"Of course I do."
"Nonsense. It's because of all these foolish stories about being an adult, that the school counsellor at your last school gave up on you. They don't know how to cope. They've asked me why I even adopted you in the first place, because of all the trouble you've been. That's why I'm enrolling you in a new school today. It's time for you to face up to the reality of life. The reality is that you are a six year old boy. I adopted you from the orphanage, and I would like you to do your best at school."

"Look Louise, if this is an experiment for our assignment so you can see how an adult reacts to being treated like a child, I think it's very clever but you can stop the playacting now."

"I'm not playacting. You're the one with the unfounded ideas about being an adult. You say this sort of thing to me every morning."

"I'm an adult. You know it. I'm as tall and ordinairy as any adult."

"Then prove it."
"Alright" said Keene.

Louise stood up as he got out of bed. To his surprise he only came up to below her waist, halfway between her waist and her knees.

"What have you done to me? How did you shrink me?"

"I didn't shrink anyone. Such a thing would be impossible. Listen Keene, you have no facial hairs, no adult height, nothing to support these wild stories of yours. Now will you promise to be sensible?"

Keene did not know how it had been done.

"Is she right? Was my adulthood merely a dream? Did I never really grow up the way I seem to remember having done? Did I never really go to university as a teaching student?" he thought "Is it possible to dream a lifetime of activity in one nightmare. I'll have to play along at being a child until I can prove whether or not I am supposed to be an adult."

He agreed to be sensible and spent the day in infant school until Louise picked him up from the after school childcare centre attached to the school.

She looked beautiful in her dress. Now he had to cope with the possibility that she had adopted him.

"The only way to prove who I am is reach my house" he thought "But she's already told me she'll be deadlocking every door in her house, so that she doesn't have to worry about me running away."

Louise drove him home, led him to the kitchen, locked the door and said "You can help yourself to a snack while I do my homework. Then I'll come and make our dinner."

She left him alone in the room looking at the window, which was also deadlocked. If he smashed it, he could still squeeze through but the glass would cut him horribly.

"I know! I'll make her think I tried it anyway. It is dark enough for me to get away with it. Then I can escape while she investigates the crash" he thought.

Keene opened her oven door.

"At six years of age again I'm small enough to hide in here. It will be dark. So she won't see me at a glance, but I can look out the glass front at her."
He threw a large saucepan violently at the window, quickly climbed into the oven and pulled the door shut.

He saw Louise come in, see the window, unlock the door, open it and run outside. He stole out of the oven, ran out the open door and went in the opposite direction to the window.

"If she plans to chase after me, then I gained very little by tricking my way out, except that she will think I am cut and hurt by the window's glass remains" he thought as he ran to the street. He kept running until he reached the station. Louise had not followed him.