“Do you like it?” Winter asked for the third time.

Eli stared at himself in the bathroom mirror. The long-sleeved flannel hung a bit loose over his black and yellow t-shirt, but the worn jeans fit decently. And, though frayed and missing considerable tread, the yellow Converse shoes weren’t uncomfortable.

“I guess it’s ok.”

“I knew you’d like it!” She hugged him, bumping her forehead against his chin and reminding him just how big his little sister had become. Or just how small he’d shrunk.

Ignoring the collision, she tightened her embrace, making it difficult for him to squirm out. He didn’t remember her being this strong. Then again, she’d been taking gymnastics for a while now. As if to prove the unspoken point, she released him and, using her arms, reverse vaulted into a sitting position at the edge of the sink.

“Mom and I went to three stores yesterday. We found lots of stuff, all different sizes. I picked out almost everything. I didn’t get anything pink or girly, even though they had some really cool looking outfits. There was this one —”

“You did good.” If he didn’t interrupt her, she’d talk nonstop, delving into every detail. He ruffled her hair a bit. “Thanks.”

She beamed, hopped down, and pranced around the bathroom like an elf.

“Time for measurements.” Ally appeared at the doorway, measuring tape and pencil in hand.

“Why? We already know he’s the same height as you.” Winter placed her hand on top of my head and moved it across an invisible wire to the top of Ally’s.

“Yes, but we’re going to measure him anyway.” She dropped one end of the tape so that it fell alongside the door frame. “Over here, Eli.”

He moved to the designated location, once again unnerved by Ally’s size. Seeing her eye-to-eye yesterday hadn’t fully registered in his mind, probably due to his fatigue. Today however, he couldn’t help but notice the difference. If she, one of the most petite in her seventh grade class, appeared this large to him, how would the girls in his eighth grade class appear? Not to mention the boys. If he hadn’t missed the last two days of school, he’d seriously consider skipping Monday.

“Shoes off.” Ally’s tone had shifted toward authoritarian of late, but he didn’t object. If left to his own devices, he’d procrastinate and never create a single episode.

“Eli shrunk about three inches yesterday.” Winter gestured to the camera, showing the distance with her fingers. “After we measure him, we’ll weigh him and maybe do some tests. It’s only been a couple days and we’re already up to twenty-four subscribers. Keep watching and remember to tell your friends.”

“Hold still. Ok. Five-foot one.” Ally marked the paint with her pencil. “Now step on the scale.”

He did as requested, but didn’t look at the analog readout. Something told him he didn’t want to.

“Ninety-four pounds.” Ally wrote the weight in parentheses beside the height on the door frame. “That’s four pounds lighter than me. Way to make a girl jealous, Eli.”

“Wait, how’s that possible? You’re as thin as a rail.”

“Am not.” She thumped him on the arm.

He ignored the playful assault and bounced once on the scale. The dial jumped but went right back to ninety-four. Well, ninety-five-ish, but she’d probably subtracted a pound for clothing. Regardless, he definitely weighed less than her.

“It’s not just your height that shrinks. It’s your entire body.” She held her arm up next to his. “See, look at your wrist.”

It did look less wide compared to hers, which seemed impossible, as if he inhabited someone else's body.

“And your hands.” She held her palm flat against his and, though roughly the same length, her bones appeared a little thicker. Maybe. Though he could just be imagining it.

“Let me try. Let me try.” Winter grabbed his hand and smashed hers against it. Realizing she’d chosen the wrong one, she swapped hands and studied the results. “It’s still bigger than mine.”

“Great.” Eli yanked his hand away. “I’m still bigger than a fifth grader.”

“Actually, Mason and Rachel are both taller than you.” Winter raised her hand above her head to demonstrate. “They’re the tallest girls in my class. They came to my birthday party last month. Don’t you remember?”

“No names outside of us three.” Ally collected her tripod and phone. “I’ll have to edit those out.”

“You remember them, right Eli?” Winter tugged on his sleeve.

“I don’t know. I guess.” He’d all but avoided her birthday party, making only brief appearances to watch her blow out the candles and open a few presents. Luckily, she hadn’t noticed his absence.

They followed Ally into the girls’ bedroom and waited for her to setup the camera. She must’ve prepared something because the coloring table sat in the center of the open area, instead of the corner where it usually rested. He called it the coloring table because its legs, and those of its two chairs, were shaped like crayons, each painted a different color (green, red, blue, and yellow). No one actually used it for coloring, at least not anymore. Lately, it served only as a dumping ground for some of Winter’s toys: everything from Barbies, to Barbie look-alikes, to colorful rubber food thingies, and so on.

“Hey!” Winter rushed to her pile of playthings. “Why are my shopkins all over the floor?”

“Don’t worry, I’ll help you clean it up later.” Ally finished setting up. “I had to make some room.”

“For what?” Frowning, Winter organized the tiny foods on the carpet, using some arcane sorting method only girls her age would understand.

