Scott ambled along the floor-level leather flap of the nearest living room armchair, digging his LFC rod beneath to collect dust. He clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth, trying to puzzle out a drum solo he’d gotten stuck in his head several years back but now couldn’t summon for some reason. It just wasn’t coming to him.

            Beyond, seated on the metallic curved footing of the glass coffee table, was Kyle, arms crossed over his chest, and eyes glued to the carpet fibers below. The room was quiet, save for Scott’s unsuccessful percussion memories. Saturday dawn sun spread thinly through the drapes.

            “Sup.” Scott cleared his throat as he neared his brother, the spotless space beneath the chair dusted to his liking. He snapped his fingers. “Hey. Earth to Kyle.”

            “Yeah?” Kyle flinched, scratching at his scalp as he looked toward his brother. The pair now stood at four inches in height, quadruple the scale spent during the previous evening, but it still took some getting used to. The teen’s glassy eyes were more than a marker of this.

            “How ya doing?”

            “Uhhh… well, you know. I’ve been better,” Kyle groaned. “It seems pointless to tell you that this… kind of fucking sucks.”

            “Maybe. I don’t mind, though. Actually makes me feel validated or something, almost good like that,” Scott said, pausing to find the words. “No offense.”

            “None taken.”

            Another bubble of silence. Someone’s tiny throat was cleared again.

            “So this is what it’s actually like? All the time?”

            “Not all the time. Just when I fuck up,” Scott shrugged. “Which is less than I used to fuck up, but you know her. She finds a way.”

            “Yes she does.” Kyle eased off of the brass leg of the towering coffee table. He dusted the grit of it from his fingers. “I don’t even know what I did, really. I mean, I know what I did, but not… not to get this. Compared to some of the stuff you’ve done? No offense.”

            “None taken,” Scott said.

            He frowned. Kyle was right; the elder Stevens son had practically made a career out of talking back to Judy and in general bending the household rules. It was only in the last couple of years she’d taken to punishment mostly out of habit and, he partially assumed, motherly revenge for all those years of disrespect. Thus, it came as something of a quizzical turn when Kyle’s simple one-worded resistance the day before had earned them both such swift and thorough retaliation.

            The initial trampling beneath Judy’s greasy toes inside her slippers was definitely the meat-and-potatoes of the time-out; still, it had extended into an almost twenty-four-hour affair now. After Maggie’s marble demonstration, Kyle and Scott spent a couple of hours being utilized as massage tools for their mother’s tired thighs and weary soles. Even after a mercifully uneventful dinner, when they were set free to sleep on the couch bedding and catch a little late-night TV over Maggie’s shoulder, Kyle seemed too preoccupied to set his eyes on the screen. They’d spent the night at four inches, and there was no clear sign of when Kyle would be returned to his full stature.

            Whatever was happening here, whatever Judy’s reasoning, Scott knew it couldn’t really just be that Kyle had talked back. Something more was going on in her head. Something to do with him.

            “Good morning, boys,” Judy called out, hands spread wide as she thundered into the living room with casual footsteps. She was dressed in one of those smart business suits and dark nylon/sky-high pump combos that never failed to put a mass in Scott’s throat and, he expected, the political players she was aiming to intimidate. A designer overnight bag was slung over one shoulder, bulging with the woman’s personal effects.

            Maggie followed slowly behind in her oversized pajama t-shirt and orange track shorts, her hands folded behind her back. Her lower lip was sucked beneath her upper, almost as if she was withholding herself from speaking. Those baby blue eyes crackled with energy nearly on par with their mother’s.

            The two women stood in the doorway of the living room for a moment, briefly taking in the sight of the miniature brothers sprawled on the floor by the table, hardly distinguishable from action figures at this distance. In this moment, Scott felt an inkling of recognition forming in the back of his brain. He turned his back to their mother, standing diagonal to his brother.

            “Punch me in the shoulder,” Scott whispered under his breath, too quietly to be heard by the looming women.

            “What?” Kyle’s lips barely moved.

            “Mumble something and punch me. Do it now.”

            Having apparently learned to trust his brother’s occasionally strange instructions in this cowardly new world, Kyle reacted instantly. Muttering, too low for Judy to decipher. He planted both hands on Scott’s shoulders and gave him a good hard shove, then followed up with a punch, enough that Scott was almost doubled over; the older boy responded quickly though, spinning on his haunches and launching back up and planting his own palm against Kyle’s forehead, retaliating with an almost disrespectful lack of strength that nevertheless nearly toppled the considerably less-muscled sibling.

            “Boys, boys… c’mon now, after you two were so willing to get along yesterday…” Judy drawled happily. She entered first, the spikes of her heels stabbing into the carpet. Maggie padded softly behind.

            “Sorry,” Kyle mumbled. He backed several steps away. Recognition glowed in his eyes now, too. “I just… can’t listen to more of him.”

            “Hey, what can I say,” Scott said. “Just trying to give him some advice!”

            “I’m sure you’ll find a way to co-exist,” Judy said. “Now, you two, I’m already running a little behind, so I’m going to just give you the quick version, and your sister can explain the rest if she wants.” She twirled a key ring around her thumb, taking a deep breath. “I’ve got a plane to catch for the final day of the tr… your father’s trial this afternoon. I should be back no later than Monday morning.”

            Scott raised an eyebrow. He couldn’t remember the last time his mother had verbally acknowledged their scoundrel of a father’s existence, at least not by name. Had she ever, even, in her children’s presence?

