The shop in the back had obviously been designed by someone with a Willy Wonka complex, with doors with ridiculous shapes and odd angles. One on her left, with the door going all the way to the ten-foot ceiling, was marked "The Tall Room."
Belinda opened it, finding that inside there was an amazing tree set in a planter. A tall shapely apple tree, aparently sculpted out of chocolate with marzipan leaves, covered with beautiful candy apples on sticks. Okay, definitely a Willy Wonka complex, but a cool confectioner nonetheless.
She picked one of the apples, and after inspect it for a minute, decided to risk a bit, since it was so beautiful and tempting.
The sugar shell was crisp and cinnamony, while inside was a tart apple, perfect and refreshing, but as she swallowed, she felt something twitch in her throat. Then just as suddenly, she felt herself sprout an inch taller.
Belinda then noticed with horror that the core of the apple was filled with gummi worms, which would have been cool, except for the fact that they were wriggling like they were alive--and she'd just eaten one!
She went out to where the old man with the funky hat was. "What is this?"
He smiled brightly. "Those? Oh, they're my latest invention--gummy inchworms. You grow an inch for each one you eat!"
"You're insane!" Belinda cried. "I'm leaving."
"Enjoy the apple," the old man beamed. "Come again!"
Belinda stepped out of the shop, walking a ways down and getting a plastic bag from her purse to wrap the apple in along with the living magical candy worms. It was a shock to discover that magic was real, but while Belinda might be vain, proud and egotistical, she was not a snooty bitch for no reason--she was the top science geek in her class, and she was sick of losing out to boys. And the insane old man had handed her the prize of a lifetime.
She took it home quickly, getting a number of Mason jars from the kitchen and began setting up her experiments, isolating the fifteen and a half--she'd actually eaten half of one of them as well--candy worms in different jars with portions of candy apple, chocolate, sugar, and various candies which it seemed candy worms might eat.
She logged her experiments, finding that the worms would not eat chocolate, but thrived on any combination of sugared fruit. Marascino cherries were a particular favorite. She also used a razorblade to slice the half-worm into smaller sections, watching it regenerate when fed a combination of sugar and fruit roll-up.
After a week, the worms, apart from the ones regenerating from vivisection, spit their skins into jelly-bean-like chrysalises which after another week hatched into gummy butterflies with fruit-roll-up wings which lived on Torani syrups.
One butterfly hadn't been let out of its jar on time and so had crumpled wings, and she had an ample colony of gummy inchworms in her terarium, so Belinda decided it was time to continue her experiment. She called up her friend Marshall from science camp, inviting him over to show him a new experiment before he left for college next week.
Marshall was a small, shy kid, only sixteen, having skipped a couple grades, and the picture of a little science geek, standing only 5'5". "What would you say if I said I had something to make you taller?" Belinda asked.
Marshall grimaced. "I'd say you were either pulling my leg, or that you'd gotten some human growth hormone--and don't think I haven't thought about that."
Belinda grinned. "Well, if there were a way to get taller, how much taller would you want to be?"
Marshall mused. "At least twenty," Marshall replied at last.
"Twenty?" Belinda, surprised.
"At least twenty," Marshall stressed. "I've been short for so long, I'd like to try being tall."
"All right," Belinda said at last. "I'm going to take you into the lab, but I need to blindfold you first."
"VR setup? Something with perspective?"
"Something like that," Belinda said, but Marshall allowed her to put blackout goggles on him and top that off with a notted scarf. She led him into the lab where she took tongs and carefully removed twenty-five gummi inchworms from her farm and placed them in a beaker.
"Alright, Marshall, I want you to kick off your shoes and remove your belt. Loosening your shirt would be good too. And then I'm going to give you something to eat."
"Something gross?"
"Worms," Belinda said honestly. She pushed one into his mouth, but it crawled back out and she had to retrieve it and throw it in the beaker.
Marshall giggled. "Gummi worms. There something psychotropic on them?"
"Not exactly. But you need to swallow them all at once for maximum effect. I'll add in a solution of soda, then you chug it.
"Okay," Marshall agreed, and Belinda added some 7up to the beaker, handing it to Marshall who chugged it all in one gulp. Twenty-five gummi inch-worms in all.
At once, he began to expand, buttons popping off his shirt, the zipper of his pants busting apart as his pants shredded like the Hulk's, the hems riding just above his knees. The strap of the goggles also broke from his enlarged head, and he suddenly stood there, towering over her, seven and a half feet tall.
He looked around, marveling at the candy-colored butterflies in their terrariums and down at her and at his shredded clothes and new size. "Wow," he said at last, "this is some VR. How long did it take you to program this?"
"Actually, it's magic," Belinda explained. "I got an enchanted candy apple from a crazy wizard."
Marshall snorted. "Yeah, right."
"If you don't believe me," Belinda said, "I dare you to eat this candy butterfly."
Marshall looked at the partially crippled butterfly, then chuckled and picked it up, tossing it into his huge mouth and swallowing it in one bite.
Belinda watched him sprout another inch taller, but then a second transformation took place: his shoulders became broader, his arms became longer, his hands and feet increased massively in size, as did the muscles of his back, and he began to pant. "Pool... Where's the pool?"
"Where it's always been," Belinda said. "Out in back."
Martial pulled the door open, ducking for the doorframe as he rushed out of her lab and downstairs, straight outside for the swimming pool, throwing his shredded shirt aside and then dove in, begging to swim lap after lap after lap of the butterfly at Olympic speeds. At last, he finally came up for air, standing at the deep end of the pool, his head and shoulders still out of the water.
"Interesting," Belinda said. "It seems the butterfly gave you the build for an Olympic butterfly swimmer."
Marshall looked down at himself. "Good grief, I must be over two meters tall!"
"Well, you said you wanted over twenty inches."
"Inches?" Marshall echoed. "What sort of scientist uses inches? I meant centimeters!"
Belinda raised her eyebrows. "So you wanted to be something like six feet tall, not seven and a half?"
"Uh, yes..."
"So how did you do this?"
Belinda explained the magic candy worms and the insane Willy Wonka wizard.
"Wow," Marshall said at last, getting out of the pool and looking at his amazing build. "What am I going to do?"
"Well," Belinda said, "since you're going off to college, I was thinking you could just go there your new height and tell your parents you grew while you were at school."
"They'd never believe it."
"You think they'd believe magic candy worms?"
"No..." Marshall said. "Would you..."
"Consider sharing my research and stock? Of course." Belinda grinned. "I think we can get rich off this, but I'd like to see what you can come up with off at college. We now know what the worms do and the butterflies, but I've still got to test a chrysalis or the jellybean eggs they lay."
Marshall chuckled. "I'm sure I can find some guineau pigs off at school..."