“Okay,” said Jake. “I think I figured it out. I just had to change the leads. It should work.”
“Wait,” said Mr. Krebs. “If you’re wrong, I could go back to being in diapers! I know you hate me but do you hate me that much?”
“I don’t hate you,” said Jake. “But what do you suggest?”
“You try it. If it’s set right you’ll be a big grown man!”
“And if it doesn’t?”
“We’ll try to fix it together,” said Mr. Krebs.
Jake looked dubious.
“You said you thought you fixed it, right?” the shrunken gym teacher said in his high little boy’s voice.
“I guess,” said Jake. He got up on the platform.
“You better strip down,” said Mr. Krebs. “If you grow a bunch you’re gonna rip your clothes, and I kinda need them.”
Jake shrugged and shucked off his shoes, pants, and shirt. “I’m not taking off the underwear or socks,” Jake said. “You can damn well go commando. Now… slide the two sliders together.”
Mr. Krebs stared up at the teen boy—someone he had thought of as puny not a hour ago—and realized that Jake’s budding chest hair and wispy mustache and small pec muscles were way further along the path than his own body. He pressed the switches but struggled a bit. “This shouldn’t be hard! I hate being a weak little boy. Here goes!”
The beam of light struck Jake. Mr. Krebs gasped as the small patch of chest hair dissolved into a flattening chest, and the wispy mustache turned back into peach fuzz. The surprisingly thick leg hair Jake sported retreated into just a fringe of thin hairs at the sock before withdrawing completely.
Jake shuddered as the hands of time swept backward and robbed him of two, then four inches. The modest bulge in the boxer briefs shrank significantly, leaving loose fabric as the waistband sagged. The socks dropped as well, and there was suddenly extra room in the toes and the heels.
The light subsided.
Jake looked down at himself and screamed, a childish, shrill, frightened noise.
Just then, the gym door slammed open. Mr. Dirksen ran in, saw what had happened, and put his hand to his mouth.
“Jacob Sherman! What in the hell are you doing? And who is this?”
“That’s Mr. Krebs,” moaned the pitiful preadolescent. “He made me use it on him. We thought it was going to make him bigger and more muscular. Then I tried to switch the electrical leads to reverse it and ended up like this.”
“You idiots! That’s not how this machine works! It’s meant to return fruit and vegetables to just before being ripe.”
“Wait,” said Jake. “If it did the sand thing to both of us, why is Mr. Krebs so much shorter than I am?” He moved next to the smaller boy, whose head came just to Jake’s chin.
“I think you’d better call him Ryan,” said Mr. Dirksen. “And the reason why is because it returns you to the age before you started going through puberty. I remember you being a late bloomer, Jake. You look like an eighth grader. Ryan here apparently developed early, so he’s a fifth grader or so. You have three extra years’ growth on him. But you’re both about a month from starting puberty, which is why your feet are so outsized for your bodies. You’re about to go through a growth spurt.”
“YOU HAVE TO FIX THIS!” shrieked Mr. Krebs. “I’m a gym teacher! I did puberty already! I have a partner and an adult life!”
Mr. Dirksen whirled on the shrunken bodybuilder. “You don’t get it. It’s not a fucking time machine! There’s no reverse on it. The only way you’re returning to your 35-year-old self is by waiting for the next 25 years. You have to grow up all over again. You’ll need to start over and learn to lift weights again. And Mr. Sherman here can delete the porno site bookmarks for a while, because they won’t do anything for him for some time.”
Little Ryan burst into tears. “My girlfriend and I were trying for a baby!”
“I don’t think your girlfriend is interested in a little boy who can’t even shoot white spunk yet,” said the science teacher curtly. “You fucked around and now you’ve found out.”