“For the arm wrestling contest.” Ally inspected a flip pad on her dresser and jotted down some notes. “It was the first suggestion we received.”

Winter’s face brightened. “I wanna arm wrestle!”

“Have a seat.”

Winter hurried into one of the small chairs and, gap-toothed grin aside, assumed the earnest demeanor of a professional arm wrestler. Her arm swiveled repeatedly, down and back up, as if wrestling an invisible opponent.

“Really?” Eli asked. “Does everything need to be a physical competition?”

“What would you suggest?” Ally pushed him gently toward the empty chair.

“I don’t know. A mental challenge, like math or something.”

“Boring!” Winter lay her head on the table and pretended to fall asleep.

“That does sound boring.” Ally placed her hands on his shoulders and guided him into the small chair. Built for young children, he could barely fit his knees under the table. Had he been his normal height, he’d probably have to sit on the floor. Then again, he ought to stop thinking of it as his ‘normal’ height. He’d never be that tall again.

“So, I’m just supposed to arm wrestle her?” As soon as he placed his elbow on the table, Winter reached across and grabbed his hand, pulling it into the center. Since her arm was shorter, he had to widen the angle of his more than he would have liked. Not that he was worried about losing. He’d shrunk considerably, but not that much.

“You do know how to arm wrestle, right?” Ally moved the tripod on top of her bed, angling the camera toward the table’s red surface. “Ok.” She sat on the bed’s corner nearest them. “Ready. Set. Go!”

Winter gripped his hand and jerked his arm with surprising speed. By the time his full strength kicked in, she nearly had his hand pinned to the surface. Her arm didn’t seem nearly as skinny as he remembered, and he struggled to return to center.

Giggling but determined, she leaned into the table and then to the left, using her body to resist his efforts. Amazed at her strength, he gave it everything he had, all while trying to look calm and collected. If Carter saw him lose to his sister at his current size, he’d never hear the end of it.

As his arm tired, he desperately sought a new strategy. Surely, there had to be some trick to this. Experimenting, he bent his wrist at a sharp angle, found some hidden leverage, and moved her hand halfway toward the table.

Breaking out into a fit of laughter, Winter threw her other hand into the mix and pulled hard. She pinned him quickly and painfully, and held him there, giggling hysterically.

“I win! I win!”

“I’m pretty sure that’s cheating.” He wrenched his hand from her grip, then wiped his sweaty palm on his jeans.

“Eli’s the winner.” Ally tapped Winter on the shoulder. “Now it’s my turn.”

“Aww, no fair. He’s a boy so I should get to use two hands.” In spite of her complaining, she rose and let Ally have her seat.

“Just wait till he’s your size. Then it’ll be fair.”

“Good point.” Winter flexed her arm for the camera, the sleeves of her white-striped pink shirt hiding her probably non-existent bicep. “Rematch in a few days!”

He hoped he wouldn’t be her size in a few days. The thought alone made him want to crawl out of his skin. He needed more time to adjust to his current height before he could handle shrinking again.

Ally tossed her hair behind her shoulders and planted her arm in the center. “Let’s go.” She opened and closed her hand as if squeezing a stress ball.

“I think I’m done for today.” His elbow still hurt a little, as did the back of his hand from where Winter had slammed it.

“Oh, come on.” She reached over and took his hand. “I’ll go easy on ya.”

Thankfully, he didn’t need to over-extend his arm this time since hers was roughly the same height. But she squeezed his hand relatively hard, and her nails, longer than Winter’s and painted dark red, dug into his skin. “Ready. Set. Go.”

He was prepared for her abrupt countdown this time, but not for her raw power. Going all out, he couldn’t budge her arm an inch and barely managed to hold his position. She too seemed to be straining, but showed no sign of conceding.

“I said go.” She joked, smirking. “Any time now, Eli.”

“Yeh right. I can tell you’re giving it everything you’ve got.”

“Am I?” Her smirk broadened into a smile, and she tilted her wrist — the same trick he’d used on Winter! He tried to reverse the tilt, but his wrist and arm refused to budge. Instead, they sent a bolt of pain that caused him to lose considerable ground. She’d almost pinned him!

“This isn’t exactly fair.” He couldn’t hide the exertion from his voice. “My arm’s already tired.”

“That’s true. You did just have a tough match against your little sister. Here, I’ll help you out.” She let him take her arm to the mirror position on the other side, nearly to the point of letting her hand get pinned. This was it — his last chance to win the match.

Summoning the rest of his energy, he pressed down as hard as he could. Her eyes widened and mouth gaped  as her hand brushed the table. Then, she leaned in as Winter had done and levered her upper body in the opposite direction. The movement was so fast and so overwhelmingly strong that his hand smashed audibly against the table’s surface.

“Ouch!” He rubbed his sore hand.

“Ally’s the winner!” Winter held up Ally’s arm like a ref announcing the results of a boxing match. “She’s officially stronger than Eli!”

