"I wonder if any of us can stretch farther than the others," said Ty.
"You mean, like a stretching contest?" asked Dustin.
"Pretty much," answered Ty. "But I don't think any of us should stretch so far that we hurt ourselves, if that's even possible with this powers and in these rubber suits."
"I'm up for it!" Peter exclaimed.
"Me too!" added Allen. "It'll be fun to test our powers like that."
First, Ty used his wishing powers to clean up their suits: in less than a minute, the stains disappeared completely. Then the four of them stepped out into the backyard. Ty also used his powers to wish that no one would see four boys stretching a great distance--basically, that they would be virtually invisible to anybody but themselves for the time being.
"So, the rules are pretty simple," said Ty. "Each of us will see how far we can stretch into the air. If you feel tired or weakened, or just want to stop, you can--don't strain yourself. No cheating by doing something like wrapping around someone, knocking them over, or anything like that. Most importantly, none of us should go so high that the air gets too thin for us, so I say that the first toooooooooo one mile long is the winner."
"Yeah, yeah, yeah," said an excited Peter. "Let's get on with it!"
The four teens planted their feet apart and firmly on the ground. Dustin counted to three, and instantly the teens began stretching. Their torsos shot up into the air, stretching at a rate of about thirty feet per second. Their originally six-foot bodies continued to grow longer as time went by: fifty feet, seventy feet, one hundred feet, two hundred, and so on. They just kept on growing taller, keeping their balance because Ty had wished that they'd all be able to before their contest began.
The torsos kept on going for thousands of feet--by now, they were taller and the highest skyscrapers built up to that time. When they were approaching the half-male mark, however, Peter began to feel a little tired. He was sure he could go on, but he finally decided to stop. And there he stood, twenty-five-hundred tall, his body like a tall red pole, watching his friends stretch higher and higher into the air above him.
Next, they reached the three-quarters-of-a-mile mark. Allen was the next to stop; like Peter, he wanted to go on, but finally decided he had to rest. His final height was four thousand feet. As Ty and Dustin continued to stretch higher into the air, Allen looked down at his long torso and his purple rubber suit. He could also barely see Peter down below in his red suit, looking up at the long purple pole that Allen as he slowly caught up to his friend's height.
It was literally and figuratively a final "stretch" as Ty and Dustin continued on, stretching further and farther away from their house, the ground, and their friends. They were closing in on the one-mile mark, and both were determined to make it there. And then it happened: both Ty and Dustin began to feel the strain. Their bodies were now unbelievably tall and stretched out, but they could certainly go on. They continued to go on, wondering which of them would be the supreme stretcher. They reached forty-five-hundred feet, forty-six, forty-seven, and so on. Dustin began to feel a little strain, as did Ty, as they passed forty-eight-hundred. At forty-nine, Dustin was running very low on energy, partly due to it being distributed throughout a body thousands of feet long.
Finally, at five thousand feet, Dustin gave in. He stopped stretching, finally exhausted, as Ty rocketed away. In a few seconds, Ty reached the one-mile mark, choosing to stop there to look back down and avoid exhausting himself further. He looked down at the town a mile below his head, the houses and yards of his friends and neighbors, the nearby downtown area, the schools and malls.
He could also see Dustin's long body, still covered in his half pale purple, half white suit. He also noticed a red line and a purple line growing closer--Peter and Allen. The three of them were stretching much more slowly now, but after a few minutes finally reached Ty's height. They congratulated Ty on his victory, and then all four of them began shrinking their torsos back down towards the earth below. In a few minutes, they had all shrunk back to their original forms.