About an hour later, after I’ve explored the dollhouse pretty thoroughly, Emily came back for me. She was carrying a Barbie doll in one hand, no doubt to see what I looked like in comparison to it. I hopped out through the dollhouse’s front door and stood at Emily’s feet. She loomed above me like a skyscraper, the fabric of her long skirt forming a cliff in front of me. She sat down on the floor and stood her doll down in front of me. It was a fairly typical blonde Barbie doll, wearing a bright purple jacket, short skirt and high heels, and was over thirty feet tall compared to me. Emily picked me up and sat me down on her Barbie’s shoulder, which was easily big enough to accommodate me. I held on tightly to the doll’s hair, not wanting to fall thirty feet down to the floor below me. Once again I was reminded just how incredibly little I was, when even a doll was giant-sized compared to me.

“You look so sweet, sitting on her shoulder,” Emily giggled. “I was gonna use you as my second doll to play with, but you’re just too small, Benny. Even my Barbie could carry you with one hand.”

To prove her point, she extended the doll’s arm and put its hand through the loops of the ribbon. I hung there, comically and helplessly, held aloft by the arm of a Barbie doll. Emily found this delightfully funny. But she wanted to do something more interesting, so I suggested that we go outside into the garden and play for a bit.

“Are you sure?” she asked, sounding uncertain. “It sounds pretty dangerous, if you ask me. Everything’s covered in snow. What if you catch a cold or something? Mom will be so mad at me!”

“Yeah, you’re right…but maybe we can just go outside for a few minutes? I just want some fresh air, that’s all. You can carry me the whole time if you want.”

That sounded fine to Emily, so outside we went. She carried me just like Mom did, safely in the palm of her hand. I may have been annoyed by her antics from time-to-time, but she really was a sweet kid. Even though she enjoyed teasing me while I was miniaturized like this, I knew she would never do anything to me that would hurt me or endanger me. Compared some other people with siblings I knew, Emily and I got on remarkably well.

Outside it was cold and windy and the whole garden lay under a blanket of snow. Emily opened up her hand so that I could see the outside world around me, magnified thirty-six times in size. It was an incredible sight. The trees were hundreds of feet tall and the snow-covered lawn stretched off into the distance like a field of white. I walked forward in Emily’s hand and stood on the tip of her index finger, staring at the vista surrounding me. She held on to me using the loops of the ribbon behind my back, which kept me from falling off her fingertip. Then she had a funny idea. Once again using the loops of the ribbon, she hung me on the tip of a tree branch just above her head, almost 200 feet above the ground. Hanging above so much empty space, I felt dizzy and my arms grasped around in vain for something to hold on to. But I soon got my nerves under control and, looking around me rather than down, began admiring the view from up here.

At that very moment, a gust of wind hit me out of nowhere. It may just have been a strong breeze, but it felt like a hurricane to me and the dead twig I was hanging from snapped, sending it and myself plummeting down to the ground. I screamed loudly and closed my eyes, and an instant later I fell into a soft, powdery, ice-cold surface. The fresh snow cushioned my fall somewhat, as did the fact that I only weighed a fraction of an ounce, but it was still a substantial impact that knocked the wind out of me. Into the snow I sank, until it covered me completely. It was bitterly cold, but I was still conscious and began to struggle and try to dig myself out. It was hopeless, however – each time I managed to remove some of the snow that was covering me, more fell on top of me. My arms weren’t strong enough to pull me up towards the surface. All the while I kept on yelling my sister’s name as loudly as I could.

I knew it had to have been only a few seconds, but it felt like forever before Emily came to my rescue. Her giant hand dug into the snow I was trapped in and scooped me out. She quickly shook all the snow off of me and held me in her cupped hands, which helped me to warm up. I looked up at her and saw her looking very distressed.

“Are you okay, Benny?” she cried out. “Please tell me you’re okay! I’m sorry I let you fall; I should’ve caught you! But it happened too fast, I couldn’t get to you in time…”

“I’m fine!” I called out through chattering teeth. “I’m okay, really! Don’t worry, Emily, it wasn’t your fault. I’m the one who’s to blame, I wanted to go outside…”

“Really? You’re not angry at me?”

“No, of course not! Hey, you saved me just now, didn’t you? If you hadn’t rescued me, I’d probably have frozen to death or something.”

“No! Don’t say that, Benny! I don’t want you to get hurt again, not when you’re this small! Oh, Mom will kill me when she finds out!”

