That afternoon and over the next few days, Jim continued to experiment with the balloon. The close call with his mom had made him much more cautious and careful with how he used it now. He avoided any immediately noticeable changes if other people were likely to be around. Even in total privacy, he only allowed himself a minor transformation, just a small part of himself at a time. Certainly, no more full body changes. Not yet.
For example, one day he decided to try changing the age of his left hand. He figured that if he were disturbed, he could just hide it behind his head or underneath something without seeming suspicious. At first, he inflated it up to adulthood. He marveled at its size and at the hair on his knuckles and the roughness of his skin. Putting his palms together, he chuckled at how small his normal hand seemed. Next, he deflated his hand back to toddlerhood (Is that a word? he wondered). How strange it was to see such a little thing at the end of his wrist. The tiny fingernails, the soft skin, the pudgy palm, it all seemed so impossibly small and delicate. Even balled up in a fist, it was hardly the size of a golf ball. His other hand easily enclosed the whole thing, which felt very strange. It was as if he had been grabbed by a giant. He curiously went about just touching things with the hand. He picked up everyday things like pencils and baseballs and game controllers. He held them and closed his eyes and felt how giant they suddenly seemed. He laid his whole hand flat against his cheek and felt how his face seemed huge while simultaneously his hand seemed tiny pressed against it. He stuck his whole hand in his mouth, feeling the dampness and the huge teeth. He touched himself elsewhere just to feel that unusual hugeness in... well... other places. Then, it was time for dinner. After a few tries and some testing in comparison to his other hand, he had his left hand back to normal, and no one even suspected anything had happened.
He was thrilled beyond words by the balloon. It was magic, and he controlled it. And, what made it infinitely better, it was secret. Anyone who has ever held an amazing thing secret from everyone else in the world knows what a powerful and magical feeling that is just by itself, even without actual magic involved. Now, Jim had both: the magic and the secret.
"What are you smiling about?" his father asked him the next day.
"Um, nothing," said Jim. He had not even realized that he was smiling. He was just drying dishes and letting his mind wander like it always would during boring chores. Only now, he had the magic and the secret, and that was enough to keep a smile on anyone's face most of the time.
He kept experimenting in secret, and with every successful experiment, his smile grew. He tried a whole slew of changes: growing his hair, shrinking his ears, aging his voice, aging down his nose, lengthening a certain part of himself, and fattening himself up in general just for a little while. Then, before anyone noticed anything was amiss, he was back to normal.
It was wonderful.
Eventually, as with all exciting new things, his fresh joy at his magic secret grew into restlessness. He wanted to try bigger things. Hesitation and his earlier caution kept himself in check for a while, but he soon grew too anxious to stop himself anymore. He needed to do something big, something that involved someone else. That was all there was to it. He needed a target.
And, just when that restlessness had reached its peak, a perfect target presented itself to him.