Several months passed, and the trauma of spending a night the size of an insect and nearly getting squished remained just as strong as immediately after it happened. Every day in my class Jessica would find some reason to stand next to me and leer down, a constant reminder of what she had taken from me, as though I would ever forget. Each night I had nightmares of her as a giantess. Sometimes she shrank me as she had before, others she could stride over buildings, but they all ended the same way – a quick, grisly death under her shoe.
I did my best to hide the toll she had taken on me, both mentally and physically. No therapist would believe my story, of course, since the idea of a person shrinking was ridiculous outside the realm of fairy tales and fantasy books, so I was left to deal with it on my own. The three inches she stole from me turned out to be very important – now I was without question the shortest person in the school, even looking up to freshmen I passed in the hallway. For a couple of weeks I tried to hide it by spending most of my time sitting, but the jig was up when a 5’1” girl noticed she had a small height advantage over me. Once word got out students would go out of their way to stand as close as they could and feel they towered over me. Every time they did, whether she was an inch taller or someone monstrously tall like Jessica, my imagination ran wild, and I saw them as though I were an inch tall again.
A couple weeks after winter semester began, I stayed late to input grades from the first test. Although our deal was only for the first semester, I figured it would be prudent to give Jessica a 100 despite handing in the test several minutes late and covered in doodles. At the very least, it would get her out of this school and as far away from me as possible so I could begin the healing process. I looked down the list of assignments and considered just filling in 100s for her right now, but that would raise a few eyebrows in case of an audit. The school board would use Occam’s razor even if I could bring myself to tell them I did it because I was afraid she’d shrink me small enough to fit in her mouth again.
Someone rapped loudly on my door, jerking me out of the spiraling worst-case scenario I had running through my head. Startled, I turned toward the sound, and let out a quiet groan when I saw Jessica’s blond head ducking through the doorway. “Hello, Mr. Tiny!” she declared when her whole long body finally crossed the threshold. “It’s me, Jessica! Your favorite student!”
“Hi, Jessica,” I replied, much less enthusiastically. “Is there something I can help you with?”
She giggled a bit before answering. “You can get out of your chair and come see me, you little doofus!” Jessica twirled a lock of hair around her finger while she spoke. It was straight and loose, down past her shoulders, and several loose strands clung to her tight, black, long-sleeve shirt. Even though they were against the school dress code she wore black yoga pants, and everyone either did not care or lacked the courage to call her on it. Her pair of tremendous, light brown Ugg boots stretched from one tile onto the next.
“No thanks, I’m fine sitting,” I said. “Last I checked, your legs worked fine.”
“I really think you should come over here,” Jessica insisted, lowering her voice. “And don’t do anything sly, like rolling your chair over here. I need you to stand and face me.”
I relented and stood, dragging myself out of my chair. If I continued refusing, Jessica would just walk over and pull me out anyway, and that would be the least of it if she had to ask me three times. Dragging my feet only seemed to make her enjoy it more, and she was practically beaming when I came to a stop a foot in front of her. “Closer.” Reluctantly I took a half-step forward. “Closer,” she repeated impatiently, her voice full of venom. Carefully I shuffled toward her until my eyelashes touched her shirt, making sure I did not shove my face into her breasts.
“My eyes are up here, Mr. Tiny.” Stuck between two unpleasant situations I took the one that was less likely to get a complaint filed against me and looked up. I had to crane my neck all the way back, and from her expression I could tell that Jessica was loving towering over me even more than usual. Something swirled inside her blue eyes that made me feel uncomfortable. “So? What do you think?”
“About what?” The only thing that was even a little different was her silver hoop earrings which I could only notice up close.
“Aw, you don’t even notice?” Jessica sounded dejected. “I guess it really has been too long since we’ve done this. Or,” a mischievous smirk crossed her face and her eyes began to faintly glow, “you’re just so small that everyone over like five-eight is just generically ‘tall’ to you.” She paused, waiting for me to say something while her eyes grew marginally brighter. At last she was unable to contain herself and exclaimed, “I grew two inches over winter break!”
I was decidedly non-plussed. She had definitely seemed taller since coming back – my eyes were now right at her chest level – but it had hardly registered amid everyone else clamoring to show off how much taller they were than me. Besides, I didn’t think being tall was much of an accomplishment. “Did you stay thirty minutes after school just to show me that?”
“You’re just jealous that you didn’t grow,” she teased, “and you’re going to be five foot nothing for the rest of your life. But no, I do have something else.” Her eyes became even brighter, standing out amid her cream skin. “You need to write a letter of recommendation for me for colleges.”
“I do?” I challenged. When I tried to take a step back she clapped a hand on my shoulder, keeping me in place.
“Yeah. You do.” Her eyes became more intense, and I found myself unable to look away from them despite strongly wanting to.
“Why should I?” I persisted. “Surely any other of your teachers would be better. They’ve seen you put forth real effort over the past year and have nothing but good things to say about you, while you’ve done nothing but turn in weird doodles and blank pages to me for the whole year. You should ask one of them.”
“I’m not asking them,” Jessica growled, her eyes reaching a pitch, “I’m telling you. You owe me two favors, Mr. Tiny, and we have a deal.”
