I looked up at Sarah, her smug grin making feel uneasy.  Slowly she lifted an arm from her side and drew it toward me, fingers outstretched.  It reached over my shoulder, but I was too intimidated to look away.  Metal dragged against wood, and she yanked her hand back.  Clutched in her fingers was the metal casing of a tape measure.

“You’re going to measure me!” she declared, a broad grin overtaking her face.  How did she turn it on and off like that?  “You should have seen your expression, though.  What did you think I was gonna do?”

I shrugged.  “Honestly?  I had no idea where you were going with that,” I admitted.  “You just seemed so threatening for a minute…”

“At least you can be honest about it,” Sarah chided.  “Come on, I usually get measured in that doorway.”  She turned around quickly enough that her skirt swirled around her hips and walked toward the threshold to the dining room.  Dutifully I followed, eager to see how much she had grown; she was significantly taller than this morning.

Sarah pressed her back against the wooden frame and handed me the tape measure, then raised a socked heel.  I extended the tape a little and set the tab against the ground, and she slammed her heel down onto it.  While I ran it along her body she sighed impatiently.  “What’s taking you so long?” she asked.  “You giving me enough time to grow some more?”

Despite her teasing I took my time, making sure I accurately captured her height.  However, when it was up to her eyebrows I found it difficult to maintain my hold on the metal box and read the numbers.  “Hold on,” Sarah began, “am I too tall for you to measure?”  She snickered.  “Go get a step stool, shorty, I’ll hold onto that for now.”  Her hand took the tape measure from me while I went to grab something to stand on.

When I came back with a chair she was still standing rigidly against the wall, tape measure exactly where I had left it.  Carefully I set the chair down, its back flush with the wall, and stood on it.  For the first time in years I was the same height as Sarah, and all it took was standing on something that significantly boosted me up.  I took the measure back from her and ran it up the rest of the way, then set my hand flat on the top of her head.  “Seventy-six,” I reported.

“Inches?” she giddily asked.

“No, feet,” I replied sarcastically.  “You’re a giantess and I cower at your ankles.  Yes, inches.”

Sarah let out an excited squeal.  “That means I’ve grown two inches just today!” she exclaimed.  She hopped up and down, clapping her hands, and I managed to slip the metal tab out from beneath her foot.  I reeled it back in and stepped off the chair, then began walking away.

A firm hand grabbed my shoulder before I could get too far, its long fingers reaching down onto my arm.  “Where do you think you’re going?” Sarah asked, spinning me around.  She gazed down at me haughtily from her much higher vantage point.  “You look a lot smaller than two inches can explain.  You’re getting measured too.”  She walked around to my front and gently shoved me backward until I was against the wall.

We went through the process again, with Sarah placing the tab beneath my foot and running it up my side.  She elected to stand in front of me, however, as close as she could get without smushing me into the wall, and her perky breasts nearly covered my whole face.  Though I did not find the situation unpleasant, it had ill tidings for the result.  Sarah set a hand on my head as well, then let out a thoughtful hum.  “Say, how tall were you last time you were measured?”

“Sixty-three inches,” I answered.  “Why, what is it now?”

Sarah stepped back and shook the tape measure loose from under me, letting it snap up dramatically.  She leaned in closer, nearly touching the tip of her nose to mine, and narrowed her eyes.  “I’m not sure who you need to call about this,” she began with an obsequious tone, “but due to a single missing inch you need to turn in your membership in the five-foot club.”  My jaw dropped, and she booped my nose with a finger before standing back to her full height.  “You’re shrinking!” she declared excitedly, staring down at me with a huge smile.

“Are you sure?” I asked.  This was a lot to take in, and I had some trouble processing it.

“Yep!” Sarah replied.  “Unless there’s some way you can reason that fifty-nine is not, in fact, less than sixty-three, you’re getting smaller.”  She almost seemed delighted by this, while I was less than thrilled.

“Can you check again?”  It would not help anything, I knew, but it was the only thing I could think of.

