“I need you to tidy up your room this morning,” Martha explained as she reached for a whole honey glazed ham, “I know that request might sound silly coming from someone like me, but we’re leaving for spring vacation in a while and I need everyone packed and ready by sunrise tomorrow.”
“Pfft, Mom, have you seen Jason’s room lately?” Elizabeth snorted through a mouthful of waffles, “He keeps that thing tidier than Fort Knox! He’s got that neatnik habit all right!” Jason was surprised that he understood what she meant, and also surprised about taking slight offense to it.
“Naw, big brother’s still messy,” Marcy piped up, “He leaves his dirty clothes everywhere in his room!”
“Are we talking about the same Jason?” Darcy added, “He keeps everything but his laundry tidy.”
“Eh, well, hyperbole,” Elizabeth shrugged as she crammed a handful of bacon into her mouth.
“What’s hyperbole?” The twins asked in unison.
“It’s just a fancy way of saying you exaggerate things,” Martha explained before cutting herself off with a bombastic fart, “Oop! That one felt wet! I’ll change my pants after breakfast.”
Thoroughly deciding he’d had enough breakfast today, Jason hastily excused himself from the table and hustled into the bathroom to scrub himself in the sink. After that he went back into his room to pick up his clothes and straighten anything else that needed straightening. He felt like something was undeniably strange about something as fat and disgusting as that parody that replaced his mother asking him to clean his room. He shuddered to think what the state of everyone else’s rooms looked like... probably some crossbreed between a pig sty and a war zone. He felt sick to his stomach thinking about it. Why was this the punishment that the witch dealt him? No doubt that it was effective, but this had to fall under the realms of “cruel and unusual” right?
As he picked up his shirts from the floor, he found a strange little book with a sticky note attached to the cover. Curious, he picked it up to inspect it closer. He certainly didn’t remember owning any book titled “Giants & Littles, a study” before, but one look at the note on it cleared that discrepancy right up.
“My dear boy,
I seem to have gone overboard with your punishment. Take this guidebook to the new world I dumped you in as a token of apology. May it help you survive in this strange and slovenly new reality.
Miss Magnolia Magnifico, Witch”
So his family weren’t the only people who had become these giant slobs? He wished that the witch were here with him so that he could both thank her for the book and strangle her for getting him into this mess to begin with. With the book in hand, he took a quick break from cleaning to study up on what he’d gotten into and what he could possibly expect going forward.