The boy’s mind in a boy’s body wouldn’t be able to understand what she’d done, even if he would most likely still have some sort of boyish crush on her. If the reverse had happened, his 29 year old mind would have a much better chance of explaining things to her 15 year old mind, even if it took him a while to convince her.

She waited for most of the morning, and remembered that her mother had been working full time after her father had left them. She would not be expected in the house for any reason, and could prepare her own lunch.

Then she saw some small movement just in front of the row of trees. She couldn’t make out what it was, perhaps a leaf blowing in the gentle breeze. Then it drew closer, and seemed to be headed in her direction. Straining her eyes, she suddenly realised that it was Daniel.

Somehow he had shrunken, just as Murray had done.

She didn’t understand it. Daniel had never been through the portal, at least as far as she knew. They’d never discussed it, but she could not imagine him having kept a secret from her, given the bond between them in the other timeline. There was no logical explanation for Daniel having shrunken. Besides that, Daniel certainly hadn’t come from the other side of a portal to giant land during the trip that they had both just made that morning. He hadn’t shrunken at all, during the test backjaunts they had made back in his house in the other future. The situation defied reason.

All she could think of was that Murray’s theory about his reduction having been caused by time travelling from giant land was false. It was one step closer to accuracy, but it left her with no idea why he had reduced in size and she hadn’t. She did not know about the Ring of Reversal Era’s shrinking side effect, nor about the immunity she’d acquired by repeatedly eating Murray.

He came up to about one meter away from her and looked up at her.

“Trudi, do you know it’s me ... Daniel?” he called.

His voice sounded so child like now, even for a shrunken boy.

“Yes ... I made it too,” she said, “It’s 39 year old me in my 15 year old body. You seem to be 29 year old Daniel in his much smaller five year old body. This wasn’t supposed to happen. I really didn’t think it would this time.”

“THIS time? Have we tried this before?” asked Daniel.

“No, but that guy who taught me when I was 24, called Murray .... Well he time travelled back from a giant land on the other side of a portal that’s located in the forest outside the village I was staying in. He came back tiny. Apparently he’d known me in the future, when I was 37-39 in a much earlier timeline,” said Trudi.

“And you didn’t think to tell me this before you enticed me into tripping through an even longer chunk of my life with you?” said Daniel.