I woke up to the house shaking and repeated thuds from something smashing into the walls. “Time to get up, man-bug!” Fulda boomed, and I threw the covers off and hopped out of bed. Expecting to land on my feet, I was surprised when I did not even get clear of the mattress to land on the floor. That was when I remembered this was a different house, a different Fulda, and I was still shrunken. This was normally how Fulda woke me up when she wanted to play, but the one I was used to have never been this aggressive about it.
As I walked to the edge of the mattress to hop down, the house shuddered from two loud thumps on either side. With a loud plastic squeal the roof was torn off, and I looked up to see Fulda holding it between her hands. She set it to the side, and with a grimace her cold blue eyes stared down at me. “How are you not even out of bed yet?” she asked, exasperated. “We’re going to be late for school! Or did you think you’d get to skip now that you’re my toy?”
I reached the edge of the mattress and climbed down to the frame, but before I could jump the rest of the way down Fulda’s voice rang out again. “I don’t have time for this. You’re still wearing the same clothes as yesterday, but I don’t think anyone will notice. I’d be surprised if they notice you at all.” She reached a hand into the dollhouse and extended her thumb and forefinger toward me. Instead of setting them around me like I expected, she precisely dug at the back collar of my shirt until there was enough slack for her to grip. The tips of her thumb and index finger pinched around my collar, and in a sudden rush of movement she yanked me out of the house.
Fulda held me a few inches from her face, her pink lip gloss glinting while her huge blue eyes stared at me. “Good morning, little man,” she purred. “There are going to be a few changes in your daily routine, and you’re going to get used to them if you want to keep living.” With that ultimatum she stood, giving me another burst of movement so intense it felt like my stomach dropped entirely out of my body. While I dangled helplessly in front of her face, she batted me with her free hand to make me swing more intensely and started walking toward the door.
I felt every single one of Fulda’s steps intensely, the vibrations running through the length of her body and into mine. It ensured I would never stop swinging as long as she was moving, as the waves kept my body swaying beneath her fingers. When she walked down the stairs it got particularly bad, with the added energy from each footfall jolting my body harder. In order to keep from getting motion sick I focused on one of her eyes, though the withering glare made me wish I had something else to look at.
Gina and Jessica were waiting for her at the bottom of the stairs. Jessica started first, letting out a long wolf whistle as she stood. “Look at Fulda, coming downstairs with her new boyfriend!” she called out. “Not even trying to hide how horny she is for the bug!”
“Do you want me to drive today?” Gina offered. “I’m guessing you didn’t get a lot of sleep last night.” What? Gina can’t legally drive. The Fulda managing this aspect of my universe must have made some additional changes, funnily enough about things that had been bothering me, too. It was yet to be seen how that would affect her knowledge of shrinking people, or her skill at learning it.
“I’m plenty rested, you fucking pervs,” Fulda replied, walking across the living room to gather her things. I was thrown around wildly while she slipped her arm into the sleeve of her letter jacket, but her fingers kept their tight grip on my collar. After a brief sojourn through the darkness of her jacket, I was relieved to come out into the bright light again, even if all I could see was the dark blue wall of fabric.
“Of course she is, Gina!” Jessica interjected. “She’s probably worried he’d get lost in there. Don’t worry sis, there are no obstacles to true love, and I’m sure you’ll find a way to be physically intimate with your bite-sized boyfriend!”
“Are you two quite done?” Fulda growled as she slipped her hand into her jacket’s pocket. Her fingers guided me toward the lowest corner, and once my feet touched the fabric she let go and withdrew her hand. She pressed her thumb against the opening, and with a loud snap the button closed behind me. “Like I told you yesterday, he is not my boyfriend! He’s just a tiny man I found in the hallway and didn’t want to leave him out where someone might accidentally step on him.” “Accidentally” being the operative word, considering she had purposefully stepped on me several times last night.
“Sure, we’re just razzing you, sis,” Gina answered.
“Yeah, we’re just having fun,” Jessica added.
