“Soooooo gross! These are just our clothes! It’s what I wear all the time!” one of the cousins griped. “You’re saying he gets turned on, like that, just by seeing us in a dress and petticoats. What, so it’s like he’s just looking at us naked whenever he stares?”

            “Pretty much,” Elise said, grinning broader than ever. She steepled her fingers together above her brother again. After this whole incriminating and not to mention humiliating display, Paul was now too paralyzed to budge. “So see, Paul? It’s a BIG problem. And one Mom’s got a real good way to fix!”

            “Huh?” Paul sputtered, still weak in the afterglow. He pulled his pants back up as soon as was humanly possible, but he knew the damage was already done tenfold. “H-How…”

            “Just have a nice, cool drink of this, sweetie,” Patricia said. She reached to the coffee table for a waiting glass bottle which might’ve once held a fizzy soft drink, but now contained a still purple liquid. Around the neck of the glass was a paper tag simply labeled DRINK ME.

            Paul’s lethal curiosity got the better of him. What did he have to lose now, anyway, after he’d just been stripped bare emotionally and physically in front of the family? Now with blood still pumping to every corner of his body, he was hardly able to tear his eyes away from Elise and her exposed petticoats. With trembling hands, he accepted his mother’s gift, and wordlessly guzzled down half the bottle in one gulp.

            “What’s… what’s going to h-”

            The first syllable didn’t even make it out. In a near-magical flash, much like Alice herself, Paul was diminishing down in size. Except, he wasn’t granted the mercy of keeping his attire. Naked as the day he was born, the boy plunged down into the billowing folds of clothing. When the polyester heaps were finally drawn back by monstrous fingers, Paul could hardly conceive of what he saw.

            His entire family, enormously titanic, like beings of legendary myth, now all crowded around the place where he’d shrunk down to (if he made a generous guess) a mere half an inch tall. He was a speck.

            “He almost went out like a candle!” Nettie cackled, clapping her hands.

            “And just about time, too,” Aunt Debra said. “More to the point, nephew…”

            “…we also know you don’t just like poor Alice in her Wonderland for her dress and petticoats…” Patricia said.

            “…you like her much, much bigger than you,” Elise finished with a triumphant smack of her heel on the floor. She bowed, looming overhead like the fairy tale figure crammed into the Queen of Hearts’ tiny witness stand. “And really, what kind of person actually likes that?”

            “Not a human boy, that’s for certain,” Aunt Kathleen chuckled. Heads nodded in agreement. Even his mother Patricia, much to the boy’s dismay.

            “Contrariwise…” Elise said, “…maybe he’s actually just some kind of tiny, perverted little species of insect. Quite curious, really.”

            “And unfortunately, my dear, sweet little Paul…” Patricia said. Her fingers descended, pinching her scrawny naked son between the pads of her thumb and forefinger. “…you know I simply will not tolerate any infestation under this roof.”

            Overcome with terror, yet unable to move between his mother’s iron fingertips, Paul awaited helplessly as he was lowered toward the ground and placed beside his parent’s building-sized pump. He trembled like a leaf on the floor, surrounded on all sides by a veritable forest of giant humanity comprising his mother, sisters, aunts, and cousins. All of them huddled in closer to gawk and glimpse his misfortune. Dresses and petticoats abounded in unthinkable measure above like colored clouds, and at the center of them, of course, was Elise, flaring the ends of her sky-blue dress out for her brother to appreciate.

            “Yes, it’s definitely curiouser and curiouser now…” Elise sighed contentedly, hands on her hips. “So what are you waiting for, you dodo?”

            “RUN!” Nettie squealed, too excited to keep it in longer.

            His brain at last choosing to obey his panicking muscles, Paul took off at a sprint. He ignored the endless godlike polished shoes and heels tapping happily as he passed. It was tough work getting anywhere fast at half an inch tall, but when he truly needed to, as he did now, the boy could move. The entire giant family behind him cheered and golf-clapped, though somehow he suspected not for him to succeed.

            “We all know the rules, ladies, like we discussed…” Patricia said from somewhere beyond. Consent hummed over the room. “We’ll give a certain someone a nice, fair head start before we go hunting. And then… well, it would be a great favor to me and my daughters if you could just… squish any bugs you happen upon while you’re here for lunch.”

            “But if you don’t want to do it, just call for me!” Elise said. She wrung her hands together, watching her dust mite of a brother sprint away in the nude. “I’ll be glad to handle it myself.” Her mary-jane slammed to the floor with another deafening crack.

            What? Paul didn’t pause to consider, but he was pretty sure he was understanding correctly. They wanted to squash him under their shoes.

            They… they were actually going to kill him. For his Alice in Wonderland fetish. Paul picked up the pace.

            Exiting the living space, the boy darted for the dining room. There were few hiding places here, but he was taking too much of a chance running anywhere further. He galloped for the glassware cabinet along the wall, with its low-crested carvings providing plenty of cover, and dove under. In the darkness, he could catch his breath, and wait in silent horror. Even then, though, he noticed his skin wasn’t warm simply from the speed or adrenaline.

            The image of his sister Elise in her costume lingered in his mind, even though she… no, especially because her shoe crashed back to the earth in demonstration of what she could enact on his frail half-inch body.

            What the hell was wrong with him?

            “Now if I were a shrunken little boy, where would I keep myself?” Nettie giggled from yonder. The cousins laughed in unison at her reference. Shoes clomped ominously from the hall and through the walls, ringing in Paul’s miniature ears. The family was on the move.

            “Remember, no cheating, ladies!” Patricia reminded everyone with her traditional lilt. “No rearranging the furniture. Use some creativity instead!”

            Well, that was a start. At least they couldn’t topple his defense barrier. Paul wondered if he could simply live under this cabinet for the rest of his life. That was the most attractive possibility right now.

            “Come ooooout, Paul! Come see the peeeetticoats!” bellowed one of the cousins. He heard the sound of a dress aggressively fluttering and flapping, displaying the snowy folds beneath. “C’mon, Paul! Don’t you want to get a good look? I’ll let you get lost in them if you wanna try and climb up!”

            “You think he’ll fall for that?” whispered another cousin.

            “Sure he might! His brain’s like a pea now. Plus, he only really thinks with that funny little nub between his legs, anyway,” Nettie explained.

            Colossal shoes clattered past Paul’s narrow view through the opening of the low crest. High heels like space needles stabbed the carpet. Buckled mary-janes stampeded by. Every footfall was another seismic rattle in Paul’s bones. He lay against the floor’s fibers, baffled at what move he could possibly make next.

            “FEE, FI, FO-” sang one of the younger cousins.

            “Wrong storybook, dummy,” her sister groaned.

            Shadow flooded Paul’s limited source of light. A big, bright blue eye filled in the opening, discovering the boy’s hiding place under the cabinet.

            “Found him!” his giant cousin cheered. Shoes pounded behind, growing louder and quaking the ground with greater strength as everyone converged. “Who’s got small fingers? We gotta fish him out.”