"Stand right there," Tricia said. "And don't move until the transformation's over. It might be a little disorienting."
"There's good news," Samantha said sarcastically. "Let's just get this over with."
Tricia scanned Samantha's body to store her original pattern in the remote, then she tweaked the settings to alter her friend appropriately. "Here we go."
Samantha cringed. She could see the beam of light from the remote even through her eyelids. Nothing else seemed to happen, though, and she slowly opened one eye, then the other.
"I thought you zapped me."
"I did," Tricia said.
"Then why are you the one that's growing?"
Tricia looked at her strangely for a minute, then laughed. "Silly! I'm not growing at all."
Samantha's pants suddenly fell to the ground. She looked down at them, and what she saw made it all too obvious...she was shrinking.
It was a small relief that her shirt had become so long, her undergarments were still unexposed. "Real funny, Trish," Samantha said as she bent down to pull her pants back up. Something seemed off about her voice. "Real funny," she repeated, slower this time. She couldn't understand why, but her voice sounded higher pitched.
Tricia continued to watch the transformation with a glimmer in her eye. Samantha was too preoccupied with her changing body to notice the morbid fascination Tricia was displaying.
"Am I getting younger?" she asked as she continued to hold her pants up with one hand while using the other to hold out her widening collar to peek at her chest. Her breasts were steadily shrinking into nothing, leaving her empty bra dangling down to her stomach.
Tricia didn't reply to her question. Samantha didn't bother to ask her again. The answer was obvious. Her arms and legs were shorter, with a small bit of baby fat now forming. Her face rounded out and became slightly chubbier, with a button nose and pinchable cheeks. Her fingers were tiny, but still just strong enough to hold up her heavy pants. Her hair was the only thing that remained the same. It hadn't shortened at all, but on Sam's new frame the once mid-back-length hair now fell to below her small butt.
Her shrinking finally stopped, and she could tell it was over. She looked back up at Trish, and a wave of vertigo briefly overtook her. Just a few minutes ago they were standing eye-to-eye. Now there was almost a two-foot difference in their heights.
"Holy crap, you're huge!"
"Samantha, such language!" Tricia scolded as she crouched in front of her small friend. "That's not very becoming for a girl your age."
"I'm eighteen," Sam protested in her squeaky voice.
"But you LOOK like you're six years old," Tricia said, "So I think we ought to keep your real age to ourselves.
"Can you change me back now?"
"We've only just started," Tricia said. "The next thing we need is to get you a change of clothes."
"Look at me!" Sam shouted. "I barely come up to your waist! What am I, three feet tall?"
Tricia glanced at the remote's LCD readout. "Three-foot-six."
"Change me back."
Tricia changed her playfully condescending face to a more serious one. "You promised, Sam. Please? I know you'll come around soon."
Samantha would have crossed her arms if they weren't already occupied holding up her pants. Worse, they were starting to get tired already. "You can have it your way for now, but I promise I'm going to call the shots when this is over!"
"All righty," Tricia acknowledged. She zapped Samantha once again.