Basketball Practice Got Cut Short

Basketball Practice Got Cut Short

Part One

Ryan Tallmadge knew he was in deep trouble. Everyone who gets to basketball practice late gets into deep trouble. Coach MacGregor, one of the best high school coaches in the state, had no tolerance for slackers. What made matters worse was the reason Ryan was late: he had to serve a detention! This could mean getting benched for an entire game! It didn’t matter that Ryan was the star player on the team—an athletic 6’5” 225 pound guard. It wouldn’t even matter that the senior captain was one of the best athletes that had ever passed through the halls of McKinley High School. Coach MacGregor didn’t tolerate tardiness OR his players getting detentions, no matter how bogus the reason for the detention. Ryan would get chewed out in front of everyone. Plus, he knew that he wouldn’t get to start against McKinley’s arch-rival—Centerville. Ryan thought that his luck couldn’t get any worse. Little did he know, however, that his luck was much better than it seemed.

With advanced planning, Ryan quickly changed from his street clothes to his practice clothes and his game-day court shoes between the final bell and the bell that signaled the start of detention, giving Ryan about five minutes. He jogged to the detention room, already dressed for practice so that he could sprint down to the practice gym as soon as detention was over. The instant the teacher signaled for the students in detention to leave, Ryan darted out of the room and jogged with a graceful stride down the halls toward the practice gym, wearing his gray Nike sleeveless shirt, navy rayon basketball shorts, and his team-issued white Air Jordan XVIII high tops. The kid was like a gazelle, bounding quickly and light with long strides down the corridors, barely making a sound. Ryan was a very handsome young man, with dark brown hair combed up in that spiked-up bangs style that is fashionable nowadays. He had a medium-dark complexion (given to him from his mother, who is from Indonesia) which was very smooth and clear. Ryan had dark, full eyebrows and long, dark sideburns, and dark brown eyes. He was the picture of grace, especially as he drove for a loose ball or even fell as a result of being illegally tripped. Ryan was a natural-born athlete, excelling in basketball, football, baseball, and Tae-Kwon Do. Ryan was even in an underground wrestling associating that imitated WWF wrestling for local-access cable!

As Ryan jogged closer to the gym, he noticed how quiet the hallway was. Since he was nearly an hour late, he expected to hear the sounds of basketball practice—bouncing balls, squeaking sneakers, coaches barking and encouraging the players. But the gym seemed as quiet as a library. When Ryan entered the gym, he found it empty.



Puzzled, Ryan entered the locker room, which was also very quiet. Ryan stepped into the completely empty locker room and looked around. Lockers were left open and clothes were lying on the benches. It was as if the team simply vanished in the middle of dressing for practice. Ryan called out in a loud voice: “Anyone in here?” Only silence followed his rich baritone voice, which echoed against the concrete block and cement floor of the silent locker room.
‘Why would practice be cancelled two days before the Centerville game?’ thought Ryan. If practice was cancelled, why would clothes be lying around in the locker room?
Ryan took a few more slow steps, completely perplexed. Ryan’s eye happened to notice movement along the concrete floor. Right in front of his feet he noticed a dozen or so tiny insects. They appeared to be the size of ants, but they appeared strange; they seemed to be moving in an upright position rather than moving longways upon their six legs. Ryan squatted down and peered closely at them, wondering what kind of insects infested the locker room. Ryan saw that he nearly squashed all of them under his size 14 Air Jordan XVIII high-tops. The dozen or so bugs were congregated close to one another about an inch away from the ball of his right sneaker. Ryan stood up and lifted his foot, decided to nip this infestation in the bud. But before he slammed his massive sneaker sole down on the bugs, he paused. Something appeared very strange about these bugs.

Ryan stepped back, away from the bugs, and looked around the locker room at the gym bags lying around on benches and the floor. He saw a bookbag that belonged to his best friend, Jim Tanner. Tanner built model ships, and Ryan figured that Tanner might have a magnifying glass in his bag. Sure enough, when Ryan searched the bookbag, he found the magnifying glass. Ryan grabbed it and approached the spot where he thought the strange bugs were gathered, being careful not to step on them. Finally, Ryan spotted the bugs, crouched down, and looked through the magnifying lens down at the bugs. What he thought he saw nearly caused him to drop the glass right down onto the strange bugs. Ryan rubbed his eyes, shook his head, and took another look. Ryan felt light-headed and dizzy. He couldn’t believe what he saw….the ‘bugs’ were his teammates!! The ENTIRE basketball team, managers, trainers, and even the grumpy coaches were shrunk!!

