Claire checked the laptop screen. It showed Tony's profile, showed that he as 7.3 inches tall, exactly one tenth his normal 6 foot 1 or 73 inches tall. It also showed that profile changes back to the registered profile settings hadn't taken place.
"Tony? Are you hiding or something, Tony? I wasn't gone *that* long at the bathroom."
No, she thought to herself. He wouldn't be upset about an extra minute or two. He would have changed himself back. Hell, he had even more time to change himself back. Claire sighed in frustration. What could have happened?
First, she switched back to her profile and programmed a change of clothes. Upon hitting 'enter', her tights, top, tiara and tutu changed into a pair of snug jeans, t-shirt and sneakers. She ran down to the bend in the hallway and stared down the next long stretch of hallway. There was no one there, not even a gorgeous 7 inch high boyfriend in ballet tights and top. She doubled back and looked under the lockers. There was a lot of dust there but no shrunken boyfriend.
She even thought of Emma Chase in the classroom upstairs. Could Tony have intended to somehow mess with her . . as a 7 inch tall version of himself? Claire walked by the open doorway of that room 3 times. She could see Emma Chase but no hint of Tony. With a sigh, she went back downstairs. One last idea occurred to her. She went the other direction, the short distance to the school entrance. She looked in the foyer but Tony wasn't there. She stepped outside. There was no one, not even someone 7 inches high near the entrance. A car pulling away down the road was the only movement.
Reluctantly, Claire went back to the conference room and gathered up the chronivac powered laptop and emitter. She looked around one last time for Tony and then walked out of the school to Jeff's house. Jeff, Eric, Jack, Mark and Felix were there and perhaps other boys. Who knows what condition they might be in? One other slight detour was first and that was to the elementary school that Jeff's sister Suzy attended. Luckily for Claire, as she approached the squat brick building and turned on the laptop and set the chronivac program to scan it quickly identified Suzy as being within range in one of the rooms with windows on the street side. Claire navigated the necessary menus and hit 'enter'. In her 4th grade math class, Suzy felt an electric shock and let out a yelp. She'd been thinking of all the boys turned into fish in the tank in her room. Now she thought of the math problem on the board.
Clair went on to Jeff's house. There was no one home. She found the slider door in back open and went in that way. She immediately turned on the laptop and scanned.
"12 profiled subjects detected" read the display and then it listed their names. Claire saw her five friends and then the names of 7 other boys. She recognized three of them as swim team members. The times of profile acquisition and alteration were the same for a two other boys so Claire figured that all five of them must be swim team boys. She recognized another boy as being on the baseball team and figured that might be the case with the last name, which she didn't recognize.
The display listed them all as fish. The latin names for the genus and species of all 12 came up with the next display.
"Fish?" muttered Claire. She noted that the scan showed them above her. She realized that it was Suzy's room. She hurried up there and saw a fantastic fish tank and beautiful bright fish of all shapes and colors swimming in it. She approached one corner of the tank and five of the fish immediately swam there, practically trying to swim through the glass. She switched to scan mode and the display showed the five fish just inches away from her swimming in place and identified the orange, spiny faced one as Mark St. Martin, the zebra striped one as Felix, the almost spherical one as Eric, the almost paper thin red one as Jack and the goldfish sized almost clear one as Jeff.
"So, you guys recognize me and realize what it means that I'm here. That means you probably still have your minds despite being fish. Alright, now, how should I do this?" Claire pondered it for a moment.
"Okay, Marky first" she said after a minute and pointed at Mark, a 4 inch long, almost fluourescent fish with a dozen spikes of fish flesh growing out of his face. She pointed at Mark again and typed away at the laptop. When it was ready to go except for hitting enter, she set up the emitter and pointed to Mark again then took the flyswatter sized net that lay atop the tank, netted Mark and lay him down on the carpet. For a moment, Mark the spiny faced fish flopped around frantically but then Claire hit the 'enter' button. Mark felt the electric wave pass through him and he immediately started changing into the 7 inch tall boy that he had been, coughing as he took in air again, limbs appearing and growing, orange scales become soft pinkish skin, all his body's systems becoming human. Without a moment's pause, he then grew and grew till he was his full sized self.
