Very Tiny Step-Father PARTS 1-5

Part ONE: The Shrunken Stepfather--The Matthews Twins’ Perspective

Jimmy and Chad Matthews strode into the house through the kitchen door, the silence of the house broken by their sneaker soles bumping heavy and dull against the linoleum floor. The Matthews twins were well-built, broad-shouldered, sculpted young men of very little body fat. Both Jimmy and Chad were big guys; strong, athletic teens whose seemed more physically mature than their sixteen years and had helped them both excel on the high school football teams. Both were offered football scholarships to major universities. But Jimmy and Chad were pretty good at all sports, especially basketball. They were pretty tough on the basketball court. For what they lacked in height they made up for in their bulk. The Matthews twins were about six feet tall and about 215 pounds of muscle. To top it off, Jimmy and Chad had gorgeous, pleasant-looking faces with blue eyes and well-chiseled features that made many a girl go weak in the knees.

Jimmy, the oldest of the twins by four minutes, was carrying the basketball under one arm, while wiping the sweat from his face with his shirt. His boyishly cute face was flushed as his short-cropped, dark brown hair glistened with beads of sweat. Chad, meanwhile, was a carbon copy of his brother, who was distinguished only by the dew-rag he wore. Chad was squirting water from the water bottle into his mouth. Jimmy and Chad usually woke up early on Saturday so they could shoot hoops before going to their church youth group meeting there in Arlene, Kentucky. The twins had been shooting hoops by the garage when Chad saw a flash of blue-green light through the basement window. The twin’s stepfather, Steve Clymer, was a skilled chemist who worked for the government out of Fort Knox. Steve had been preoccupied for the last week with some top-secret project. All that his stepsons knew was that the military had his dad working on this mysterious project involving the fight against terrorists abroad.

Steve had married the twin’s mom, Barbara, two years ago. Overall, the boys got along well with Steve. He was solidly built and athletic, just like the twins (Steve, was actually a bit smaller than the young men). Yet, Steve could hold his own against the boys on the basketball court. The only problem with Steve, the twins believed, was that he was a bit too nerdy (anyone who works long hours in their home lab was a nerd, according to the logic of high-school sophomores. Also, Steve had a habit of bossing the twins around, demanding to know their every move. The boys had already gotten into it with Steve just this morning. He almost didn’t allow Jimmy or Chad to go to the youth group meeting because they didn’t tell Steve everywhere they had been the evening before. “How unfair!” the twins retorted. After all, they did return home on time! Meanwhile, Jimmy and Chad’s mom had gone out of town to be with her aunt in Ohio, who was very ill. So much for the boy’s appeal process! Fortunately, Steve allowed the twins to go (it WAS church-related, after all). Jimmy and Chad, annoyed over Steve’s pettiness, stomped out and spent the next hour shooting hoops by the garage.

Jimmy had just driven by Chad and scored a decisive ‘dunk’ on his twin brother, when the both saw a flash of bluish light from the basement window. They walked over to the window, crouched down and peered into the basement, where their stepfather’s lab was located. Strangely enough, they didn’t see their stepfather or any other sign of activity.

“What d’you suppose he’s up to?” asked Jimmy, standing up and wiping the sweat from his face with his jersey.

“Humpf. Who cares? At least he’s not busting our asses.” growled Chad.
Chad stood up, still carrying the basketball in his left arm. He lifted the ball and, with his right hand, slammed the ball in irritation. “Man, where does he get off, telling up what to do? Just ‘cause he’s married to our mom doesn’t make him our father!”

“He thinks he’s real big an’ all.” said Jimmy, as the twins turned from the basement window and walked toward the asphalt drive and the basketball hoop, Chad dribbling the ball as the two walked slowly.
Chad snorted: “Yeah, real big. Big and fat, if anything!”
Jimmy laughed, “Yeah, man. God, I’d like to cut him down to size!”
Chad nodded in agreement. He lowered his head and saw a tiny ant, right in the path of his Jordans. “Yeah,” began Chad, stopping where the quarter-inch long ant scurried around, “Cut him down to size, just like this little friggin’ ant!” Chad smiled as he lifted his foot over the ant. The toe of his basketball shoe slapped down lightly on the ant. Chad ground the helpless bug into the pavement. Chad spat, walked over to his water bottle, took a long drink, and soon checked the basketball to his twin brother.

