"So Sister Margaret told me to get off my phone or she'd take it away, and then she actually did it!" Tiffany gushed. "I was sooooo humiliated, and I wanted to be like, "Hey, Sister, this is a private school, so my parents are paying your salary, and they-"

            "Hold on a second, Tiff," Kelsey shushed her friend. "Well?"

            "Yeah," Blair snickered. "Larissa? Don't you want to show us how your... extra credit project is coming?"

            "Maybe in a little while," the redhead coyly declared. At this slight reference to Ted, she popped her leg up in a broad arc, then smacked her shoe hard against the lower bar of the chair. On impact, her previously dormant sole was once again clapped to the stage of the shoe, wrinkles clenched and ribbed sole musculature engaged. "To tell you the truth, he's... coming along just fine. But I think he could be doing a much better job."

            "Oh?" Tiffany perked up.

            "How's that?" Kelsey asked.

            "You'll see soon. I came up with a project idea for class today that I think will make a very useful education tool for him," Larissa explained. Her foot resumed its idle fidgeting, as she once again focused on conversing with other regular-sized humans, and allowed her oppressive sole to continue babysitting Ted with only minor interference. It constrained him flush to the clog. "Here's a hint. I brought an extra one in my purse today, so it works out perfect."

            "Hey, let me see," Blair whispered. "Oh... I think I get it now."

            "How's that thing going to be your home ec project, Larissa?" Tiffany replied.

            Through the distorted wind tunnel of the dangled shoe, Ted could only make out the echoes of the girls' voices and the rustling of objects being removed from a handbag. Most of the noise was drowned out anyway whenever Larissa's sole flexed, creating friction between the webby nylon and flaking insole. He was pretty sure he could hear the clattering of utensils up on the countertop, but it was hard to be sure when the rounded summit of Larissa's sole was so intent on rubbing Ted into the very grains of the clog insole itself. Though the nylon still provided some protection, his full-mast boner was now vigorously caressing the plump mass of flesh. He was just lucky Larissa was so preoccupied now.

            "There. I think that will do it," the redhead announced.

            "That's your project?" Tiffany giggled. "You barely did anything to it!"

            "I'm not done yet. We're still missing a very important ingredient."

            "Okay, but even then, you just made a hole!"

            "Yeah, but that's all it's gonna take, isn't it?" Blair said, clearly understanding better. "Come on now. We want to see you use it."

            "This is going to be good," Kelsey laughed.

            Ted heard thudding on the leathery over-lip of the clog, which he realized was the sound of Larissa's fingers gripping the shoe to pull it off. The whole contraption began to fall away. Nylon fibers swept along the caked insole, until it was fully removed, and Ted was free to tumble toward the blunted toe point of the empty footwear.

            Before he could even try to right himself, the shoe was suddenly soaring upward, causing him to bank in a semi-circle along the rounded basin like a loose marble. He ping-ponged from the weathered slab to the bungee cupping above, then finally came to rest just a few precious inches away from the edge of the righted clog. However, there was no point in crawling toward it, not only because the shoe was still floating a perilous height above the ground, but also because Larissa's enchanting green eyes suddenly filled in the horizon. Just staring in at him. She batted her long eyelashes, narrowed her vision, and sighed from deep within.

            "Hey, won't somebody see him?" Tiffany whispered.

            "Nobody will see. Just keep doing everything normally like nothing's wrong, and nobody will think anything," Larissa commanded her lackey, without skipping a beat and without blinking in her stare-down with Ted. Her volume lowered to a murmur, only to be heard by the boy living inside her shoe. She tipped the footwear down a few inches, revealing her pink lips, which puffed warm air into the hovel of her clog, and then she spoke: "That goes for you too, pipsqueak. When I take you out of here, I don't want to see any funny business. If you make a single sound, or try to run away, I'll put you back in here for good, and you won't be coming out. And not a single person will even miss you. Understand?"

            Ted was terrified beyond belief. Larissa's voice was so calm and collected, yet steely and frigid; she meant every syllable, he could tell. The boy might've pissed himself if he wasn't still fully erect. In survival mode, he nodded.

            "Good. Now, why don't you come out of there, you skeevy little pervert?" Larissa's fingers tipped the shoe another inch down, creating a slide too steep for Ted to stand on. He somersaulted down the incline, half-wondering if she was just dumping him in the home ec waste basket. It would make this all a lot easier. At the last second, the platform of the girl's soft fingers appeared from underneath, and caught him. Her fist quickly balled him up, replacing the prison cell of her shoe with a much tighter one in her hand.

            When Larissa's fingers uncurled atop the table, revealing not only the eagerly grinning faces of her three gigantic beautiful cohorts but also her class project, Ted had to wonder if this was all a prank. What exactly was he looking at, except a piece of ruined laundry? To his eyes, it appeared Larissa had simply taken a spare nude-colored stocking from her purse, and using safety scissors, snipped a very small hole less than half an inch across into the silky foot-slope of the garment.

            Then he saw the sewing needle and thread resting beside the stocking, and it hit him. Hard.