Scott yawned as he bumbled back into full consciousness. Curling into a ball in the sheets had been a mistake, as it seemed he had, indeed, fallen asleep like a napping cat at the foot of Maggie’s bed. Immediately sensation returned in the dimly lit room, and then he yelped meekly, jolted into awareness.

            As was giddily threatened before, he had a seventeen-year-old soccer star’s bare foot jammed back inside his shirt. Her now-warmer sole was molded around the curves of his abdomen, her toes contentedly resting on his chest. His skin had become more temperate as well. Weird as his sister’s logic was, she wasn’t quite wrong about the symbiotic effect of planting her cold sole down on her miniature brother’s body.

            Maggie was grinning ear-to-ear as she stood above him, her leg propped onto the bed. She was clearly almost dizzy with the humor of managing to shove her entire foot up the boy’s shirt without him awakening, at least not immediately.

            “Wakey, wakey, sleepyhead,” she chuckled. Her toes arched and splayed against the stretched neck of Scott’s shirt, slapping the fabric against his skin along with the doughy tips of her toes. “Told you I’d wake you up like this if you fell asleep.”

            “Yes you did,” he replied groggily. Scott attempted to rise up, only to find the weight of his sister’s foot still tucked against his chest made it impossible to shift. “What time is it?”

            “Oh, it’s seven-thirteen. Your date was supposed to start an hour ago.”

            “What?” Scott wheezed, thrashing awkwardly against his sister’s foot in a panicked attempt to escape the embrace of her sole. However, he only succeeded in becoming further entangled as her toes tightened around the cotton. The curved mounds of her digits rolled in flashes through the shirt as he struggled.

            “Just kidding, you little goofball, it’s only five-thirty-four,” Maggie cackled, throwing her head back and swatting her fingers through her hair. “I just wanted to see what you’d do.”

            “Oh,” he gasped. He exhaled, watching his sister’s eyes light up as she arched her sole, giving his stomach more room to inflate.

            It was a fresh and startling experience, having apparent in-jokes and harmless pranks with Maggie. Historically, the girl was only truly interested in engaging humorously with her brother if it meant she could trick him into believing she’d let him leave a room, only to find himself diving face-first into the twisted maze of a tube sock. And usually, she was the only one laughing.

            “Yeah! You thought I wouldn’t remember what time it was at and not wake you up?” she scoffed. “I told you I’m not a dummy.”
            “And I remember it,” Scott swore. He wrapped his hands over the bouncing bumps of Maggie’s toes beneath his shirt, trying and failing to get them to stop dancing on his chest. “Could you, uh…”

            “Sure,” she murmured with a final sly smile. Maggie’s toes released their iron grip on Scott’s shirt. Her heel dragged along his leg as her appendage peeled away from her brother’s tiny torso.

            “Thanks.” He stumbled to a standing position and moonwalked across the bed. “And could you give me a-”

            Barely having to begin the request, Scott found himself with his chest to his sister’s palm once again. Her fingers hugged him possessively and deposited his body back on the floor in front of her toes, which wriggled with a delighted hello at his arrival. It was bracing like little else to once again find himself still safely on time and mostly free of his sister’s interference.

            “Make sure you get dressed nice and pretty for Ella,” Maggie said with a wink. She took a few steady steps, circling around Scott before meandering toward the door. Her toes led the way, the balls of her feet bearing most of her lightweight as her soles arched toward the ceiling, well in Scott’s view. She shook her head. “Don’t you dare keep on what you have on now. Put that little sky-blue button shirt on that I like. She likes it too. I know, cuz I asked her.”

            “Thanks, Mags,” Scott repeated dumbly, still more than a little stunned by all this unusual goodwill and entirely unsure what to do with himself, his hands, or his eyes. Mind blank, he watched his sister’s wide soles flexing on the way to the door until she’d turned the corner and departed.

            “Welcome, sweetie!” Judy Stevens greeted warmly, plastering her practiced senatorial ivory-smile on. She held the door open, allowing in a gust of warm summer evening air as Ella crossed the threshold.

