Terrified Dustin suddenly stopped stomping in terror. He stood in the remains of the shower with the water spraying his rear right leg listening with his great ears as the beams in the floor beneath him creaked under the strain of his new weight. The tile floor was cracked and beginning to sag. Dustin was at the center of the sagging. The toilet began to tilt forward as the floor started to give way.
In Dustin's room on the other side of the bathroom, the wall was cracking in response to the stressing beams.
"Huh?" asked Ty in wonderment. The trumpeting and stomping had stopped, but the creaking and cracking noises were more ominous.
Down in the kitchen, Dustin's mother looked up at the cracked and dripping ceiling. She stepped out of the kitchen, and shouted up the staircase.
"Turn off the shower, boys! The drain pipe must be leaking.
Just then there was an awful crashing sound as the bathroom floor, shower, and Dustin the Elephant dropped through the kitchen ceiling. Water rained down on the debris and elephant filled kitchen as the shower head continued to spray, and the broken water pipes now added to the mess. The toilet hung precariously and threateningly over the elephant's head. Ty peered down through the gap created in his own bedroom wall when the bathroom went from the second floor to the ground floor in one cacophonous second.
Dustin's mother opened the kitchen door and screamed. Dustin's father Mark could be heard sprinting down the stairs to see what was going on.
Dustin felt embarrassed and helpless in her current naked predicament. He managed to sort of sit or squat covering his genitalia as best he could with his fore legs, and trumpeting as loud as he could. He wanted them to recognize him as their son, but he found he could not longer speak as a human.
Ty watched from above as Mark entered his devastated kitchen.
Mark looked up at the gaping hole to his second story and saw Ty kneeling there looking down.
"What did you do now, Ty?" he growled.
"I haven't left my bedroom all morning," Ty answered in terror of his foster father's wrath.
"Then who turned on the shower?" Mark demanded with his face turning from red to purple.
"Uh, Dustin must have. He always-s-s ss-s-howers-s before me," Ty stammered.
"Where is Dustin?" he demanded.
The elephant trumpeted and touched the tip of his trunk on Mark's shoulder. Mark was so startled he turned to back away and tripped over some debris and ended up splashing into a newly formed puddle. Ty couldn't help but laugh at the slapstick display of his stepfather.
"Ty, I know you had something to do with this!" roared Mark.
Ty recalling his new found powers felt a surge of confidence, and straightened. He looked down confidentally at the comic tableau below.
"You might be right, Mark. I've always-"
"You call me "Father"!" interrupted Mark as he struggled to his feet.
Ty continued ignoring him, "I've always wondered if elephants are really instinctively afraid of mice? Only one way to find out."
Mark was half standing with the aid of a broken kitchen chair, and he raised his fist, "I'll teach -eeeeeeep," he squeaked. His hand went to his throat, and he felt suddenly weak all over.
Mark's wife stared at her husband as his clothing became to large for his dwindling frame.
"Mark, what are you doing? What's happening?" demanded his wife as if Mark had any say in what was happening to him now.
His skin itched all over, and the water was rapidly rising from around his ankles to his calves, and he seemed to be sinking into the puddle. He was plunged into darkness as Mark shrank inside his clothing. Mark's clothing seemed to float in mid air without any visible means of support and then collapsed with a splash into the puddle.
"Mark melted just like the Wicked Witch of the West!" gasped his wife.
Just then, a very wet and angry mouse emerged from the heap of Mark's clothing. Dustin startled for a moment backed away, then he leaned forward reaching with his trunk. He trumpetted what in elephant was the sound for "Dad?", but to the terrified mouse who had been a man it sounded like a train horn bearing down on him.
He turned and bolted for the safety of his giant wife. She screamed and began stomping as Mark ran up her leg.
Ty howled with laughter. "Guess elephants are innately afraid of mice after all," he chortled.
Like a train wreck crashing into her, she froze with the realization that the vermin squirming up her leg had to infact be her husband. She had seen him change from a man into a mouse right before her eyes and hadn't realized it. Ty was laughing. He had to be responsible for her devastated kitchen, that horrible pachyderm, and now her mousy husband. She hardened her face and stepped into the warzone that had been her kitchen. She looked up at Ty, and spoke in a strident, but not quite shouting voice.
"Tyler Justinian, you turn your father back this instant!" she ordered.
Ty stopped laughing and looked down at his scolding foster mother standing in the puddle in her kitchen. The mouse appeared hanging from her apron strings. Elephant Dustin seemed to have crouched back into his corner.
"How dare you give me orders, woman!" Ty roared back unleashing years worth of pent up rage.
Suddenly, realizing the folly of her actions, and not wanting to be a mouse, the woman backed up stepping deeper into the water.
"Uh, Tyler, honey, I can understand you're upset with Mark," she said in what she hoped was a soothing voice, "He can be a really bear sometimes. Sometimes I wonder why I married him, but he does provide for a decent home. So will you change him back, so he can go to work and earn some money for me - to feed and clothe you and Dustin. Where is Dustin, anyway?" she added realizing that her son had yet to make an appearance since he'd gone upstairs to shower.
Dustin made a whimpering noise.
"Dustin's the elephant?" she said incredulously turning to look at him.
Her mind was playing tricks on her. She was sure that Dustin was underdeveloped for his age, and that he had been complaining about the fact that Ty's crotch was bigger than his own that very morning. Had Ty made Dustin's crotch bigger by turning him into an
elephant?
"I don't know what you were thinking, Ty, but enough is enough. Change them both back now! You're nothing but a petulant, whiny little poofta- oh, what am I saying?" she gasped catching herself.
"Something catty as usual, foster mommy dearest. Tell you what, you chase Mark around the house a few times, while I help myself to some cash from your wallet and go to the IHOP for breakfast. When I get back maybe I'll feel like changing you all back, and then maybe I won't?"
"Miaow!" she gasped as she collapsed with in clothing. The mouse scampered up her descending and deflating garments, as she landed in the puddle with a loud splash and an angry hiss. The furry cat was drenched in the now foot deep puddle. She swam with a wet mouse riding on her back toward the kitchen door.
Ty shook his head