I was getting tired of being pushed around by a high schooler even if she was over a foot taller than me, and to make it worse other students were starting to follow her example. It was time to stand my ground. “You already collected those favors when you took two inches from me,” I told her. “And our deal was for grades, not letters of recommendation.”
“Then I’m altering the deal.” Jessica’s eyes seemed to engulf me, and my knees began to shake. “It seems like you’ve forgotten just what I can do, and it’s time you got a reminder.” This time, I had gone too far. I tried to get away, but she kept me exactly where I was. The ethereal blue light from her eyes expanded to overwhelm me and crackled with small bolts of lightning.
After several seconds of overwhelming my senses the light receded, and to my surprise nothing had changed. My relief, however, was short lived. “You need to act more appropriate for your size,” Jessica intoned, her voice like rumbling thunder in my ears. It lingered, repeating over and over, and as it did so she began to grow in my vision. She shrank me slower this time, apparently taking delight from watching me dwindle, but in a second I was looking up at her waist. A second later I had been reduced past her powerful thighs and gazed up at her knees, then her boots were taller than me. When I was even with the sole of her boot she finally stopped. “That means do what someone says if they can step on you.”
Though I had lived this nightmare daily for months, experiencing it again was no less terrifying than the first time. I desperately wanted to tear my eyes away from the towering young woman standing astride me so I could run and hide under my desk, but I felt compelled to keep staring up at her, awestruck. She seemed to know this and looked down at me smugly, placing her hands on her hips to enhance the image of power.
“Not so big when you’re not so big, are you, Mr. Tiny?” Jessica boomed, taunting me. She began tapping one of her enormous boots on the ground, sending regular thuds and quakes through the ground. “Now.” As though she were earnestly thinking it over she cupped her round chin. “What should I do with this bug at my feet who thinks it’s a teacher?”
“Grow me back so I can write you that letter of recommendation?” I offered. “I’ve learned my lesson, I promise.”
Jessica let out a loud, booming laugh, then cut it short. “Nice try, but I’d like it if you showed me more respect than that,” she chided. “All I have to do is move my foot six inches and you go squish.” To drive her point home she began tapping her foot harder, practically slamming it into the ground so that the tremors weakened my already shaking knees. “Any other ideas?”
“Um.” Her smile flared at the sound of my miniscule voice. “You log into my computer and I tell you what to write?” She was clearly not going to undo this until she got that letter, come hell or high water.
“I like that more,” Jessica replied with a sly grin, “but it sounds like you’re trying to minimize your time minimized. But you do have a good point: how can you write me a recommendation when you barely know anything about me?” My jaw dropped, and I knew that this would not end well. “You should spend the rest of the day with me! You know, really get to know me, one on one.”
“Oh, Jessica, you really don’t need to –“
“No, I insist!” she roared, cutting me off. “It’s no trouble for me, really. You don’t look like you eat much, and besides, it’ll be fun! We can watch study together, watch movies, then stay up late so I can tell you what to write for me and you can tell me scary stories about trying to teach students who can smash you on accident.”
“Well, it wouldn’t be appropriate…”
Jessica’s loud, piercing cackle cut me off. “Appropriate?” she repeated. “You’re smaller than my thumb! What do you think will happen, huh?” She let that settle for a moment before continuing. “What’s the matter, worried you might end up liking me?”
“Did you forget the most important thing, Mr. Tiny? You don’t have a choice.” I stood frozen, looking up at Jessica in shock while she crouched in front of me, her legs extending well over my head. When she got settled, she positioned herself so that she could look at me between her knees, her thighs framing her face. An enormous hand snaked between her legs, completely relaxed and fingers extended. When it reached her ankles it suddenly flipped up, and I could see every line and contour on her palm, no matter how small. She held her palm there, poised to strike, while she watched me curiously. Maybe she expected me to make a break for it, but I was still too entranced by her eyes to turn away.
Jessica finally struck, and her hand easily overwhelmed me. For a brief instant her fingers stretched over me and her palm continued its rapid advance, threatening to pound me into the tile. Just before it made contact it stopped and her fingers swept inward, scooping me off the ground. She pressed me against her palm before readjusting her fingers, holding me securely in the middle of her fist. The heat became intense very quickly, and the only light was two pinpricks poking in from either side.
I did not pass out on the spot like the first time, since this was a common event in my nightmares. Regardless, I wished I had. The intense forces as Jessica carelessly picked me up off the ground made my stomach turn, and I saw stars on the edge of my vision. The ride came to an abrupt stop, making my stomach lurch the other way, and her fingers uncurled. Momentarily the light shocked me and I rushed to shield my eyes. When it subsided, I was greeted by a pair of piercing blue eyes and a vast field of creamy white skin.
“Still with me, Mr. Tiny?” She seemed to enjoy calling me that even more when I was shrunken. Her voice made my innards shake and I instinctively tried to back away, only to get blocked by the rest of her palm raised behind me. “I’ll take that as a yes.” Trying to focus on any one feature of hers was too much, so I decided to simply look at her left eye.
“I didn’t want to waste time reviving you when we got back to my house.” At least her priorities were in order. I could not escape her hand without dashing myself to bits on the floor below, so I was trapped. “We better get moving.” Her fingers curled back over me, encasing me in darkness. There was a quick jolt while she moved her hand to her side, then I was absent any sensation aside from heat and some slight jostling while she walked.