Mark had held his breath as long as was humanly possible, or at least someone of his somewhat-average lung capacity. He crouched on his hands and knees, continually massaging the same darkened pockmark in the rubber-lined fabric cave with his damp washcloth corner. The teen knew it would be impossible to avoid inhaling forever, and sure enough, his puffed cheeks gave way and he gasped up the stale, vaguely-parmesan-esque aroma that clung like fallout to the interior of his little sister Becky’s favorite mint-green flats, inside of which he was currently sitting at a height of less than a human thumb.

            Shaking his head, the Shrink-Act-persecuted sixteen-year-old gritted his teeth, hoping in vain to filter the fleshy odor of Becky’s bare feet as it leaked into his throat, but it didn’t help much. Not when his body only stood at two inches tall. These shoes certainly were in dire need of a clean, especially given that they were his sibling’s favorite, but he guessed that was exactly why he was here. It only proved a point, really.

            His mother Joy might’ve given him a slightly less degrading task, he supposed, but as she herself had been in the kitchen all morning, on her hands and knees herself scrubbing away at the tile, and she hadn’t even spray-painted the school gym, it did seem he wasn’t necessarily getting a bum deal. Fair was fair, after all, and it wasn’t like his mother was capable of fitting her entire body into her daughter’s shoe like Mark was.

            So, biting his tongue and gulping up a rank breath, the teen allowed his forearms and shins to sink back into the plush flooring of the slipper-shaped tunnel, melted over hundreds of hours of wear by the ball of Becky’s left foot. Amidst a graveyard of empty shoes and the occasional dust bunny of the laundry room beyond, the boy realized, at least he had some peace and quiet to do his duty and wipe the grunge from the gigantic fourteen-year-old sister’s shoes.       

            Duty? Maybe that was a little strong of a word. Debt to society? Probably better.

            “I thought you said your brother would be in the kitchen?” a shrill voice questioned from the hallway. Mark froze, pre-emptively mortified before the source of the words was identified. Out of instinct, he inched further back into the deepest corner of Becky’s flat. The pungent air became thicker, tickling his skin with the memory of the girl’s often unwashed feet and their porous discharge, but he didn’t care just so long as no strangers saw him like this.

            It wasn’t that he feared for the treatment he would receive in his sister’s loving though occasionally overbearing hands and fingers. It was more the almost certain wounding of character he would receive as she cooed up a storm in the presence of a houseguest.

            “Yeah, I thought so. I guess Mom gave him a different job.” Becky’s voice followed next, and suddenly Mark recognized her companion’s sound as that of Melissa, the neighbor from two blocks down, a close friend of his sister’s, and a petite curly-haired brunette beauty with whom he’d harbored something of a little crush for at least a year. He knew nothing would probably come of it, but she still gave him knots in his gut. “Mark?”

            If it was possible to actually meld himself into the musty curved walls of the feminine flat, Mark would’ve, if it meant he could remain hidden. His cheeks had already flushed a red so deep it had to be exactly the chromatic opposite of the verdant, bow-tied shoe. It probably wasn’t going to be of much help in getting Melissa to notice him if she happened to glimpse him at a size smaller than her finger; of course, he never would’ve had the guts to let his little sister know of his childish desire for the girl, or she probably would’ve avoided putting him in this situation.

            Probably.

            “Maaaark!” his sister yodeled from the other room, though the volume rose as she approached the laundry/shoe space. Mark heard two pairs of pounding feet thumping almost in tandem across the floor, rattling his limbs as he clenched every muscle in attempt to become a statue in the tip-toe corner of the girl’s shoe. Just by nature of his nearness to the floor, he could distinguish each set of footprints: one with a more pronounced landing, and the gentle call of summer-sweat-greased sole flesh unpeeling from the hardwood. The other was almost silenced, though he could hear the slick slide of fuzzy nylon on the floor.

            One giantess barefoot, one in socks. It disgusted him how well he’d come to know the bizarre world so near to the floor in the mere month he’d been under juvenile shrunken house arrest. If he could’ve listen to their footfalls a little longer, Mark knew he could probably pick out their exact moods.

            “Where are you, widdle brudder?” Becky asked loudly, her voice echoing off the white metal tower of the dryer behind the second row of shoes, and Mark realized both she and Melissa had entered the room. Their steps rocked him harder still as they finally came to a stop. Peeking out the open sliver of light still visible through the mouth of the shoe, Mark could just barely make out the ponytailed top of his sibling’s head high above.