“I’m not badly hurt, really I’m not! I’m just freezing cold, that’s all. You were right, this was a bad idea. Can you take me back inside?”

She didn’t hesitate and literally ran back inside and up the stairs to her room. I was glad my mom didn’t see us or else she would’ve given Emily a hard time about it. But I figured Mom didn’t need to know, since it had all happened so fast that it still didn’t seem real to me. I had gotten a few bruises but was otherwise unharmed. Back in her room, my little sister held me tightly against her chest and wrapped me up in her warm sweater for a while, which soon brought my body back to an agreeable temperature. In no time at all I was feeling fine again, and I told Emily that we can just pretend that little accident never happened. She agreed, looking very grateful, and told me that I could choose what we should do next. I didn’t have any ideas, since I was still feeling more than a bit overwhelmed by what had just happened, so she suggested I read one of her storybooks to her – surely that would be the least hazardous thing for me to do, and it would help take my mind off my close shave just now.

She lay on her bed, holding the enormous storybook open in front of her, while I lay comfortably on top of her chest and read to her. Each time I reached the end of a page, she would turn it over for me. Of course, she was nine years old and perfectly capable of reading on her own, but she enjoyed it when I read her books to her, since it meant she could spend time with me. It was something I’d done for her since she was a toddler and I usually enjoyed it as well. Sometimes we’d even make up our own endings to the book, or our own stories, and Emily always came up with the most creative scenarios. She didn’t do any of that this time, however, but was merely content to listen to her miniature big brother read to her. Her chest rose and fell with each breath she took, carrying me up and down along with it. It felt so relaxing that I was afraid I was gonna fall asleep before I reached the end of the story.

We made it through two fairy tales before Emily began growing bored. It was obvious she wanted to play with me, but after the close call in the snow she seemed hesitant to ask me if she could. I could tell she was afraid of hurting me in my current vulnerable state, or perhaps she still felt guilty about what had happened earlier. I got up from my comfy spot on her chest and crawled across her chest up to her neck. I managed to pull myself up onto her chin, then further up onto her nose and sat on its tip, looking down into her huge eyes on either side of me. She was trying to focus her eyes on me, which made her look so funny that I began to laugh. This caused her to start giggling as well and soon we were both laughing irrepressibly. She plucked me off her nose and put me down on the bed beside her.

“Hey, I’ve got an idea for some fun stuff we could do, if you’re interested,” I said, looking up at her enormous face. “Well, it’ll be fun for me, at least – I can’t guarantee you’ll enjoy it as well.”

“Okay, I’m listening,” she said. “As long as we don’t have to go outside again.”

My idea involved some items from the trunk in my room which held all of my old toys, most of which I hadn’t played with in many years, but which still had some sentimental value that made me unwilling to just throw them away. I told Emily to look for a toy skateboard, about three inches long, which had come as an accessory with an action figure. I also told her to bring a plastic track for toy cars, which, when assembled together, formed something almost like a roller-coaster. It had steep drops, twisty turns and even a loop. I didn’t have the cars that were supposed to go on the track anymore, but that wasn’t the plan. I helped Emily to assemble the track back in her room, though actually I just stood and gave orders, while she did all of the manual work which I was now too weak to do. Then I told her that I planned to ride along the track, strapped to the toy skateboard. She gave me a sceptical look.

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” she asked. “What if you fall off or something?”

“I’m not gonna fall off, trust me. I’m not gonna go that fast in any case. Besides, that’s why you’re here, isn’t it? To look after me? You can just catch me if something goes wrong.”

She didn’t sound convinced but she agreed to my plan in the end. As an extra safety precaution, she placed a pillow at the end of the line, where the track ended in a small ramp. She hadn’t assembled the whole track, just enough for me to do one loop and one steep turn. I was trying to figure out what the best way of tying me to the skateboard was, but Emily had thought of an idea already. She made me lie down on top of the toy board, then tied my body and legs tightly to it using one of her own hair ribbons, much like the one Mom had used to clothe me. My arms were tied to my sides, against my wishes, but Emily insisted that it was safer if they didn’t flail about while I was gliding along the track. Once I was securely attached, she placed the board on the track at the start. I looked down the length of my body and saw the track dip steeply downward for what must have been over a hundred feet from my perspective.

“Are you ready, little brother?” she asked excitedly. “I can give you a little push if you want.”

“Okay…not too hard!” I yelled, suddenly having second thoughts about this whole thing. She pushed the board along the track and I was off.

