“Now, girls, what is the significance of Holden’s red hunting hat in The Catcher in the Rye?”

Contrary to what he thought before, Parker was not even remotely accustomed to his new size.  Sure, he slept as well as the circumstances provided the night before, despite Ava’s snoring crescendoing into a mild roar around three in the morning.  He was even a good sport when she woke him up not by her soft, cautious whispers, but by her reeking morning breath escaping from her un-brushed mouth.  In fact, he exhibited the patience of a saint throughout the entire morning routine of the high school senior, enduring a screaming match between her and her sister, a near-miss with the doughy foot of her mother when she left to eat breakfast, and the countless times that she snatched him up in her hands without warning.  He was growing tense after the vomit-inducing bumpy ride in the familiar vessel of her purse; the fact that he was now able to get fresh air because he was in the front pocket this time was the only thing keeping him from completely losing his shit.

But this was absolutely and utterly petrifying.  Parker imagined that his surroundings were more terrifyingly awe-inducing than the Grand Canyon, a sea full of Great White Sharks, and a grizzly bear attack all rolled up into a George Romero flick.  He was speechless.  

Peeking out of the front pocket of Ava’s purse, which rested directly under her chair, Parker could see the endless universe that was the floor of Ava’s English classroom.  In front of him were Ava’s socked feet, which, looming high above him and the small purse, were restlessly popping in and out of her tan Sperry’s.  He was not sure if the blackened parts of her white socks indicated the age of the socks, the shoes, or both.  He didn’t want to get any closer to find out.

Beyond the moving mountains were countless other instances of the sight before him, from the bare toes playing with a pair of maroon ballerina flats to the front-left of him, to the building-sized neon-colored running shoes that he could see past Ava’s tanned legs.  The teacher had actually disciplined the girl with the running shoes earlier; Ava apparently went to an all-girls private school – uniforms and everything – and the shoes most definitely did not fit the strict dress code.  Regardless, Parker had nearly shit himself when the 40-something-year-old teacher raised her voice.  That, coupled with her black peep-toe pumps constantly clacking back and forth down the aisle, comprised only half of Parker’s anxieties.  Being in the same room as thirty/forty teenage upperclassmen girls didn’t help either.  That would make him nervous when he was normal-sized.  Being microscopic near these ginormous teens, however, made for an entirely new level of horror.

Ava enthusiastically raised her hand, a la Hermione Granger in Harry Potter, to answer the raven-haired teacher’s question.

Jesus Ava, just please lay low for a little bit!  

“Yes, Ava?”  The teacher said, walking closer to Ava’s desks, her twin pumps parking themselves uncomfortably close to Parker’s residence.  Craning his neck, he could only see up her black dress pants to her colorful belt.  God, he could see everything at his size, from the scratch marks on the teacher’s shoes to the microscopic film of sweat on her big and second toes.

“Welllllll, doesn’t it symbolize his individuality, but still shows how he really, really wants companionship??”  Ava curiously replied, her soles bending and retracting in anticipation of the answer.

“Great, Ava! Holden is a very lonely and isolated character…Yes, this is by his own doing, but he still is desperate for attention and longs for a romantic partner,” the teacher replied, pivoting and clacking her way back to the front of the classroom.  Satisfied at her answer, Ava’s toes gave a jovial wiggle.  When the teacher reached the front of the classroom, she asked, “Now class, how does his actions across the novel exhibit these feelings of his?”  This sparked another round of class discussion, mostly between Ava and the teacher. 

Meanwhile, Parker was trying to simultaneously calm his mind and his body temperature, for it felt like he was actually in the boiling depths of Grand Canyon, in that respect.  It was the middle of Spring, after all.  No wonder why the girls could hardly keep their feet inside their dress-code approved flats.  Seeing how no one had noticed the tiny head of his tiny frame poking out of the bag for the first twenty minutes of the class, he continued to enjoy the fresh air outside of the leather bag by keeping everything from his shoulders-up out of the bag. 

This was a lapse in judgment.  Apparently Ava was the only one busy taking notes.

Suddenly, Parker was jarred out of his constantly-running internal monologue not by the now-familiar sight of a wiggling set of socked toes or shifty pumps, but of a stunned, yet curious face staring directly at him.  The face came from the girl sitting to the right of Ava.  He immediately dropped down back into the depths of Ava’s purse, his sweating increasing ten-fold.

No, no…She can’t be looking at me…Did the teacher coming over here divert attention to this area?? How the fuck can she see me right now?  The desks are pretty close together...

The face, young and pretty with blonde bangs, kept sneakily stealing glances at him, apparently unbeknownst to the note-taking Ava.  Riskily taking his own peeks out of the purse, Parker even saw her tap the shoulder of her red-haired friend in front of her, who then joined the blonde in trying to see if he was still there.

Ava! God, get your nose out of your book!  Wait!  I’ve seen those girls before…But where?

Despite this potential lead, Parker remained hidden for the rest of the class.  But the damage had already been done.  By the time the bell rang, Ava picked up her purse, and hit the hallway, the curious girls were all over Ava.

“Ava!!!  Hey honey, how have you been?  I heard that you had a rough time a prom….Bummer…”  About the same height as Ava, the cute blonde, whose name was Katie, enthusiastically threw her arm around her as they both headed down the hallway.  Ava clutched her bag tightly to her side.

