“So, Peter do you have… a favorite subject?” Mrs. Carol asked from across her dining room table, a little louder than was probably necessary. It was clear, of the two people meeting the five-inch freshman for the first time this evening, she was the more unsure of herself. She fiddled with an earring between her fingers amidst the bob of red hair her daughter had clearly inherited with all its flaming radiance and more, smiling a hopeful smile from ear-to-ear.

                “Oh! Um, hard to say… I like learning all of it…” Peter explained from the wicker place-mat upon which he sat. He regretted his kosher-geek answer as soon as it was out of his mouth. Sagging into himself briefly, he perked back up, giving it another try as he looked over to Lisa at the place setting to his right. She gave him an encouraging glance. “…but I’d have to say biology is, definitely, my favorite subject so far.”

                Recovering, he looked back to Lisa again, flashing her a smile. With some reserved glee, he watched her pale cheeks flush pink.

                “Lisa says the same thing whenever I ask,” Mr. Carol said from the head of the table, his voice gruff enough to match his broader frame and hairy forearms as he put more of his focus into the meal rather than his daughter’s suitor. He carved through the hamburger casserole with a knife, despite its gelatinous form. “Never knew where she got it from myself. I was always more for history.”

                “It must be from my side of the family,” Mrs. Carol said with a wink to her husband, clasping her red-painted fingernails together as if in prayer. She glanced back to Peter at his makeshift place setting. “We’re a very mathematically-minded family tree.”

                “Tell that to your dad the next time we’re figuring the tip for Christmas dinner,” Mr. Carol said, shoveling another bite of food in.

                “Oh, you goof,” Mrs. Carol said with half-gritted teeth.

                “Always me,” he said. Peter was beginning to hear where Lisa’s sweet version of only gently concealed sarcasm came from: probably as a clean fusion of these two people.

                “Do you know where… it came from in your family, Peter?” Mrs. Carol questioned after a pause filled only by the clatter of utensils on plates. “Was it hereditary, or…”

                The young man peered to his right. For a pregnant moment, he saw Lisa’s green eyes flash with mortified embarrassment, her mind clearly going the same place his did, despite the woman’s intentions lying elsewhere.

                “…your enjoyment of science, of course?” Lisa’s mother added quickly, clearing her throat after no-doubt noticing her daughter’s look of humiliation.

                “Oh. Um, it’s hard to say,” Peter said. He scooted nearer to the coffee cup saucer he’d been given as a serving dish, though it still made quite the insurmountable platter. Most of his dinner had already slid into the center of the ringed plate, making it hard to reach. “My mom’s in… real estate. She’s more of an econ major, though. So there’s a few numbers there, I guess.”

                Idly, he wondered if it was desire to impress or just sheer determined idiocy that made him sound like such a lame duck in front of Lisa’s parents.

                “What about your father?” Mrs. Carol followed up next. “What sort of business is he in?”

                Peter heard Lisa’s foot thump on the carpet beneath the table, probably part-impulse and part-signal to her mother. It was too late already, though. Peter didn’t so much mind sharing the information as he did the usually-awkward silence that followed this accidental faux pas. Still, he did it anyway.

                “My, um, dad isn’t… he’s not around anymore,” the boy explained calmly. He felt his friend’s warm gaze on the side of his face, apologetic and forlorn. “He died when I was younger.”

                Lisa’s index finger found its way to his arm, crooking into the elbow.

                “Why don’t you just let the kid eat his lovely casserole, dear?” Mr. Carol asked of his wife in the same baritone as before. He spoke through a mouthful of the cheese and meat concoction. “No need for twenty questions.”

                “All right, all right, but somebody’s got to host,” Mrs. Carol laughed somewhat falsely. She returned her attention to Peter. “I’m so sorry, hon. I had no idea. I didn’t mean to bring up any kind of-”

                “No problem,” Peter insisted immediately. He felt a clump of hamburger lodge in the back of his throat. “No hard feelings. Honest. Ha-ha.”

                Stop talking for God’s sake, he commanded himself internally.