"Oh god! Thank you" said Mark and although he was naked, he hugged Claire.
She followed a similar pattern with Jack, Felix, Jeff and Eric resulting in a room full of naked teenage boys. With the five swim team boys and two baseball players, she added the extra twist of a location assignment to their profiles and amnesia regarding the events of the last day. Each transformed to his full size naked self outside the tank, demanding to know what was going on. After a moment, each suddenly found his usual clothes materializing on his body and then experienced a moment of befuddlement as the amnesia feature kicked in whereupon he disappeared from the room only to suddenly show up in a high school classroom a moment later.
Claire discreetly sized up each boy at first until remembering that they wouldn't remember anything she said and remarked to the last boy, a slender baseball player with a fantastically long penis "God! You could go up to the plate and use that! You're bigger than Tony for chrissakes!"
The others laughed, but then came the questions. Where's Emma? Tell us she slid under a gas truck and died? No? Too bad. And where is Tony? Claire had to admit that she didn't know.
An hour earlier, Tony, still 7 inches tall and decked out in his skin tight white ballet tights plus quilted velvet top and ballet slippers was kneeling on the laptop computer. He pressed one key with his entire left hand, then another, then a third key with his right hand. He sat down next to the touch pad in front of the keyboard and navigated through the menus. He stood up just to stretch and heard heavy steps entering the room. He didn't have time to hide, having reacted much too late. He was standing out in the open on the corner of the table nearest the door when a 4 year old girl in a sundress came laughing into the room.
She gasped. "Mr. Nutcracker! Mr. Nutcracker! I found you!" she shouted and went straight for him. Tony backed up with his arms raised.
"Hey little girl. I'm not your-"
She grabbed him in both hands and lifted Tony off the table then patted his head. "Ow" Tony shouted, the force of her pats stunning him.
"Where's your head, Mr. Nutcracker?"
"Ow, little girl! Ow! I'm -ow- I'm not your Mr. Nutcracker"
The little girl kissed Tony's face, covering all of it with her drool. "I'll never lose you again Mr. Nutcracker! Never!" she said and gave Tony a crushing hug. He struggled to get free of the girl But though he might have been the fastest 7 inch tall boy, the one who could jump highest and was strongest, ounce per ounce, he was hopelessly weak compared to a normal sized 4 year old girl and accomplished nothing, except to get her to realize that he was trying to squirm free. She bent down on one knee and bent Tony over it.
"No, please don't-"
WHACK!
"Bad Mr. Nutcracker!" she called and smote him again and again across his white tighted ass with a hand the size of Tony's entire upper body and with a force that had Tony seeing stars.
"Please!" he pleaded but his yelps had no effect on her. She kept spanking Tony until she was emotionally satisfied. At which point, she picked Tony up and ran down the hallway with him, carrying him like a rag doll.
Tony had just regained his bearings when the girl ran into the day care room adjacent to the teachers' lounge. Tony was frantic that a teacher or someone else who knew him would see him like that, but, though, a few voices were audible, perhaps from an adjoining room, there was no one else in there. The girl carried Tony straight to a box of toys and stood him on an adjacent table holding him with one hand while she fished through the box for something with the other. Tony tried to break free of her grasp, till she noticed and cautioned him "Do I have to spank you again Mr. Nutcracker?". Tony stood still. A moment later she called out "Here it is!" and a moment after that she slammed something down on Tony's head.
"Ow! What the hell-"
But Tony couldn't say anything more because with another piledriver force slap, followed by a loud -CLICK- and a -SNAP- she locked the head from a Nutcracker doll onto Tony's head.
"There! Now you're all together again, Mr. Nutcracker!" she cried and gave Tony another crushing hug. Tony tried to pull the nutcracker head off, grunting and pushing with all his might but couldn't even move it. He tried to feel the shape of it but couldn't reach to the top of it. It was all wood and fit perfectly onto Tony's skull with one horizontal bar pushed so far into Tony's mouth it nearly gagged him and another tightly under his jaw so that when Tony opened his mouth, the Nutcracker mouth opened as well. But as uncomfortable as that was for Tony, the worst thing was that the damn thing attached to his head felt like it weighed 200 pounds. It was all he could do to keep his balance. The slightest tilt of his new nutcracker head and the force of all that weight made him strain to his utmost with his neck and back to stand upright.
