I awoke to the sounds of Tanisha stomping around to get ready, my body still sore and bruised from the night before.  To my surprise, when I tried to stand my head bumped into the metal ceiling, making me hunch over while I tried to stretch.  Sleeping on the bare, hard glass floor left my muscles stiff, and when I shook my head the fog did not clear out of my head.  It seemed that, even for someone my size, a jar this cozy needed more than one hole in the lid.

The broad white mesa of her dresser shook each time she pulled a drawer out to grab some clothes, then shuddered when it banged shut.  Tremors made the jar wobble forward, moving a little more each time as the ground became less stable.  My glass chamber began rolling on its edges, and I ran along the wall to keep from getting tossed around inside it.  In the end, it did not matter how hard I tried to stay standing when the jar toppled over the edge.

It was spinning fast enough to hold me against the curved walls, which may have been what saved my life.  I still landed hard enough that I felt in in my bones, however, and the jar’s rapid revolutions made it start rolling when it hit the ground.  My vision blurred from the constant view change – one moment nothing but carpet, then the wide open space of Tanisha’s room – and I felt nauseated.  If I’d had anything in my stomach, it would now be spewed against the glass.

The jar finally stopped when it bumped into Tanisha’s foot.  I slid to the bottom, so dizzy that the jar felt like it was still rolling, and curled into a ball.  Her steps made my tiny glass vessel hop off the ground, and the bouncing made it impossible for me to stay in the fetal position.  One gigantic foot was on either side of me, clean white fabric pulled tight enough to show off each contour.

“Going somewhere, twerp?” rumbled from the sky.  I looked up, and saw Tanisha standing astride me.  The jar’s curved glass warped her legs, making them appear even longer than they were.  Tall white socks pulled up to her knees acted like stockings, giving her toned calves even more definition, and a long, pleated black skirt hung down to her knees like a curtain.  Her hands rested on her hips, giving a full presentation of her chest and the crimson shirt bearing her hopeful college’s name in white.  She grinned down with the smug superiority that comes with knowing you had bested someone without having to do anything.

Tanisha nudged the jar with her big toe just hard enough to get it rolling, then stopped it with her foot.  Her sole curved around the glass, acting like a bridge for any theoretical carpet-dwellers who might want to walk over.  “Normally I’d kick your little hamster ball around for a while,” she said, “but I’ve got a very important meeting to get to today, in case you forgot.”  She moved her foot away, letting the sight of her enormity reach me again.

Her foot was gone, but Tanisha’s hand quickly came in to seize the jar.  She grabbed the lid with two fingers and picked it up, lifting me so fast I thought I was going to pass out.  The abrupt ride stopped in front of her face with me dangling between her eyes, and she batted her eyelashes at me.  With a flick of her wrist she shook the jar, tossing me between the walls and floor before I came to a stop in a heap.  A rumbling chuckle permeated the jar, then she carelessly tossed it in her purse.  I had just come to rest between her wallet and cell phone case when she zipped it, plunging my surroundings into darkness.  With a sudden lurch she picked it up, and a moment later I was swaying with her on the way to negotiations.

“He’s fine!  All in one piece, even.  Don’t you trust me?”

“You know, I really don’t.  Something about you kidnapping my boyfriend and bashing my head into the wall rubbed me the wrong way.  Put him on the table, now.”

“Okay, fine.”  Tanisha sighed heavily, then the purse growled when she opened the zipper.  Her face appeared overhead while she scanned for me, spotting the jar when she caught a glint of light off the glass.  She reached in and grabbed my container, almost completely enclosing it with her tremendous digits, and withdrew it.  Once it was oriented properly, she set it on the table with a clang that echoed off the walls and made my heart skip a beat.

Though her face was distorted by the glass, I saw wide-eyed shock on Meredith’s face when she spotted me.  Her expression quickly turned to anger, and she thrust a finger at me and hissed, “That’s the jar you’ve been keeping him in?  That’s way too small, even for him!  Look at him, he can’t even stand up!  Take the lid off.  Now.”

“My, you’re being demanding for someone who needs something I have,” Tanisha said, giving us her familiar, self-satisfied grin.

“He’s a someone, not a something,” Meredith corrected her, “and you’re being a real bitch for someone who wants to learn something only I know.  Now come on, you’re hurting him.  Open the jar and let him stand up, at least, then we can start talking.”

Tanisha rolled her eyes and replied, “Fine, if you’re going to make such a big deal out of it, I’ll take the lid off.  But he’s staying in the jar until we come to an agreement.”  Meredith nodded her agreement, and Tanisha wrapped a hand around the glass again.  She grabbed the lid with her other hand, and the screech of metal on glass filled the jar while she twisted.  After a few turns it came loose, and she carefully placed the lid beside me on the table.