                Another minute or so followed in abject silence, which was far more uncomfortable to Peter than discussing his deceased parent. At least that might distract him from the sensation that Mr. Carol was occasionally giving him disbelieving looks from the head of the table. It was normal, of course, like most first encounters with people who had yet to witness the incredible five-inch-tall living wind-up toy with their own eyes. Peter was used to it.

                Still, the man’s droopy-eyed glances were different. To the freshman’s trained peripheral vision, the man’s studying wasn’t born out of mere shock and awe at the anomaly of Peter’s size, but rather the fact that there was a boy of any proportion whatsoever seated a few inches to the side of his daughter’s hand. And that probably made him more intimidating than anyone who’d ever laid eyes upon Peter before.

                “Peter’s going to be in the school play, Mom,” Lisa said brightly, rescuing Peter from the munching quietude. Her smile broadened. “Did I tell you that?”

                “I don’t think you did!” Mrs. Carol answered delightedly. She steepled her fingers together, eagerly leaning back in Peter’s direction of the table. “You know, I used to love being in my school’s productions. Elementary all the way up through college: every production I could try out for, I was in. Or at least the ones they let me into! Ha!”

                Peter chuckled with her. He could now also see where Lisa had inherited her occasionally dopey sense of humor, possibly as a package deal with the red hair.

                “What part’re you playing, Pete?” Mr. Carol questioned.

                “Tom Thumb!” Peter said confidently, resolving to go for broke on self-awareness. He shrugged, looking to Lisa for support. “I couldn’t play the giant, after all!”

                He and Lisa broke into immediate giggling, as did Mrs. Carol once she deigned it socially acceptable to laugh at a height-related joke at the author’s expense, though Mr. Carol remained stoic, his fork stirring through the mash of casserole and steamed vegetables.

                “Probably not, no,” he agreed coolly, rubbing at the scraggle on his chin as he eyed Peter with unreadable stone eyes.

                Lisa’s clarinet glissaded between liquid-metal notes, her fingers softly rising and falling over the black keys. Carpet ran up the length of the wall, boxing in the swelling noise, exclusively for her tiny audience. As she leaned back against the wall, she tapped a dark-green stockinged foot on the floor, keeping time.

                Peter sat safely on the rusted music stand ledge, watching her toes dance below inside the taut fabric on each four-four bounce. She had an adorable habit of scrunching the largest two digits together at the peak of each tap, and he couldn’t help but smirk as he watched. He bobbed his head, acting as a human metronome while he sat beside the elaborate piece of sheet music she’d chosen to demonstrate her musical talents. It was hard to avoid humming, too, as she transitioned easily between songs. Camptown Races was up next.

                Above the sweet tunes lilting from the bell of Lisa’s instrument, Peter could make out a mumble, indistinct and indeterminable, but oddly harsh. He pushed it from his mind, though, instead focusing on her lyrical talents and the rhythmic arch of her foot on the cool concrete floor.

                “Whew,” Lisa giggled, pulling the reed from her lips at long last. She whipped a strand of hair out of her eyes and took a well-deserved exhale.

                Peter settled into a clapping frenzy. He rocked back and forth on his metal perch, kicking his legs in the open air above the girl’s homemade studio.

                “Yeah! Encore!” he cheered.

                “Oh, stop it,” she snickered. She set the clarinet down on its pole stand beside the case and twirled her fingers through her red tresses. Her opposite hand hovered toward the music stand at a steady pace, fingertips alighting at the rim near Peter and sliding nearer to him, offering plenty of warning. Her skin sidled with a light swish across the metal path, toward her cheerful listener.

                “No,” he harrumphed defiantly. He placed his hand atop her closest fingernail where it came to rest beside his leg, giving it a self-satisfied pat. “I will not.”

                “Is that so?” she said with a grin, her eyebrow tipping up. “Maybe I should play you something else, then.”

                “Do you take requests?”

                “Depends if there are any cuss words in it.”