The boys would play basketball for about 40 minutes, before noticing that the house seemed eerily quiet for way too long. The twins decided to find out what their stepfather was up to. The twins were a gorgeous sight: thick-necked, solidly-built, six foot tall 16 year-old twins walked across the kitchen floor with a youthful spring to their step. Jimmy was dressed in his sweaty, light gray Nike tank-top, a pair of loose-fitting green, rayon basketball shorts, and his white, white and gray ‘And 1’ high tops. Chad was dressed in a sweat-soaked white and blue Kentucky Wildcats T-shirt, navy blue basketball shorts, and a pair of white with blue trim Air Jordan XVIII high tops. Jimmy stopped by the kitchen table, his high-top sneakers squeaking to a halt. “Steve?” Jimmy’s pleasant baritone voice called out, as he took his hand to wipe a sweat bead that was rolling down from his forehead and down the freckled bridge of his slightly pointy nose. No response.

The boys walked across the kitchen to the door that led to the basement. Their dad had a makeshift lab in the basement. Jimmy and Chad jogged down the groaning, wooden steps with a ‘Thump, thump, thump, thump’ of their footfall. It was a lot of racket!
The twins looked around their stepfather’s lab; it was clean but was heavily cluttered with test tubes, beakers, containers of chemicals, and other odds ’n’ ends. Strangely enough, the basement was abandoned. The boys looked around for a few moments, becoming very puzzled by their stepfather’s absence. The boys were silent, with only the dull, very light ‘clump’ ‘clump’ of their footfall breaking the stillness of the makeshift lab. Jimmy called out again: “Steve? Hey Steve, you down here?” Again, no response. “Where the hell did he go?” wondered Chad aloud.

On their stepfather’s worktable was a plastic spray bottle containing a small amount of blue-green liquid. There were an assortment of other little odd and ends on the workbench. Jimmy and Chad walked up to the bench, their sneakers making a soft, dull ‘thump, thump’ on the floor as they walked. They were oblivious to one, nearly flea-sized, white bug, frantically trying to dodge stadium-sized basketball shoes as they wandered around the tight lab. Jimmy picked up a four inch long, balsa-wood air glider that appeared to have a little seat and a motor attached to the frame. He held it and examined it for a moment. The twins knew they weren’t allowed to mess around with the things in their stepfather’s lab. However, they couldn’t resist. Jimmy brought his arm back and sent the delicate glider flying across the basement, smashing against the wall across the way. “Ooops! (giggle) My bad!”

The boys flipped through notebooks, fiddled with the beakers and test tubes, and doing other little things that would really upset their stepfather-dearest if he ever caught them.

One particular beaker of blue-green liquid, which stood prominently on the bench, caught the eyes of the twins. The liquid rested placidly in the bottle. The blue-green liquid was similar in hue to the flash of light that had caught their eye. Jimmy put the basketball down on the floor next to the stool at the table, the stool’s legs holding the ball in place. Suddenly, his eye noticed some movement on the cement floor, just to the right of the toe of his basketball shoe.

The two burly, six foot tall high school juniors looked down and saw a cockroach, scurrying by Jimmy’s right sneaker toward a very tiny, nearly invisible, strange-looking white bug. Jimmy lifted his foot and lowered it onto the cockroach. It crunched under Jimmy’s size 12 ‘And 1’ high-top, obviously no match under the weight of the 215 pound teen jock. Jimmy lifted his foot and examined his sneaker sole. The flattened cockroach was stuck, guts splattered across the rubber sole. “Gross,” said Jimmy, before lowering his foot and wiping the insect’s remains off on the cement floor. They had ignored the other, much smaller, strange-looking white bug, that scurried around on the floor

Jimmy and Chad looked around the lab. “Where did he go?” asked Jimmy, annoyed. “He didn’t drive anywhere.”
“He may have gone for a walk or run or something.” said Chad. Chad took a couple of steps around. Chad’s left, size 12, ‘Air Jordan XVIII’ high top nearly smashing the strange little white bug. It got out of the way right in time. But both Chad and Jimmy were oblivious to such a tiny creature. The insect was no bigger than a poppy seed.

