“It is not the most intellectual of the species that survives; it is not the strongest that survives; but the species that survives is the one that is able best to adapt and adjust to the changing environment in which it finds itself.”
“What I just wrote on the board is a famous quote attributed to Charles Darwin after he visited the Galápagos Islands in 1835, and it was there that he developed his theory of evolution and conclusion that species change through natural selection, or - in simple terms - through "the survival of the fittest" in a given environment...”
That was what Rinda should’ve heard, but it wasn’t; Mr. Meenor's lecture went in her left ear and out her right and all she heard was “blah blah blah, Darwin.” from the man in his late 20s. She kept staring at the clock, only a few more minutes before class lets out and each second that passed felt like an eternity, biology was never her favorite subject, why spend so much time memorizing things that Google could tell you in a split second?
"Darwin's theory was ridiculed by many people in his time and- yes Brandon?" he pointed to a scrawny kid in the back.
"Does attractiveness also play a role in natural selection?"
"I am so glad you brought that up, from an evolutionary view, extremes of secondary sexual characteristics such as more feminine for women or more masculine for men are proposed to be attractive because they advertise the quality of an individual in terms of heritable benefits and indicate that the owners of such characteristics possess good genes."
Rinda heard snickering before a well-known blonde loudmouth named Cassie behind her shouted "If that's the case, then teeny Rinny over there is an evolutionary dead-end!" loud enough for the entire class to hear. Chuckles erupted from everyone in the room all the while Rinda tried to bury herself under her hoody, she had gotten used to the bullying by her peers and wanted desperately to crawl into a hole, but the teasing wasn't what hurt her emotionally, it was the fact that Mr. Meenor didn't even reprimand Cassie for what she said and he even laughed slightly alongside her.
The bell finally rung, and with it came a collective sigh of relief from the masses.
“Alright, class! That’s a wrap! And don’t forget that your essay on symbiotic mutualism is due tomorrow!
“Shit!” How could she had completely forgotten about that?! It looks like tonight'll be another late essay typing session. She packed up her notebook and began to head out, and along the way Cassie came up to her again with a smirk.
"Don't worry Rinny weeny, nature will take its course when it comes to your genes!", she then flicked her hair and disappeared before Rinda can make a rebuttal.
Rinda knew that what Cassie said was partially true, she was 17-years-old and yet, she was 4'10, weighed only 85 pounds, and needed glasses to see. She also had almost no breasts or curves and is probably the only virgin female left in the school, while Cassie stood at a normal height of 5'5, had breasts, and got laid last year.
"It's not fair!" she thought, "Everyone else is bigger and stronger than me, and it's all because of my cesspool of an excuse for a gene!"
As she began to walk to her other class down the hallway, she turned a corner and was immediately steamrolled by a behemoth texting on her phone and splattered with a blast of caramel-infused macchiato.
“Watch where you're going, weirdo!”
She looked up after dusting herself off and saw Gidget looking down at her with disdain, the queen bee brunette of the school's social hierarchy and the head of the cheerleading squad. She was 6'4 at 18-years-old and had a figure most girls would kill for.
You bumped into me, you big oaf!" Rinda shouted. Everyone in the hallway stopped what they were doing to look at the two girls sizing each other up, whispers began to appear in the crowd questioning who this short girl covered in coffee is.
Gidget then shoved Rinda onto the floor, she outweighed her by about 80 pounds and the difference in strength was obvious. "No! YOU'RE the midget who needs a new pair of glasses! Isn't that right, everyone?" The crowd began to murmur with approval, most were swayed purely by the confidence and volume in the girl's voice.
"Un-fucking believable!" Rinda thought, "Everyone saw that she was on her phone and yet they're all agreeing with her just because they know who she is!"
"I don't have time for this petty squabble, Gidget." She tried to shuffle her way into the crowd but one of Gidget's cronies stuck her leg out, causing her to trip and faceplant onto the cold tile floor.
Everyone in the hallway began to howl with laughter, but Rinda didn't hear any of it. In her mind, all she could think about in that moment was the irony of the situation: Her name means "giant" in Norse but she was shorter than most kids in elementary school, while Gidget's name meant "small girl" and yet she towered over most guys.
Tears began to fill her eyes and blood began to flood her face as she immediately got up and dashed her way through the crowd with surprising strength and ease for her size until she reached the girl's restroom, a quick check confirmed that she was alone.
