==============

Friday, October 23

==============

Marcus needed a vacation, and with the stress of having to care for her dad, Jessie was in need of one too. A vacation had been on Marcus’ mind for several weeks, and though he didn’t have a lot of money to spend, the relief he’d been sent by the government had given him enough leeway to consider a trip to visit some of his family.

Originally, Marcus was from a small town in the central Rocky Mountains, so some of his family still lived there—his mom, who was in her early 60s; his sister Emma, who was also a single parent (although she at least kept in touch with her ex-husband); and Emma’s daughter Morgan, who had recently turned 17. Only his mom knew of his plans to come visit them, although even she wasn’t aware of how soon Marcus planned on visiting. When he woke up on Friday, he had a sudden, strong epiphany that he didn’t want to wait any longer. He didn’t just want to see his family soon. He wanted to go today.

Fortunately for him, one of Marcus’ college buddies had gotten a job at a regional airline several years ago, and had been able to score Marcus a discounted round trip ticket for the weekend. The ticket had been made in Jessie’s name; the friend didn’t know about Marcus’ recent shrinking, and just thought Marcus wanted to give his daughter a gift, but the real plan was for him to accompany Jessie as her… well, not her luggage exactly. A law had been put in place in the early 2010’s that all shrunken people under 12 inches got to fly for free with a guardian, since they wouldn’t need to take up any seat space. Another one of the perks of being small, Marcus thought to himself. I’ll be saving twice as much on tickets if Jessie’s the only passenger from here on out.

Right now, Marcus was still lying in his bed, texting his mom about his plans. “Don’t tell Emma yet. Or Morgan,” he wrote. “I wanna surprise them.”

“you’re surprising me!” she typed back.

“But we can stay for the weekend, right? Won’t be an issue?”

“yes. it will be great to see you 😊”

“The flight lands around 3pm your time. Will you be able to pick us up, or should we get an Uber?”

“not sure yet. i’ll let you know before you leave though.”

Marcus took a deep breath, and a smile slowly crept onto his face. He was already feeling excited. He hadn’t seen his mom (or his sister and niece) in almost two years, and considering how many months he’d been shrunken, he figured a visit was long overdue.

“Hey Daddy?” Jessie’s voice echoed from across the house, and like a little kid, Marcus suddenly hurried under his covers, turning off his phone and doing his best to lay flat and remain unnoticeable on the oversized bed. Her footsteps drew louder and closer, and then he heard a knock on his door. After several seconds of silence, Jessie slowly pushed his door open and peeked her head inside, looking around. “Daddy. Dad. Father. Hellooooo, parent of mine, where are you?” After a few more seconds, she asked, “Are you in the bathroom?” But when she still didn’t hear him answer, she sighed, and retreated back to her bedroom.

Once the coast was clear, Marcus popped out from under his covers, feeling enthused with a sense of giddiness. He’d hidden from her because he wanted to make the announcement a surprise, wherein he’d be standing on the kitchen table holding his miniature suitcase, and then she’d ask why he was holding his suitcase, and he’d say because he’d need it for where they were going, and then she’d get excited and ask where they’re going, and then he’d reveal that she wouldn’t be going to school today because they had a flight to catch instead. It was gimmicky, sure, but Jessie’s smiles looked literally ten times bigger from his new size, so Marcus was getting a kick out of extracting random smiles from her whenever he could. But he had to be quick, because if he took too long, she’d either walk in on him packing his things into his suitcase, or she’d leave for school on her own.

After climbing down from his bed, he selected a light assortment of clothes from his dresser, grabbed his toothpaste and toothbrush, and stuffed the items into his suitcase along with a book to read on the plane. After looking out into the hallway, he saw that the bathroom light was on and could hear music playing from inside. She was probably putting on her makeup, so he rushed down through the hall and hoped that she wouldn’t finish up in the minute that it took him to make his way to the other side.

Arriving in the kitchen, he stopped in his tracks when he saw that Jessie had propped her backpack up against one of the table legs, which also happened to be the same corner where his ladder was, the one he used to climb to the top. “Shit,” he muttered, approaching it slowly and looking up at it from underneath the unzipped front flap. He’d had to remind her before not to leave her things there, because it obstructed him from being able to get to the table’s surface on his own, and apparently he’d need to remind her again. But maneuvering behind the backpack looked like it might be possible, since the bulk of the bag’s weight was freestanding, with only the front flap folded against his ladder. I can probably just climb up right past it, he realized. It might feel a little heavy, and he’d have to use his head to push up against it since his hands would be holding the rungs, but he could do it.