Sarah shrugged.  “Sure, okay.  Won’t change anything, shorty.”  She slipped it back under my foot and stepped forward, engulfing my face with her breasts again.  After placing her hand atop my head she lingered a few moments, leaning forward a little to shove my head even further between her chest.  “Huh.  Looks like I did measure wrong.”  I felt some relief, but it was dashed as soon as she added, “You’re half an inch away from being four-eleven!”

She stepped back and slammed the tape measure shut, keeping her brilliant gaze locked on me.  “Aw, why so glum?” Sarah asked.  “Our dreams are coming true!”

I looked up at her, not feeling the same enthusiasm.  “But… you kill me in all of our dreams.”

Sarah opened her mouth to reply, then stopped.  “True,” she admitted, thinking it over.  “Those are just dreams, though.  You’re really, actually shrinking.  You’re shrinking.”  Her repeating it over and over did not make me feel better.  “Now that it’s real, you know I would never hurt you, right?  Like, I would never stop crying if I crushed you underneath my shoe, even by accident.”

“Yeah, I know,” I agreed, forcing a smile.  I took a second to think about it, and the smile slowly turned into a real one.  “And I’m kind of looking forward to seeing you tower over me as a giantess.”

“Like a giantess,” Sarah swiftly corrected.  “I’ll be a little bit taller, you’ll just be tiny.  We’ve been over this, remember?”

“I thought you came around to my point of view?” I asked.  “Something make you reconsider?”

She gently placed a hand on my cheek, then slowly tilted my face up.  “I could never have your point of view,” Sarah stated, “It’s much too low for me.”  Her self-satisfied smirk returned while she laughed inwardly at her own joke.  “It’s okay if I still joke about stepping on you and stuff, right?  Because I find that shit hilarious.”

“Of course!” I replied.  “As long as you’re okay with me making jokes about climbing on you or whatever.”

“Glad to hear it.”  Sarah patted me on the head a couple times before continuing.  “Because it takes me a while to wake up in the morning, and weird-looking bugs are like a magnet for my foot.”

“That won’t be an issue,” I countered, “because I’ll be hanging on to your sock when you leave.”

“Yeah, until I feel something on my leg and scratch it,” she retorted.  “Then suddenly there’s a bug next to my shoe, and crunch.”  For emphasis she stomped her foot on the floor.

“Oh yeah?  Well good luck leaving for school without shoes on after I crawl into one.”

Sarah leaned forward so that she loomed over me.  “I’m just gonna put it on with you in it, dummy,” she replied haughtily.  “It’s a good thing I’ll be looking out for you, since your tiny person survival instincts are awful.”

She had gotten the last word yet again; I had no idea how to come back to that.  Looking up at her smirking over me, I decided to change the subject.  “So, what should we do now?”

Sarah briefly thought it over.  “I’ve always wanted to watch a movie with the incredible shrinking man,” she said, and gave my cheek a quick pat.  “Why don’t you go pick one out while I go make us some popcorn?”  She walked away while I went to rifle through her DVDs.  “And if you put on ‘The Incredible Shrinking Man,’” she called over her shoulder, “I’m going to sit on you until you suffocate, got it?”

I slid that one back into the sleeve.  “And if it’s ‘Honey I Shrunk the Kids’ we’re gonna do that cereal scene for real!”   Damn, there goes that option too.  I flipped past that one.  “Don’t even think about ‘Attack of the 50-Foot Woman!’  That’s a one-way trip to stomp town for you, buddy!” she tacked on.  “Besides, she’ll look puny in comparison to me!”  After a sigh I continued my search for one that she had not yet nixed.

Toward the center of the disc book I found one that was appropriate and she had not yet banned.  With a grin I slid it out, then walked over to the player.  Popcorn was popping by the time I put it in, then I went to take a seat in the middle of the couch.  I pushed myself as far back as possible, leaning into the soft cushion as hard as I could.  My feet did not quite reach the floor, dangling just above the rug.  This was going to take some getting used to.