I immediately closed my eyes and tried not to scream. The board was moving at what was to me an incredible speed. I felt myself go round the thirty-foot-high loop, mercifully staying on the track. Then I hit the steep turn and felt myself being pushed to the right. At last, I hit the final ramp and went flying into the air, before landing abruptly on the soft surface of the pillow. I opened my eyes and saw my giant sister standing over me. She snatched me up and held me up to her face, and asked me how it was.

“That was…a lot scarier than I thought it would be,” I said breathlessly. “And it went by so fast! I couldn’t even open my eyes!”

“Hah, you little wimp!” Emily exclaimed. “Come on, you’ve got to do it again! And this time you have to watch, okay?”

I was put back on the start of the track and, before I had a chance to prepare myself, she pushed me forward and I was off again. I tried to be brave and keep my eyes open, but about the only thing I could see was the ceiling hundreds of feet above me. The intense ride was even more terrifying than the first time and I was glad that this time I came to a halt before hitting the ramp at the end. I knew it must all have looked pretty tame and sedate from Emily’s point-of-view, but it definitely was an adrenaline rush for me.

Emily made me go on the track another two times, but then she grew bored again and decided we should do something else. I was relieved – the makeshift roller-coaster we’d created was starting to take its toll on me and I regretted thinking it was a good idea in the first place. I asked her to untie me and set me free, but she had another idea.

“You were right, little Benny – this is a lot of fun!” she said. “But doing the same track over and over gets old. I think we should go bigger.”

“Bigger?” I said nervously. “Emily…maybe we shouldn’t…”

“Oh, stop whining – you’ll be fine! Listen, here’s my idea…”

Her idea turned out to be to relocate the racetrack to the stairs outside at the end of the hallway. She would lay the track so that it led downstairs, all the way to the ground floor. There wouldn’t be any turns or loops this time – just one straight stretch of track with a ramp at the end. Then she wanted see how fast I would go and how far I would be able to fly through the air at the end. I wasn’t liking the sound of this one bit and wondered if I should try and tell Mom somehow. My sister saw how distressed I looked.

“What’s wrong?” she asked. “Don’t you trust me?”

“This…just sounds like a bad idea,” I tried to argue. “Emily…what if things go wrong?”

“Hey, this whole idea was yours in the first place. You can’t chicken out now!”

“Yes, I can! Emily, I don’t want…”

“You’ll…be…fine!” she said, saying each word slowly and clearly. “I’m your big sister now and I’m responsible for you, but I still want to have some fun with you too. Look, if something does go wrong, you can tell Mom it was all my fault, okay?”

“What? Of course, I’m gonna tell her, because everything will be all your fault! Emily…hey, don’t leave me here! We’re not done talking about this!”

She put the mini-skateboard down on the floor, with me tied securely to it still. Then she just left me there to yell impotently up at her, as she began breaking up the plastic track and moving it to its new location. I looked up at her immense figure as she went in and out of her room, amazed at her strength and how fast she appeared to move. It was difficult to believe that this twelve-story-tall giantess was my little sister, who normally stood only as tall as my chest. It felt quite disconcerting, being this much smaller than my younger sibling and at her complete mercy. Eventually she came to collect me and showed me what she had in store for me.

The track stretched down the stairs, all twenty-five of them, for what must have been a distance of at least 200 yards to me. At the end I saw a small ramp and, beyond that, several large blankets that Emily had piled on the floor, to act as a ‘safety net’ to catch me. It all looked very alarming to tiny little me, strapped to a little toy skateboard and about to be sent off on a descent of terror. I looked pleadingly up at my little sister one last time, but I didn’t get any sympathy from her.

“Time to ride, little guy!” she said. She put me at the start of the track and I was let go.

For a second or two my ride wasn’t that bad, but as the skateboard began to pick up speed it became more and more intense, until finally I had to close my eyes again and began to pray. I hit the ramp at a huge speed and soared through the air for what felt like a great distance, though it didn’t last very long. Then I fell down into the pile of blankets and lay there, panting breathlessly and waiting for Emily to come and get me. When she did, she looked super-excited.

“That looked so cool!” she yelled. “And look – you’re still perfectly okay! Turns out your big sister knew what she was doing, huh? You wanna go again?”

“Do I have a choice?” I whimpered. Emily laughed again, but then she looked at me with more concern.

