The Friday night lights of the public high school’s auditorium bathed Peter in the burning-hot luster of the glorious acceptance he’d been dreaming of. Admittedly, a lot of that nonsense was probably his own value assigned to the feeling of standing up here on the final evening of Grimm-a-Palooza. Still, it felt pretty damned good. Up there with his first kiss with Lisa, though obviously not quite there.

                The crowd was still on its feet applauding as the rest of the cast and crew filed out onto the stage for bows. Shimmering gowns and homemade tunics, feathered caps and plastic knives, all shuffling into a flurry of color and generosity, most of them casting a glance to their tiny costar where he stood on the outstretched palm of Rapunzel.

                Peter didn’t want to get carried away with his minute share of ego in all this, but the reaction was even bigger than it had been the night before. Longer laughs, even howls, at the terrible fairy tale puns, nearly every joke landing so heavily that the cast had to take pauses, holding back smiles of self-satisfaction at their work. The toy-sized Tom Thumb found it miraculous how many he received, especially with all his prior worries about his incredibly small microphone hooked around his waist being able to carry his voice.

                The first time he heard his lines boom out across the entire room with nearly the same pitch as his titanic classmates, it was a personal culture shock, to be sure. He’d never commanded a room so thoroughly as he did last night and this.

                His mother and younger sister, of course, were wonderfully ingratiating after the Thursday night performance. Apparently his pep talks to both before the show were just the ticket. Suzanne couldn’t stop beaming all the way out of the crowded auditorium and out to the parking lot: a stark contrast to her grim mood earlier that day. And Jessica, having made perhaps the widest emotional leap after earlier threatening gently to keep her brother hostage in her bed until the show was over, went back to her normally bubbly disposition, chattering on and on about all the best jokes from the play as she cradled him in her palms on the walk back to the car. Of course, Lisa began what was to be a day-long gushing etude to Peter’s act of playing a comically timed and magically tiny fairy tale figure.

                And the reactions on Friday during the school day were just as promising as he’d hoped. Dozens of students congratulating him on the journey up the sidewalk from the bus, a handful more in each class. Even teachers coming up to him after the period ended to congratulate on his achievement. Lisa still giggling and carrying on about the best parts of the show. Alita almost speechless with snickering in memory of her three art class comrades. Even better, the school was distinctly and wonderfully empty of Mandy. And, perhaps the best reaction of all, he received utter ignorance of his presence from Sharon, Amy, and Kimmy. Not even a glance. Peter could’ve just about kissed every single last one of them. Maybe not that far, but it was nonetheless the best mood he’d been in these past two rather trying days.

                And so he stood, chest puffed up, chin toward the ceiling, arms broad and grateful to the audience as Peter stood in the hand of his lovely costar, balanced on the skillfully still plank of her willowy palm. The lights narrowed down onto the line of cast members and stage crew stretched from one end of the stage to the other. Peter was near the center of it all. Dozens upon dozens of eyes laid on him and all his hardworking friends. Even while standing directly in the palm of someone’s hand, the boy hadn’t felt quite so tall in a while.

                He didn’t need a normal-sized stage. This one, the one tailored to his unique traits, was plenty.

                Peter hadn’t caught himself feeling that way in months.

                Through the blinking flash of cameras from the audience finally allowed to capture the moment in photos, Peter squinted into the harsh mélange of lights from above and beyond. Many of the student faces were ones he knew, or at the very least recognized from the daily trudges into the school upon his sister’s palm. Near the middle, he could make out his entire family: Suzanne and Jessica back again and clapping up a storm, of course, and Erica, just as promised; even she had managed a smile to accompany her modest applause. Beside her sat Lisa for the second time, also as promised, grinning ear-to-ear and looking intent on turning her palms red from aggressive shoulder-width clapping. Peppered throughout the rest of the crowd, Peter could spy others: some of the seniors who shouted advice to him at the bus stop, Jason from algebra, and Alita back again, with both fingers at the corners of her mouth to whistle.