In the darkness of Fulda’s jacket pocket, I could not say I had much fun. There was nothing even interesting to look at aside from the balls of lint that had formed in the corners. The only light coming in was a dull, thin stream through the opening of her pocket, but it was enough to tell me I was not missing much. The only change was the persistent bouncing of her gait, and even that dropped off once she sat in her car.
Once the engine of her BMW roared to life, I settled in for a whole lot of nothing. I sat there, blasted by pop-punk music while her sisters tonelessly sang along. No matter how much I tried to escape into the depths of Fulda’s pocket, there was nowhere for me to go, and I had to endure the artless, tone-deaf additions from the other people in the car. Thankfully it did not take very long, only about twenty minutes, and once she cut the music that was the end of the sing-along, too.
The bouncing of Fulda’s gait was resumed as she walked into the school, tossing me up and down into the corner I had slid into. “You gonna eat lunch with your new boyfriend today?” Gina asked.
“Or will you eat him with your lunch?”
“He’s so small I doubt she’d even notice!”
“Will you two shut up about that already?” Fulda hissed. “It’s obnoxious at home, but that shit’s how rumors get started out here. If anyone asks me if I’m dating the tiny student, you’ll both be picking your teeth up of the ground, got it?”
“Yes, Fulda,” her sisters sheepishly replied in unison.
After a few seconds, Gina piped up, “Well if you’re not going to date him, can I?”
Fulda already sounded exasperated. “No, you can’t. As far as everyone else is concerned he’s just another student here, but you both know he’s really nothing more than my toy.”
“Yeah, your boy toy,” Jessica interjected, snickering.
“What did I just say? Gina, in like a month you’ll be seven feet tall or something, I’m sure you can find some guy with a tall woman fetish who doesn’t fit underneath your fingernail.”
“Wait, what’s that about a tall woman fetish?” Gina asked. “There are guys who chase after tall women?”
“Yeah, lots of them!” Fulda answered, laughing. “My little toy here is one for sure, he loves it when I tower over him. Just find a short guy who always seems to just be looking away from you and it’ll be easy to make him into your little toy.”
After a brief silence I heard the doors open, then Fulda suddenly stopped. “You two have a good day, I’ve got to take care of something real quick.” After a moment the jolt of her gait started again, and Fulda went through another door. Whatever she had planned, I doubted it would bode well for me.
“Good morning, Miss Stein! Do you have an appointment this morning? There’s no reason I can think of for you to meet with the principal…”
“No, but something just came up and I need to see Mrs. Howard immediately. Is she available?”
“She will be for the next ten minutes, would you like me to get you in now?”
“Yes, I’d like that, Miss Fine.” After a quick buzz the jostling inside Fulda’s pocket resumed, though it only lasted a half-dozen steps. When it stopped, she undid the button on her pocket with a loud snap, then reached in with a pair of fingers set to pinch something. Instead of grabbing me, however, she grabbed the lining of her pocket yanked it inside out. The unfurling cloth caught me as it straightened, pushing me toward the outside world. When it was fully extended, I dropped out of Fulda’s pocket and landed in the middle of her cupped hand.
“And how can I help one of our brightest students today?” the principal asked. Though I did not recognize the voice, the character I was inhabiting did. I got strong memories of pleading my case before her, practically begging to be let back into a regular school, and insisting that I would be okay. The final argument I had needed was a threat to invoke the ADA if they did not let me back in, and that was enough to get her to grudgingly accept.
Fulda’s hand rushed forward and I was pressed against the heel of her palm while the ceiling tiles above blurred together. The movement stopped as abruptly as it had started, and Fulda flattened her palm. She slowly rotated her wrist to the left, and when the slope became to steep I tumbled out of her hand and onto the faux-wood desk beneath me. “I’m here to talk about him.”