To make the climb easier, he slung his suitcase’s strap over his right shoulder, and then from under the shadow of Jessie’s backpack, started climbing to the top of the table. When he reached the flap, he stopped on the ladder and used his left hand to push it back, hopefully giving him some room. For a moment, it swayed away from him, but once he saw it start to slow down, he realized his momentum hadn’t been enough and it was about to swing back his way, so he quickly tried scrambling up the ladder to clear out of the way before it hit him. Just when he thought he’d made it, the top of the flap thudded against the ladder again and hit Marcus’ ankle, sweeping his foot out from under him and causing the man to lose his grip and fall backwards. Yelling out in surprise, Marcus’ body tumbled down into his daughter’s backpack, until he landed with a soft thud at the bottom, knocking him unconscious.

After Jessie finished getting ready for school, she gathered her things and called out for her dad a second time. When he didn’t respond, she headed into his bedroom again to double check his bed and bathroom. After calling his phone and getting no response, she began to feel a faint sense of worry, but if her dad wasn’t going to take her to school, she’d just have to bike; it was already too late to take the bus. Racking her brain, Jessie couldn’t think of any good reason why her dad wouldn’t answer her and wasn’t anywhere to be found (and he wasn’t even that small; at nine inches, surely she would’ve been able to find his body somewhere if—nevermind, she didn’t want to dwell on that thought). But then again, it was entirely possible he’d simply gone out for an early morning walk and hadn’t taken his phone, or maybe he hadn’t slept well last night, got up, and then fell asleep somewhere else in the house. They were unlikely possibilities, but the rational side of her brain told her that she should just go to school, and if he didn’t text her back by noon, then she could start to worry for real, and maybe the office would let her come home early.

Didn’t he say he’d take me to school from now on? she thought, noticing his car still in the driveway after heading outside. Or did I just expect that he would? Regardless, she obviously wouldn’t be driven to school today, so she slung her gym bag over her shoulder, slid her backpack onto her handlebars, and set off down the road, unaware that she was actually bringing her dad along for the ride.

*       *       *

When Marcus awoke, it took him a few moments to fully realize what had happened. He was in a barely lit space on top of a pile of things he couldn’t make out, and it felt like he was being rushed somewhere at a hundred miles an hour. He’d never been knocked unconscious before, so waking up in something that wasn’t a bed or a couch confused him at first, before he addressed his memory and recalled that he’d fallen off the table’s ladder. So he must still be in Jessie’s backpack, which meant she was now on her way to school. 

As his eyes adjusted to the darkness—the only light came in through the tiny holes and cracks formed by the zippers up above—he found himself amongst books & notebooks, a can of mints, at least seven pencils (so Jessie’s that kind of classmate…), an AirPods case, and her phone charger. He attempted to call her name, but even when he screamed out as loud as he could, it didn’t cause Jessie to stop. Then he went to grab his phone so he could call her, but his pocket was empty. He couldn’t remember if his phone had even been on him when he climbed the ladder; was it somewhere here lying around, or back in his bedroom? He cursed under his breath a few times, but at least he wasn’t hurt, other than a headache that seemed to be fading. She’ll open her backpack eventually and see me. I just have to wait.

When Jessie arrived at school and locked her bike up, Marcus tried again to call her name, but she still couldn’t seem to hear him. Is the bag really muffling my voice that much? It wasn’t; she just had her AirPods in, and she would’ve been able to hear her dad if she’d taken them out. She only stopped listening to her music once she’d sat down in her first period class, but by then, Marcus assumed that calling out for her was useless, so he sat quietly and waited to be discovered.

She didn’t end up needing anything out of her backpack that period, not even one of the many pencils she was permanently borrowing from her classmates, so after almost an hour of lying in wait, the intercom bell rang, and classroom doors across the school exploded open as hundreds of kids milled about on their way to their next classes. Once again, Marcus got flung into the air like he was just another one of his daughter’s school things, and carried through the halls until she arrived at her next class. He wasn’t even paying attention and was lost in the middle of a daydream, when the zipper loudly and suddenly ripped open. 

The sprawled out body of her tiny father was the first thing Jessie laid eyes on, and she felt so relieved that she quietly gasped. He was lucky that her anxious mood had driven her to sit in the back corner of the classroom, and although a couple faces turned for a brief moment, nobody else was actually able to see the little man that Jessie had in her backpack for some reason. She heaved her backpack onto the desk, the back of it facing up, and leaned her head in to try and discreetly talk to her dad. “What are you doing in here?!” she asked quietly, but with a clear tone of incredulity and surprise.

