“You sure do work fast, don’t you?” Erica chuckled as she leaned in closer to Peter, where he was perched on his usual corner of her lunch tray.

                “Say what?” he mumbled, his mouth half-full of shredded cheese he’d pulled from a taco on his sister’s plate.

                “You heard me,” she answered snidely, raising an eyebrow.  “That girl in your bio class.”

                “Who, Lisa?” Peter said, swallowing hard on the entire huge bite of food, and ultimately ended up hacking as a few chunks of it went down the wrong pipe.

                “Cool it, Romeo,” Erica snarked.  With a gentle index finger, she pressed on her brother’s shoulders, tipping him forward to make it easier to breathe again.  “And yes, that Lisa.  What’s the deal?”

                “Deal?  What kind of deal?” Peter said, punching himself in the chest in an effort to fully recover as he brushed his sister’s long finger away.

                Erica rolled her eyes.  “Well, she did have you in her hand, and you seemed pretty okay with it.  How’d you get there?”

                “Nothing interesting,” Peter shrugged nonchalantly.  “She’s my lab partner, and she’s a pretty cool person.  I guess we figured… like, if there’s ever a fire or something, I’ll have to…”

                “…ask her to roast some marshmallows with you?” Lena cut in from next to Erica, scooting in closer now that she’d revealed her snooping.  Her tone was sincere and amusingly eager as she brushed a chin-length lock of her brown hair behind an ear.

                It was Peter’s turn now to roll his eyes and throw his arms up as he sniveled at Erica, who was wearing a pretty smug grin.  “Oh, and you’re wondering why I don’t want to tell you about my friends now?” he groaned.  “Why didn’t you just throw it up on Facebook?”

                “C’mon, we need stuff to talk about.  It gets boring around here in the mornings,” Erica groused sarcastically.  “Lighten up.  You know Lena won’t tell people about your super-secret crush.  Will you?”

                “I really won’t, Peter.  Pinky swear,” Lena vowed.  Her hand appeared over the edge of the lunch tray with the aforementioned finger extended toward him.  Sighing, Peter touched his own tiny digit against the thick pad of his sister’s friend’s, though of course curling them together was totally out of the question due to the laughable difference in proportion.  Still, this was as legally binding a promise as he was going to get from these girls whom he often suspected could survive for days on nothing but the most menial scraps of gossip.

                “She’s not a super-secret crush, or really any kind of crush though,” Peter insisted as quietly as he could, well-aware that the other female occupants of the circular lunch table were beginning to lean in and eavesdrop on his romantic humiliations.  “She’s just my friend.”

                “Uh-huh,” Erica droned.  “Yeah, keep telling yourself that.”

                “Which one is she?  Is she at a table right now?” Lena gasped excitedly, rising up in her chair and turning her head in hopes of spotting someone in the cafeteria by pure luck.  “What does she look like?”

                “Red hair, freckles, white sweater, jeans…” Peter spat out automatically, then cleared his throat.  “She, um… doesn’t eat lunch on this period.  She’s on the next one.”

                “Ohhh,” Lena sighed.  She slumped back in her chair.  “Darn.”

                “I don’t suppose you know how many freckles, too, twerp,” Erica snorted.  “Or what direction she brushes her teeth?”

                “You guys must be even more bored than I thought if you’re this desperate,” Peter noted pompously as he slid back onto the tray and approached the partially eaten taco again, this time tugging a shred of lettuce that had fallen onto the plate.  Lifting it to his face, he dramatically chomped into it with as much forced zeal as he could muster.

                “Whatever.  We’re gonna reserve full rights to make fun of you, though, when you come crawling back wanting some advice about asking her out,” Erica teased, grabbing the entire taco itself once Peter had his leaf and crunching into the shell with just as much energy.  A rain of corn chip crumbs spewed downward in the carnage, but the freshman kept his look of unflinching defiance even as a few ricocheted harmlessly off his countenance.

                “No we’re not,” Lena whispered, shooting her friend a feigned glance of scolding, then leaned in closer to Peter until he could detect the chili sauce on her breath that instantly and watered his eyes.  “Peter, if you want any advice about that stuff, you know you can talk to any of us and we’ll be glad to help.”

