“I want him!” Maggie called loudly from the backseat.  “Give him to me, Mom!”

                “We just started driving, honey.  Why do you want to see your brother already?”

                “Because, my foot hurts.  I bumped my pinky toe during practice yesterday.” 

                “Didn’t you change your shoes before we left the courthouse?  I know you hate those heels.”

                “I did.  It still hurts!” The sixteen-year-old tugged her left heel off and let it plop to the floor, then proceeding to pull on her stocking until it slipped tautly off the ends of her thick toes.  Wriggling her newly freed digits with a sigh, she crossed her ankle across her other knee and began kneading at her pink, marshmallowy sole with her thumbs.  It was still swollen from a hard day of drills on the soccer field the day before, and with each revolution of her fingers, the girl moaned with slight comfort.

                With so many tough practices, she had missed her brother while he was away at college.

                Or more accurately, she had missed his tiny shrunken hands massaging her sore body like her own personal servant.

                “Shut up already,” Kyle Stevens scowled at his older sister from the front seat as he fumbled with his cell phone in his lap, hardly paying anyone else present any attention.  “Nobody cares about your stupid toes.”

                “Yeah, well, Scott will.  He’ll have to.  It’s his job now,” the girl retorted, slamming her bare foot hard onto the carpeted floor of the car.

                “And just what are you planning to have your brother do?” Judy snickered in spite of herself, already very clear on what her daughter meant, but feeling far too amused to stop the conversation.

                “I need him to rub it for me.  It stings when I walk on it.”

                “Don’t be silly.  He’d never be able to stand still enough to do that, not on a road this bumpy, at least.  It wouldn’t be safe for him.  He’s only an inch tall right now.”

                “Easy, then,” Maggie simpered, crossing her arms and pursing her lips.  “I’ll just stuff him in my shoe, so he doesn’t go anywhere.”

                “Now, now,” Judy soothed.  “We don’t ‘stuff’ anyone into anything.  We’re not looking to have injuries on our hands here, right?”

                “Yeah, I guess.  So, I’ll cradle him real slow into my shoe like a little baby.  How’s that?” Maggie whined, sarcastically chewing over her correction as she batted mindlessly at the short ends of her silky blonde hair with her fingertips.

                It was just like old times for Scott.  Shrunken, hidden out of sight and out of mind, within earshot of people loudly making decisions for him as though he were a stupid farmyard animal on a chain about to be marched behind the barn to be made into dinner, rather than a human being with feelings and cognitive listening skills.

                “Mmm… maybe later, sweetie.  Those shoes you brought might not be very safe for him, though,” Judy added at length.  “I let you get them because they were cute, but you and I both know you’re almost a half size bigger than those.”

                Obviously, Judy had considered overlooking this fact for a moment.

                “Yeah, so?  You’ve had him in your heels before, and they’re pretty tight.  It’ll be like a vacation for him to be in my shoes.”

                “Patience, honey.  I’m driving.  There’s no safe way to get him out of there.  You can spend some time with your brother when we get home.  I promise.”

                “Can I climb up and take your shoe off and get him out?  I promise I’ll be careful,” Maggie wheedled as sweetly as possible, keeping her voice high enough that it boomed cleanly through the thick fabric of Judy’s heels and heavily into Scott’s tiny eardrums. 

                Her determination to have her turn with her shrunken brother sooner rather than later was burning more urgently in her voice.

                Scott shuddered hearings his sister’s voice.  He knew she was shouting like that just so he could hear loud and clear.  It was purely for his detriment.  Just to get him good and scared, so that by the time they got home and his mother decided to trade him off to his no-doubt plotting sister, he’d just curl up for her like a frightened mouse and let her do whatever she pleased with him without complaint.  He’d be far too out of it to come up with any sort of rebellion.

                Not that rebellion was going to be possible in his state.

                Whenever his mother shrunk him for misbehaving, she always promised to grow him back once the punishment was over.  While she occasionally extended it beyond the original agreement, the time did indeed always come when he was allowed to regrow and feel like a human being again, rather than an odor eater ball in someone’s shoe.

                This time, there was no promise of growing back to normal at the end of this punishment.  That had always been the light at the end of the tunnel every time Scott had endured this humiliation in his teen years. 

                But not anymore.

                Now, as he cowered at an inch tall, tucked “safely” under his forty-four-year-old mother’s dark stocking-clad toes in a pair of her favorite heels, he was filled with a paralyzing sense of dread and loss at the idea that no freedom would come to him after this shrunken stint was over.

                And this time, it wasn’t just at the idea of being stepped on at an awkward enough angle that would snap his bones under the crushing pressure of a row of femininely maintained toes, which happened to be painted a seductive dark purple (Judy’s favorite color).

                All he had to look forward to when he finally emerged from his mother’s shoe was being passed into the incapable and bratty fist of his younger sister, who would proceed to stuff him into a soccer cleat and keep it on around the house just for the satisfaction of wearing her older sibling as a secret accessory. 

                This wasn’t even a cruel usage of a technicality on Judy’s part.  This was a sentence handed down from on high by people that would make the punishment a good deal more severe if Scott stepped out of line.

                And judging by some of the death glares Scott had received from the judge and crowd behind him, he had a feeling anything his mother or sister could cook up for him would be small potatoes compared to what the law thought he deserved.

                “Can you pipe down, Maggie?  Mom’s like right there,” Kyle groaned.

                “Or maybe Kyle would like a turn to spend time with Scott here?” Judy suggested brightly.

                “No!  They’re like friends, he wouldn’t even PUNISH HIM!” Maggie blurted in protest, stamping her other foot hard against the car mats, clearly incensed with the mere thought of Scott not being put through the wringer for any given amount of time.

                “Well, hold on, honey, the goal isn’t necessarily to… punish… your brother every waking moment.  It’s to keep an eye on him, give him some time to think about what he’s done, and remind him of his place in society.  Make sure he stays out of trouble, and… employ his maintenance services from time to time,” Judy explained.

                As she did so, she curled her plump toes down a little harder on her son’s body, flicking them down against his legs and hips playfully and compressing him in rhythm against the well-worn leather base.  “Isn’t that right, sweetie?” she cooed downward toward the floor in direct address of her eldest son.