Lisa pursed her lips as her eyes shifted around the small room. It was actually an old closet converted into a bedroom for her family’s sole male progeny, her older brother, Lincoln. Behind the glasses-wearing genius four-year-old sat a large, ray gun-looking contraption. Well, that’s what most simple-minded plebeians might assume upon seeing it. It was actually a marvel of modern science and Lisa’s latest invention, a shrink ray. The name should explain everything, but the short genius was accustomed to obvious things going over most people’s heads. Anyway, she’d already run through all standard tests, and felt confident she was ready for her first human trial. As always, she turned to her family as test subjects for such things, preferably without them realizing to avoid any fuss. And it worked!
Nestled snugly atop his pillow was the freckled, buck-toothed, and white-haired boy. Naked, of course, as the machine had been calibrated to only affect organic material. Naturally, this didn’t faze Lisa. She was a woman of science and had seen her family’s so-called naughty bits countless times on her secret security cameras… purely for research purposes, obviously. However, as her eyes began darting between her brother and the tablet showing all relevant data, Lisa caught her gaze lingering longer and longer on the former. Somehow, Lincoln’s reduction in size had triggered an unintended side-effect in increasing his… appeal? It was hard to say, as Lisa usually tried distancing herself from emotional nonsense. Yet as time went on, the harder the girl found it to tear her eyes away from the most important young male in her life.
Lisa then slapped herself back to her senses. She had no time for such trivialities! After all, the machine’s reverse function wasn’t responding. The little genius did a system check, another, and then a reboot, and every troubleshooting method she could think of, but couldn’t find the problem. There were no glitches, viruses, malfunctioning hardware, or any of her usual issues, yet pushing the button refused to produce the intended result! What was wrong!?
Starting to sweat, Lisa stared much more intently at her shrunken brother, now realizing the layers of fecal matter she had dumped upon herself. It was only a few hours before everyone woke up, and when the parental units found out, everyone would blame her. Granted, she deserved it, but it would still be nice to not be the family’s default scapegoat whenever weird stuff happened. Regardless, there were more pressing issues than parental reprimands. Lincoln was helpless. At only three inches tall, Lisa projected that her brother had lost roughly 95% of his ability to independently engage with the world. He couldn’t even reach the bathroom at his current size, for Einstein’s sake!
As fixing the machine and instantly resolving this dilemma became increasingly unlikely, Lisa adjusted her priorities to long-term care. Lincoln simply could not be allowed to wander around on his own. The risk of getting stepped on alone was too great. Then again, based on her initial readings from the shrink ray’s scanner, it seemed like her brother hadn’t actually experienced a reduction in mass, but an increase in density. Odds were high that he could survive being stepped on, but that was not a risk she was willing to take. No, the most sensible solution was to summon the family to share the burden in this family emergency.
Strangely enough, that idea held a peculiar charm for Lisa. She still didn’t understand why this reduction in size had resulted in a proportional increase in aesthetic appeal, but she couldn’t deny it. The mental image of Lincoln riding around on her shoulder was, in layman’s terms, cute, and it made the little girl smile. It also seemed like Lincoln’s skin had become intensely sensitive, so it might be difficult to find sufficiently soft fabrics for clothing, meaning he’d have to spend a significant amount of time partially or entirely naked. Given how the boy had no qualms reading comics in his underwear around his mostly female family, that shouldn’t be a problem.
Then again, returning to the prospect of the family having to look after Lincoln, who’d been reduced to roughly the level of helplessness as an infant, picturing herself having to bathe her tiny brother gave Lisa an awkward smile. She imagined her fingers lathered with soap and scrubbing his little body. Every nook, cranny, and… crevice. Lisa also noticed her brother sporting a rather impressive morning wood for his size and age, which shouldn’t have affected a prepubescent girl like herself, but it did. Why did she imagine herself touching it? Why couldn’t she stop imagining her other sisters doing the same and more? If they were all impacted similarly by this peculiar phenomenon, a large object falling on him might be the least of Lincoln’s worries.