“I accidentally fell in before you left for school,” he told her, having to kneel down on one of her books and duck his head from how little space there was. In the open, nine inches didn’t seem like all that much, but inside a backpack, it left him barely any room to move. “You weren’t even supposed to come to school today,” he chuckled. “You need to get to the office.”

Her mouth hung open, still processing her surprise, when the voice of her teacher called across the classroom to her. “I hope whatever’s got your attention in your backpack isn’t your phone.” Jessie’s mind was fully focused on her dad though, buried inside her bag, and she didn’t even realize that her teacher was looking straight at her. Heels began clacking against the linoleum floor in Jessie’s direction, and her teacher repeated herself sternly. “Miss Tilden?”

Hearing her name being called along with the sound of Mrs. Backwater approaching, Jessie pulled her head out of her backpack, nervously gripping the sides of it tightly and instinctively pulling it close to her possessively (which, she later realized, looked about as suspicious as possible). In doing so, the glossy covers of her books allowed some of them to slide towards her, including the top one that Marcus was on, and he was sent rolling forward several relative feet before toppling off the edge of the book—right into the opening of his daughter’s shirt.

Feeling her dad fall into her shirt made Jessie tense her muscles so tightly they were almost shaking, as his little body tumbled past her boobs (thank God I’m wearing a bra, she thought, even though she always wore one to school), down her chest, and came to stop just below her belly button. She’d tucked the front of her shirt into her jeans for stylistic reasons, but it ended up saving both her and her dad from embarrassment when it stopped Marcus from falling onto the floor for the whole class to see. Still, he was in a more compromised position than earlier, and he felt awkward being pressed against his young daughter’s belly.

Her teacher took ahold of her backpack to look inside, and suddenly half the class was glancing in her direction to see if she was about to get in trouble. Luckily, she remembered what her dad had just said, and she mustered up the gusto to speak. “I was looking for a slip that the office gave me before first period,” she thought of saying. “I had a doctor’s appointment.”

Sure enough, there didn’t seem to be a phone in the girl’s backpack, but the middle-aged woman was still suspicious of her answer. “So you came to class even though you were supposed to go to the office?”

“I… forgot,” she answered nervously.

“Where’s your phone?”

“In my pocket. I mean my waistband, I keep it tucked in my pants.” She reached behind her and pulled her phone out from where she said it was, showing her teacher that she really hadn’t been using it.

“So you can’t find your slip?”

Jessie shook her head.

“Do you want me to call the office for you then?” The teacher was asking to be courteous, but also because she could catch Jessie in a lie if she wasn’t telling the truth.

Jessie nodded, and the teacher headed back to her desk; “Everyone else, keep reading Chapter 4,” she said. 

But then Jessie realized her dad had said she wasn’t even supposed to come to school today, so he might have never called the office in the first place. “Wait, um… actually, I don’t know if my dad’s called them yet to let them know he’s picking me up.”

“They’ll have a record of you from when you got a slip this morning,” the teacher replied, and dialed the code for the receptionist. Jessie didn’t know what her teacher would do if she found out Jessie had lied; there was a chance the woman would take her phone and not let her have it back til the end of the day. “Hey Sylvia,” Mrs. Blackwater said, “one my students, Jessie Tilden, says she had a slip to be excused for a doctor’s appointment, but can’t seem to find it anymore.” Jessie’s heart started beating faster, hating the feeling when you know you’re about to be caught in a lie and just have to wait until you’re found out. Even Marcus could hear his daughter’s heart-rate increase, since part of his face was being held against her torso anyways. “You sure?” The teacher straightened her back, a hint of a smile on her face.

But then her expression changed. “Well, lucky for her. I’ll send her over, thanks.” She sighed and turned to Jessie. “Looks like your dad called at the same time I did. You can go.”

Jessie was shocked. “Oh… okay, cool. Thanks.” She zipped her backpack up, but didn’t know how to grab her dad to hide him again without anybody seeing; he was too big to hide in her hand. So to keep anyone from seeing the oddly shaped lump weighing her shirt down when she stood up, she held her book bag close to her, stood up and pushed her chair in, and then slowly made her way for the door.

“Remember to read chapters 4 through 6 before Monday,” the teacher reminded her.

“Okay. See you next week,” Jessie replied, and then slipped out the classroom door.

Once she was in the hallway, she looked around to make sure nobody was watching, reached under her shirt to grab her dad, and then quickly stowed him in her backpack before heading down to the office with a relieved and victorious grin on her face.