                Then Peter’s eyes fell to the front row for what he realized was the first time tonight.

                By the center aisle, all seated with legs crossed, hands folded in laps: Sharon, Amy, and Kimmy. Perhaps the only ones in the theater not standing for the ovation. The squat strawberry blonde more than once lifted her hands, as if about to join in the applause, but Amy quickly halted this gesture by stretching an arm over her much smaller friend’s stomach.

                Though the trio fell below the line of the beaming lights from the back of the theater, Sharon’s missile-targeting pupils glowed with moonlit purpose. They were aligned perfectly with the boy’s skull. She smirked.

                Peter snapped his attention away from his opponent and forced the smile back into his expression. He waved in all directions, bending to bow on his costar’s hand, and was careful not to look back at Sharon during this particular act lest she get any crude ideas about its intention. Genuflecting didn’t necessarily seem inappropriate where that group of girls was concerned.

                Bluebell did her best to bow halfway down without compromising the steadiness of her hand: something she’d practiced multiple times more than was needed, in Peter’s opinion, to get it perfect. Calvin, standing just next to the girl, laid out his hand for the planned pass-off. Tom Thumb stepped nimbly from the slender fingertips of Rapunzel to the waiting palm of Jack and the Beanstalk. Once there, Bluebell could make her full bow, and Peter could join in the rest of the cast and crew for a final bend. Save for his silver-eyed tormenter, no gazes lingered any longer on him than the rest.

                He’d made it. He wasn’t just the odd limb; he was a part of these people. Peter knew it in his bones.

                “Peter, that was so… so…” Lisa mumbled, star-struck.

                “Familiar?” the boy chuckled as he stood on the changing room desk. He was mere minutes away from being carpooled over to his girlfriend’s for a late movie night which was sure to include ample amounts of popcorn and making out. As if the evening couldn’t get any more phenomenal.

                “No! Stop it,” Lisa joked. She extended her index finger, pressing it up against Peter’s open palm, which he happily accepted. With her other hand, she delicately patted the colorful bow she’d tied into her fiery hair.

                “Well, wasn’t it? You saw the show twenty-four hours ago.”

                “And that was long enough for my tastes.”

                “Uh-huh. I bet you wouldn’t have said that if it went all week.”

                “If you say so. I could’ve worn some funny-colored glasses, just to shake it up,” Lisa said.

                “I bet you’d be cute in funny-colored glasses.”

                Lisa blushed, holding back another giggle as she traced a fingertip down the boy’s back. She peeked over her shoulder at the door to ensure they were alone in the cramped, prop-littered room, then leaned down in one windy swoop, planting a kiss upon his face.

                “I should suggest funny-colored glasses more often,” Peter chuckled, wiping his mouth.

                “Hey, I suggested those, you thief.”

                “Did you? I don’t see it in writing.”

                Lisa set down her hand for Peter to embark, which he cheerfully did, careful not to stretch the hand-stitched pants of his miniature costume on the way up. It took the combined effort of the costumer plus his mother’s intimate knowledge of how to knit clothes for someone so small to craft this thing. Even though the show was over now, Peter couldn’t help but feel a certain attachment to the goofy green-and-red tunic with its shimmering faux-crushed-velvet appearance which helped him stand out better on such a large stage.

                In some goofy way, he’d be attaching the joy of this night to the feeling of wearing this costume for a while. Part of him wondered if he’d be allowed to keep it. Not to wear again, necessarily, but at least to hold up against himself in the mirror for the occasional reminder of the day he’d truly been fully accepted and integrated into the school populace. It wasn’t like they’d ever be able to use it for another cast member, after all.

                He shuffled playfully in Lisa’s palm until she’d taken him up to her lips, where they engaged in a couple more quick, wet pecks, all while each kept a glancing eye toward the open door since the occasional half-dressed cast member still dashed by.

                “Lisa. Lisa Carol.” The voice crackled from the ceiling-mounted loudspeaker just outside the dressing room in the same tone that the entire school building now heard. It sounded to Peter like the office secretary who’d watched over him for the last day and a half of classes. “You have a call waiting in the front office from home. Please come to the front office. Lisa Carol.”

