“Where is she?...” Gasped Marie when she saw that Emy was gone from her Aquarium. “Emy?” She whispered in her wardrobe. “Emy, you there, come see me Emy, I’ll explain everything, please don’t leave me again, I love you Sweetie!” Marie kept looking behind the shoe rack. She looked in her shoes, under shelves, in her extra empty purses, under the wheels of her rollerblades, she looked in the closet everywhere before realizing she was gone.

“Oh no, please no...not again” Marie was about to explode in tears but thought about her daughter Lisa. She walked to her room and barged in.

“Lisa, where is she?”

Both dumbfounded and half-surprised, Lisa knew exactly what, or more precisely who she was looking for. She unconsciously scrunched her toes over Emy, who had quit squirming for half an hour. All in all, she’s been in Lisa’s shoe, under her stockinged toes for around one hour before Marie got upstairs from the basement.

“What? Where is who?” Lisa said trying to really sound like she didn’t know anything.

“Where is Emy?” Marie said. Lisa felt squirming once again under her toes, and tried to play her role.

“Emy? But...mom, Emy’s gone. She’s been gone for weeks...” Lisa said sadly to her mother. Marie suddenly realised what was at hand. For her, Lisa had been moving on from the incident, and barging in looking for Lisa was demonstrating craziness and incoherence to her 16 year old blonde gothic daughter.

“But...” Was only what Marie could let out.

“Mom...” Lisa said compassionately. She got up and hugged her mother. “Mom, Emy’s gone. Don’t torture yourself. There is nothing we can do.”

Marie sighed and hugged her daughter, trying not to touch the studs on her skirt belt. After the hug, she smiled a little fake smile and left her daughter’s room, closing the door. Lisa had that mischievous grin and bit her lower lip a bit hard. Under her toes in her shoe she could feel her tiny adopted sister banging and fighting. Lisa knew Emy heard the conversation. Feel powerful Lisa decided she would keep Emy in there a little longer while reading. She grabbed her ipad and sat in her bed, crossing her legs near the ankles on her sheets. Emy being almost upside down, fell the lenght of the shoe down under Lisa’s foot arch.

“Whoops!” Lisa said. She bent forward and removed the shoe Lisa was in and brought in to her face. She peered down inside. Getting her shoe and all the movement made Emy roll down back in the toe section. “If you don’t quit squirming in there I’ll put you inside my lucky soccer cleats for tonight’s game against St-Lawrence. They are a good team so it’s going to be a hard match. My feet get wet with sweat in my soccer cleats, and I doubt you would enjoy drowning in it before first halftime. Stop squirming now, and you’ll save yourself from that predicament.”

Emy was scared to the bone and swore all sorts of swearing.

“Watch your language young girl! If you swear again I’ll staple you on the insole.” Lisa added. Threatening her sister made her feel those bubbles inside her stomach again, bubbles of pleasure.

Emy suddenly calmed down. After what she just experienced she knew Lisa would be capable of anything and would be true to her word. She tried to reason but she was young. Frustration and incomprehension, feeling of being treated as an object added to her mixed feelings. She couldn’t clearly differentiate injustice and misfortune at that point and dreamt of being big again, in her own room with her barbies and being happy. But all she could see were 5 black stockinged toes rushing down again on her, trapping her under them in the deepest smelly cave of Lisa platform loafers. She could hear the swooshing sound of her giant sister’s heel as it popped inside the shoe, sealing the foot in.

...

Half-Time whistled.

Lisa walked back to her team’s bench with her teammates, breathing heavily. The game was indeed a hard one, they were losing 3-1 against the St-Lawrence girls and that bad Referee has given 2 yellow cards against Lisa’s team. As for her, she missed a wide empty net with a bad kick on the ball.

Lisa sat on the team’s bench and looked at her lucky soccer cleats, covered in mud and grass. Inside her left shoe, stuck and trapped between her soccer socks and the insole of the soccer cleat, Emy drenched in sweat was also breathing heavily, still conscious and trying not to swallow. She was covering her face with her hands and sobbing. She was in pain, her whole body has been crushed countless times and she probably had a few broken ribs. Her left leg would not respond. The temperature was more like a steamy sauna, except is smelled horrible. Tasted horrible. Her eyes were burning, her stomach was growling, unhappy about what it had ingested so far. She kept repeating to herself: 2this is not happening, this is not happening.." She couldn't comprehend the motives of her own sister for being so cruel to her. She couldn't comprehend at all, she couldn't even allow herself to react, fearing her sister would be more mean again. She felt she didn't deserve such a treatment, she had been cooperating, and she had been good but Lisa without a word had put her inside the cleat with a grin before the game only saying: "Good luck in there."

Emy wanted it to end, she wanted it to end so badly.

But Lisa had other plans. She wanted to score a goal during second half. She was pissed about that missed opportunity. She was pissed that her mother didn’t come to see her play because she felt “sad and messed up in her head”. Lisa suspected her mother wanted some time alone at the house to look around for Emy, but would have preferred her to come spectate the game like she usually does. Coach was barking orders, girls were cranky.

Lisa thought for a second about her tiny sister in her left shoe. She played with her toes, wiggling them over the inanimate girl. She knew she would not drown, but also knew she would be soaked and probably unconscious after the second half. She loved having her in there. Her thick soccer socks brushing on the tiny human being inside her shoe made her all daydreaming again. She imagined how excruciating it would be inside there and she felt good about it. It is what she had been dreaming along for so long. Those stories on the internet could finally come true. She could do what she always have wanted to someone, and what was impossible before now is. The fact that tiny person in there was her sister added up to the excitement, and the fact she was adopted at first made her feel like, after all, she’s not of the same blood, and that too would make her feel even better about the whole thing.

“Lisa!” Coach said. “Lisa, hey, are you with us, come on! Second half is about to start!”

Rally cry. Gogogo!