                Gulping and wiping at his forehead, Peter looked up at the other six girls at the table, all of whom were listening in on the conversation now.  They all vigorously nodded in unison with enlarged and hopeful eyes, expressions of cooing fondness plastered on their faces.  There wasn’t a single one of Erica’s friends that didn’t positively adore Peter: something that occasionally surfaced as a source of mild ire for the girl.

                “You all make me sick,” Erica drawled.  She let her taco drop onto the plate, where the yellow shell shattered audibly.  “I swear.  You’re gonna give him a big head with that kind of attitude.  How’s he supposed to learn to do anything on his own?”

                “Don’t be mean to your brother, Erica,” her friend Sydney pouted, twirling a finger through one of her cotton-candy-pink-dyed locks of hair.  The others nodded in agreement.

                “Hopeless,” Erica grunted jokingly.  She leaned back in her chair as she realized she wasn’t going to win this particular argument about whether or not Peter deserved to have everything he wanted in the world, according to her entire friend group.

                “Excuse me?” sang a voice from behind Erica that managed to cut through the roaring chatter of the cafeteria.  Every occupant of the table swiveled around to face the owner of the voice: a woman with short black hair, peppered with wisps of premature silver.  Appearing to have barely crested middle age, she wore wide-brimmed brown glasses that hung around the back of her head on a thin bronze chain that rattled a little on every step.  Her eyes, a shade of hazel not quite as luminous as Erica’s, had locked to Peter, though as was rarely the case when meeting strangers, the freshman didn’t get the impression that he was being examined like a piece of fruit.

                “Yes?” Erica piped in, matching the woman’s volume.

                “You’re… Erica and Peter Clark, yes?”

                “That’s right,” Erica said.  Peter nodded from down on the tray, nibbling more docilely on the remainder of his lettuce leaf like a timid rabbit.

                The woman leaned in closer to the surface of the table, clinging to the eyeglass chain with her thumb.  “Peter?  I’m Lucy Park.  I teach theatre courses here, and direct the play and musical productions.  I was wondering if I could have just a brief moment to speak to you, maybe in a hallway so we can hear each other?”

                “Uh… sure,” Peter said, unsure of himself, but at least confident the woman had no foul play in mind.

                “Your sister can bring you, of course.  I’m not just trying to whisk you away,” the woman said reassuringly.  “Only a couple minutes of your time, I promise.”

                “All right,” Erica shrugged, laying her hand next to the plate so Peter could embark.  Once she had him, the pair rose from the table and followed a beaming Mrs. Park, weaving through the bustling students and trying not to knock over full lunch trays.

                Upon reaching the entrance to the music wing, the theatre teacher turned and faced Peter, her hands folded together somewhat reverently.

                “I suppose I’ll get right to my point.  This year’s fall play is a comedic production called Grimm-a-Palooza.  The idea is that it mashes a number of Grimm fairy tales together into one show.  It’s got Sleeping Beauty, Hansel and Gretel, Red Riding Hood, and Tom Thumb, and others too.”

                Peter swallowed, already suspecting where this might lead.

                “Anyway, the reason I’m telling you is because…” Lucy continued as her eyes fell off of Peter out of embarrassment, but her voice stayed determined.  “…ordinarily when the play is put on, Tom Thumb is performed by someone who is… maybe not quite six foot six in height, though still not of the stature described by the original story.  I thought if you would consider playing the role yourself…”

                Peter felt Erica’s hand stiffen slightly under his feet, as he knew it would.

                “…well, it just seemed like a unique opportunity for the stage and for the actor portraying the part.  Understand, I… know this may come off as insulting.  I’m aware what it probably looks like that I’ve come up to you in your first week at this school without having met you before and asked you to consider putting yourself out there in front of your peers.  There’s no need to give me an answer now.  All I wanted to do is pose the idea to you and hear your feelings on it.”

                Peter chewed is lip.  Certainly this wasn’t the first time in his life that his height had been viewed as a “unique” opportunity for something or other.