When the girl let him go, he shouted at her. "Listen, little girl! I'm a 16 year old boy! Take this thing off me, right now!"
The girl blinked. His voice had the requisite tone of authority. She hesitated but bit her lower lip and seemed to be about to do as instructed.
"Right now, little girl!" commanded Tony. "Right nnnnnnnnooooooowwwww-" As he was reiterating his command, Tony's new Nutcracker head tilted just a little too far back. Tony tried to straighten himself up but wasn't strong enough. He stepped back to try and catch himself and then backpedaled some more and for a second was sprinting backward completely out of control till he went over the edge of the table and did a half flip in the air slamming his body face down on a pillow to uproarious laughter from the girl. Tony tried to get up but could only raise himself to all fours with his ponderous new head still resting on the pillow. The girl picked Tony up and hugged him to her laughing all the while. "You're so funny, Mr. Nutcracker!"
"Take this off me right now!" Tony commanded again but it had no effect after his comic pratfall. She laughed and hugged him, swaying back and forth. Then, Tony heard high heeled footsteps entering the room. He made his body rigid. Better to be thought a doll right now. What would this woman do if she discovered he was a miniaturized teenage boy?
"Mommy! Mommy! I found Mr. Nutcracker's body" she said and presented Tony to a middle aged woman of average height in a plain navy dress and pearls.
"I put him back together"
"Hmmm. Yes, you did, Melissa" said the woman. Tony could see out the mouth opening of his new nutcracker head. The woman looked skeptical. He felt her hands on his little body including one long fingernail smoothed over his spandex covered buns.
"Where's his coat, Melissa? Are you sure this is Mr. Nutcracker?"
"Uh huh. His head fits perfecty"
"Yes, 'perfecty'" said the woman with a shrug. With that she gave Tony back to her and herded the girl out and to the car.
Great! What do I do now? Fumed Tony to himself. He discreetly tried to pull the nutcracker head off himself again and again couldn't even move it. They got in the car and her mother tied Melissa into her safety seat. At Melissa's instruction, her mother buckled "Mr. Nutcracker" into the spot on the back seat next to her safety seat. Tony desperately wanted to see where they went, but when the car backed out of its parking space, Tony found his top heavy body lurching forward and his nutcracker head hit the seat. To his exasperation, he couldn't lift it off. He spent the entire 15 minute ride looking down at the leather seat in front of him, slowly spreading his white tighted legs wider and wider to accomodate his humiliating posture.
Finally, the car stopped. The mother chuckled at the sight of Tony. "Look at Mr. Nutcracker, Melissa. He's doing a split. Ballet dancers like Mr. Nutcracker sure are flexible, huh?"
"Mmm-hmmm"
Fine, fine. Laugh at me. I'm a joke. Haha. But I've been in this split for 15 minutes now. Pick me up for chrissakes! Tony grumbled to himself. And soon enough they did. The mother unbuckled Tony and lifted him up by his wooden head. Tony remained rigid while in her sight. She undid Melissa's restraints and once she was out handed Mr. Nutcracker to her. Tony only got a fleeting glance at their neighborhood surroundings and couldn't recognize any of it. He saw the number "432" on the house next to the doorway and filed that away.
Melissa rushed into the house and straight to her grandmother in the living room. "Gandma! Gandma! Look! It's Mr. Nutcracker!" she shouted holding Tony by his tiny little hands. Through his nutcracker head's mouth opening, he could see the old woman on the couch knitting. The resemblance to her daughter was clear. Tony saw the old woman scrunch her nose up in distaste before his top heavy head drooped forward beyond his control.
"What happened to Mr. Nutcracker's coat, honey?" Tony heard from in front of him as he was carried nearer.
"Ida know" Melissa chirped happily "He musta lost it when he ran away. I spanked him for running away" she said. Tony felt her laying him over her knee to demonstrate.
Oh no!
WHACK! WHACK! WHACK!
