"Hi."

No response.

"Hello."

The man glanced at her but didn't reply and kept walking.

These are just two examples of what Ela experienced daily. The 23-year old was a vacant, sitting on the street against a supermarket's wall, begging for some cash.

Her tactic was trying to get attention and money by greeting the pedestrians as she sat there. Few replied, and even fewer gave some money.

However, her daily "revenue" was usually enough for a sleeping place and a meal in the shelter for the homeless, even though Ela didn't like it there. It was crowded, dirty, and noisy even all night long. But one of the people working there was the main reason she hated the place. A guy named Henry always poked fun at her height.

Ela was not only a skinny young woman, which isn't surprising when one lives on the street, but she also stood a mere 5'1. Before she ended up begging on the street, she usually bought her clothing and shoes at the children's department in the store, had always been the shortest person in school, and had to stand on a stool to reach stuff on the upper shelves. Or ask if someone taller could fetch it for her. She hated being short.

Remarks Henry made were stuff like wondering if she still didn't get a job as garden gnome yet, wondering aloud if homeless children were also allowed in here, or if the shelter was for hobbits too. Yesterday he told another homeless guy aloud "Watch out, don't step on it!" as he walked past her. Everyone laughed. Ela felt offended and embarrassed. Again.

But what could she do? Complaints were not taken seriously, beggars couldn't be choosers after all, and New York City's shelters were too crowded already to look for another one. And no, Henry only laughed at her when she told him it wasn't funny at all. Firing him was no option, since he was a volunteer and those people were very hard to find. So Ela had to endure all these dumb remarks. Oh, if only she was taller!

Ela had tried to get money another, legal, way, but options were severely limited. No home meant no job, no job meant no home. It was a hellish circle she and so many others were caught in. Yet, there seemed to be an opportunity.

Another woman had told her yesterday she had gotten a nice amount of coin by having participated in some tests at the university, and gotten a free meal on top of that there as well. No one asked any questions, and the money was in cash. Ela thought it couldn't hurt to have a look.

So after she had gained enough money for the day, she went to the university to see if there was any research she could take part in. On the bulletin board she saw psychological surveys, testings of new drugs, that sort of things. But one particularly note caught her attention.

The faculty of Radiolocial Medicine asked for short people. They had developed a method that could make adults grow taller, but needed to run some final tests. Hence they needed volunteers who stood below 5'5 and had enough time for the coming weeks, the research took quite some time. And the reward was a whopping $1,000! Ela had vowed not to take any new experimental drugs, lest she got severely ill from the side effects, but this, this was like music to her. Growing taller and a thousand bucks! She immediately went to the scientist who was the person overseeing the research.

Dr. Tylicki was a latino looking woman in her late thirties and greeted Ela friendly, wearing her white lab coat.

"Welcome," she said and after some nice chit-chat, the doctor came to the point.

"We have developed a new gene therapy. First, you take a high-energy substance. The substance will interact with your genetic makeup, the DNA, and alter it so that your body is able to grow again, which  usually is not possible after adulthood. The substance is triggered by radioactivity."

"Now, don't back off," Dr. Tylicki quickly said when Ela's eyes grew wide in shock hearing "radioactivity", "because you will be exposed to a low, harmless dose. It is merely needed to activate the substance and the gene alterations. I will spare you the details, but suffice it to say that you can grow taller. There is no harm, we only need to determine whether or not it works on humans. We tried it on laboratory-bred skin tissue, and it worked fine."

Ela wasn't quite sure whether she should do it, but after some thought she agreed. The short girl was sick of the teasing of Henry, had enough of being short, and if she died, well, living on the street meant she was as good as dead already. So what did she have to lose?

"For three weeks, you will be living here. You get the substance every day, and in the end, the radioactive dose to trigger it. You have a lot of cells and a lot of genes, so spreading the substance through your entire body takes some time, hence the long stay. You cannot leave the terrain of the university, so we will provide you with what you need. I will give you some time to think about it..." Dr. Tylicki continued, but Ela had made up her mind already. Three weeks without Henry, without begging, living in a warm room, becoming taller and getting $1,000.... No need to think twice.

After agreeing she was taken to a room with a bed (she liked that), could take a shower (even better) was given a meal (the best). Later that day she was medically examined. Although having below-average weight, Ela still was in fair health, despite living on the street. She was deemed fit for the experiment.

The next three weeks she was given the chemical daily, and lived a life that seemed a distant memory to her. Sleeping in a cosy bed instead of on a mat on the floor, eating well, watching TV and reading all kinds of books and newspapers, being able to wash, provided with clean clothing every day and having her health checked all the time... she determined to do this kind of research often, and pictured herself becoming a professional "guinea-pig".

When the three weeks had passed, he took her to the radiology room. Ela, after having stripped nearly naked, had to lie on a bare bed in a chamber shaped like a large egg. There, her body was going to be bombarded with neutrons, the sub-atomic particles that were in fact radioactive radiation. She smiled. Would it work? Would she get taller?