I turned my attention to the principal as she looked down at me. Her large, dark brown eyes were behind a pair of narrow, rectangular glasses, and there was the smallest hint of crows feet in the corner of her eyes. She had her chestnut hair pulled back in a bun, hiding the odd streak of gray, and her red lips were pulled tight as she regarded me. A dark blue blazer helped square her shoulders, and a golden lapel pin drew attention away from her sky-blue blouse. As she looked at me, she kept her hands placed firmly on the desk, as though she were terrified of accidentally touching me.
“Yes, our returning student with the exceptionally rare shrinking disorder,” she confirmed. “Quite the brave man, and an inspiration to us all. How does he affect you?”
“He’s in tremendous danger.” Mrs. Howard was unmoved, so Fulda elaborated. “Yesterday I saw him walking around in the hallways, right in the open, with no protection. Someone could have stepped on him without even knowing, and I would hate to lose such a bright mind so young.” She was laying it on thick. I would be sure to remind her of how highly she spoke of me next time I was allowed to speak.
“Everyone’s aware of his condition, and he’s been attending this school for several months without an issue,” the principal replied. “What makes you so sure he’s in danger?”
“It’s only a matter of time!” Fulda exclaimed. “Just compare any object on your desk to him and you’ll find it’s significantly larger than he is. Now imagine how big the shoe of an average student here is, let alone someone with gigantic feet, like a size 16. All it takes is one inattentive, sleep-deprived student in the morning, and he’s just a stain on the floor.”
“I see your point. What do you propose?”
“I would like to be his guardian at school. We have all the same classes, we’re just on different schedules. If you change his to match mine, I could carry him from class to class, making sure nothing happens to him, and ensure he’s kept safe his whole time here.”
“You realize I just saw you pull him out of your pocket, a decidedly unsafe place for someone of his stature.”
“Mrs. Howard, that was just a temporary arrangement to get him safely to your office. I can guarantee you that, should I become his designated guardian at school, he will be kept outside of pockets and off the floor aside from when he needs to access his special homework device.”
The principal let out a soft hum and glanced between me and the titaness looming over me. “He was very insistent that he not be treated any differently than any other student,” she said, and I remembered those words. “I’d have to review the recordings, but I believe he said that he didn’t want exactly what you’re proposing.”
“I mean no offense to him, I assure you, but I don’t think he knew what he was getting into when he said those things. He’d only been around his family for years, and must have forgotten what it was like to be around hundreds of gigantic people who may or may not even know he’s there.” Mrs. Howard’s lips pulled to the side as she considered Fulda’s case. “Please. He needs someone looking out for him. I’m in the lead for valedictorian, captain of the volleyball team, cheer squad, and physics club. He’ll be safe with me.”
The principal looked pensive as she glanced down to me. “It’s up to you. Do you want Fulda to be your guardian while attending school here? Keep in mind that this would mean following her schedule and going wherever she goes, whether you want to or not. Your ability to roam freely would be severely curtailed. In a non-legally binding sense, you would be hers within these walls.”
I looked back at Fulda, whose cold eyes were locked expectantly on me. If I said no, she would find me later and make me pay for defying her. Instead of writing reality so she did what I wanted, she could now bend me to her will with just a look. “Yes, I agree to that.” Fulda smiled, and the principal looked completely non-plussed by it. “Come to think of it, I should’ve brought it up sooner. I’ve had several close calls just walking around, and I would like to spend as little time on the ground as possible.” There were no memories from my assumed character like that, but I figured a bit of embellishment would help sell my supposed change of heart.
Mrs. Howard looked between Fulda and I several times. “Well, I guess that settles it. Now, Miss Stein, I hope you understands this means you and you alone bear responsibility for him? If something should happen to him here, you will be considered responsible. If he’s seen outside of your arm’s reach, you had better have an explanation good enough to keep me from expelling you. Am I clear?”