“I’m pretty sure her hand touched the table,” he said.

“Wanna rematch?” She placed her elbow back in the center.

“No.” He flexed his arm above his head and heard a little pop.

“Are you ok?” Ally asked, her smile vanishing.

“A little sore.” The pop hadn’t hurt, but he certainly didn’t want a rematch.

“What’s next?” Winter ran to the dresser and picked up Ally’s notepad. “Makeup tag twenty. What’s that?”

“Give me that.” Ally leapt up and retrieved the notepad from her sister. “Someone offered to pay twenty dollars if we do Eli’s makeup.”

Winter squealed. “Ohmigosh! Let’s do it!”

“That’s not going to happen.” He rose to his feet and stretched.

“I figured you’d say that.” Ally made a mark on the pad. “But it is twenty dollars.”

“Twenty dollars.” Winter chimed, as if repeating the amount would change his mind.

“How would they even pay?” he asked.

“I set up a PayPal account.” Ally had a smug expression on her face.

“First of all, there’s no guarantee they’d pay,” he said. “Secondly, it’s not nearly enough money.”

“Well, what would be enough money?” Ally asked.

“I don’t know.” He wanted to say ‘nothing’, but he probably would do it if the price were right. “Let’s just move on. What else is on your list?”

“The last thing is weight lifting,” Ally said.

“What does that even mean?” he asked.

“Try to lift me off the ground.” Ally held her arms out.

“Fine.” He walked behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist, then lifted, tilting his body backwards. She was quite heavy, but her feet did rise from the floor.

“No comments about my weight,” Ally said after returning to solid ground. She couldn’t be that worried about her weight. He knew some girls stressed over body image, but she had no reason to be concerned.

“My turn!” Winter wrapped her arms around his stomach. Then, she lifted. He didn’t come off the floor, but he did have to place a hand on the wall to prevent himself from toppling over.

“Too heavy,” she huffed. “You need to shrink faster.”

“No thank you.” He pried her fingers apart and twisted out of her arms.

“That’s all for today.” Ally waved to the camera. “Remember to like, subscribe and make suggestions!” She removed her phone from the tripod and tapped the screen.

“Well that was humiliating.” He lay flat on Winter’s bed, feet hanging off the edge, and stared at the ceiling. Sometimes he’d look for patterns in the textured ceiling ‘popcorn’. Now, he was just tired. His body still hadn’t fully recovered from shrinking three inches yesterday.

“We’re up to twenty-five subscribers, so it’s worth it.” Ally sat on her own bed and fiddled with her phone.

“Wow. Twenty-five.” He spoke in monotone. “I’m famous.”

“That’s twice as many as my channel and I’ve had mine for a month,” Ally said. “Plus, you have over a hundred views on the first video.”

“Great. And how many views do I need?”

“Well, you need a lot. A million per video to really start making money. But, if we publish a lot and get one hundred thousand subscribers, we should get pretty close.”

“Oh yeh. Piece of cake. Only a million —”

Winter flopped onto her back, perpendicular to him and directly on top of his stomach, causing the air to shoot from his lungs. “My bed is so comfortable,” she said, giggling.

“Get off!” He rose to his elbows, but she didn’t move. Instead, she stuck her legs straight out, increasing the weight on his abdomen.

“Winter, stop.” Ally looked up from her phone and kicked at Winter’s outstretched legs. “He’s not as big as he used to be. You have to be more careful.”

“Aww.” She took hold of the purple comforter and back somersaulted to her feet on the side of the bed.

“I’m not that fragile.” He took a deep breath. “It’s just annoying.”

“Yes, but if she does that after you get smaller, she’ll hurt you.”

“I obviously wouldn’t do that if he was smaller. I’m not stupid.” She sat at the edge of her bed and patted his stomach. Then, she grinned and started tickling.

“Alright, I’m gone.” He started to roll over but Winter’s hand caught his shoulder.

“Ok ok, I’ll stop.” She withdrew the hand from his stomach but held onto his shoulder. “Just stay a while longer. You never come to our room anymore.”

“I’m tired, Winter.”

“You slept all day yesterday. I hardly got to see you! Just hang out. You can rest here and I won’t bother you. I’ll just talk and you can listen.”

He sighed. “Fine.”

He let his eyes drift shut while his sister droned about her entire last week at school, starting with Monday of course. He nodded and made the occasional comment until the cadence of her neverending monologue eventually put him to sleep.

It wasn’t until Mom got home and called for dinner that he awakened. Upon rising, he found his chest covered in those little plastic foods, and Barbies surrounding his head — the latter arranged four on each side, in an arrows pointing downward.

He would’ve laughed if the window and it’s fading sunlight hadn’t caught his eye. In less than twelve hours, he’d be returning to school — significantly shorter than last week and entirely more noticeable. As someone who’d managed to blend in for most of his life, sticking out was the last thing he wanted.

The resulting ball of discomfort in his stomach did nothing for his appetite.