“I hope he knows that he has my truck keys!” boomed Jimmy, as he turned and headed for the steps. Chad followed Jimmy, the footsteps of both boys thundering as they jogged up the wooden steps.
Jimmy and Chad took apples and bottles of Gatorade from out of the refrigerator. After a few minutes of gulping Gatorade and chomping their apples, Chad and Jimmy talked for a while, bragging about their basketball skills. Finally, Chad punched Jimmy lightly in the arm: “You ready for a re-match?”
“You’re on!” said Jimmy, as he pushed away Jimmy’s fist.
The twins jogged out the kitchen door, Chad letting loose a long, bass belch. The young men were back out on the asphalt driveway, where the basketball hoop stood tall. After checking the ball, Chad began on offense, driving the ball toward the hoop, guarded heavily by Jimmy. Another fierce game had begun…


Part TWO: The Shrunken Stepfather--Steve Matthews’ Perspective

Steve Matthews rose early that morning, even before his twin stepsons, Jimmy & Chad, for a change. It was his sons’ routine to get up around 6:30 on Saturdays and shoot hoops out by the garage before getting ready for work. Steve didn’t even hear his stepsons get up, he was too engrossed in his work. When he came up to the kitchen for a cup of coffee, he ran into Jimmy and Chad, and had words for them about their “secretive” behavior. After a bit of raised voices, threats, and stomping around, the boys went out by the garage to shoot hoops. Steve returned to his crude laboratory in the basement. Steve didn’t mean to be so irritable, but he hadn’t been getting a lot of sleep. Steve was working on a top-secret project for the government; a new weapon to defend the country against terrorists. As a government employee, Steve was prohibited from taking his work out of his top-secret lab near Fort Knox. But Steve was consumed by the project—to create a shrinking formula that could shrink both organic and inorganic materials! And it was on this particular morning, in an ordinary ‘poor-man’s’ basement lab, the earth-shaking breakthrough had been reached!!

Steve, a five foot-ten, 190 pound man, certainly did not look like the stereotypical pencil-necked science nerd. Steve had played college football and basketball and excelled in both. He also excelled in the classroom, graduating magna cum laude with a degree in chemical engineering. Steve’s wife and the twin’s mother, Barbara, was the love of his life. The 35 year-old stepfather was especially proud of his only kids, stepsons Jimmy and Chad, identical twins who could pass for male Abercrombie & Fitch models. The teen twins were huge for only being in high school. The boys were both athletic and smart. Both were in ‘Talented and Gifted’ classes in elementary and middle school (which means they tested higher than the 130 IQ score required for ‘TAG’. The boys studies Western Civ, physics, and trigonometry. Although both boys did very well in school, Jimmy wasn’t very interested in science, preferring philosophy and the writings of Plato and Nietzsche over Newton and Einstein. Chad, however, was more interesting in biology—particularly insects. Even as a high school junior, Jimmy was prone to stop in mid-stride to examine some interesting creepy-crawly on the sidewalk. This was different from Steve, who loved working in the lab, listening to the music of liquid substances simmering over a Bunsen burner.

On this particular early fall morning, Steve was growing giddy with excitement. He had made a tremendous breakthrough on the military-commissioned top-secret government project: a viable shrinking formula based on the theories of on Dr. Scott Carey from the 1950’s. Long story short, Steve made the breakthrough, squirting the blue-green solution on a 450-pound pumpkin and shrinking it to the size of a gnat! While appearing fairly calm on the outside, Steve was totally euphoric! He was always intrigued with shrinking (unknown to either of his stepsons) and always wondered what it would be like to be extremely tiny. He especially wondered what it would be like to be nearly microscopic…with really big, teenage boys stomping around the house! The shrinking formula was supposed to work only temporarily. One, 1 oz squirt was supposed to last a couple of minutes. Steve calculated that the formula could shrink organic and inorganic material 1000 times smaller than life, a standard scale for a city’s downtown architectural models, where model skyscrapers all fit easily on a tabletop.

Shrinking down to a 1:1000 scale would mean that a 5’10” man like Steve would shrink to a nearly one-sixteenth of an inch tall! If the entire Kentucky and Louisville basketball teams were shrunk to this scale, they all could fit on one’s fingertip!! Standing erect in his white lab coat, he squirted himself with the liquid three times. Just as he placed the squirt bottle on the kitchen table, a sharp sensation filled his body from head to toe, as if he were struck in the back with a cattle prod. He fell to the floor as a flash of blue-green light filled the kitchen.

Before he knew what was going on, Steve found himself lying on the kitchen floor next to a crushed cockroach…a cockroach that was about the size of an apartment building!!

