Jim continued walking through the mall, searching for another person to test the balloon on. He soon found a new target. A mother with a baby boy in a stroller next to her had just stopped to look at a window display.
Seeing how she was distracted, Jim quietly said, “Control that baby’s age.”
After taking a deep breath, Jim blew a lungful of air into the balloon, and the baby grew. His whole body swelled bigger as his arms and legs stretched out longer. When the changes stopped, the baby had grown a few years older. He seemed very uncomfortable now, which was understandable considering that his now toddler body was still crammed into his stretched out baby clothes. He squirmed in his seat, causing his outfit to tear at the seams in a few places.
Just as the boy started to cry from the pain of his constricting clothes, Jim let the air out of the balloon, and the kid rapidly shrank back to his normal age. The mother turned to check on her baby only a moment after he had changed back to normal.
Jim sighed, “Release. That was a little too close.”
He watched the woman holding her baby in her arms and examining his clothes.
“What happened to you?” she asked the baby after she saw the ripped seams. “Hmm… I guess they don’t make these clothes to last.”
Jim just chuckled to himself and headed off to the food court.