James dashed back in the direction of the men's section as fast as his short legs and bare little feet could take him. His baby-smooth cheeks burned bright red at the gasps and giggles that popped up behind him, at the knowledge that to onlookers James seemed like a silly little second-grader that had escaped a changing room. Humiliated as he was, James knew he needed help more than he needed clothes - and his undaunted efforts brought him within lunging grasp of his phone before he collided head-on with an employee coming the other way.
"Oof!" James squeaked as he stumbled and fell back on his bare little butt. Tears sprung to his eyes even though the pain of the collision was hardly anything, and it took what remained of his composure to wipe them away with his forearm.
"Whoa there, kiddo! You okay?"
James reflexively looked up - and locked eyes with the model on the product that the employee was carrying.
A box of size four Pampers.
"NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" James howled, startling the employee once with his outcry and then again, much more significantly, when he started to shrink. The boy could do nothing but whimper and watch as he shrunk into his shirt, as he plumped and softened, as the world grew ever bigger and scarier around him. In a matter of moments James had been stripped but all but two of his years, leaving him a cherubic toddler whose lower lip quivered as he looked up pleadingly at the astonished employee.