Meredith was thirty-two years old, with chestnut hair, pretty and slightly plump, well-dressed, and she had lost one of her heels in transit. Consequently she walked around with a mini hobble across the bare floor of Holly’s bedroom. In my teenage way, I wondered, with a mixture of disappointment and curiosity, why Ms. Holly wanted me to be friends with a woman nearly twice my age.

In a voice that was almost a whisper, she looked in my direction and asked, “Who are you?”
“I’m Martin.”
“No—I mean, who are you?”
Holly heard this, and answered, “A stranger.”
“A stranger?” Nervously she tilted her neck, little by little, toward Holly’s face.
“A stranger. Why? Because in my experience a stranger will not ask to be immediately restored to their former size, and returned to their former life.”
Meredith didn’t seem to understand. I couldn’t think of anything to say, so I added, somewhat lamely, that Holly used to be my English teacher. Innocent as it was, my remark had an unintended effect: immediately Meredith spun around, with eyes red and furious, and seemed ready to sock me in the jaw. I leapt back.
“Children, children,” said Holly, smirking a little, and poking me from behind with her toe. 
“Who the hell is he?”
“Meredith,” said Holly, poking her in the back with the big toe of her foot, and knocking her over, “I’m who he says I am. He’s who he says he is.”
She added, “Nothing would give me more pleasure than to see the two of you become friends.”
Meredith looked at me with distrust and loathing, as though I were some henchman or court adviser, a wormtongue for a queen. Behind her eyes, as yet unmixed with her anger, I saw fear. I knew that, at least on the surface, she was focusing all her attention and anger on me in order to prepare herself to face Holly, who seemed to terrify her.

Holly scooped us both up in her hands, and set us down together on her belly. She was dressed in the informal wear of the day, and I gripped on to her cotton undershirt, still rather moist, with my hands, and came to rest against the warm ocean of her body. I glanced at Meredith, who was making a valiant but hopeless effort to stand upright and walk around. She slipped and fell. I suppose Holly found the sight mildly amusing, in its own way, because beneath me her abdominal muscles made a short, happy kind of twitch—like she was holding in her laughter.

But it wasn’t so. Holly wasn’t laughing. Her stomach was grumbling and growling, and as it noised itself, again and again, she slipped her hand a short way underneath her shirt, and felt the tremors as they came and went, one after another. Late afternoon sunlight from the window played and dappled over the wide plain of her bare flesh. With her hand, she took up me and Meredith, set us down onto the blue, woolen coverlet, and stood up. She straightened her clothes out, took up her blouse, pulled on her old socks, and ran her hands through her hair.

“Sorry, doves,” she said. “I have to make a sandwich. Can I trust that you two little lovebirds will get along?” Holly turned her back and sailed out the door before I could answer. Her perfumed blouse, rippling in the still air of the bedroom, whipped up a cool, scented breeze that blew against our cheeks.

When she had left, Meredith turned to face me, and asked me upfront who I was, how I had come to this place, and who Holly was. I repeated what I said before, and added one or two disconnected details about my life with Holly and Adela thus far.

“If you’re here with me, then Holly wants you as her slave. I suggest you go along with it.”
“I won’t go along with it! I think you’re cracked, or you’re dishonest, or you’re on her side. Who the hell are you to tell me what I should do with my life. I didn’t want this for myself.”
“Neither did I! I am on her side, and I think you should be too, if she thinks it best. Anyway, I didn’t want this for myself either, at first—but I think that life is really too chaotic to plan from beginning to end. I chose Holly because, after analyzing the situation, it was the best option I had in order to go on. Tell me if you can think of anything better—but if you can’t, then have it your way.”
“You really think that this woman is going to destroy everything? You’re insane.”
“I don’t think she would destroy anything. I don’t know what she plans to do, because she only shares her plans with Adela and a few others. I think she has the power to destroy everything or change the way things are. And I think she also has the desire, not to destroy anything, but to improve the way we're running everything.”
 Meredith paused, and thought for a moment. “It sounds nuts to me, and you sound like some cult bozo with a complex of some kind. I don't want in.”
“Okay.” 
“I think I'm sick of talking with you.”
I didn’t respond, and after thirty seconds, I heard her begin to sniffle and cough a few times, behind me.
“Oh God,” she said. “Oh God.”
I wanted to say something to her, to comfort her, but I didn’t know what could be said. 

