Chapter 24:

“I can’t believe you did this.”

I fell onto my hands and knees and screamed obscenities. When my voice eventually went hoarse, I got up in a fit of rage and kicked over my doll table and chair. In my peripheral vision, I could see my sister giggling. 

I had had enough. I balled my fists.

“What the fuck are you laughing at? You just ruined my god damn life!” I said. 

She put both of her hands up and pretended to be the innocent little sister. “What? You looked funny kicking your little dollie furniture. Especially in that dress!”

I charged. It was not advisable. Hell, it wouldn’t have been smart to charge at my sister when I was five feet tall. She could kick my ass then too. But it didn’t matter how tall I was in that moment, because I all I could imagine was strangling her. Of course, I couldn’t do that, but her arm was laying on the table. That would be my target. 

Not the least bit fazed, Amanda kept her arm in the way of my warpath. When I arrived at her forearm, I threw the hardest punch I could. It had less than the desired effect.

I immediately recoiled in pain and shook my wrist out. Looking up at her face, Amanda was letting out another girly giggle. She was making a mockery of my pathetic attempts to hurt her. 

“Is that all you got, you little shit?”

I ran back up to her arm with a new strategy. If I couldn’t wound her, I would instead cause her irritating pain. I grabbed a hold of one of her arm hairs. It was barely visible with the sun streaming into the restaurant. But I could see it well enough to wrap my hands around it and yank it out of her arm. 

“Yow!” she yelped in pain, “What the hell, asshole?!”

She brought her other arm down and flicked me like I was a paper football. Her fingernail slammed me right in the stomach and sent me spiraling through the air. I landed halfway across the table. I tried to get up right away but realized that I couldn’t. Then I gagged. She hit me so damn hard I almost threw up my lunch.

My mom caught the tail end of this—well, whatever this was¬—I don’t think it was fair to call it a fight. More like a massacre.

“Amanda! What the fuck did you just do?!”

“Mom, I—”

“No. I don’t want to hear it! You’re grounded for a month when we get home, and you will not touch Desmond until he’s big again.”

I stood up, focusing mostly on keeping my food down. I was still reeling from Amanda’s flick. But I wasn’t about to forget what happened. I pointed at my sister. I was done covering for her. 

“Well, about that,” I said as I caught my breath. “I don’t think I’m ever going to be big again. Thanks to her.”

Mom looked down at Amanda with a smoldering intensity, “What…did…you…do?”

“Why don’t you show her?” I told my sister.

She snuck in a death glare. But nonetheless, she did as I said. She scrolled to the top of her twitter timeline and showed Mom her tweet. 

Mom stared at her phone for a long time. An oddly long time. After a while, I could tell she wasn’t reading anymore. She seemed to be thinking about what to do next. In a whirlwind motion, my mother grabbed my sister’s phone, ripping out of her hands, and throwing it to the ground, immediately shattering it to bits.

“What the hell was that for?!” Amanda asked. 

My mom leaned in close to Amanda and whispered with gritted teeth, “Clearly, you are not mature enough to have a smartphone. You have no right to share our family’s personal struggles on the god damn internet! When you have enough money to buy your own phone, you can get one.

But until then, you’re stuck with that bratty mouth of yours! Now, pick up the pieces of your phone and go throw them in the garbage!”
As Mom tore into my sister, I gleefully watched as terror crept into Amanda’s face. Her lips shivered. Her eyelids twitched. Her skin went ghost white. Seeing her haunted by my mom was genuinely uplifting. And it was even better to watch as Amanda, dutifully and without complaint, picked up each and every piece of her now destroyed phone and empty the shards into the garbage.

As my sister dealt with her former phone, Mom sat down in the booth to comfort me. She stuck out her finger, and I wrapped both of my arms around it. A finger hug. 

I was surprised at how much muscle was packed into a single one of my mom’s fingers. Her finger was almost definitely stronger than either of my arms. 

“I know it seems like all hope is lost,” Mom said as I rubbed my face against her finger. “But it’s not. I will make sure you get back to normal. I’m your mother. It’s my job to look out for you, and I should’ve kept Amanda on a tighter leash. And for that, I’m so so sorry. But trust me, you will get back to normal. We will figure this out.”

And I believed her. There wasn’t a hint of doubt in her voice. I needed her confidence more than anything right now. To express my gratitude, I kissed her pointer finger.

“Thanks, Mom. I just—she went too damn far this time.”