“Of course, Mrs. Howard.” Fulda reached her fingers down and pinched the back of my collar tightly. “Come on, little guy. Let’s get to our first class.” She easily plucked me off the principal’s desk, then the world blurred when she turned around. I swung along with her gait, the minute shocks that reached me from her footfalls causing me to bounce beneath her fingers. Wind rushed past me when she opened the door, then she continued through the receptionist’s office into the hallway. Once the door clicked shut, Fulda’s eyes darted around before settling back on me.
“Did you hear that, little guy?” she said, her booming voice filled with guile. Far below me her lips curled into a smirk, and her eyes narrowed on either side of me. “You’re mine here, too. Everyone here already knows you as the tiny student so I can’t outright smash you here, but you can’t run to anyone else for help, either. At the end of the day, you’re always coming home to be my toy.”
For the first time since I ended up in her story, I smiled. “What I heard is that everyone will know you’re responsible for me now, so if something happens to me you’ll be the first person they look at. You’ve made sure I’m perfectly safe.”
“Is that what you think happened?” Fulda replied. She swiftly batted me with her index finger, making me swing wildly back and forth in her grip while she spoke. “That’s adorable! I shouldn’t be surprised you’re so short-sighted, considering how short you are, so I’ll explain. No one besides my sisters know I have you at home, so I can do anything I want to you there. When I finally get bored of you, I’ll just tell Mrs. Howard that you stopped showing up and act very concerned. You’re stuck with me for the rest of your life.”
“And if I run away anyway? You’ll get expelled and I’ll be free.”
“I’m not worried about that.” Fulda started walking through the hall, causing me to sway with her strides while I swung back and forth. “You’re not going to have much opportunity to run, let alone anywhere to run to. Plus, even you have to know that you’ll probably fail, and then you’ll learn there are worse things I can do to a tiny man besides step on them. Admit it, there’s nothing you can do. You’re helpless.”
I could not deny it anymore. My creation had outmaneuvered me once again, leaving me even more under her control. “Yeah, you beat me, Fulda.” It was self-evident, but I knew she wanted to hear me say it.
“I beat you the second I saw you on the floor, you little idiot,” Fulda responded. “I control you now, and I want you to acknowledge it.”
I gulped down what little pride I had left and looked into one of her eyes. “You own me, Fulda,” I said hoarsely. “I am your property.”
“That’s better.” She inched her thumb and forefinger down, engulfing me with her fingertips, until they completely encased me. When her fingers covered me she dropped her hand back down to her side, and I felt light-headed from the sudden drop. I reeled, and the vast arcs of her arm swinging gave me no time to recover as she continued her way through the corridor. My only consolation amid the constant movement and baking body heat was the soft cushioning between her fingers, which was still uncomfortable from her even lightly pinching me.
When Fulda finally released me, she dropped me on the immense, flat wood surface of her desk. Before I could stand she sat down in it, making the whole structure shake from the impact of her gigantic frame. I stared up at her, marveling at her humongous face looming over me and the sizable chest protruding from her body. Her blue eyes flicked down to me, and as she stared, I wondered whether she would treat me like a person with her peers watching.
“Why don’t you stop staring at me and get to your desk?” she said, pointing behind me. It was barely civil, but at least she was not proclaiming her ownership over me again. I followed where she was pointing and saw a tiny desk set up on the edge of hers, several times smaller than the eraser lying next to it. Not wanting to anger someone with fingernails larger than I was, I started the trek across her desk toward mine.
When I reached my seat, I immediately noticed the dark blue wall that rose several inches in front of it. My view was totally blocked by the chair in front of me to such an extend that no amount of boosting could help me see over. I began pushing it toward the corner so I could see past it, but Fulda set a finger down in my path, blocking me. I let go, but she still leaned in close enough that her lips were mere inches above my head, fully engulfing me in her shadow.
“Do you think you know better than me, little man?” she harshly whispered, and H shook my head. “Then leave the desk where it is.” To avoid agitating her further I turned around and planted my butt in the seat. Satisfied, Fulda seat back in her chair and withdrew her hand, and I stared at the blank blue wall in front of me.