Fucking shit…They definitely saw me.

“Yeah!  That sucksss…”  The short redhead struggled to keep pace, but easily kept up with the phony compassion.  Her name was Claire.  Bewildered as to why two members of Colleen’s popular posse were talking to her, Ava remained quiet, only mumbling answers when talked to.

When Ava reached her locker, Katie released her grip and stood to the side of Ava.  Comically enough, Claire flanked Ava, posting up on the other side of her.

“Ava!  Well how about we cheer you up – take you out for lunch!  C’mon, you have your free period now, right?”  Katie, unrelenting in her energy, perkily asked Ava.

Fuck fuck fuck…C’mon Ava, just use your head...

Ava remained silent.

Holy shit, is she actually thinking about this?  Has she forgotten that I’m here?!

“Sure!  Let’s go!” Ava cheered to the giddy delight of the girls, who motioned her further down the hallway, towards the parking lot.

What the fuck!  She’s not that desperate for friends, is she?

Parker could deal with one hyperactive teenager, albeit hardly.  He didn’t think – no, he was sure that he couldn’t handle two more titanic, giggling, screaming, out of control girls.  He reminded himself that whatever shrinking drug that had crossed his path was not completely foreign to the students in Ava’s school, for whatever reason.  If shrinking was still the stuff of sci-fi and Hollywood, he would have the advantage of surprise; they would be careful and mystified by his size.  They would help him.  With the existence of the drug it’s assumed that if you’re tiny, it’s by your own.  Simply put, these girls were curious. 

“So Ava, how was the rest of your weekend?  Anything interesting happen?”  Katie asked from the driver’s seat, wasting no time in grilling Ava once they returned to the car to eat after picking up fast food. 

“No, not really,” Ava responded with a hint of nervousness as she bit into a French fry, “Just prom, that’s all.”

Why is she doing this?  She has to know that these girls are up to something.

“You sure??  You really left the dance in a big huff.  We just wanted to make sure that you were okay.”  Claire, who was in the passenger’s seat, said in between sips of a Diet Coke.

“I’m fine, really.  Hey…how about Colleen?  Is she okay?  The police came to my door and everything...asking about what happened to her,” Ava sputtered out.

That’s where these girls are from! They’re friends of Colleen’s – I remember them from the prom.  Ava’s actually helping me find ----

“Why do you care about her?!  Enough of this!”   Fed up, Katie impatiently spun around and swiped Ava’s small purse from the backseat, so fast that Ava hardly had time to react.

“No!”  Ava screamed in desperation, realizing the double-edged sword that was her plan to get intel from Colleen’s friends.

Like a squirrel frantically trying to crack open a nut, Katie ripped apart the contents of Ava’s purse, trying to find what she hoped was not a trick of her imagination.  Meanwhile, Claire shooed off Ava’s feeble attempts at reclaiming her purse and little friend.  Parker?  Well, he was fucked.    

Katie found what she was looking for.

With a greasy, manicured hand, she plucked the object of her fascination from the purse.  Sure, her friends had gossiped about it.  They had joked about it: What would you do if you could shrink your boyfriend?  Would you stay with him?  How would you punish him after a fight?  They laughed, enjoying the thought of seeing their enemies and/or significant others micro-sized.    Colleen had even mentioned the drug in passing.  But no, she thought.  That’s just fantasy, Honey I Shrunk the Kids shit.  Drugs do crazy things to people, but not that crazy. 

But it was real.  And it was squirming in between her fingers.

The car was silent.

“He’s…so little,” Claire gasped, staring intently at the flailing bug in her best friend’s grasp.

“I…I knew it was real,” Katie whispered, “I mean…imagine the possibilities.  This is going to spread like wildfire across the school.”  With her free hand, she intermittently poked Parker’s abdomen with and impossibly large fingertip, as if he was a scientific specimen.

“Guys…”  Ava pleaded, nearly in tears.  She fucked up, putting her friend in danger.  Again.

“No, Ava,” Katie snarled, “You think you can hide your little boyfriend like this, you freak?  Keep this from people?  This is a big fucking deal.  Wait till the girls get a load of this.”

“So, you shrink him yourself?”  Claire questioned while eyeballing Parker, “But how?  Is it just a rumor that the drug makes girls grow too?”

“No!  Guys, I can explain, just…”  Ava motioned to retrieve Parker, but Katie clutched him closer, like a precious trophy.  She was in control now, both of the minuscule man and the crying girl in her backseat.

“Ha!  You seriously think that this isn’t going to get out, Ava?  People thought you were a weird bitch before, imagine what they’ll think when they hear that you’ve been buying drugs and carrying a tiny man around in your purse!”  Katie laughed, never taking her gaze away from the man cowering in her palm.  Her eyes dug into him; objectifying him in the most literal sense of the word.

“And I thought that the drama would have ended after prom!” Claire yelped.

Finally breaking her voracious gaze from Parker, Katie turned to face Ava, saying, “Honey, your life’s over.”

Katie returned her focus to the sweating toy in her palm.  The only thing she was sure of?

She wasn’t going to finish her Catcher in the Rye essay by tomorrow.