Reaching the top of the stairs at last, Scott glanced briefly between the two open bedroom doors flanking the upper hallway.

            It wasn’t hard for him to decide to start with cleaning his brother’s room before his sister’s. Kyle was likely to completely ignore his very existence, which was just fine by Scott, letting him work in peace.

            Maggie, meanwhile, was much more vulnerable to fits of intense boredom whereupon she would interrupt or even blatantly impede Scott’s workflow, often by trumping whatever duty in which he was engaged in order to redirect his attention toward her soles and stubby toes, which were in near-constant desire of massage, especially given that soccer was in season now.

            At least in the past year she’d developed the decency of character not to trample him whilst doing so, a fact that was not lost on Scott, but kneading her enormous heels was still something the boy preferred to avoid when possible.

            But of course, if he addressed her room second, all he’d have to do to escape this additional bout with griminess when he had probably a dozen to look forward to in half an hour would be to let her know that Judy had pre-mandated his presence. Maggie wasn’t afraid to bend rules, but she knew better than to claim her brother when their lovingly tyrannical mother already called dibs.

            So, Kyle it was.

            The bespectacled sixteen-year-old was laid out atop his mattress, as he so often was, lanky legs crossed over one another while his laptop rested on his stomach. He glanced in Scott’s direction as the six-inch inmate padded across the carpeted threshold of the bedroom with the LFC in tow.

            “Does that thing actually help you?” Kyle muttered coolly, his eyes still glued to the computer screen.

            “The stick? Yeah, usually,” Scott said. He brandished it, knocking some of the chunkier dust particles down against his ankle. “Depends on the job.”

            “Uh-huh.”

            A silence followed in which Scott cleared his throat and set about mowing over the fluffy floor with his implement, dabbing at the occasional crumb or scrap of shredded paper.

            Slowly conversations were becoming more possible with his brother. At this rate, they’d be getting into full-blown normal-person topics by the next month.

            After all, the shrunken incarcerate had newfound reason to cling to hope.

            “Mr. Kyle Stevens?” the chairwoman of Scott’s review board called out, tracing a line with her finger down the stapled records. “If you’re willing, would you stand please for commentary?”

            Nodding, the youngest Stevens child, now tied for the tallest person in the house and still trying to catch up on growing into his own skin, stumbled up to his feet with a cough, hands buried in his pockets as he stared up at the table where his shrunken sibling stood with their mother.

            “Now, just to repeat, we have your written statement, and that will remain in our private possession for the time being,” the woman explained with a calm smile. “However, for the benefit of those gathered here and those involved in this particular case, we’d like to hear any thoughts you have in summation after today’s proceeding. I will emphasize that this is not to account for official testimony, and is merely an opportunity for those most closely associated with Scott Stevens to be heard.”

            “Just… anything…?” the teen mumbled, casting another glance to Scott that the older boy couldn’t quite read.

            “We have a couple of starters here. Feel free to answer at whatever length you wish, or not at all. Do you understand?”

            “Yes,” Kyle said. The room seemed to hold its collective breath, with only a creaking chorus of chairs behind the boy as they leaned forward.

            “Do you believe that your brother, Scott Stevens, is best suited to remain in house arrest custody at the current time?”

            “…Yes,” the teen said.

            Scott gnawed his lower lip, avoiding Kyle’s gaze. He was expecting that, especially with Judy and the whole room listening so intently. There was only one correct answer to that question. It still didn’t feel good. Without even looking up to his parent’s face, he could sense the radiation of her smile warming the room.

            “Do you believe that your brother, Scott Stevens, is being treated fairly under regulation of Reduction and Rehabilitation?”

            There was a pause. Kyle brushed the rim of his glasses further up his nose, rubbing at a fingerprint smudge he’d left on the lens. His Adam’s apple lurched visibly.

            “Sometimes,” he said. “Usually. Not… always.”

            Some stray mutters scattered over the gathered crowd, but the woman in charge drummed her fingers and order was quickly maintained.

            “Based on your personal experience and witnessing of Reduction and Rehabilitation custody in your own home, and only on your personal experience and witnessing, do you believe it to be a viable method by which to correct wrongful behavior?” the woman pressed.