            “Now, I was thinking about bringing one of you with me,” Judy said, and Scott couldn’t help but notice her gaze had flashed to Kyle, the only one who could legally do so. “…seeing as how your punishment period isn’t quite finished yet, but now, well… I’m thinking some more time together would do you good.”

            Just as Scott suspected. It wasn’t Kyle’s latent rebellious side she was trying to quash. It was their brotherhood: their friendship, partially mended after two years. How could he not have seen it before?

            He was just lucky he’d put it together just as their mother entered the room. Otherwise Kyle would’ve been spending an entire two days in a hotel room, crammed under Judy’s sole while she flipped through the suite cable and eating leftover room service from between her toes.

            Scott shrugged for their mother, while Kyle only grimaced, turning his back once again.

            “I expect to hear that you two played nice while I was gone,” Judy said. “Your sister and I have had a long talk this morning, and we decided the best thing for everyone is for her to… chaperone some extra lessons for the two of you this weekend.”

            “What?” Kyle muttered.

            Maggie beamed from behind their mother, at even more of a height disadvantage next to their mother than usual with the added height of those pumps. Of course, those kinds of differentials didn’t matter much when Scott was still staring his sister straight in the ankle. Everyone might as well have been the size of the Chrysler building.

            “You heard me,” Judy said regally. She twiddled her car keys around her fingers. “I think there’s a lot to be learned for everyone here. Scott gets to carry on this kind of training so he can help inform his groupmates at the next clinic session. Maggie gets some real-world experience for all this hard work she’s been putting in at the clinic. And Kyle, honey? You get a crystal-clear picture of why it’s not wise to so roundly disrespect your mother in the future.”

            “Oh.” The word barely registered in Kyle’s throat; he sounded empty.

            “Believe me, sweetie,” Judy whispered as she lowered herself down to her haunches, palms pressed to her knees. Her vision was zeroed to Kyle, and him alone. She brushed a golden lock out of her eyes. “We don’t want you to end up down the same road as your brother, do we?”

            Maggie followed suit from behind, but still remained above, draping herself lazily over the arm of the couch and cupping her chin in one of her hands. She smirked, her eyes instead locked to Scott a few inches away on the floor.
            “I guess not,” Kyle grunted, recalling the impression he needed to give his mother to ensure he was allowed to stay here over the weekend. Whatever was coming, it had to be better than the alternative, right?

            “Now that’s a good boy,” Judy congratulated in a low timbre. Her free hand extended, fingers parting, as she collected her youngest son into her palm. She lifted him up a foot from the ground, brought him to her puckered lips, and planted a loud kiss atop his hair. “Just think about that, and when I get back, I’m sure we’ll have a very conscientious and mature young man waiting for us.”

            Kyle nodded as he was set back down beside his brother on the carpet. He wiped a hand through his bangs, coming away with smeared nude-lip gloss.

            “Now, obviously,” Judy continued. “Maggie’s capacity to… teach is a little more limited, when she only has the clearance to change Scott’s size, so…”

            Scott’s stomach lurched.

            “…I managed to get an early trial period for her with a new ‘privilege’ system on the PMRD. A case-by-case functionality that will allow her to affect Kyle’s size, too, for two days only.”

            Maggie finally let her blushing cheeks broaden with the open-mouthed smile of pure, unadulterated, biblical pleasure she’d seemingly been holding back earlier. Her molars were just about visible, even from down below. A low snicker emanated from her stomach.

            “I’ve got to run now. I’ll call you when the plane lands, honey,” Judy said, turning to her daughter as she rose back to full height.

            “Thanks, Mom,” Maggie beamed. Her gaze had yet to break from her two brothers below. Scott wasn’t even sure she’d blinked since entering the room. The euphoria was practically seeping off of her in gaseous form, or maybe that was just the flowery citrus of her body wash from the shower. “Oh, Mom?”

            “Yes?” Judy turned, having already taken several steps toward the garage door.

            “You told me when I take them to the clinic gym, I should try out one of the new protocols. Did you have one you wanted me to use?” Maggie was making no effort to keep her voice low or conceal this news flash in any way as she sprawled onto the couch, lying on her side as she peered down at the four-inch boys below.

            “Hmm, let me see… there’s model B2A3, there’s B3A1…”

            “How about B2A4?” Maggie giggled.

            “No, no… I don’t think that’s what’s called for here. It’s not enough,” Judy sighed, tapping a finger at her chin. “Oh. I know, honey. Why don’t you give B3A2 a try?”

            If Maggie’s eyes were bright and big before, at least to Scott’s view, they were absolutely bulging now. An ocean practically visible in her irises, her pupils wild and alive. A near-silent exhalation escaped her lips and a shudder ran through her body.

            She was surprised.

            Why was did that seem so, so bad to Scott?

            “Okay,” Maggie said softly. “You got it. B3A2.”

            “I look forward to hearing how things are going for everyone,” Judy said. She waved, her fingers waggling above as she peeked over the arch of the couch one final time. “Be nice to your sister, boys!”

            “I bet that won’t be a problem, Mom,” the titanic seventeen-year-old cooed as she at last drew her other hand out from behind her back, revealing the PMRD primed and coded already. She pointed the barrel down at her two tiny siblings below, closing one eye for careful aiming, and alternated targets between the two without firing. She lowered both feet back down against a pillow, toes plucking at the seams. “I’m sure everything will be very nice for everyone.”