"Bad Mr. Nutcracker! Bad!"
"That's enough honey" interrupted her grandmother. "Thank you!" whispered Tony looking down at the floor from the girl's knee. The grandmother ushered Melissa off to the bathroom and laid Tony down on his back on the couch beside her. He made his body rigid and tried not to show his breathing. Once Melissa was out of earshot she immediately pressed Melissa's mother for answers.
"What the hell is this?" the grandmother demanded and looking straight up, Tony could see her wrist as she pointed at him.
"It's the crotch of a ballet dancer doll, mother"
"I'm aware of that. But why is that there on a doll my granddaughter is playing with?"
"It's just a doll mother"
"Do Mr. Nutcracker's nuts have to be quite so prominent?"
"Oh come on. You can't see his nuts. It's one big bulge."
"Yes, isn't it" the grandmother snapped and then picked up Tony with the fingers of one hand under his arms. Tony was looking right at her now.
"And what about these bulges?"
"Um, those would be the buns of a ballet dancer, mom"
"Is-is there some reason my granddaughter needs to have a doll that's so anatomically correct it's almost incorrect? Even negro boys aren't like that. This doll is a joke. Even ballet dancers don't have behinds like this or fronts, I mean front bulges like that. Do we have to sexualize the girl at age four? This is NOT the Mr. Nutcracker your father and I gave her. We didn't give her some beginner's course in exaggerated boy bodies"
"Well, I think the new Mr. Nutcracker is fine. What's wrong with her seeing beautiful boy bodies in a controlled way? Why do you think I was interested in ballet when I was a girl? Given the straightjacket-like restrictions you put on me, it was a way to see at least most of some nice looking boys in action"
"Fine" said that grandmother and Tony felt her swinging him over to the coffee table now. There was a circular wooden stand there with a pole half again Tony's height at the center of it. Tony felt the grandmother press him against the pole hard so that his buns were being pushed apart. Then he could see and feel her wrapping two different stands of yarn around him. Over and over and over she looped the yarn tightly around Tony's body and his nutcracker head so that Tony was locked into place.
As she was finishing the process, Tony heard the flush of the toilet and then Melissa rushing into the room.
"What're you doing to Mr. Nutcracker?"
"Mr. Nutcracker wanted to help us with the knitting, honey. He volunteered to hold the yarn"
"I told you Mr. Nutcracker's a good guy, grandma"
"We'll give him a pat on the buns afterward, honey" added Melissa's mother and Tony could see her grandmother respond with a frosty stare.
For the next 3 hours, Tony was slowly rotated in place as yarn was drawn out to Melissa's grandmother and mother as they knitted. He was bored to death by her grandmother's babytalk interaction with her and gathered from the few words between her mother and grandmother that this was the grandmother's home and that's why Melissa's mother had been deferential.
But Tony also saw a copy of Newsweek and the AARP magazine with mailing labels. He was presently captive at 432 Madison in Oak Grove.
Eventually, they drew the yarn out to the point that Tony's nutcracker head was no longer lashed to the pole behind him and it drooped forward. They knitted a little longer but stopped for dinner. Luckily for Tony, the stand was turned such that he faced the telphone on the coffee table. The old woman drifted off to the kitchen first and was followed, minutes later by Melissa and her mother. Melissa pleaded to take Mr. Nutcracker with her.
"No! Please no!" Tony whispered to himself and to his delight Melissa's mother steered her away without Mr. Nutcracker. Tony waited a minute and then pushed and kicked against the yarn around him. He moved it enough to be able to step away and strained with all his might to hold up his wooden nutcracker head. He pushed up with one hand to help and was able to stagger across the coffee table to the phone before falling on the phone itself and luckily dislodge the receiver. His seemingly 200 pound head was facing straight down at the coffee table beside it so Tony had to dial Claire's cell phone number by feeling for the keys. At last done the 9 digits, he turned the cell phone toward himself and turned on his side to face his giant wooden head toward the mouthpiece. After one ring, Claire picked up.
"Tony?"
"Yeah, it's me"
"Tony! Are you okay? I've been worried sick about you! Are you-"
"432 Madison in Oak Grove. I don't know how much time I have. 432 Madison, Oak Grove. I'm -sigh- I'm the nutcracker doll. Got that?"