Again, Lisa slapped herself to refocus on the facts. The family would have to care for Lincoln for the foreseeable future, just as had been done for all of them as babies. In some ways, they were already well-prepared. In other ways… Lisa shivered just thinking about it, so she pushed such illogical thoughts aside to scan Lincoln again. It seemed like the boy’s sweat produced a strange type of pheromone, which, based on her initial readings, only impacted the opposite sex. That wasn’t ideal news in a house of mostly females. Readings also suggested these pheromones might have an impact on taste buds. This finding made Lisa smack her lips in curious thirst, but she restrained herself, certain that such an investigation would only distract her from what mattered.
And on top of everything else, Lisa needed to put her ideas into action. Preparing a slideshow to present her plan would only make the girl look more guilty, and it might even lead to accusations that she’d done this on purpose as part of another experiment. Of course, the girl planned to closely monitor the situation at every turn, but any scientific benefits would purely be a byproduct of her primary goal. At the end of the day, her big brother was in trouble, and Lisa needed to help.
So, following the Saturday morning rush to the bathroom, Lisa called the family to the living room before breakfast and gave them the news as a shrunken, naked, and confused Lincoln sat in her palm. After the initial shock, shouting, and accusations, Lisa urged the family to remain calm by demonstrating how their reactions had frightened the already disoriented Lincoln. As expected, refocusing their attention on familial love had the desired result of keeping everyone composed enough for the aspiring scientist to present her plan.
As Lisa explained the establishment of a rotation for family members to look after Lincoln based on time availability, she also took note of her family’s reactions. As hypothesized, the tiny boy’s pheromones affected the family’s female members. They focused on Lincoln with more than familial concern, made evident by their anxious body language. Lisa counted the number of bottom lips bitten, thighs clenched together, cases of labored breathing, and other potentially relevant reactions. There was an uptick in such responses when Lisa described the other alterations to Lincoln’s physiology, such as an upgrade to lung capacity, superior durability, a relative doubling in strength, and much more, with a caveat that additional phenomena may appear in the future. Based on Lisa’s exploratory expeditions into the seedier parts of the internet, not to mention access to her family’s browser histories, she felt she had a good idea of what was on their minds.
As for Lincoln, he appeared to be in a state of shock, likely still needing time to process all that had happened and all that would need to happen. His condition was stable, which was a relief for all. However, when the tiny boy looked over his sister’s palm at the now-distant floor, his fearful reaction was entirely expected, but it still hurt Lisa to behold. Like it or not, her experiments had hurt her brother in unintended ways. And even as she continued her presentation, she kept glancing at Lincoln, dreading the moment their eyes finally met. Would he be mad? It’d be a natural response. However, would he be so mad that their relationship would be irreparable? Lisa began stammering just thinking about such a horrific prospect.
That’s when Lincoln put both hands on his big, younger sister’s thumb to get her attention. She looked at him, chest anxiously heaving as she awaited the worst-case scenario. Finally, after the longest second of Lisa’s young life, Lincoln spoke and sealed her fate.
“Lisa, you’re the smartest girl I’ve ever met, and you always fix your mistakes. This is a big one, and I’m pretty mad at you for experimenting on me without my permission… again, but I believe in you. I know you’ll fix this.”
Lisa had occasionally said she was married to science and had been mostly serious. She always thought her ambition for scientific discovery uplifted her from the hormonal compulsions that drove other human actions. At four years old, Lisa was thoroughly convinced that she would never marry. However, at that moment, the little girl engaged in a childish fantasy of herself in a white dress and walking down the aisle with Lincoln in a handsome black suit. Naturally, he was still tiny.
This was one hell of a way to start spring break.
1 The family has a Q&A to address some immediate concerns
2 Rita once again looks after her tiny, helpless, and adorable son
3 Lori begins feeling maternal pangs and considers using Lincoln for ‘practice’
4 Leni adores Lincoln’s new size and wonders what might make him even cuter   indicates the next chapter needs to be written. |
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