            “Maybe he doesn’t want us to find him,” Melissa said, stifling a giggle. “Maybe he’s embarrassed.”

            You don’t know the half of it, thought Mark.

            “What? No, that’s crazy! He loves it when I hold him,” Becky stated indignantly, and though he couldn’t see it, Mark knew his gigantic sibling had planted her hands defiantly on her narrow hips.

            “Uh-huh,” Melissa said. “My aunt shrinks my cousin whenever she grounds him, which is like… every other weekend. He hates it. He screams and yells and stuff the whole time and she just covers his mouth up.”

            “Mark’s different, though. I’m gentle.”

            “Still. It probably feels funny. Having your little sister pick you up and everything.”

            “But I wanted you to see him at one inch! He’s so cute. But we can’t shrink him more if we don’t find him first.”

            “I thought you said you’re not old enough to use the PMRD?”

            “Ugh. I’m not… yet… but Mom sometimes does it for me if I want to hang out with him tiny.”

            “Ohh, I see. That’s cool. I wish my mom would do that for me with George.”

            “Your brother’s not on house arrest, though!” Becky chuckled.

            “So? That doesn’t mean he’s not still bad sometimes,” Melissa answered with apparent envy. “I could take care of him. Especially at one inch tall. He can’t go anywhere without me.”

            “That’s why you should get to hold Mark, as practice!”

            “Yeah, that makes sense,” Melissa relented. “I’d keep him warm, too.”

            Mark’s heart sunk a little at this final decision, though he at least was comforted to hear she didn’t necessarily find the idea of carrying a reduced human being in the palm of her hand as some hysterical cosmic joke. Additionally, it was more than a little affecting to picture himself wrapped in the girl’s soft palms, emasculating as it would be.

            “Hey, keeping him warm is my job. But I guess he’s not coming out, wherever he went,” Becky sighed, peeking around the doorframe just in case her sibling came tottering around the corner at his toothpick height. “We’ll check again when we get back from your house.”

            Oh, good. They were leaving for now. It would give Mark time to clamber out of this squalid shoe, which was seriously starting to marinate his senses with its leathery odor and flaked remnants of Becky’s polished toes. Then he could just take refuge somewhere far more open and less foot-scented, both of which were incredibly ideal-sounding to him at this point.

            “Mom, we’re going to Melissa’s house for a little bit!” Becky hollered into the hallway, cupping a hand over her lips.

            “Okay, hon!” Joy’s voice echoed back from the kitchen.

            “Cool. Put your shoes on. The show’s gonna start in, like, four minutes! And I know you don’t have cable,” Melissa taunted playfully.

            “Hey, don’t rub it in,” Becky grumbled, letting out a cheeky snicker on the end. Her footsteps thundered nearer to the opening of the shoe, and suddenly Mark could make out the twin towers of her legs stretching far up beyond his sight, slender and tightened as they were by long hours of dancing, clad in skin-tight pale pink nylon stockings. He opened his mouth, but couldn’t quite get out the sound. Becky’s left foot arched into the air, toes taut against the faded fabric.

            Shit.

            “Those flats are so beat up. And they’re green! You’re gonna look like a watermelon girl with them and the tights on!” Melissa joked, jostling her friend in the shoulder.

            “I know, I know, but they’re my favorites,” Becky sighed bashfully, confirming what Mark knew given how often she slipped them on. Without another thought, she slid her stocking-encased foot into the well-worn left flat, shifting her heel from side to side until it was flush against her ped. “Plus, I asked Mom if she could have Mark clean them for me when he had a chance. With his little hands, he could probably do a really good job.”

            “Yeah, I bet. You’ll have to tell me how he does,” Melissa said, voice broadened by her grin. “Maybe I can convince George to try it. I’d probably have to pay him first, but still.”

            “Oh, I will. If he doesn’t do it by the end of the day, I might just stick him in there myself,” Becky said, descending into a girlish chortle with her friend, before taking her first step toward the garage door steps once her flats were securely donned to her . “You know I’m kidding, right? I love my big brother waaaay too much for that.”

            “I know, I know.”

            Mark could only catch the occasional word of this continued conversation as he was thrashed about, fastened beneath megatons of pressure and his giant sister’s five moist, sticky digits the size of Olympic punching bags wrapped in soggy pink nylon that quickly pinned him to the dank wall of the accidental shoe-prison.