"I do! Are-"
Tony pressed the button to disconnect. Lucky he did because a moment later the old woman came in sputtering angrily about the "obscene doll befouling her home". She was all prepared to throw the horrid thing aside but Melissa came running in all solicitous for the welfare of her doll. She brought Tony into the dining room and lay him down on the table next to her place, face up. Tony chuckled to himself. He could easily imagine the old woman's sour expression at the sight of the bulge from the pouch of his dance belt. He was also in a good mood because he knew Claire and the others would be there soon. After dinner all three of them went out onto the patio behind the house. Tony was lying face up in Melissa's lap as she kept up a running imaginary conversation with him.
Finally, Tony heard footsteps coming around the side of the house as dusk was falling.
"Excuse me! Excuse me!" his pulse sped up. It was Claire's voice. "I'm sorry to bother you but I'm conducting a survey. This'll just take a minute if you'll pardon me"
"You're taking a survey door to door?"
"Uh huh" Tony could hear her say from just a few feet away though he couldn't see her. "You see, so many people screen calls now that polling firms are having trouble getting representative samples. So telephone cold calls are being supplemented by visits in person. We're looking for, well, fairly affluent families in well kept homes. Those are the people who are most likely to be busy and not want to answer a call from a stranger. Could I get just a minute of your time?"
"Well, alright" said the old woman and Tony smiled beneath his giant wooden head. Well played Claire. Well played.
In between innocuous political questions, candidate A or candidate B, on the right track or not, Claire got in some friendly words with Melissa. "Hey, that's a cute doll. What's his name?"
"He's Mr. Nutcracker!" Melissa declared.
"I had one just like him" said Claire and she sat Tony up but let go of his head and Tony's wooden cranium quickly dropped forward as soon as she let go. Claire asked another question of the old woman and then lifted up Tony's head. She gave it a tug.
"Hmm. It doesn't come off, does it?"
"Nope" said Melissa and then laughed as she added. "Mr. Nutcracker tried to pull his head off but couldn't. It's on perfecty"
Claire smiled. She typed away furiously as the old woman was answering another question. She pulled the emitter from her pocket and pointed it at Mr. Nutcracker and hit one more key.
Tony felt the electric wave pass through him and immediately felt his tights loosen. His quilted velvet top seemed tentlike and his penis flopped loose, free of his now much too large dance belt. Tony's head slipped easily out of his nutcracker head top and he slipped to the chair between Melissa's legs. He flailed until he got free of all his now comically oversized ballet clothes and stood naked on the chair just one inch tall. Melissa reacted with aplomb and picked up even tinier Tony and put him down on the cement patio. Melissa's mother sat transfixed, sputtering at the sight of what had just happened but her grandmother was babbling on, oblivious to the lack of attention being paid to her.
"What . . what is it?" she asked of her daughter who just pointed, wide eyed at inch high Tony. Meanwhile, Claire was typing furiously away till at least finishing and hitting the 'enter' key. Tony felt the familiar electric wave pass through him. His perspective at that moment amazed him. People and furniture were like mesas in Monument Valley to him. But quickly, he felt himself grow. One moment he was an inch tall. The next his eyes were at the level of the patio table. The next he was his full six foot one. He felt as though he was looking at time lapse photography of the erection of a skyscraper.
He went to Claire and kissed her. "Thank you. I-"
Claire was pointing to the three onlookers. Naked Tony turned around and saw three faces still watching him.
"You didn't zap them?"
"The battery's too low to bother with other profiles and I had to change your size twice"
Tony glanced again at the three faces staring at his naked ass, but especially his penis. "Jeez. You made a flasher out of me"
"I could have let you stay as Mr. Nutcracker for a few hours more?"
"No thanks"
"We'll come back and zap them tomorrow" she said and nodded to Tony. He followed her away from them and around the side of the house.
Melissa's mother and grandmother sat there sputtering, the old woman looking angrily at her daughter. Melissa finally broke the silence.
"Wow, what a peepee!" she laughed and her grandmother buried her face in her hands.