SUCCESS!! Steve had shrunk himself 1000 times smaller than life! Steve, at a little over 1/16th of an inch tall, was the tiniest man in the world! Steve was euphoric! He would have a few minutes to explore his surroundings in the safety of his basement lab and avoiding Jimmy and Chad, who to the nearly microscopic chemist would tower 6,000 feet; over a MILE tall and about six times as tall as the Eiffel Tower! He did NOT want to run into them! “Jimmy and Chad are outside shooting hoops, thank God! I should grow back to normal size long before they finish!” Steve thought. Steve made the breakthrough to end all breakthroughs. With a weapon like THIS to defend America…America was unstoppable. Imagine the entire Chinese or North Korean army being shrunk down small enough to fit into the palm of one’s hand!! The entire Chinese Army surrendering to a single American Marine without a single shot fired! Steve was giddy—THIS made nuclear weapons obsolete!!

However, as Steve explored his surrounding, an arena-sized pop can, a mouse trap in the corner that was larger than a football field in area, he realized that nearly 15 minutes had passed without any sign of growth.

Steve came across a dime lying on the cement floor. The dime appeared to be about sixty-three feet in diameter. He struggled to climb onto the dime, which was about five feet thick, and sat Indian-style on the colossal relief of FDR’s profile. This dime seemed to stretch at least an acre. Steve gulped heavily at this thought. Over a half and hour passed…still, no growth. Steve was beginning to grow nervous, however.

Just then, what sounded like low, rumbling thunder sounded from overhead. Jimmy and Chad were back in the house, walking around on the kitchen floor above! Steve looked at his watch, nearly an hour had passed and he was about 1/16th of an inch tall! Steve began to tremble, his eyes welled up….what if he would have to stay this size for a long time…what if he had to stay the size of a flea FOREVER?!?

Suddenly, the dime underneath his butt trembled violently. A terrible sound from behind him, a sound like hissing, blasted from behind. IT WAS A COCKROACH!!! To tiny Steve, the cockroach was about 100 feet long!! Steve jumped off the dime and ran, trying to avoid the colossal cockroach. But just as Steve thought things couldn’t get worse, he heard massive thundering “BOOM, BOOM, BOOM” blasting from the direction of the stairs. The blasting knocked the tiny man off his feet. It even made the huge cockroach pause...It was terrible…as if the world was coming to an end. “Could this be… OH NO!! IT’S JIMMY AND CHAD!!!” screamed Steve. Sure enough, the colossal forms of Jimmy and Chad towered over him. Bone-jarring thuds of rubber sneaker soles boomed across the concrete floor. Two pairs of massive basketball high tops—as tall as downtown skyscrapers—slapped against the cement, creating a dull, rolling thunder. Their feet appeared large enough to wipe out several city blocks with one step. A deep, thundering roar like that of a hurricane force gale reverberated overhead: “STEVE?”

“AAHHHH!! Dear God! The voices are that of Jimmy and Chad! But their…their voices are that of the gods!!” freaked Steve. Steve was beginning to fear that he made a terrible mistake, especially as a basketball shoe the size of a football stadium rose overhead and crashed “BOOM” right behind him. Steve looked up…the toe of Jimmy’s high-top ‘And 1’ sneaker towered over 14 stories overhead. Suddenly, “SPLOOSH!!” Massive, pond-sized sweat beads fell from Jimmy’s hair as he casually rubbed his hand over his head. One sweat bead nearly fell on Steve; it would have crushed him…THAT’S how small Steve was and that’s HOW MUCH TROUBLE HE WAS IN!!

He saw his stepsons…his mile-high stepsons approach his workbench. “STAY AWAY FROM THRERE!!!” screamed Steve, in vain, of course. He saw Jimmy pick up the balsa-wood, motorized glider. Steve had planned to use the glider when he would shrink himself down to an inch, so that he could get around the house safely!

“NOOO!” Steve cried in anguish when he saw Jimmy throw the glider with his mighty arm. Three months of work, down the toilet! Steve’s eyes began to well up. Then, a loud “BOOM”! A colossal basketball, about as tall as the Chrysler Building, rested against the massive legs of a stool. Steve whimpered, scared that the unimaginatively huge basketball would roll free, with the 1/16th of an inch tall Steve, helpless on the basement floor as they went through his stuff, casually tossing things around. “When I get big, you two are in big trouble!” yelled Steve, shaking a tiny fist at the giants, in vain, obviously.