Ryan spotted one of his friends, called ‘Little John’. Little John was a six foot-nine, 280 pound center who was also a star football player. Ryan lowered his finger next to Little John. The tiny athlete ran away from the colossal finger, stopped, and cautiously approached. Ryan’s fingertip was the size of a mobile home next to the (formerly) huge center. Ryan wanted a closer look at Little John, but saw that there was no way he could ever climb aboard his finger, it was far too large. Ironically, Little John—now barely the size of an ant—was the one of the few dudes who could beat Ryan in wrestling! Just then, an idea came to Ryan. He brought his finger to his mouth, licked his fingernail, and lowered it. “Little John!” Ryan called down quietly, “Run up and throw yourself against my fingernail!”
Little John hesitated at first. It was a disgusting thought…after all, the finger was soaked with Ryan’s spit! But after a few seconds, he ran up and right into Ryan’s fingernail. Little John was stuck! Ryan’s saliva worked as an adhesive. Very carefully, Ryan lifted his finger and brought it close to his face. The tiny center, lip quivering and in tears was petrified as he looked up into Ryan’s huge, brown eyes, though the magnifying lens. Little John HATED heights!! Ryan looked at the dark spot on his nail. Ryan pulled out a ruler and measured Little John. The African-American center, who was formerly a 6’9” beast on the court, measured a helpless one quarter of an inch in length!
Ryan couched down on his hands and knees and placed Little John back on the floor with the other tiny teammates, all less than ¼ of an inch tall. Through the magnifying glass, he could see their faces: they were trying to communicate with their now colossal teammate. But their efforts were in vain. Ryan examined each speck through the lens: Jim, Blake, Steve, Antoine, Ty, Matt, “Bear”, “Little John”, all of the player from last year’s state championship team were now so tiny and helpless. Among the specks were the assistant coaches and Coach MacGregor himself! And only two days before their arch-rival come to McKinley for the biggest basketball game of the year! Ryan sighed, and the air he exhaled from his nose blasted down against his tiny teammates. The gust blew his poor friends and coaches along the floor about an inch or so!! “Sorry, guys!” Ryan apologized, with his resonant baritone voice lowered to a growl. The tiny basketball team grabbed their ears and crouched; the power of Ryan’s booming voice was too much for them. Ryan’s voice alone was a force strong enough to crush each tiny player’s bones!

Ryan got hold of Coach MacGregor using the same, disgusting, technique as he had with “Little John”. Soon, Coach MacGregor was also lying on Ryan’s fingernail. Coach was in awe of Ryan’s finger and hand, which appeared to stretch for acres to the tiny, chubby middle-aged man. Coach stood up as Ryan spoke in the gentlest whisper: “Coach, what happened to all of you?” Ryan peered hard at the speck of humanity on his fingernail through the lens. He could see that coach was talking, but it was useless. “I don’t know what to do, Coach.” Ryan whispered softly. “I don’t know what happened to all of you! Jesus, what are we going to do about Centerville? We’ve got to forfeit; that’s obvious!” Ryan’s head began to spin. He carefully sat down on the floor, legs spread out in front of him, surrounding his tiny teammates to two, massive mountain ranges. Just then, he passed out. Ryan was laid out along the floor; Coach was still on Ryan’s nail, Ryan’s hand was laying palm down on the floor. But old Coach MacGregor was thinking about his disrupted practice. “What a time for practice to be cut short!” coach growled. “AND WHY WERE YO LATE TO MY PRACTICE, TALLMADGE!!!” yelled Coach up to the fainting giant. Even at his minute size, he was chewing Ryan out for getting a detention and being late! Jeez, talk about a one-track mind!

Part 2

Ryan slowly regained consciousness, grabbing his head with his hand. Maybe it was all a dream, Ryan thought. Ryan sat up and looked at the floor between his legs. No such luck. He saw his tiny basketball team huddled up like a colony of ants, most of whom weren’t even a quarter of an inch tall. Ryan shifted his feet so that he could stand back up. Naturally, these movements scared the hell out of the tiny basketballers. To them, the 6’5” Ryan towered around 2,079 feet; the distance from the floor to the top of his high-top Air Jordan XVIII basketball shoes was like a 14-story building!

