Addison watched with great interest when her index-finger took another swing and flicked at the hot-air balloon.
Her expression remained stoic when a wave of amusement coursed through her body.
She was surprised about the amount of decibels these little rascals could produce, seeming the fact they were merely action figure size. Both employees screamed their pants full while clutching the wicker basket. The thing oscillated heavily below the hot-air balloon due to Addison's powerful flick.
Addison's squinted eyes watched closely while the hot air-balloon, the size of a baseball, drifted slowly by in front of her young face.
Addison was only vaguely aware of Lindsy's voice and her ceaseless twaddle about death-boringly instructions and the store's ethics. Just like aunt Cassadee promised, Addison was allowed to join in the store for a day. The only condition was that Lindsy was the one who would take her on tow. The blond floozy was one of the store's top sales and was more than eager to boast about it every second. From time to time, Addison looked at Lindsy and nodded some, like she was actually listening to her blathering.
After a mindless hum of acknowledgement towards Lindsy, Addison focused her attention again to the shrunken air-balloon. She noticed its crew stoking the fire constantly. They were trying to get away from her.
It climbed further, its top rising now above Addison's tousled blond locks, while she stood akimbo, watching them with great interest. An almost indistinguishable smirk formed on her lips. She wanted to play with them, give them hope, so she allowed them to ascend without interference. Just when they were about to reach a safe height, whereby Addison would be unable to reach them, she decided to shatter their hope and reached out with her arm. With a drooling glee on her face, her fingers snapped close to pluck the basket from the skies, when a sudden blast shrunk them down to mere nothingness.
“The hell?” Addison brought out, perplexed, and looked to her side, “You barely missed me?!” she fumed at Lindsy.
Lindsy replied with a grant smile, “a pity I did. It would have served you right for not listening to me.“
“Are you threatening me?” Addison pushed a clenched fist in Lindsy's face. She wanted to smack that self-complacent countenance so badly. It vexed her even more when she saw Lindsy not even flinching by her sudden gesture.
“And what if I did?” Lindsy said darkly.
“Don’t forget who you're speaking to.”
“I know exactly to whom I'm speaking to. Come, the customers are usually not very patience at this hour.” Lindsy said. Addison was grinding her own teeth when Lindsy ambled by, causing a gush of wind to engulf her.
She heard a zap of the shrink gun behind her, and Lindsy’s voice stating some curt words of instructions. It implied that Lindsy had just enlarged the hot air-balloon and had given its shrunken employees a new task to carry out. At Kaiser and Wiggins, the usage of shrunken Caspivurians as employees was customary. It was a smart solution to significantly lower the main item of expenditure, personnel costs. To prevent the danger of rebellious behavior, whole families of every single shrunken employee were stowed away in a place only known to Cassadee Wiggins. The promise was made that after two years of loyal service to the company, the employee would be reunited with his family and allowed to live in peace in one of the fields in Cassadee's Garden of Solace.
Addison took her time before following Lindsy towards Section G, a massive hall, the size of three football fields and cramped with ankle-high houses and glittering skyscrapers reaching barely the height of the hip.
While ambling her way towards Section G, Addison was pleased to see every employee, whether they were Caspivurian or from Stinesaa’s origin, all greeted her with great respect and hurried out of her way. They all knew she was Cassedee’s niece and knew better than to vex her in a way this Lindsy did. If it wasn’t for the fact this Lindsy wasn’t such a gifted sales, with that nauseating smile of hers, she would never have gotten away with this behavior.
It was high time Addison learned her a lesson she would never forget.
Entering through the arched hallway of section G, Addison was surprised to see it was already so crowded with customers at this early hour. She looked about and saw various salespersons locked in deep conversation with curious customers, pointing at shrunken property, naming prices etc etc.
Addison had learned that this specific hall of the company drew buyers who were interested in decorating their home and garden with shrunken property of this particular size. All infrastructures here were utterly empty shells. No shrunken Caspivurians were included. Therefore, prices were even less than cheap, relatively speaking.
Buyers used these kinds of properties for various reasons. Some bought a shrunken apartment for the simple reason so they could use it as a sidetable next to the couch. Other’s, wanted to create an idyllic garden by placing some little houses among their blossoming flowerbeds. A single individual here and there bought only for the base reason so they could relish in destroying it in all kinds of creative ways.
A wave of an almost untamable anger pumped through Addison’s veins when she saw Lindsy in the distance, beckoning her like some lapdog. She felt deep ashamed when she was obliged to get along with Lindsy’s game of indignity and chose to amble her way, while there were at least a dozen pair of eyes gawking at her. She felt an indomitable urge to put Lindsy down a peg, right here, right now, in front of all these customers. It was a cunning move of Lindsy to put Addison’s short-temperateness to the test. She was obviously hoping Addison would lose control and put up a scene here in front of all these people, which would subsequently mean a big chunk of discredit in the eyes of her aunt, the company’s boss.
Addison was smarter than that though, so she hang low, playing the perfect and well-mannered employee. She had to vent her boiling anger in some way though, so she just crushed a shrunken lorry, of about two inches high, which happened to cross her path and acted like she did it by accident. It was considered a small effort for the impetuous juvenile to just dodge the passing lorry or to slow down her pace just a bit to prevent collision. Unfortunately for the lorry driver, Addison’s anger had to be vented, and her plunging sneaker had chosen his vehicle as the unlucky target. Addison’s step of doom ended his life in a crushing instance and with it, sealed the fate of his entire family. His demise would condemn them to a life of slavery and death, earning a few coins for Cassadee on the market the moment she would take note of this tragic accident.
Addison was of course totally unaware of the outcome of her action, and even if she would realize it, she wouldn’t care less. The fourteen-year-old girl was entirely occupied by her own egocentric desires to harass her attention with the fate of some shrunken Caspivurian family.
Approaching the group of customers surrounding Lindsy, Addison put up her most charming smile and flooded them with exaggerated words of civility. She made sure the withering glances she treated Lindzy on, in between conversation, were subtle and unseen by all others.
Addison was not used to being bossed around by someone, especially since it was someone like Lindsy, someone who prided herself far more than she earned. Being raised by subservient parents in a house full of clerks who served her at every beck and call, Addison had never learned the value of taking responsibility and respecting the necessities of other human beings. Addison is used to living in a world revolving around her every wish and need. This life-long tendency sculptured her personality to the selfish brat she was today. This self-centered demeanor was only strengthened when Addison came into the possession of a small country of microscopic cities, filled to the brim with millions of shrunken Caspivurians who were all powerless to oppose her childish needs.
It filled Addison with great joy to be able to oversee her whole micro kingdom while merely observing them sitting on her haunches. A mere stomp here and there upon their fragile infrastructures was more than enough to impose total submission and obedience.
Addison looked at Lindsy with great disgust and saw the shrink gun safely tucked in her belt while she was conversing all frantic with the customers. Addison was contemplating of a way to get even with her, when Lindsy was already ahead of her and caught her by surprise with a lowdown move.
“Addison,” Lindzy called out, shaking Addison out of her train of thoughts. “I was just telling these noble minds that you’re more than familiar with Ascela, one of Caspivur's most prominent provinces where these little structures are coming from, would you care to fill us in with the architectonic details of them please?” Addison gawked at Lindsy’s cheerful face like a four-year-old kid who was asked if she wanted to take care of the household financials.
She felt completely humiliated with no way out, when she stammered a few disjointed words, while dozens of hopeful eyes from the customers were watching her.