Hank was *big*.
It was so weird! Hank couldn't help but stare at his classmates as they wandered around the classroom; most of them only came up to his nose now. Heck, his friend Alex - the smaller of the twins - looked downright *tiny*.
Curious, Hank dropped his bag off at his desk and walked up to his friends. Parker smiled at him as he got closer, while his shorter brother laughed at something he must of said. Since he was facing away, Alex didn't notice Hank until he'd stepped right up behind him and... *successfully*, rested his chin *on top of his head*.
"Um," Alex muttered as he turned around and backed up while Parker snickered. "Hi Hank. What's up?"
"Clearly *he* is," Parker continued to giggle. "Dang man, I don't think Hank could do that last month. You need to eat your veggies, shorty."
Feeling a bit shocked, Hank wandered back to his desk, barely hearing Alex's indignant reply of "you're like *two inches* taller you jerk!"
Hank's desk was... cramped. Well, not *cramped* exactly, but... his grade was the last one to use child sized desks, and apparently he was about at the limit of 'child sized'. Now that he was paying attention, he *did* have one or two classmates - mostly girls - who were his height, and at least one who was taller.
It was kind of awkward, how different it was. Hank felt like he was a bit out of place, with his too-long shoes, rolled-up pants, and almost-too-small desk. At recess, he played some basketball and pretty much reached over his friends to shoot; he didn't really need to jump. At lunch, he ate everything on his plate and left feeling hungry. When Lily offered to hold his hand, he agreed with a blush, but couldn't stop noticing how he could wrap his hand completely around hers. He was super glad his brother caught him that morning, since he wasn't sure he'd even still fit in his grade if he'd kept wearing the jacket.
By the end of class, Hank was ready to go home. It hadn't been a *bad* day, but it'd been kind of weird, and he wasn't sure how he felt about it. He hefted his backpack and took off, his longer legs eating up the distance.
Halfway home, he saw his brother waiting for him at a corner with his friend Kyle. Eric looked...
"You're bigger!" Hank gawked up at Eric when he got closer. Eric looked kinda *normal* again, which meant he must have grown almost as much as Hank had, which was a lot. And Kyle looked even bigger than Eric!
"So are you!" Hank accused, pointing at Kyle. "So it was your jacket?"
Kyle groaned, but still offered Hank an affectionate noogie.
"Look shrimp (okay maybe Kyle can still say that), we can figure out the magic jacket stuff later, 'kay? In the meantime we're going to hit the mall since *someone*," Kyle glared over at Eric who shuffled his - or were those Kyle's - shoes sheepishly, "decided it would be just the *best* idea to have a six inch growth spurt this morning. We're grabbing new clothes and Eric said you could use some too."
Hank nodded happily. New clothes sounded nice. Wearing all borrowed stuff didn't feel too great, and maybe it would make him feel more normal to have clothes that fit.
"Cool," Eric muttered; his voice sounded a bit deeper, maybe?
"Cool." Hank agreed.