                “I didn’t think that would matter to a clarinetist. Since there’s no, like-”

                “-words? That’s what you think,” she whispered cheekily. She leaned in closer to the stand, her warm breath steaming against Peter’s ankles. Her fingertip accepted the grip of his hand, lifting up and setting comfortably atop his knee. A smile curved into her lips.

                “That’s what I know!” Peter retorted, matching her oddball charm. Most of his energy at this particular moment, though, was being spent on not staring directly at the beautiful finger currently draped over his leg. It also seemed important to not pop an immediate and obvious boner, which the fifteen-year-old found difficult even if the most beautiful girl he’d ever seen in his life wasn’t touching his leg.

                “THAT’S WHAT I’M SAYING!”

                The voice Peter had detected earlier through Lisa’s music came again, muffled by the carpeted walls and plywood barriers, but it had returned, much clearer than before. It was Mr. Carol, without a doubt, just a floor above and maybe a room over. He didn’t sound happy.

                Lisa, having become fully engaged in the playful spirit of inching closer and closer to Peter by the second, halted, her green eyes pinpointing the general location of her parents in the geometry of the house. She frowned.

                “You can, um… start playing again if you want?” Peter offered quickly, in case she wanted an out.

                “Y-Yeah. Yeah, I can… play something else,” Lisa said slowly, though her gaze was still locked to the ceiling. Luckily for her date, her soft porcelain finger had remained above his narrow leg. Hoping to redirect her attention, he began stroking her knuckle.

                “What are you saying?” Mrs. Carol joined in, her voice just as distorted through the floor, but by the pounding footsteps, it seemed the disagreement had migrated rooms, and words were no longer clipped off.

                “Just that our daughter thinks she’s… our fifteen-year-old daughter thinks she’s going out with… with a-”

                “Stop it.”

                Peter watched Lisa’s eyes expand to the size of the coffee saucer. Her lower lip puffed ever so slightly.

                “One of us should look at this rationally, that’s all I’m saying,” Mr. Carol continued. “Eighth grade was a nightmare for her, you know? I’m just trying to make sure it isn’t repeated.”

                “It won’t be. Can’t you see she’s got a friend now?”

                “Sure, one, who probably can’t find any others-”

                “-don’t talk like that. He’s a nice boy.”

                “I’m not saying he’s not. But you know the kind of attention a person like that must get? Is going to get for the rest of his life?”

                “Oh, so you’re trying to marry your daughter off now?” Mrs. Carol retorted.

                The basement was silent as a mausoleum as the disconcerting sounds seeped through the walls like gaseous poison. Lisa’s fingers slid absentmindedly off the music stand as though she’d lost her grip, hand dangling limply by the wrist.

                Peter, feeling like he’d tried to dry-swallow a pill capsule made for a normal-sized individual, reached out in the newfound void. Though her eyes remained trained on the ceiling, unblinking and now watering from the effort, Lisa cupped her palm below the stand for Peter. He happily obliged, hopping into her hand and recommencing with the massaging of her gentle fingers. It didn’t seem to be helping much.

                “You didn’t hear her that day she came home in tears,” Mr. Carol said. “You know, after that one what’s-her-name girl told her those things about this little kid?”

                “They were just trying to get to her. You heard her say it was fine.”

                “It doesn’t matter. She’s a target now, too,” Mr. Carol spat. His voice was rising. “Anyone that has a problem with a little kid like that in a regular school, or anyone that gets jealous easy? What do you think that means for Lisa?”

                “She’s not a toddler. She’s old enough to stand up for what she cares about,” Mrs. Carol countered, notching up her volume as well. “And since you’re the only one who seems bothered by-”

                “It’s not just me, and you know it,” Mr. Carol barked. “You heard her, before her first… her first “date” with this kid. She’s worried about what it could mean. About what he could mean for her life.”

                The pale flesh upon which Peter sat flushed even pearlier than usual, the blood all but drained away. Her skin was turning wintry as Lisa’s body began to palpitate for perhaps the first time while she held her five-inch charge in her hands.

                Rattling heart incarcerated in his ribcage, Peter released his shivering hold on Lisa’s thumb.