back into the living room.

     “Hey,” Julia mimicked with a sigh, trying to casually scan the living room floor while not letting on that anything was wrong.

     “I….topped off your wine for ya,” Natalie continued, her words carrying a suspicious tone as she noticed her sister’s awkward behavior and her attention to the floor.

     “Oh…Thanks,” Julia replied, rounding the coffee table at a wide enough angle to see beneath it.

     “Uh…is everything okay?” Natalie inquired.

     “Huh…yeah, everything’s fine,” Julia replied quickly.

     “Good…Did you check in on Tim like I asked?”

     “…Yeah, he’s good,” Julia lied, although trying to remain coy as she motioned to the back of the house with her thumb. “Right where I left him. In fact, I…just put on another movie for him.”

     “Okay…so….why were you looking at the floor just now?” Natalie inquired quizzically.

     “Oh…sorry, force of habit,” Julia replied with a nervous laugh, heading to sit down on the couch. “I’ve….kinda had to make some behavioral adjustments this past week…can’t be too careful, you know, what with a….tiny teenager running around the house.”

     “Okay…but that’s why we put Tim in that cage, remember?” Natalie added inquisitively. “So we wouldn’t have to worry.”

     “Yeah…I know,” Julia nodded as she took her seat. “Like I said, just…force of habit.”

     “You sure everything’s alright, Jules?” Natalie inquired, growing concerned. “Because if there’s something going on with Tim, I need to know.”

     “Tim’s fine, Nat,” Julia reassured her sister, trying to keep up her charade. “Don’t worry. I’m sorry, I’m just a….little distracted, that’s all.”

     “Oh? With what?”

     “Well, actually, I was just wondering…did you….happen to put some more clothes in the laundry hamper earlier?” Julia inquired, motioning to the back of the house again.

     “Um…yeah,” Natalie confirmed, “As a matter of fact, I tossed in a couple more things of mine a little while ago, along with my bathrobe. Why?”

     “Oh, I was just wondering if you….maybe, happened to….see anything in there?”

     “‘See anything’?” Natalie asked with confusion, raising an eyebrow as she pondered the question. “Like what?”

     “Oh, just….something I might have tossed in there,” Julia shrugged offhandedly.

     “Not…that I can recall,” Natalie replied, “but I didn’t really look that hard. What was it: a shirt? Bra?”

     “Oh, just…something I could’ve sworn I put in there,” Julia chortled nervously, “only I…can’t seem to find it now.”

     “Well, you want me to help you go look for it?” Natalie offered, leaning forward and setting her wine glass down on the table.

     “Oh, that’s OK,” Julia stopped her, chortling nervously. “I’m….sure it’s around around here somewhere. You know what? I….need to do another couple more loads of laundry anyway, you know, before I head home after all this is over. So, I’m…sure it’ll turn up eventually.”

     “Okay,” Natalie nodded, relaxing back in her seat. “As….long as you’re sure.”

     “Course, I’m sure,” Julia replied. “I’m good. Everything’s good.”

     “So…back to the movie then?” Natalie gestured.

     “Yup,” Julia replied, with a nervous smile. “Sounds good.”

     Natalie apprehensively picked up the remote and pressed play on the movie, all the while mulling over her sister’s suspicious behavior.

     “Hmph, I think Jules needs to lay off the wine,” Natalie thought to herself. It’s really going to her head tonight.”