I stood for the first time since she sealed me in here, making each of my vertebrae pop when they clicked into place.  At last I could stretch my arms, and I groaned loudly as I spread them as far as I could, making my muscles and ligaments tingle from being at their full extent.  While I did this I shifted from foot to foot, making sure my calves and tendons got their taste of freedom too.  It felt great to finally be able to move again, and my lungs filled with fresh, properly oxygenated air.

“There, you see?” Tanisha said.  “All in one piece.  Uncrushed, still has all his arms and legs, and they’re not even broken!”

“Yikes, though,” Meredith replied, looking me over from a distance.  “Still looks like he had a rough night.  What the hell did you do to him?”

“He can tell you himself if you ever get him back,” Tanisha answered, “but for now, I’d like that to stay between he and I.  I doubt it’ll even be a highlight of his time with me if you take another day.”

“How about you stop fucking around and say what you mean?”  Meredith looked like she barely slept last night, and Tanisha’s way of never saying anything was making her more frazzled.

“Sure thing.”  Tanisha looked Meredith square in the eyes: she was done playing.  “Every day we walk away from here without coming to an agreement, I pull off a limb in front of you.  If he’s still alive once all his limbs are gone, on the fifth day I’ll eat him.  Is that simple enough for you?”

“You’re not really encouraging me to teach you how to shrink people, you know.  If you’d do that to him, you could do that to anyone.”

“Anyone except the two of you.”  Meredith seemed taken aback by that, so Tanisha continued.  “If you agree to my terms, for the rest of our senior year I’ll leave you and him to your baffling and frankly weird relationship where it seems he likes being tiny and dominated.  I don’t get it, but you can do your thing.  I’m even open to being friends with you: we can bond over our shared ability to shrink people!  Maybe I don’t even want to do it, and I just want to know how.”

“I seriously doubt everything you just told me.”

Tanisha smirked.  “Then I guess the only way to know for sure is to let me in on the secret, isn’t it?”  I recognized this as a dangerous line of thinking, but the alternative was a certainty of her pulling my arm off in a few minutes.

Meredith looked conflicted, and I felt the sadness in her wide brown eyes when she looked toward me.  “What do you think I should do, little guy?” she asked.  This was the exact sort of spotlight I hated having shined on me.  “You’re the only one who’s been this size with her, so how do you think she’d handle other people?”  Tanisha meaningfully cleared her throat, and Meredith added, “Of course, if she chooses to make them about your size, too.”

“Tiny,” Tanisha clarified.  “If I choose to make them tiny.”

No.  Absolutely not.  No way.  Should never happen.  She’s a monster.  It’s a terrible idea, and you should get rid of her right now.  I’ll sacrifice myself to spare everyone else.  Under no circumstances should she be allowed to shrink people.

These were all things I wanted to say but didn’t.  Despite Tanisha’s threats, I didn’t think about how she “saved” me last night.  Instead, I thought of Meredith crying as she watched Tanisha tear off my arms and legs, then finally devour me.  I imagined her going through the rest of her life alone, never finding anyone else she could be fulfilled with until she finally settled.  Of course, that was if Tanisha didn’t beat her to death after she got through with me.

I had to trust that Tanisha would keep her word to us, no matter how unlikely.  Otherwise, I had no doubt she’d keep her word about dismembering me.  “I think you should do it,” I said, and immediately felt dirty.  People would suffer and probably die from my decision, but I couldn’t bear to have Meredith go through all that on my account.  “It’s a good deal for us.”  We both knew it was a terrible deal for everyone else, but neither of us were born to be heroes.

Meredith took a deep, steadying breath.  “Well, if that’s what you think is best,” she said.  For us, I silently added, and hoped she understood that.

“Glad we could come to an agreement,” Tanisha said, reveling in her feeling of supremacy.  “Now teach me how to make people smaller.”

Meredith took a moment to consider her words.  “The thing about that is I can’t.”

Tanisha shot forward, banging her elbow on her table when she stopped to loom over Meredith.  “Can’t or won’t?” she demanded.

“Cool your fucking jets!” Meredith shot back without flinching.  “I was going to say that I can’t teach you right now, as in before class.  It takes time to learn even the basics.”

“In that case,” Tanisha began, seizing my jar with a single tremendous hand, “you’re not getting him back before class, either.”  She cupped her hands around me so all I could see was her palms pressed against the glass.  “Meet me at locker 138 at 3:30 this afternoon or I start tomorrow by tearing off his right arm.”  Her hands made some effort to keep me stabilized as she stormed off, and as long as I laid down I could avoid being tossed into one of the walls. 

The sudden, loud clang of metal meant I was sealed in for the rest of the day.  My ears were ringing from the sound, but it was better than having my arm pulled off.  Tanisha had not even put the lid back on.  Enough light streamed through the three slits near the top that I could see my surroundings, and I climbed out of the jar.