Suddenly, the Great Whale-sized cockroach made its move! It bounded for tiny Steve with a speed that Steve could not match. As he gasped, the toe of a Rose Bowl Stadium-sized white ‘Air Jordan XVIII’ crushed the cockroach…the ‘crunch’ was as loud as if a building collapsed!! Chad had saved him (unwittingly, of course)! The shoe lifted up…nothing but a gooey mess was left. Steve ran frantically when the giants began to walk around the basement lab. Steve was freaking out…he was far too tiny to be seen…Steve was only about as tall as this letter ‘a’. Even though the bumping of the twin’s sneaker soles were very gentle and quiet to the normal observer, to the 1/16th of an inch tall Steve, each ‘BUMP’ blasted like an earthquake, reverberating around the flea-sized human being and rumbling like a volcano readying to erupt.

It was terrifying for poor Steve, to be left to dodge the footfall of two, mile-high teen jocks, being—for all practical purposed—invisible! Steve was horrified to think what would happen if he never grew back to his normal size. He’d never be able to shoot baskets with them!! And how could he possibly be a father-figure? How could he set rules for and discipline six foot tall, burly teens at only 1/16th of an inch tall? He knew that he couldn’t survive long like this. Just then, Steve froze in horror. Jimmy’s ‘And-1’ basketball shoe hung for a split second over his head. The sneaker sole was about 1,060 feet long…there was no where for Steve to run…HE WAS GOING TO BE STEPPED ON!!!

For a split second, everything went black. Then things went bright, then dark, then bright, then dark. Steve felt himself be tossed and jostled terribly…but where the hell was he? Then, he noticed that he was cramped into a small, enclosed space…the smell of rubber was strong. So were bug guts!! Suddenly, Steve put it together, and turned as white as a sheet…he was stuck between the tread of Jimmy’s basketball shoe!! Steve was always the big kid and the big man…now, he was a flea stuck in the tread of a teenager’s sneaker!! Steve felt so humiliated…so puny. What a horrible way to be cut down!!

When the twins reached the kitchen, Chad and Jimmy grabbed their Gatorade and apples and sat at the table. Jimmy crossed his right foot across his left knee, the sole of his shoe facing the refrigerator. This was Steve’s view, stuck deep inside the tread of the Air Jordan, facing out. Steve caught his breath and tried to regain his bearings. Steve was determined not to end his life as if he were crap stuck to the bottom of a shoe. He tried to pull free of the bug guts, preferring to fall to his death rather than to be in this predicament. Steve was starting to get loose, when everything plunged suddenly. Jimmy lowered his foot flat on the floor. When he stood up and began to walk out to the driveway with Chad, Steve came loose from the tread and laid in the middle of the kitchen floor, the thundering of footfall blasting and thundering as the mile-high giants left the house.

Steve began to feel light-headed again, in the way he felt before he shrunk. Soon, Steve began to feel different…this time he was growing!!! He waited for a few minutes, but the sensation seemed to have stopped. Steve grew back a little. He stood up and brushed himself off. He estimated his height at about three-quarters of an inch.

Suddenly, a loud scraping and plodding pierced the quiet of the kitchen. The clamor was caused by Daisy, the family cocker spaniel. The dog sniffed the floor around the one inch tall Steve.

“Hey, Daisy! You know me?” yelled Steve.

Daisy panted happily and sat down. She barked a single ‘Woof!’

The blast of the dog’s bark nearly knocked tiny Steve over. Steve coaxed the dog to lower her muzzle to the floor. Steve then climbed onto her furry muzzle. Steve looked deep into the dog’s eyes: “Now, Daisy! Go outside and get the boys!” yelled Steve.

PART THREE: The Twin’s Perspective

Daisy ran toward the kitchen door, where a pet door had been cut out at the door’s base. Steve held onto the longish fur around the dog’s muzzle as she bounded outside through the pet door.

Outside, Steve turned his head and saw Jimmy and Chad, playing a very competitive game of basketball. Daisy was barking, trying to get the boy’s attention. Jimmy and Chad stopped what they were doing when they noticed that Daisy seemed all excited.

“What’s up with you, Daisy-Mae?” called out Chad, with a smile.

Daisy ran up to Chad’s leg and jumped up.

“Dude, what’s up with the dog?” Jimmy asked.

Chad knelt down and rubbed the cocker spaniel’s soft coat. “Awww, she just wants some lovin’, don’t ya, babe? Huh? Don’t ya---wait a minute…DUDE, WHAT THE--??”