“Yes, she did. And I’m going to send her home on a plane. I’m going to stay here in D.C. until I get you back to normal.”

“But Mom, where are you gonna live? And your job? Don’t people need you?”

“You let me worry about all that,” she said. “You’re more important than a stupid job. And I’ll find a cheap place.”

And just like my mom said, my sister got on the next flight back to Gloucester and we stayed in a hotel for the night. We spent the night looking at apartment listings together. It was actually surprisingly fun. My mom kept gushing over the fact that she was going to be living in a studio apartment again, just like she did “in the ‘90s.” My mom reveled in nostalgia while I leeched off her body heat, cuddling up next to her chest as close as I could. She said that cuddling with me reminded her of when I was a toddler, only now, I was even smaller than a toddler. 

Of course, the cuddling couldn’t last forever. My mom eventually tucked me into the other bed. 

“I don’t want to crush you if I roll over,” she said.

Maggie called my mom in the morning, telling her that I’d received dozens of messages and phone calls from Jackie. I’d totally forgot that I left my phone in her dorm room. 

Both of us knew we couldn’t ignore Jackie for too long. We drove back to Georgetown to see what Jackie wanted to say to me. And Maggie wasn’t lying. There were countless messages saying: “We need to talk” or “Don’t ignore me” or “Get your ass over to the house.” I immediately noticed that Jackie wasn’t mentioning any specifics about what we needed to “talk” about. After sitting in between Maggie and my mother on Maggie’s bed and taking in all of Jackie’s vague messages and strangely emotionless voicemails, I knew exactly what was going on.

“She’s already has legal counsel,” I told both the two women. “She would’ve been mentioned the shrinking under normal circumstances. She’s already lawyered up.”

“No lawyer would advise her to send you all those messages, Desmond,” Maggie argued.

“Yeah, you’re right. But she doesn’t listen to anyone if she doesn’t want to. And she’s smart enough not to leave direct evidence in texts.”

“Desmond, I think it’s time to call your father.”

My dad was a good lawyer, but I never thought I would need him in his professional capacity. 

As soon as he was brought up to speed by my mother on the phone, she gave the phone to me. Well, more accurately, she held the phone up for me since it was half my size. I couldn’t even hold my phone in my hand anymore. 

“Hey buddy. We’re gonna fix this. That’s what good lawyers do. We fix things.”

“Thanks Dad. I’m sorry I ever let this happen. I could’ve—”

“Coulda woulda shoulda,” he cut me off. “This was your first relationship. There are red flags that we all ignore in our first girlfriends. I did it myself. Unlucky for you, the red flags you ignored caused this whole shrinking fiasco. There’s really nothing you could’ve done differently. You happened to meet a girl who can shrink people. That’s not your fault. It’s her fault for doing it to you. And now, we’re gonna fix it. This is your first case as a fledgling lawyer. Don’t screw it up.”

My dad always found a way to bring levity in times of despair. I let out a reserved laugh, but really, I was taking him literally. This really did feel like my first case. The only difference was that I was the lawyer, the plaintiff, and the defendant all at the same time. I was going to have to defend myself and attack at the same time. 

My first case was here. And it was to determine whether or not I would remain an inch tall the rest of my life. 

“Well, that certainly makes me feel better,” I told my dad. 

“Listen, I’m jumping on a plane tomorrow morning to Reagan. We’ll figure all this crap out, trust me. How’s your mother been? A little stir crazy?” he asked. 

I rubbed my forehead, hoping my mom didn’t overhear him say that through the phone. “Yeah, that might be an understatement.”

My mom playfully slapped my head. She did hear it apparently. 

“Did I hear that whack?” he asked. 

“Yeah, she hit me,” I said in between chuckles.

“Chill out, mama bear! Daddy’s a comin’!” he yelled to her.

Mom rolled her eyes, but I could tell she was glad to have Dad in our corner. She was getting very stressed about my predicament, and she needed a pillar of support. Dad was that pillar. 

“Alright, man. I gotta go pack up. See ya tomorrow. Don’t let your mom lose her mind before I get there, got it?”

“Yeah, Dad. See you.”

When my mom eventually left to go back to her hotel, I set up a meeting with Jackie and her lawyers. I made sure I stayed as dispassionate as I could on the phone with Jackie. 

“I’ll see you tomorrow, Jackie.”

“See you tomorrow, cutie,” she said.

She hung up. Man, she just doesn’t get it, I thought to myself. Maggie took the phone away, put it on her desk then scooped me up in her hand. 