She had been utterly humiliated in front of the whole school and she wanted to scream but also didn't want to attract any more attention. After maybe one or two minutes of cleaning up the coffee spill and composing herself, she realized how parched her throat was from the whole ordeal and reached into her backpack with her right hand for a Red Delicious apple.
As she was about to take a bite, she stopped and looked at the mirror in front of the sink at her reflection, her appearance was that of a wimpy geek and she knew it. Memories of her humiliation by Gidget earlier flooded her brain again, causing her to see red in anger.
"I wish I could teach that bitch a lesson! If only that overgrown bimbo was smaller, she wouldn't be able to push me around like a child! If I was as tall as her I could finally get some goddamn respect!"
A loud bang sounded in the bathroom, snapping her out of her rage as she felt something wet and sticky dripping down her arm. She looked down at her hand expecting to see an apple, but was surprised to see puree in its place instead. As she looked around, she realized that fragments of her apple had exploded all around her like a hand grenade.
Confusion and fear began to set in as she realized that she had just crushed an entire whole apple into paste, with one hand...
"The measure of a man is what he does with power." - Plato
"What the fuck just happened? Did I do that?" Rinda exclaimed in disbelief as she wiped the mushy apple off of her finger with a paper towel, she had always been a physically weak person, so the fact that she had just managed to crush an entire apple in one hand shocked her. After throwing the paper towel into the trash and stuffing her ruined hoodie into her backpack, she looked at herself in the mirror once more in her plain white shirt underneath; Thankfully none of the coffee had soaked through underneath, although the shirt did look smaller than normal.
"Must've shrunk in the dryer." She thought, also chalking the experience to hysterical strength. Grabbing her backpack and hurrying to her next class, she tried to ignore the cramped feeling in her shoes along the way, making a mental note in the process to check them out later.
Opening the door to history class, every eye in the room immediately turned to her, exactly the kind of attention that she doesn't want; Although the stares were different somehow and she couldn't gauge why. The class had already started five minutes ago, and Ms. Anthrope isn't exactly a nice teacher when it comes to leniency for lateness; Hell, the 83-year-old prudish prune shouldn't even be alive in her opinion.
"You're late." the white-haired woman states in an annoyed tone.
"I'm sorry ma'am." Rinda replied, hoping that she would drop the subject.
"And arriving with such indecency too! What is it with you young ladies nowadays dressing so scantily?"
"What are you talking abou-" She stopped abruptly as she looked down on herself; The hemline of her black pleated skirt that normally rested just slightly above her knees now rested at mid-thigh. She can feel the stares of some male students behind her as they tried to take a peek at her panties below, everyone would've caught a peek if the hemline was any higher. Now she knew why the stares were different.
While her school didn't have uniforms, it did dictate that all skirts must at least reach the knees with leniency sometimes for one or two inches here and there; This obviously wasn't the case with her. Embarrassed beyond belief and annoyed by the perverts behind her, she quickly took a seat next to her friend Agatha while the teacher went back to the chalkboard while shaking her head.
"You want me to call out those perverts for you, Rin?" Agatha whispered, the 5'5 olive-skinned Greek-American girl was ready to pound the boys in the back into submission.
"No, I don't want to start anything else." Burying her head into her arms as the teacher droned on, Agatha got the hint and left her alone while wondering why Rinda of all people decided to wear such a short skirt to school; And was she always this tall before?
"What the hell is happening? Everything was normal this morning, and now everything feels a size too small, even my feet are hurting!" Rinda screamed internally. She couldn't find an explanation for what was happening, she knew for a fact that her skirt was a normal length this morning and her size 6 sneakers weren't causing her any pain, they must've shrunk somehow, but HOW?
Lifting her head up, she tried to focus on the lecture but couldn't, and then something caught her eyes: she normally couldn't see over the head of the girl in front of her, except now she can. A realization is beginning to dawn on her as she poked her friend on the arm.
"Agatha." She whispered.
"Yeah?"
"I need you to trust me on this: Ms. A has her back turned, can you stand up on the count of three?"
"Whatever you say."
"Alright; 1, 2, 3!"
As the pair stood up, Rinda can only stare with her mouth slightly ajar at the sight before her.
"No way..." She mouthed silently. Normally her eye level came up to Agatha's neck, but now its at her nose. Doing mental math for the distance between her nose and neck, that would make her about 5'3. It was then that she realized that nothing shrunk, she GREW.