A few minutes later, I saw a cap of straight blond hair peak over the wall. As her crystal clear blue eyes and pale skin came into view, I got a better guess of who it was, and the broad, square shoulders confirmed it. Victoria was making her appearance much earlier than she should have, another one of Fulda’s changes to the cast. Apparently, she figured simply introducing her near the end was not good enough for her.
Victoria stopped beside the desk and lowered herself into the chair. With a thud her back came to a rest against the blue wall in front of me, and I knew it would be useless to try and see past her. Even if I could see around her chair, the tremendous white tapestry of her shirt would still block me.
A shadow fell over me, and I looked up just in time to gasp. A thick curtain of blond hair was falling right toward me, fast enough there was no chance to escape. Thinking quickly, I crouched down and buried my head in my arms to protect my face. Thousands of blond hairs thudded onto the desk around me, a prelude to the tremendous thwack of a thick, golden lock of it landing on me. Victoria’s hair drove me to the ground, knocking me prone and making my arms splay out.
Getting beaten up by hair was a new level of humiliation for me. I laid there for a few moments, feeling sorry for myself before getting back up. When I was back in my chair, I did not see how I would even be able to use it. Thick strands of blond hair covered the seat and desk, pouring off it onto the surface below me to make a long, straight rug. If that were not bad enough, every time Victoria moved her head even the slightest amount her hair whipped and curled around, throwing me around in my chair.
I was not going to deal with this if I did not have to. “Hey, Victoria?” I called up, hoping she could hear me.
Surprisingly she turned around, and her hair pushed me out of my seat. As she turned her hair dragged me along with it until I was mercifully stopped by Fulda’s eraser. When she was turned almost all the way around, she glanced down and by some miracle spotted me amidst her hair. “Hey there, little guy!” she boomed, smiling. “What’s up? Well, except for me, of course. And everyone else in the world. Um. How’s my favorite tiny student doing?”
“I’m fine, could you –“
“He just wanted to say hi,” Fulda butted in. “He’s very excited to be sitting with us now.”
“Oh. Hi!” Victoria waved enthusiastically down to me. “Good to see you’re finally making friends!” I waved back, understanding that I would not get to speak to her further. Fulda had decided she would be my mouthpiece as well as my supposed protector. The blond titaness turned back around, the thin strands of her hair whipping me into the air as she spun. I landed back among a pile of the silky strands, and blindly groped my way through them to get back to my desk.
The lesson starting was not the end of my torments. Fulda decided I was the perfect focus for her fidgeting. Whenever she felt bored, she would begin prodding me with the tip of her finger, or grabbing the back of my chair and leaning it back as far as it could go. When it finally toppled over, she laid that same finger on top of me and held me down until I had squirmed sufficiently for her. Between Fulda and the thick layer of hair around me, I was not even sure what class I had just spent an hour in.
The school day did not change much from my first experience with it. Fulda put me somewhere I would not be able to see, hair engulfed me more often than not, and Fulda played with me when she felt bored. If I tried to complain, Fulda simply talked over me, so I learned quickly enough not to raise the issue. As bad as it was, however, I knew it could have been worse: she always put me on her desk rather than inside her shoe, for instance, so I did not worry about getting crushed.
The next time my feet touched tile was at the end of the day, when I was getting my special tablet out of my locker. I was in Fulda’s shadow, and worked as quickly as I could to pull out my stuff. Her two ginormous Converse were on either side of me, and her colossal body offered me as much protection as I could hope for.
“Hey, Fulda!” someone called out in the distance. The shadows around me shifted, and Fulda’s enormous feet moved to the side. I quickly grabbed my tablet and slammed the door shut, then spun around. A humongous black ballet flat stepped into view, even longer than the familiar Converse that constantly threatened to annihilate me. Looking up, I saw flesh-toned nylon stockings several stories up that went on to wrap around long, sinewy legs hundreds of feet tall. When I reached the top of the titaness, I saw a deluge of dark brown hair pouring over sturdy shoulders, the same shade as her brown eyes. Significantly, she was looking down as she addressed Fulda, and quite a bit down, too. “You’re still hosting tonight, right?”