“Where am I going?” I asked her. 

“To bed.”

“What? It’s only 8.”

She let out an exasperated sigh as she held me over my shoebox bed, which was sitting on top of Maggie’s night table next to her bed. 

“I don’t want to have this conversation,” she said. “I have a lot of work to get done, and I need some peace and quiet. Just get some rest, ok? Your little body has to be tuckered out by now.”

I wasn’t tired at all. In fact, I wanted to stay up all night with Maggie and talk about how afraid I was about tomorrow’s meeting with Jackie. But I was the size of an action figure. And at night, action figures get put away. I was getting put away by Maggie and seeing the bags under her eyes convinced me not to fight back.

“Yeah, now that you mention it, I am a bit tired.”

“Ok then, good night Desmond.”

The next thing I knew I was inside the shoebox with the lid on top. I heard Maggie plop her butt back down into her rolling chair. She let out another gaping sigh. 

She must have a lot of homework still left. I should’ve just gone out into the hall with my mom, maybe she would’ve been done by now and we could’ve talked, I thought as I lay against my pillow. 

Fifteen minutes passed, and I was restless and feeling a bit claustrophobic. The shoebox wasn’t too small, but it wasn’t expansive enough to be super comfortable. Ironically enough, if I shrank a couple more inches, it would probably be perfect. 

I lifted my head from my rose-pink pillow and sat upright. My head was grazing against the lid. Curious about my strength, I tapped the lid with a modicum of force. It didn’t budge. It was a shoebox lid for crying out loud! It didn’t even weigh a pound. But even if it weighed half a pound, it probably felt like lifting 12 pounds if the proportions of my body had stayed perfectly the same throughout the shrinking process. But I knew that wasn’t true. I was almost twice as skinny as I used to be now, and in turn, twice as weak. 

As I kept pushing up on the lid, all of these toxic thoughts about how weak I was swirled around in my head. It pissed me off that Maggie could easily walk back over to me and take the lid off without breaking a sweat. Meanwhile, I was practically slamming it, and it wasn’t moving at all. Also, the fact that she hadn’t noticed my slamming reminded me how small and insignificant I was.

After several minutes of these futile attempts to escape my shoebox, I lost it. Instead of trying to hit the lid off, I threw my entire body into the side wall of the box. For a second or two, I was overjoyed. I’d finally budged my stupid shoebox! Moments later though, I was teetering on the edge of Maggie’s night table. 

The last thing I wanted to do was call Maggie for help. I wanted to do something myself for once. So, I tried to body slam the opposite side of the shoebox. As I stood up and prepared to charge like an offensive lineman, the balance of the entire box shifted off the table. I flipped backward and my stomach lurched. I fell off Maggie’s night table. At my current size though, it was more like falling off a three story building. 
The box flipped upside down as it fell, and my back was up against the lid, which somehow, was still tightly secured.
I landed on the floor back first, and all my pillows caved in all around me, leaving me completely trapped. That’s right. My attempt to escape my shoebox left me paralyzed. 

I’m such a moron.

I lay for a couple of seconds there wondering if Maggie even heard me fall. I was extraordinarily lucky because I heard her feet thumping toward me almost immediately. The box was lifted, and light came streaming in. The doll pillows inside spilled out onto the floor, lifting most of the pressure off me. I threw two of the pillows covering my face to the side and saw Maggie’s disapproving eyes. I thought I would get a little sympathy at least.

“Did you do this on purpose?” she asked.

“I was feeling claustrophobic,” I said. “And I’m nervous about tomorrow. I’m antsy and I can’t spend the entire night in a damn shoebox that

Jackie made for me! It’s just too much!”

Maggie plucked me up out of the mountain of pillows I was under and held me by just arm for a moment while she got comfortable sitting on the floor. Once her legs were crossed, she sat me down on her knee. My butt didn’t come close to spanning the area of her kneecap. It was also impossible for me not to be amazed at how her legs stretched in either direction seemingly forever. And this was a mere 5’6” girl.

“Why didn’t you just tell me all of that? I wouldn’t have locked you up in the box. Although, I kinda figured you were able to get out on your own.”

“Yeah, well I ‘kinda’ thought the same thing,” I said with a scowl on my face. 

“Oh, don’t pout. Listen, tonight, you don’t have to sleep in the shoebox. You can sleep somewhere else. But if I put you there, you’re gonna have to take a shower in the morning.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Because it gets sweaty in between my boobs.”