Sleep never came, however.  Every time I closed my eyes, I replayed what had happened that morning, and what it would mean for everyone else.  Tanisha would learn how to shrink anyone she wanted, and unless she wanted to sacrifice me there was nothing Meredith could do about it.  There was no doubt in my mind she would immediately use this power to subjugate everyone around her, even if she left us alone.  Hadn’t she already beaten us, anyway?  She knew our weaknesses and exploited them to make us agree to her demands.

Would we be culpable for the people she hurt once she learned how to shrink them?  The question weighed heavily on my mind.  After all, she couldn’t do much more than beat someone up right now, and with her academic career and a likely volleyball scholarship on the line I doubted she’d risk getting caught pounding on too many people.  We were giving her a force multiplier as well as plausible deniability in exchange for our lives.

On the other hand, she’d just be learning a skill, right?  Teaching something couldn’t be harmful in and of itself.  The only thing in Meredith’s control was whether to teach the skill to save our lives.  What Tanisha did with that knowledge was up to her, and any resulting blood would be on her hands.  If someone got hurt as a result of her shrinking them, it would simply be a gross misuse of knowledge.

My ruminations were interrupted by the locker’s dial clicking, then a bang that rebounded off the metal walls.  The door swung open, and I saw an enormous billboard for Tanisha’s preferred college.  This was the first time I’d gotten a good look at it, and I realized it was one of two places I’d been accepted to based on early admission.  Hopefully, this was just a dream of hers and I would not have to deal with her for four more years.

“Two steps back!” Tanisha declared, not even looking at me.  “You’re not getting him back until I can shrink people, and if you reach for him, he’s dead.”

“It’s not that simple,” Meredith replied.  “There are rules, methods, theorems that all factor into it.  You can’t just shrink someone; you have to form a deep connection with something deep inside of you that you don’t even know is there yet.”

“Then you better give me a quick run-down,” Tanisha responded, “or your little boyfriend here will be learning how to climb those stockings of yours with one hand.”

Meredith inhaled, taking time to gather her thoughts.  “Okay then.  First, you should know that this is ancient magic, dating back to the time when people first started living in villages.”  Tanisha nodded, undeterred by the incredibly nerdy preamble.  “As such, it’s particularly effective against men, though with patience and skill it’ll work on other people too.  Second, it works best on people shorter than you.  I don’t think that’ll be an issue for you, but it could come up.  Should you ever need to shrink someone bigger than you, all you have to do is establish control over them somehow.”

“This is cool and all,” Tanisha cut in, “but it just sounds like you’re saying I’ll be really good at it already.  Why don’t you go ahead and teach me how to shrink people?”

Meredith paused a second before answering.  “That’s the thing.  I can teach you how to learn to shrink people, but I myself can’t just tell you.  It’s not like telling someone a secret, it’s something you develop through learning how to connect to the inner core of your being, something we lost a long time ago.”

“In that case,” Tanisha began, “I think we can reach a compromise.  Until I can shrink people, we’re going to meet every day at this time and you’re going to help me learn how to do it.  If you miss a day, you and your pathetic boyfriend here are going to be subject to the most exquisite punishments I can think of until we meet again.  Does that sound good to you?”

“Yeah, sure, “Meredith agreed.  “As long as you don’t hurt either of us, I’ll help you on your path.”

“Good.”  Tanisha knew she had won a complete victory, even if it took the rest of the semester for her to get her ultimate prize.  “And with how long it might take, I suppose it’d be cruel for me to keep you and that twerp apart for the whole time.  You can take him home with you tonight.”  She already had an arm out to stop Meredith from rushing forward.  “But!  You two can’t hide your real relationship anymore.  Starting tomorrow, you have to at least be open that you’re together.”

“Are you kidding?” Meredith asked.  “I was already going to do that soon.”

“Then go ahead, take the pipsqueak and get out of here.  And if I don’t see you right here at this time tomorrow you’re going to pay.”  With that, Tanisha turned and walked away to drive back to her mansion.

Meredith rushed to fill the open space, and I rejoiced in every aspect of her enormous face looming over me as she leaned forward.  Her wide, expressive brown eyes had tears welling in them even while she suppressed a smile.  She reached a hand down toward me, and I stood still while she gently pinched me between two fingers.  Carefully she picked me up from the metal floor, making sure not to move too fast, and raised me to her lips.  A tear rolled down her cheek while she softly pressed me against her lips, lightly flicking me with her tongue before pulling me away.

“Come on,” she said with a quivering voice, “let’s go back to my place.”  I never thought I’d hear such amazing words, and when she slipped me into her palm I was glad that, for the moment at least, our lives were back to normal.