                At age three, he’d been suggested as the central figure of a commercial for a brand of toddler gummy vitamins that would’ve heavily involved a metaphor about tiny kids becoming big and strong through the use of the company’s product.  Suzanne Clark hadn’t taken kindly to such a degrading proposal for her young son, to say the least, especially when the advertising executive pitching the concept had without warning tickled the underside of the then-two-inch boy’s chin with her fingernail.

                Another occasion had arisen five years before.  Out to dinner at a restaurant with his mother and sisters, Peter had been approached at their table by a man and woman from a foundation looking into humane methods of medical testing to prevent the spread of disease in various parts of the world.  Their request was for some tests to be run on Peter, as they suspected his specialized genetic make-up might carry some answers.  Suzanne was merely hesitant at first as the pair described their processes of taking hair, mucus, and blood samples, but as they continued to ramble on with their desire to test some of Peter’s physical abilities through rather severe adjustments to eating, drinking, and sleeping, it became clear that this wasn’t a group the boy would be associating with.

Despite being ten years old, Peter had observed something beneath the surface.  He fully recognized their good intentions for an even greater good, but all the same, he could sense the drive for achievement in the couple as they stared down at the prepubescent Peter like a little chunk of meat, infomercial smiles spread on their rubbery faces.

The conversation had ended fairly swiftly afterward, with Suzanne demanding the pair be removed from the restaurant.  Even Erica, distant as she was back then, looked concerned for her brother after the encounter.  And the eight-year-old Jessica, of course, mortified at the notion of her helpless sibling being experimented on, had spent the better part of the evening crying under the covers of her bed with Peter cuddled up to her cheek and being unknowingly bathed in a wading pool of her tears.

                Something about Lucy was different, though.  Her eyes suggested she truly wasn’t in this to exploit Peter, but acting out of pure interest in making the play an interesting exploration in student art and, even, perhaps, allowing the physically disadvantaged young man the chance to participate on fairly even footing in an extracurricular activity.

                Peter wasn’t stupid.  As eager as he’d been the previous week to join the various club offerings of the school, he knew there was little he could contribute much in.  And he had, indeed, often wondered what it might be like to be an actor.

                Granted, his experiences in theatre had been pretty much limited to a few puppet shows his younger sister and her friends would perform for a delighted Suzanne and a bemusedly bored Erica, but he was still eager to give it a try.  The more he thought about it, the more he realized it was, in fact, a real opportunity for him: not just to get out there and try something new, or to interact with more of his peers, but to show everyone once and for all that he was a perfectly normal human being just like them who only happened to stand at less than half a foot tall.

                Looking upward at his sister’s steely expression, Peter leaned back against the heel of Erica’s hand and scratched the back of his neck.  His sister gave him a single glance, her eyes flashing, in answer.  He could tell she was still hesitant, but it certainly wasn’t an outright rejection of the entire idea.  Perhaps she had seen the same thing in Lucy’s eyes that he had.

                “I… I think it sounds… like fun,” he said truthfully.  “Would it be all right if I took some time to think about it and let you know?”

                “Absolutely!  I’m glad you think so.  I think we would all have such a great time discovering the show as a group.  Auditions are this Friday.  If you’re interested in participating, I’d still like to see some of what you can do, just so I have a reference point, but if you do decide to come, I think I can safely guarantee you the part I mentioned,” the theatre teacher said excitedly, clasping her hands together in thanks.  “I’ll let you get back to your lunch.  If you have any questions, just drop by my office any time, I’m just down here in the music wing next to the percussion classroom.”

                “Sure thing,” Erica said, knowing this last comment was more directed at her, as she was the primary mode of transport.  Peter, meanwhile, waved goodbye as the woman disappeared back down the hallway.  The two elder Clark kids remained alone in the hallway for a moment.

                “So, you’re gonna be a Broadway star, huh?” Erica said after an awkward pause.

                “Uh… yeah.  Obviously, except for the attitude and glitter.  But it’s just that…” he mumbled.

                “Yeah, I know.”

                “Mom is…”

                “I know,” Erica repeated, then sighed, acknowledging the uphill battle her sibling was now facing in the form of their highly protective parent.  “Better start brushing up on your persuasive speaking skills, twerp.”