As Chad rubbed Daisy around her muzzle, he noticed something stuck to her fur. A little man….a ¾ of an inch tall stepfather!
Chad held his large palm under Daisy’s muzzle, allowing Steve to fall in. Soon, Chad and Jimmy were peering down at the shaken, disheveled man. Steve was sitting in Chad’s palm, shivering. He looked very scared. Though Steve was much larger than before, to him, Chad was about 560 feet tall, a little taller than the Washington Monument! The twin brother’s faces loomed even larger than the faces of the presidents on Mount Rushmore! Steve was slightly smaller than that cockroach….that Jimmy squished with ease!

“Jeez, Steve!?! What the hell happened??” exclaimed Chad, in a deep, baritone voice much too loud for the minute stepfather.

Jimmy slapped Chad hard across the back of his head. “What the hell’s wrong with you? Don’t scream at him, dumbass!”
“@#%$ you,” growled Chad, slapping Jimmy back with his other hand.
“BOYS!!! FOR CHRIST’S SAKE!!! KNOCK IT OFF!!!” squeaked the ¾ inch tall Steve, in a voice that could barely be heard. The LAST thing Steve wanted was to be in the middle of a brawl between twins, 560 foot tall brothers!!

Chad began to walk very carefully for the house, with Jimmy following behind. Chad was very careful as he walked across the kitchen and to the kitchen table. He placed the tiny Steve on the kitchen table, as careful as he could (Steve tumbled out of Chad’s palm and landed hard on the surface, knocking the wind out of him for a minute.

Jimmy and Chad, shirtless. Their massive, beefy chests and biceps glistening with sweat, stood over the table, glaring down at the tiny man.

“Man! W-What do we do?” said Chad, very softly. His voice sounded so small, coming from a teen his size. His eyes were tearing up.

“We gotta call someone from where Steve works. This HAS to be related to his work!” said Jimmy quietly in return, also appearing much shaken.

“How long was he like that?” asked Jimmy.
“How should I know?” said Chad in an edgy voice. Chad then crouched down and brought his face close to the tiny man sitting on the tabletop. He spoke very quietly:

“Hey, Steve? How did this happen?” Although Chad spoke softly, his face was only a few inches from Steve. When he spoke, a hurricane gust of hot, moist breath blew the inch tall man backward across the tabletop a few inches.

“Idiot!” growled Steve to himself. He then stood up and yelled up to the twins: “CHAD!! JIMMY! CALL PAUL DICKSON AT THE LAB!! HIS NUMBER IS IN MY PHONEBOOK IN MY LAB!!!!”

Chad and Jimmy’s brows knitted: “What’d he say?” asked Chad.
Now Jimmy crouched down: “We can’t quite hear you, dad.”

Both boys had their faces about two inches from the tiny man.

Steve screamed again: “CALL PAUL!!! PAUL!!!”

“I..I think he said ‘Call Paul’.” Said Jimmy. “Steve, who’s Paul?”

“AT THE LAB!!!” screamed Steve.

“Who’s a ‘blab’?” asked Chad.
“Call you a cab? Steve, you ain’t makin’ sense!” said Jimmy.

Steve was exasperated. “CALL PAUL AT THE LAB!!!” Steve’s voice was starting to go, from all the shouting.

Chad looked very grave. “Steve…Aw, man! We can’t hear you. What’re trying to tell us, little guy?”

Suddenly, Jimmy’s face lightened up. “Let’s play ‘Charades’!”

Well, long story short…After about 20 minutes, Steve was able to communicate via ‘charades’ what he wanted the teen twins to do. Chad bolted to the basement and found Steve’s book of phone numbers. He dialed up Paul Dickson.
“Dude, our step dad is, ah, very sick due to something he’s working on. He’s asked to see you!” Chad stammered quickly into the receiver. Paul was on his way.

PART FOUR: Steve’s Perspective

As Steve and his giant, twin stepsons waited on Paul, it was late morning. Jimmy warmed up some pizza from the night before for him and Chad. The colossal, nuked pizza smelled good. It was on the kitchen table, next to the one inch tall Steve. Chad peeled of a piece of pepperoni: “Hey Steve, want some?” he asked with his mouth full.

Chad handed the huge pepperoni slice to Steve. It was very heavy! Steve grabbed it and felt the weight of the pepperoni slice shift. Steve tumbled backwards, on his rear end. The pepperoni slice fell over him, shrouding him entirely. Chad and Jimmy laughed. Great! Steve thought, feeling very humiliated. He was now lunch time entertainment! Chad grabbed the pepperoni slice between his thumb and forefinger and popped it effortlessly into his mouth.

