A couple of days later one of Tommys friends, Andy came over.
He wasn´t in a good mood because of his younger twin siblings, Eddy and Erik, had put a green hair dye into the shampoo bottle that he had used in the morning. They played a lot of pranks on him just to have fun when he is humiliated.
“I would be happy to be an only child like you, Tommy. Not only the pranks, but all they do is either annoying to anyone but them or completely useless.”
“I´m not really an only child, Andy. You just don´t remember my pest of a brother at the moment.”
“What do you mean? I don´t think you could forget your best friends siblings. Only if you have never meet them.”
“You can´t remember them because of some computer program that I used. It should only be a punishment before, but without any improvement seen I made it permanent. The only person who remembers my little brother and his two best friends is me. They themselves don´t remember anyone but each other.”
Andy looked at him partly skeptical and horrified. “What did you do to them?”
“I will show you.” With that, Tommy went over to his laptop and changed two things. First Andy would be able to see them inside their glass-prison and second he would remember them.
When Andy got back his memories of the trio he looked surprised. Then looking at the glass-prison that Tommy had taken out of the shelf he could see the three of them playing cards in there.
“How?” he asked fascinated.
“A month ago they came here and got on my nerves, so as punishment I used the program to shrink them. Because they didn´t want to go showering after they returned from who knows where I decided that they would be clothed in one of the stinky socks of my brother while the other sock turned into some furniture inside his shoe. When they saw me enter the room, they started pleading to let them go, but if I looked with the program they would sometimes cursing me. A couple days ago I let them out normal-sized to see if they have changed their behavior, but they haven´t. So I did shrink them back and let them forget the outside-world. I just have given you the memories of them back and gave you the ability to look into the shoe.
By the way I made the shoe unbreakable because they started trying to smash it from the inside.”
Andy did need nearly half an hour to understand that completely. Then he asked astonished “Can your program do that with everyone?”
“If the program has scanned a person I can change them with it. Why?”
“Because first I would be pleased if you could return my hair-color to normal. And second I would like to do the same punishment to the twins.”
Tommy changed Andys hair-color back without any comment.
“Really the same punishment? Isolate them from the world, make the world forget about them and them about the world outside of their prison?”
“Yeah, then it would finally be quiet around my family. You know they do play pranks on everyone, not only me.”
So the two of them headed over to Andy.
The twins were playing something with two of their friends, Dave and Lisa. They were some of the only people that were mostly save from their pranks, basically because they helped them with them.
“Oh, you got the hair dye out, how boring.”
“So next time we should use another one that isn´t so easy removable.”
With that the four of them started laughing.
Without hesitation Tommy sit down and started typing on his laptop, only asking Andy “Should I include Dave and Lisa?”
“Yeah, that would be better.”
When Eddy, Erik, Dave and Lisa looked at them questionable, Andy laughed a little. “We have found a way to punish you for your pranks.”
Looking at them grinning, Tommy hit enter. He had mostly copied from his brother what needed to be done.
With a jolt, the four pranksters jumped to their feet. They hadn´t touched the ground when the shrinking started and held them midair. Like with his brother, their clothes hit the ground below them in a heap while they reached their final size, ant-size. Then the clothes just vanished from the ground. While Eddy and Erik didn´t wear their shoes at the moment of the shrinking, the Chronivac used the socks and the right shoe from Dave.
The left sock split into pieces which changed into sock-clothes for the four of them, taking form of socks, shirts and shorts like before and slipped itself on their frozen bodies. The right sock formed furniture inside Daves right shoe, which itself being reformed into a neutral looking glass-shoe. After forming armchairs, beds, tables and an empty bookshelf, the furniture settles down in the right places. Like with his brother, Tommy gave them something to read and to play, glued the clothes and furniture down and made the shoe unbreakable before the four slowly fell down into their new home, which sealed itself shut after they were in.
The outside-world then started to vanish to them as the glass turned nontransparent to them with an ever shining light. At the same time it cut off any sound from the outside, the last that they heard was the laughing of Andy and Tommy about their panicked faces.
“Now for the last part” Tommy said before hitting enter again. Like with the other trio you could see the panic slowly change into happiness with the knowledge of the outside-world vanishing.
“One question remains, Andy. Should I keep the shoe with mine at home or do you want to keep it yourself?”
“You can keep it. I´m happy that I don´t have to see them daily from now on. Maybe you can connect the two shoes so that the two groups can met each other. Or just let the shoes collect dust.”
With that Andy and Tommy had a restorative but funny day before Tommy headed back home with his second glass-shoe. He put it right next to the other one, but didn´t connect them. “Maybe later” was all he thought about it.