Exhausted, Cindy finally arrives home after a long day at work. She walks through the hallways of her home, heading straight for her bedroom. Upon reaching her destination, she closes the door behind her. Now within the comfort of her own room, exactly where she's longed to be since crawling out of bed nearly a dozen hours earlier, she slips her tired, aching feet out of her heels and lets them fall to floor without a care as to how or where they land before plopping her body down onto her bed.

The woman emits a slight sigh of pleasure. “Mmmmm, this… is… paradise” she says out loud, her voice quite muffled due to her face resting in the inviting embrace of her pillow.

A knock at the door disturbs her comfort. If her eyes were open, she would certainly find herself rolling them. “Who is it?” She asks loudly into her pillow.

“It's me” the voice of her eldest daughter calls out from behind the door. “Mom, can we talk?”

“Guess I won't be getting any rest just yet” she thinks to herself. “Come in” she says as she sits up and drops her legs off the edge of the bed, letting her bare feet sink gently into the soft carpet below.

Kylie pushes open the door to her mother's bedroom. “Hey sweetie, how was your day?” her mother asks before the girl walks back into the hall to retrieve something she had set down outside the door in order to open it. “What have you got there” she adds after noticing the shoebox in her daughter's hands.

“That's what we need to talk about”

“Alright, dear. I'm listening.”

“I think… maybe it's better if I just show you.” Kylie sits down next to her mother and gently places the shoebox on the bed between them. “Open it, Mom. You need to see what's inside.”

“Kylie… what are you up to? I'm too tired to play games right now. If this is some sort of prank, and something jumps out at me… you're going to be in trouble.”

“It's not a prank, Mom, I swear. Look inside and see for yourself.”

Nervously, Cindy brings a hand down to the shoebox and grips at the lid. With her eyes closed, she slowly lifts it up and towards her body.

Light floods into the cardboard box and the shrunken people inside look upwards to find two beautiful yet gigantic female faces looming high in the sky above them, looking down on them. There's the familiar face of Kylie, and the face next to it looks very much like hers, but with more matured features.

She opens her eyes, looks inside the box quickly, and looks back at her daughter, annoyed. “Toy cars? I don't get it. What kind of a prank is this? I was expecting something more along the lines of a rubber snake.”

“But, Mom… they're not toys. Please, you need to look again, this is seriously important.”

A faint beeping sound escapes the box below, as if one of the little cars inside has a horn and it's honking, drawing Cindy's attention away from her daughter and back to the contents of the shoebox.

“Not toys? What do you mean they're n-” Cindy's eyes widen as she gives the tiny cars her full attention, now noticing there are tiny beings inside the little cars, as well as several more of them outside of the vehicles and scattered around the box. “No… this… this can't be.”

The shock of what she's seeing causes her to lose her grip on the lid of the shoebox and it tumbles down to the floor below as she continues staring at the incredible sight before her, dumbfounded. “Kylie… how… did this happen? What… did you do?!”

“It wasn't me, Mom! Honest! If anything, I'm the one that probably saved their lives!” Kylie exclaims, defending her innocence.

“You need to tell me exactly what happened here” Cindy commands, unable to lift her eyes from the shoebox still situated between them.

“It was Lizzie. She found where Dad hides his prototype. I had no idea. She went outside to play. She was out there for a while and I looked out the window every now and then to check on her, everything seemed fine. I thought she was just playing with toys in the yard. I went to take a shower and when I was done I came outside and found out the toys she was playing with… well, as you can see, they weren't exactly toys. Apparently she had been spending the entire morning shrinking people with Dad's invention and forcing them to have races in our yard.”

“Were any of them hurt? Is this all of them”

“No, everyone is fine. I took the shrinky thing from Lizzie and gathered all of them up then I sent her to her room. I took them all back to my room and I've been keeping them safe with me while waiting for you to get home. Some of them… they've been like begging me to grow them back to normal, and I really want to, but I tried to explain to them that I thought I should wait so I can show them to you, so you know I'm not lying about it.”

Cindy smiles, placing a reassuring hand on her daughter's shoulder. “You did the right thing, sweetie. That was very smart. I'm proud of you.”

“Thanks, Mom” Kylie replies, returning a smile back to her mother.

"Your father's invention... where is it now?"

"I put it on top of the fridge, out of Lizzie's reach."

“Good. Sweetie, set the box on the floor and grab my purse, I need you to set it here next to me.”

Kylie complies, setting the box gently down onto the floor before walking across the bedroom and retrieving her mother's purse. She brings it back and sets it on the bed where the shoebox sat less than a moment ago.

Cindy unzips her purse and reaches inside. She fishes around for a few seconds before handing her daughter a fifty dollar bill. “Here's some money. I want you to take your sister to the movies. There's enough there for tickets and snacks.”

“But... Mom... Lizzie shrunk a bunch of strangers that happened to be driving by and made them play with her. And you want me to take her to the movies? Shouldn't she get a punishment that's a little more... I don't know, severe?”

Cindy laughs. “You're not taking to her to the movies as a reward. You're taking her so you'll both be out of the way while I grow these people back to normal and explain to them how my daughter was able to shrink them. Now go ahead, I'm sure these men and women don't want to spend any more time being tiny.”

“Okay.” Kylie leans down in front of her mother's bed and takes one final look at the shrunken people inside the shoebox. “Again, I'm sorry for everything you guys have been through today. But you're safe now, it's all over. I thought I was going to be the one to get to grow you back but I guess it looks like my mom is going to. Well anyways, bye little people!” she waves to them and flashes them a bright, beautiful smile before standing up and facing her mother. “Bye Mom!”

“Goodbye, dear” says Cindy as her daughter leaves the room.