            “I, uh….” Kyle breathed, puffing up his willowy chest, then on increasingly jellied legs, lowered back into his seat. “I think I’m done.”

            “What’re you working on? I thought you were done with school,” Scott asked his brother once he’d crossed the halfway mark in dust-picking over the bedroom carpet. He’d been listening to Kyle rapidly typing for several minutes now, and knew for a fact the boy wasn’t much of a fan of social media.

            “I am done,” Kyle confirmed, again without looking up. His fingers continued busily firing across the keyboard. “It’s… stuff for a project my friend David’s doing, trying to get us a spot on this… one magazine, I guess, so I’m doing some research about how matter reacts to size changes in, like, cold weather and shit. Boring stuff.”

            “Oh. Cool,” Scott replied with a bumbling nod of his head as he continued merrily on his way to the opposite corner of the room. Trudging overtop the cotton hills of Kyle’s discarded shorts and crumpled school papers, the young man swapped his LFC to a sandpapered tip and commenced scraping away some blackened residue from God-knew-what that was crusted on the lower carving of the floor seal.

            “It’s not a big deal,” Kyle emphasized, and at last, he laid a hand over the screen of the computer and snapped it shut, letting it plop into the rumpled sheets of his bed. He sidled off the frame and onto the carpet, careful to let his feet hit the floor with less of a pronounced stomp given his motion-sensitive guest.

            “Still, that’s awesome. You’re getting people to see your stuff,” Scott continued as he clawed away the final clump of wall gunk. He turned around as his brother strolled steadily across the carpet and toward his corner. Kyle kicked away the discarded clothing and chip bag obstacles his sibling had traversed to reach this distant corner of the room, leaving a broader path of carpet for an exit.

            “Uh-huh. You don’t have to sound all impressed or whatever,” Kyle said. He hunched down, lowering himself onto his knees, though still towered with a humorous height advantage over his decidedly less academic brother, as evidenced by the cast shadow that easily enveloped Scott. “I know you don’t really care.”

            “Okay, I don’t really,” Scott admitted with a shrug, knowing the boy was too smart to butter up so easily. He craned his neck, looking Kyle square in the eye. “But if it’s something you care about, I think it’s cool. Or whatever. And that’s not trying to “sound” like anything.”

            “Right.” Kyle scratched the back of his neck, the pair numbly suspended in a moment of awkward respect. “Uh, thanks, then.”

            “Sure thing,” Scott said, giving a final swipe to the carpet with his LFC before snapping it back into transport mode and balancing it across his trapezius. “Looks good to me in here. Did I miss anything?”

            “Nah,” Kyle said. He peeked over his shoulder, then dropped his voice into a mumble for only the six-inch individual to hear. “Listen, you know, if you need to take a break or something sometime and Mom says to come do stuff in here, I mean… that’s cool with me, if you want to just sit there. I can take care of it.”

            “Thanks,” Scott answered with equally genuine clarity. Shrugging, he extended his arm with a fist on the end, nodding at it indicatively for a bump.

            Confused for a moment, Kyle clenched his own digits into a fist that was nearly half as tall as Scott’s entire body and nudged the awaiting peace offering.

            “Do you need a ride back downstairs or anything?” the teen offered, lowering his closed hand to the carpet and opening his fingers into a gangplank. “I got you covered.”

            “No, I have to, um… get to…” Scott said, his gaze flashing to the wall that separated the boys from their middle sibling’s bedroom.

            “Oh,” Kyle said knowingly as he closed his fist back up. The boy cringed as he ascended back to full height and looked down upon his brother with a rare pitifully furrowed countenance. “Um, good luck. I’d, uh, you know, backup if you needed it, but…”

            “It’s okay. I’ll be fine,” Scott said with only about 42% certainty. Holding his shoulders up with an air of falsified confidence, at least somewhat emboldened by their conversation, the young man marched past his brother and back toward the door in the direction of Maggie’s awaiting fortress of sports gear and perfume samplers.

            “She… seemed like she’s in a good mood today?” Kyle proffered helpfully.

            “Yeah. That’s kinda what I’m usually afraid of,” Scott said through a plastered grin as he left the room.