Ryan carefully stepped over to the coach’s office, which was left open. Ryan winced with each dull ‘bump’ his sneaker soles made against the concrete floor with each step, praying no one else was on the floor. Where was Wally, the mentally handicapped team manager? ‘Bump’, said his right foot, the rubber sole slapping against the floor. “Man!! Could that have been were Wally was?? Right where I just stepped?? Oh, man! Wally’s kinda slow. Does he have the sense to get out of my way???” Ryan was becoming a basket-case with such thoughts.

Ryan found one of Coach MacGregor’s business cards and stepped gingerly along the floor to where the ant-sized basketball team was still gathered. Ryan laid one end of the card flat on the floor and held the other end with his thumb and forefinger, as flat as he could. Ryan knew that the freshman basketball team was playing a home game in the regular gym and would be coming in as soon as it was over, which could be at any time. The freshman used the lockers at the rear of the locker room and would walk right across the floor where the shrunken varsity team was helplessly standing. The heel of just one sneaker could wipe out the entire state championship team! Ryan had to act fast, and he did. He coaxed the tiny team onto the business card. Once everyone was aboard, he lifted the card very gently as he stood.

Ryan was a very strong athlete, and he even amazed himself at his gentleness. Ryan lowered the card onto the palm of his left hand. The team climbed off the card and wandered around in awe and much trepidation. They were surrounded by soft, rolling mounds of flesh that looked like hills. There were creases in Ryan’s palm that appeared like dried-up creek beds. The entire basketball team—all of whom were pretty large guys—including coaches and managers (yes, little Wally was in Ryan’s palm, too. Wally was an obese, very short, mentally-handicapped, 38 year-old helper around the school and a manager for the basketball team. Wally was only about five feet tall before (though he was quite round, weighing nearly 200 pounds!). Now, he was minute, fragile 3/16th of an inch tall, much smaller than flies or most bugs! Little Wally was having a great time, though!) were resting in Ryan’s massive palm. All of these tiny humans filled the area the size of a quarter. They were barely able to be seen without the magnifying glass. Ryan tried with all he had to hold back his emotions. Many of these guys he knew since pre-school. They were close friends, more than simply teammates on the state championship team. They were soul mates. Ryan began to feel guilty…he should be tiny and helpless on that business card, too. He shouldn’t be the one who was still big and strong enough to live his dream and be a basketball star and the big man at the high school, especially considering the fact that he escaped this fate by being a pain in the ass in class. Ryan’s eyes began to well up. “Don’t worry, dudes.” whispered Ryan, “I’ll have your backs. I won’t let you guys down again!”

Just then, the door of the locker room flew open. Into the locker room filed the freshmen, loudly yawping and celebrating their win. It must have been terrible for the tiny varsity team, mere specks among so much loud clamor! Ryan tried to quiet the freshmen without trying to make a lot of noise, himself. The six foot, two and a half inch tall freshman star and occasional varsity player, Jeff Menendez, demanded to know what was up. Ryan handed Jeff the magnifying lens and held out his palm.
Jeff turned white as a sheet. “Wh-wh-what happened to them, man?? How the hell did they get so—so--…” Jeff looked as though he was ready to pass out as well. The other freshmen looked into Ryan’s palm and saw the tiny specks. The tiny varsity team looked up as the freshmen team gathered around Ryan’s palm and began to feel terror. These lowly freshman towered around 2,000 FEET to the tiny athletes. The freshmen, whom the varsity team ragged on and hazed were now like 2,000 foot tall mega giants. Talk about having the tables turned!
Little John looked up at Jeff Menendez from Ryan’s palm. Little John didn’t like Jeff. He thought Jeff was a punk who was too cocky. Little John gave Jeff a hard time and had only yesterday knocked Jeff to his ass to the floor during a combined practice. Jeff, who is 6’2 1/2” and about 180 pounds, went after the 6’9” 280 pound senior center. Jeff and Little John were pulled apart before things got out of hand. Today, there was Jeff, glaring down with a slight smirk at Little John. Little John saw a booger barely hanging outside Jeff’s right nostril. Little John swallowed hard as he saw that the booger was a littler BIGGER than him!! Suddenly. Little John watched as Jeff brought his hand up to his face. With a quick motion of his thumb and forefinger, Jeff snatched it and flicked it to the floor, all while keeping his eyes fixed on Little John. Jeff mouthed the word “You’re mine!” to Little John. Little John swallowed hard again.