                “That’s weird,” Peter said.

                “Yeah,” Lisa said. Her brow furrowed. “Must be my mom. She… knows where I am, I thought. She was supposed to pick us up and take us to my house. Right?”

                “I thought so. My mom said she’d pick me up afterward,” Peter said. He shrugged. “Guess you better go.”

                “You… wanna come?”

                “Nah, I have to get out of the puffy shoulder pads,” Peter said, prodding at the rainbow adornments he still wore. “Unless you want me to wear them for movie night.”
                “I think I’ll just take the regular you,” Lisa smarmed. She delicately lowered her hand back atop the desk, where a series of folded cloth and jewelry boxes had been stacked by the stage crew to give Peter his own miniature private changing space. “Unless you’re just dying to-”

                “Go answer your mom,” Peter laughed, waving his girlfriend off. He tugged at the neck of his tunic. “These things are starting to get hot.”

                “Okay. I’ll be back in a couple minutes,” she said. “Hottie.” The redhead pressed two fingers to her lips, delivered a gentle air kiss with one last wistful glance, then backed out of the room and into the thin hallway along the rear of the auditorium.

                Peter shook his head in disbelief at his continued good fortunes. He yanked his arms into the cloth sockets in preparation to begin the laborious process of removing his costume. Already half-disappeared into his dressing room, he made due with what little light could trickle in behind the obstacles placed up to give him some privacy. They really were a thoughtful group.

                Footsteps entered the room. Heavy, purposeful, insistent. Probably one of his castmates who had to wear large strapped-on clogs to gain some height for playing one of the giant or ogre characters. Frankly, he was surprised he hadn’t heard any of them come in sooner. The night before, this hallway had seen much higher foot traffic as everyone busily tugged off sweaty costumes to head home.

                “Hey!” Peter yelled out, half-laughing. “This space over here is occupied!” He’d learned to make this call after Bluebell had accidentally stepped above the desk and seen him just in his skivvies during a dress rehearsal. It was worth announcing his presence to avoid similar blushing disasters.

                The footsteps continued, actually growing quieter despite their increased proximity, as the desk was wobbling softly enough to let him know the owner of those falling shoes was approaching his changing station.

                Glad he hadn’t yet pulled himself out of the costume, Peter peeked casually out of the opening in his makeshift changing room. He wasn’t met with the sight of a costumed giant made-up with dirt, rags, and unibrow, nor an ogre with false teeth and plastic club dragging behind like a vow of oncoming war.

                No, what he saw was far more frightening. Something that, in spite of the lingering brow heat bestowed by the stage lights, had drained the color from the boy’s veins.

                A figure of average size towered above, a hoodie drawn over her head, strings pulled tight. In the shade of the facial opening, though, a few tangled strands of auburn hair draped through. A feminine hand poked from the sleeve and arose, hovering at the neck, as fingers twirled through her hair in a manner Peter had only become far too familiar with. Like a concert violinist, warming up for her solo. He could’ve recognized her from that movement alone, even without seeing her face, though of course now, at such near distance, he could see her face. And he wished, wished more than anything else in the whole world right now, that he couldn’t see it.

                Mandy.

                “Well, hey, little boy,” she hissed, a crooked grin greasing her lips.

                “HELP!”

                Peter didn’t even have the time to fire off a second scream before her hand was coming down, far more emergent and forceful than the day before. In one swift flight, her fingers had clamped like steel around his limbs, locking him into a ball-shape against her clammy palm. A flash later, she had him stuffed into the deep two-sided pocket of her hoodie, which she was easily able to block off with a hand on either side. The boy tumbled from palm to palm as she ran, fruitlessly thrashing and yelling until he found her thumb pressed against his mouth, muting his cries.

                He heard the metallic creak of the backstage door and the thundering of footsteps muffled by grass as Mandy sprinted off into the dark November night, somehow unseen by a single soul.