“Wow, it must’ve really been scary for you,” she said. “Okay, Ben, I guess we can stop it now – I just thought you’d like it too, you know? I mean, boys like you usually say they like fast cars and extreme sports and stuff like that, so I figured you’d do too.”

“Yeah – but maybe this was a bit too extreme! I’ve gotta say, though, it beats any regular roller-coaster by a mile. And it was kinda exciting, you know – besides being completely terrifying too! You know what, I do want to go one more time. This time I’ll try to enjoy the ride, now that I know I won’t get hurt.”

“Okay, you got it!” she said, beaming. She ran back up the stairs and placed me back on the start of the slope.

When she let go, I braced myself for the acceleration to follow. I rolled down the track, going faster and faster, and tried to look straight ahead at the ramp. What I saw instead was the towering figure of my mother appearing at the foot of the stairs. She was standing right over the ramp, wondering what was going on. I tried to scream and warn her, but I was moving so fast that, before I knew it, I was launching off the end of the ramp and underneath the arch of my mom’s legs. She immediately fished me out of the pile of blankets and held me up to her eyes, which were wide with surprise.

“Ben…what are you doing?” she exclaimed.

“Uh…hi, Mom,” I muttered. “We, uh…Emily and I…we were just playing…”

“Really? I came to see what Emily’s yelling was all about, and here I find her endangering your life with this…what is this, anyway? Some kind of toy roller-coaster or something?”

“Yeah…but it was my idea, Mom! I made Emily do everything, really! And I wasn’t in any danger, she looked out for me the whole time.”

I don’t know why I was standing up for Emily, when the downstairs ride had been her idea, but something in Mom’s disapproving tone made me want to spare her from her anger. My little sister had joined us at the base of the stairs and was looking up at Mom and me apprehensively.

“I don’t care whose idea it was, Ben!” Mom said. “This isn’t a safe way for the two of you to be playing together! If those blankets hadn’t been there…”

“But that’s the whole idea!” Emily interrupted. “I wanted to make everything safe for Ben! Why would I want him to get hurt, Mom? He’s my little brother…I mean, my big brother…well, maybe he is my little brother right now…”

“Okay, okay, that’s enough! I’m just glad I managed to stop all of this before something bad happened. Emily, please clean all this stuff up. Then I want you to go to your room and stay there until dinnertime, okay? As for you, Ben, you’ll be staying with me for the rest of the day, where I can keep an eye on you.”

“No!” I yelled, and Mom looked at me shocked. “Mom, please don’t punish Emily, she was just doing what I told her to. She’s been really careful with me all day and I didn’t get hurt once. If you’re going to make her stay in her room, at least let me stay there with her. I won’t come up with any more dangerous games for us, I promise! I’m sorry about all of this, I just wanted to try something exciting, something I can’t do when I’m regular-sized.”

“I’m sorry too, Mom!” Emily added. “I won’t ever make Ben do anything this dangerous again, I swear!”

Mom sighed and looked at us both forgivingly, then handed me back to Emily.

“You know, I thought that shrinking my teenage son to two inches tall would make him much less of a nuisance,” she said. “Little did I know…all right, neither of you are grounded or anything like that – but no more stupid or dangerous stunts, okay? Clean up this mess, then you can keep on playing together.”

Emily stepped forward and gave Mom a hug. Since she was still holding me in her hand, I was pressed against Mom’s back, but I wasn’t injured, just squeezed a little tightly. Emily then untied me from the skateboard and put me down on her shoulder. Her golden hair flowed down next to me and I held onto it for support. I looked up at my Mom, who now rose up sixty feet above me from my perch on Emily’s shoulder.

“Go on, start cleaning up!” she ordered us. “Oh, and Ben, I need to see you just before dinner, okay? Will you bring him to me then, Emily?”

“Okay, Mom,” Emily replied. Then, once Mom had left the room, she added: “Thanks for covering for me, Benny. You didn't have to do that...but thanks.”

“Don’t mention it. I’m just glad neither of us got into any trouble. But you owe me one now, you hear?”

She laughed, then put me down on a nearby table while she began to break up the track into its separate pieces. It had been a potentially life-threatening thing to try, I had to admit, but I did end up enjoying it. In fact, I had thought of several riskier stunts to try at my current size, but I realized Mom was right. I was very small and delicate now and, whether I liked it or not, I needed looking after by my giant mother and sister. That didn’t mean I wanted to stop exploring the potential advantages of my new size, though. I looked forward to making the most of the week that lay ahead.