The freshman boy’s coach had finally entered the locker room. Mr. Bowers was a student-teacher at the high school. He was about 21 and was considered a “hot item” by all the girls, who thought he resembled Colin Farrell. Mr. Bower’s was about Ryan’s size. He took the lens and peered down at the tiny team in Ryan’s hand. Just then, Jeff’s eyes widened as he turned pale again; as if he had suddenly remembered something awful. “My dad was supposed to be meeting with Coach MacGregor.” Jeff began. “But he wasn’t at our game. I’d called home earlier, but my mom said he never came home. I-I didn’t see my dad in Ryan’s hand. Do you think he’s…he’s…” Jeff broke off. Everyone stood in shocked silence. Jeff’s dad, Juan Menendez, was the president of the athletic boosters and a top chemist at the pharmaceutical plant. What if he was shrunk, but not found by Ryan? Ryan sighed “Aw, man!!” He and the freshman basketball team had been trampling all around the locker room. The horror of this realization filled everyone with shocked silence. If Jeff’s father was overlooked and…trampled, his last moments must have been filled with absolute terror.
“Nobody move!” ordered Mr. Bowers. “I’ll use the magnifying lens and search the floor!”
“Uh, coach?” spoke up one of the freshman. “Man, I don’t think we’re gonna find him. There’s no way he could still be alive—“
“I told you to keep STILL!!” boomed Mr. Bowers, raising his voice and scaring the bejesus out of the tiny varsity team. A few of the freshmen actually lifted up their feet and began to examine the tread of their sneakers. Mr. Bowers spoke to an increasingly upset Jeff: “Listen, maybe your dad wasn’t shrunk. He might be on his way home. Get your cell phone and keep calling home.”

Meanwhile, the tiny varsity team members in Ryan’s palm were excited. Some were jumping up and down, trying to be noticed. But, as the search for Jeff’s father went on, not even Ryan noticed them. Yet, the tiny basketballers seemed to know something. If only they were a little bigger…it is nearly impossible to get the giants’ attention or to communicate once they do have the giants’ attention.
The frustration level of the poor team was overwhelming! If they could only be heard, they could tell everyone that Mr. Menendez wasn’t shrunk. In actuality, Menendez was the one who SHRUNK the team!!!

At the same moment in time, in his SUV parked behind an abandoned warehouse, Juan Menendez shook his head after being unconscious for some time. He has no memory of where he had been or of how he got to where he was. The last thing he remembered, after thinking for several minutes, was that he was at his lab at Pfieffer Pharmaceuticals and was about to test out….something he had been working on. “That’s right!!” exclaimed Mr. Menendez suddenly. He was about to test a chemical mixture he believed could shrink cancerous tumors and obliterate cancerous cells in a matter of minutes. Mr. Menendez thought harder. He remembered that the test results showed that the formula could shrink both organic and non-organic matter 324 times smaller than life. Menendez shrunk a lawn tractor down to the size of a housefly. At a 1:324 scale, one inch would equal 27 feet. Menendez was getting ready to try to find a way to isolate the formula to focus on shrinking the cancer cells in lab rats…but then, something happened. He had hazy memories of a group of high school-aged boys…wearing Centerville jackets!?! One of them smashed a vial with a chemical that created a mist…The rest of Mr. Menendez’s memory drew a blank.

Mr. Menendez had a terrific headache. Why would Centerville boys confront him? He didn’t know any student at Centerville. They were arch-rivals to McKinley and had a big basketball game coming up in two days. Mr. Menendez remembered that he wanted to meet with Coach MacGregor to discuss his son, Jeff, and about his lack of playing time on the varsity team, but his mind was still in a fog. Did he have the meeting? And how did he end up behind the wheel of his SUV behind an abandoned warehouse?

Things were not adding up. Mr. Menendez turned and looked over at the passenger seat and saw an empty test-tube, labeled ‘Shrinking Compound’. “But why is it now empty?” puzzled Menendez out loud. Silence followed, interrupted only by the barking of a dog in a junkyard nearby.

Part 3

What had happened to the McKinley varsity basketball team in the locker room? Everything happened so quickly. Little John remembered that Mr. Menendez came into Coach MacGregor’s office from the hallway entrance as the team was changing for practice. The team members were worried about bigger matters; they knew that their captain, Ryan Tallmadge got in trouble for horsing around in English class and was assigned a detention. That meant being late for practice, which meant getting benched for the biggest game of the year! Little John remembered tying his sneaker as Menendez was coming out of Coach’s office into the locker room.