“Of course I am,” Fulda replied. “The whole crew’ll be there.”
“Awesome.” Anni – the only girl in the school taller than Fulda – adjusted a sucker in her mouth. “Need me to bring anything?”
“Just yourself,” Fulda replied, clutching her stack of books to her chest. “Trust me, I’ve got more than enough to get us more messed up than we have any right to be.”
“I’m looking forward to it.” Anni adjusted her sucker again, but this time it fell out of her mouth. She reached to snatch it out of the air, but as it toppled end over end it evaded her grasp. The sucker landed on the tile with a loud crack, and to my horror started rolling toward me. I looked for somewhere to run, but between the enormous metal wall behind me and Fulda’s tremendous foot, there was nowhere to go. Although I tried to press myself against the locker the red, wet ball of sugar still rolled over me, and I became attached to its sticky surface.
I was not on the floor much longer. Anni grabbed the sucker’s stem between two fingers and plucked it back up, taking me along with it. Legs and abs whirred by in a blur as she lifted it to her face, and I felt severely disoriented from the sharp ascent. When my senses returned to me, I was looking up at Anni’s gargantuan face, her rounded nose perfectly between her huge brown eyes. My stomach sank when it dawned on me that she was holding me level with her lips.
“Five second rule,” Anni declared, then her jaw fell open. Her long, pink tongue shot over her bottom lip and laid flat, providing a wide landing area for the sucker. As I sped toward her mouth I let out a piercing shriek, knowing it was my only chance to get her attention. If I went in her mouth, I knew Anni would end up eating me.
When I was just about to contact her tongue, the speeding sucker stopped. Anni’s tongue retracted, and her thin lips smiled while she let out a loud, awkward laugh. “Hey! What’re you doing here, little guy?”
“I see you met my locker neighbor!” Fulda answered for me. “I’m kind of looking out for him since, as you can see, he’s really too small to take care of himself.”
“Yeah, I can tell. Be more careful down there! I was like, half a second away from eating you.” Instead of going through the trouble of prying me off the sucker, Anni simply placed the handle in Fulda’s hand and let go. “Say, if you’re looking out for him, does that mean he’ll be at the party tonight?”
“It certainly does,” Fulda replied, slowly pulling the sucker toward her, and Anni’s smile widened.
“Well, I certainly look forward to seeing him there.”
“Awfully bold of you to presume you’ll be able to see him,” Fulda joked, and I got trapped between two sources of booming laughter. Anni turned and walked away, and Fulda started looking for something to wrap around the still-wet sucker.
No sooner had Anni left than we were joined by Fulda’s sisters. They stood as though to block Fulda and looked down at the candy in her hand, a rather unusual sight. Simultaneously their eyes found me, and they jumped over each other to see who could make the first joke.
“What you got there, sis?” Jessica said. “Boyfriend on a stick?”
“It’s so she can make out with him easier,” Gina added. “Otherwise, she’ll spend half her time kissing the carpet.”
“I thought I told you two to cut that shit out,” Fulda responded. “At school, at least.”
“Tell you what,” Gina began, “we’ll stop joking about this man-shaped speck of dust being your boyfriend at school if you let us come to your party tonight.”
“You’re joking.”
“We’re not,” Jessica answered. “If there’s a party in our house, we should be invited, too.”
“Besides, we get along great with your friends! And Anni’s so cool and tall…”
“Fine, you can come!” Fulda agreed, then let out a loud sigh. “Now, do either of you have a tissue? I don’t want to get sucker gunk inside my pocket.”
Once Jessica handed her a tissue, it was quickly wrapped around the sucker’s head, covering me in the soft white paper. Everything took on a ghostly light through it, though I was not able to see much for long. After she made sure it was firmly stuck, Fulda deposited the sucker into her jacket pocket, consigning me to darkness until she remembered I was still there.