            Scott could feel his knee joints wobbling at the sight of her: her long, silky tresses draped over her shoulders and down her back, her gentle fingers peeking out the sleeves of her favorite indigo jacket, her tall black boots clomping softly on the hardwood, purely out of concern for his seismic status. How he’d managed to keep her coming around after all this time, particularly in the last year after he’d been shrunken and confined to the walls of Judy’s fortress, was a mystery to Scott.

            “Hi, Mrs. Stevens,” Ella said politely, allowing herself to be wrapped into a matronly hug and giving Judy a pat on the shoulder. “How have you been?”
            “Oh, just fine. Busy as ever laying out the political trail,” the woman chuckled. “How was graduation? I’m sorry we couldn’t get Scott’s off-site hours extended in time to let him come.”

            Scott felt his stomach flare with burning resentment for both his mother’s word choice and the reminder of his own missed educational trajectory. Neither was especially welcome when he wanted to be putting his best face forward for this hard-fought and newly earned privilege of seeing Ella alone, rather than hiding out in the basement of this house and praying that Judy couldn’t hear them necking. Already she’d thrown a minor wrench into his plans by informing him he would not be leaving the house at a size any larger than six inches; she’d informed him of this as she surprised him in his bedroom while he changed and pointed the primed PMRD into his eyes.

            So, he clenched his fists and dragged a grin across his lips. Confidence was key, which, with another gut-twist, he realized the word was only on his mind after he’d heard it spoken in Maggie’s R&R infomercial this morning. Perfect. Now he was unconsciously sympathizing with the men and women who were currently making careers out of wearing shrunken criminals in their socks and calling it corrective therapy.

            The evening was off to a smashing start, and he hadn’t even taken a single step into the foyer yet.

            “Oh, that sounds wonderful, Ella,” Judy said, the conversation having rolled merrily onward without Scott’s involvement yet. She’d wrapped an arm over the significantly shorter shoulders of her son’s longtime girlfriend. “And I’m serious about it: if you want to take a look at my copy of that book I told you about, don’t hesitate to ask. You can borrow the film clips, too.”
            Grateful to have missed hearing the title of that book, yet still shuddering at the thought of whatever “book” might also include demonstrative video samples for Ella’s enrichment, Scott stepped into the hall.

            “And here’s the favorite suitor,” Judy announced strangely, her jaws still squared into that sugary smile she had used to give Scott so many stomachaches in his life. “Honey, don’t keep Ella waiting. You know better.”

            “Right. I’m sorry,” Scott muttered sheepishly as he ambled across the broad span of the hall, toward the towering forms of his mother and lover.

            “It’s totally fine,” Ella relented.

            Already he regretted not standing closer to the door when his girlfriend arrived, as he had to watch both their pairs of eyes lock to him, then steadily descend toward their shoes as he approached. Both women were smiling, and while Ella’s was comforting and sweet as ever, Scott never could quite feel comfortable with the triumphant glower on his mother’s countenance as she gazed down at her little son on the floor.

            “Hey Scott,” Ella crooned as she stooped down to his level, cupping her hands around his sides and inviting him into her grasp. He happily accepted, sticking out his chin as he ascended in hopes that the spritz of cologne he’d smuggled from Kyle’s room would be detected. She wrinkled her nose as she brought him to her face, nuzzling her cheek against his head. “Long time, no see.”

            “You could say that again,” he laughed, recalling the long week-and-a-half wait he’d endured since being in her presence.

            “I’ll let you two cuties get to it, then,” Judy said, then added with a chuckle: “I guess this is the moment I should tell Ella to have Scott back by ten, but then that would be violating his off-site allowance.”

            “Ooh, right, I forgot to ask how that works?” Ella said. She snuggled Scott into her arms, cradling him against her chest. The folds of her jacket easily fell over him, allowing him to retain the warmth projected through her clothes.

            “It’s pretty simple. That old ankle bracelet Scott had to wear had that whole process of checking him in and out on the computer, but now that Techilogic’s replaced it with a chip, all of it is automatic,” Judy explained. “So you two just need to be back through this door before the two-hour mark.”

            “That won’t be a problem, Mrs. Stevens, I promise,” Ella said.

            “I’m sure it won’t,” Judy smarmed. Her pointed index finger hovered over Scott’s head, at last tucking her freshly filed nail beneath his chin.

            He knew she wasn’t making light of this one.