Steve climbed onto the cooling pizza and began to forage around on a slice, eating what he can. After only a few crumbs, Steve was filling up, but he was pretty stained from the pizza sauce. Suddenly he realized that he lost his glasses! After a moment’s worth of a frantic search, he spotted them, under a pepperoni slice. He dove for them, but lost his balance and tumbled under the pepperoni and the cheesy layer.

Meanwhile, Jimmy had taken his eye off of where Steve was. Without thinking, he grabbed the slice on which Steve was stuck. He bit into it, half of it disintegrating into Jimmy’s cavernous mouth. Steve was scared out of his wits! “JIMMY!!! JESUS!! I AM IN HERE!! WHAT ARE YOU DOING!!!!” Steve screamed hoarsely. Jimmy was raising the remaining pizza slice to his mouth, when Chad appeared: “Hey, where the hell’s Steve!?!” he boomed. Steve saw Jimmy’s cavernous mouth envelop him. Steve tried to pull himself from under the layer of cheese and pepperoni, but he couldn’t move fast enough. Jimmy’s mouth grew larger and larger…his hot breath blasted against tiny Steve…Jimmy was just going to bite down, sending five foot high teeth down to rip away a mouthful. Thank God Chad came when he did. Jimmy picked in his pizza slice and found the disheveled, terrified Steve, in tears. Jimmy was nearly in tears, as well. If it wasn’t for Chad, there would have been no way for Jimmy to detect the ¾ of an inch-tall man trapped in his lunch! Still in horror, Steve pondered the irony; only a few hours ago, he would have been able to challenge these guys to a little one-on-one basketball and would have held his own, standing up to them toe-to-toe. Now, he was but a mere insect, a creature tiny enough to be devoured. Too tiny and weak to deal with a single pepperoni slice…helpless inside a slice of PIZZA, of all things!! As he sat in Jimmy’s palm, Steve snorted: “So much for us playing backyard football together at the family reunion, eh, Jimmy?” Steve always played on the team with Jimmy and Chad; Steve played quarterback

Jimmy read Steve’s lips. “Dude, don’t talk like that, we’ll get you back to normal…I know we will. I’ll be snapping you that football in no time!” Jimmy smiled down confidently.

Part FIVE: The Twins’ Perspective
Chad looked down sadly at the tiny man. A picture flashed in his mind of his ¾ of an inch tall step father in among the grass in the yard of their grandma’s farm…Chad saw a pitiful-looking man about the size of a singe lima bean struggling in a jungle of grass dodging the twins’ colossal high top football cleats…the tiny man screaming in horror as Chad rubber-molded cleats come bearing down on him.

Just them, Chad spoke. What Chad said sent shivers up Steve’s spine:

‘Y’know, I don’t see what the hurry is. Remember about that party? We were invited to that party over at the college. And we were trying to figure out how we were going to go if Steve said no, which he would since he’s so strict?”

There was a short pause as Jimmy’s eyes lit up. “Yeah…that party. All of the hot chicks from that college will be there!”

Then Chad and Jimmy turned to the tiny, ¾ of an inch tall man and said in unison: “And all that was in our way was…Steve!”

“DON’T YOU DARE GO TO THAT PARTY!! THERE’S GOING TO BE ALCOHOL THERE!! YOU’RE TOO YOUNG!! STOP LOOKING AT ME LIKE THAT!!” screamed Steve, his voice cracking.

“You, know? I think I heard him say ‘you’ and then ‘go to that party’!” said Chad, turning to Jimmy.

“Yeah? I think that’s what I heard, too.” said Jimmy, trying to act innocent. They boys thought they knew what he really said, but they didn’t care.

Steve was upset! He was hopping up and down on the table in anger.

Chad then grabbed a colander and placed it on the counter where Steve stood.

“There. You’ll be safe in there.” chuckled Chad and Jimmy.

“See you, Steve!” called Jimmy, as the boys left the room, laughing. They were going to the showers to go to the youth meeting, then to make plans for tonight’s party at the college. Meanwhile, Steve was fuming mad! But there was nothing he could do. He sat down Indian-style under the colander and buried his head in his hands. It might take forever before he grew big enough to be strong enough to lift the colander and get free. But he was too big to squeeze out of any holes. Steve realized that he was in a world of trouble!!

(TO BE CONTINUED)