Mr. Menendez had a weird, spaced-out look on his face. He poured out a test-tube full of green liquid into a squirt gun and began to shoot the stuff at the team, catching even the coaches and the managers as they ran to try and stop him. Little John remembered nothing else; everything blacked out for several minutes. When he came to, he looked up and up and up…at the toe of his own shoe!!
Panicked, he got up. The toe of the black ‘Lugz’ boot alone towered 30 feet—at least!! Huge mountains of clothes and sky-scrapper high legs to benches towered overhead. The ceiling was like the sky…thousands of feet overhead. Little John realized that he was really, REALLY frickin’ small! Soon, other teammates emerged and gather together near the middle of the floor.

Just then, the locker room door flew open and in stomped three, colossal giants! The giants were wearing Centerville jackets!! A loud, clicking echoed across the locker room, a clicking produced by the heel of cowboy boots. A 40 foot high boot heel slammed down a centimeter from Little John; “CLOMP!!!” thundered the heel, knocking the center off his feet. The room echoed with the bumping of other shoe soles as the giants surrounded the tiny specks. One giant, wearing a pair of Air Jordan 11’s nearly squashed Coach MacGregor!! Another giant, who wore a colossal pair of Doc Martens, nearly wiped out half the team!! It was horrible!! The giants were slamming their feet down, right next to the tiny boys. They were purposely trying to scare the crap out of them. The three Centerville varsity players laughed and chortled. The tiny McKinley guys were helpless. Little John looked on in horror as the giant wearing the cowboy boots seized Coach MacGregor with a pair or tweezers. The giant was named Matt Dickson, who was called ‘Country’ for his love of country-western attire. Dickson examined Coach MacGregor, who was seized by his belt and was being dangled in front of the blonde haired, blue eyed teen. “Well, hell!” cooed Dickson to the tiny coach, “I think we just won the game, what do you think, coach?”
Coach was completely humiliated in front of all. He shook a tiny fist at Dickson, which made Dickson bellow with laughter.

The ‘giant’ wearing the Air Jordans seized the shrunken team’s post, nicknamed ‘Bear’, who was being looked at by NBA scouts. Poor Bear lost all bowel control, wetting the front of his shorts. The African-American giant, who wore long dred-locks, laughed and mocked Bear: “Aww, look who peed his widdle pants! You ready to take me on, ‘Bug’?? You think you’re going to the NBA now!?! I don’t THINK so, little Bear, unless it’s as a flea in LeBron’s pubes!!” At this stupid joke, the Centerville boys broke out in a roar of laughter. The Air Jordans giant suddenly opened his mouth and dropped poor Bear inside!! The other tiny team members were horrified…they were helpless to come to the rescue of their coach or one of their star players!! The giant the crouched down and spit out Bear, in a pool of saliva. Dickson also crouched and dumped Coach MacGregor in the lake of spit, the giants booming with evil laughter. Bear didn’t swim too well, so the tiny McKinley guys tried to rescue their friend and their coach before they drowned in the spittle. Wally, the mentally-handicapped manager, ran and hid behind a huge wad of neon-green gum that someone (probably Cole) spit out. To Wally, the discarded gum wad was enormous—it was the size of a tractor-trailer! But to the Centerville giants, it was nothing. The gum wad was practically in the middle of the floor! The colossal Air Jordan came within an eighth of an inch from stepping on the gum wad—and poor Wally. Tiny Wally was scared out of his wits; he was balled up into a ball that made him even tinier and he was sobbing. The tiny team saw Wally and began to panic, knowing that they couldn’t do anything to save him. “Get away from there, Wally!” yelled Ryan through gritted teeth. “You’re gonna get stepped on!!”:

Meanwhile, Mr. Menendez stood as if in a trance as the Centerville boys terrorized the tiny, helpless McKinley team. When it came time for them to leave, they dragged Menendez with them.
By the time Ryan found them, they were completely terrified, especially as the soles of Ryan’s basketball high-tops slapped heavily against the concrete. To these tiny basketball players, the tallest dude being a mere ¼ inch tall, the muscular, chiseled Ryan appeared as a colossal being from Greek mythology. To the tiny jocks, Ryan was like Zeus in sneakers! They tried to get Ryan’s attention, and were relieved to see that he saw them!! Then, joy turned to horror. “Zeus” lifted his right foot!! He was going to use the toe of his Air Jordan to squish them, as if the Last Judgment has arrived. But then, he didn’t, as you already know…