“Meredith.” Silence. “Here’s all that I know. In two or three months, Holly is going back to the museum, and will establish a kind of base there. For the next week, no one will come in, and very few will go out. Everyone inside the museum, at that time, will be shrunk down to your and my size, and all of them will be rounded up and taken care of. Their families will be contacted, they’ll be given food and clothing and shelter, new jobs, etc. Some may be returned to their original sizes, if Ms. Holly should find it necessary. Why your museum?

“Because it is one of the most important cultural institutions in the country. Because to bomb 5,000 years of human civilization would be an atrocity beyond even the dreams and ability of our present society. I think that Holly wants to use you to help her get inside: she also wants to know all the floor-plans, the offices, and the people in command.

“I don’t think you understand her. She doesn’t want to crush you, or extinguish your personality, or warp your mind. She wants to test your loyalty. And she does that by making you, me, and everyone else—what she calls—her slaves. It’s a temporary ordeal, she says. And I’m all for that, I'm all in favor that, to prove to her that at the very least I'm on her side and I'm for what she’s doing and about to do. Although I don’t know everything. Ask her to bring you up to the attic sometime, or the closet, or the living room. Other people are here, and they can tell you more. People that I don't see often, because of the kind of work that I do.

Meredith was still glum and silent, so I went on. I heard Holly’s heavy tread coming back up the stairs. “But if you try to escape, or if she distrusts you, then it’ll be hard, perhaps for a very long time. Adela is her daughter, and they are a strange pairing. But it’s easier and luckier than you think, right now, to be on Holly’s good side. Meredith, I’m telling you this so you can think about it. You’ll get 24 hours, maybe less. Good luck.”

Sandwich in hand, Holly re-entered the room and, pulling in her skirts, settled down on the bed. When she extended her legs lengthwise across the sheets, I knew what she was about to do, and I dreaded it.
“Meredith and Martin,” she said, leisurely munching on her sandwich, and peeling off her socks again, “as you can see,” wiggling her toes, “I need a new pedicure for tomorrow. Black will do.” She rested her massive feet down, side to side, in front of us, toes first. 
“But first: Martin”—I sprang to attention—“eat something. Here.” She handed me a large piece from her sandwich, which I ate. “And fix up the room a little while I rest.” Holly reached out her arm to the bedstand, and picked up a little container of black nail-polish, which she set down beside her toes. “And Meredith, paint my toes for me.” Meredith didn’t move, or seem to comprehend. Holly watched her closely, and repeated herself, with an undertone of warning. But there was still no answer from Meredith.

Holly bounded up out of bed and walked to her door. I heard a scuffle from across the hallway, and the door of Adela’s spotless room squeaked open. My friend and classmate, still dressed for school, and a bit unkempt and tired after a day of tests, of walking about, appeared at the door of her mother’s room and padded across the bare floors, to the bedside.

“Adela, you already know Martin.” Adela smiled at me, and winked.
“But I want you to meet Meredith. Talk to her for awhile and show her whatever you like. I’ll see you both in the morning.”
I was afraid, more than anything else, that Adela would try to snuff out the personality of this woman—a personality so fiery and interesting—before she even had chance to explain herself. I was apprehensive about and especially for Meredith. I wanted to see her again, and talk with her. But I knew that, whatever she would go through that night and for a hundred nights to come, she could see nothing worse than what I’d seen. And look, I had come through. I trusted Holly too much, but that was because I loved her. Meredith would come to love her, too. I looked forward to the day.

Instead of cleaning the room, I finished Meredith’s job. I painted Holly’s toenails to a shine, cleaned her feet and shoes, and served, as usual, as a human insole in her right slipper.

The evening went on as expected until around 8 PM, when there was a loud, authoritative rap at the front door, and the bell rang.