Ty headed home. It was a hot day, and Ty was sweating already. He walked and thought about all that had happened today already and wondered what he would do next.
He passed by suburban houses. He wondered who lived in them. He wondered what he could do to them for fun.
"Dana!" some kid shouted. "Dana! Come play with me, please."
The voice had come from behind the wooden fence next to him. Ty walked up to it and found an empty knothole behind a bush that he could look through while remaining concealed. Through the hole he saw a green back yard with two people in it. One was a beautiful blonde, who looked to be about 17 or 18 years old. Ty thought he recognized her from school, but he wasn't sure of her name. She must be "Dana," he thought. She was reclining on a folding beach chair wearing nothing but a white string bikini and a pair of sunglasses. Her tan skin looked shinny with lotion. Ty found himself more than a little turned on by her nice body. The other person in the yard was the one Ty had heard shouting. A preschool boy wearing a baggy pair of blue swim trunks was standing in a wading pool holding a little clear green plastic squirt gun. The boy shuffled impatiently as he looked at the older girl.
"Come on," he cried. "Mom said you're supposed to play with me."
"No she didn't," Dana replied without stirring an inch. "She said I'm supposed to watch you while she's out shopping. She didn't say anything about playing."
"Dana."
"Leave me alone, twerp."
"But..."
"I'm way too old to be playing in a kiddy pool with my kid brother, and I'd much rather work on my tan. Besides, Kevin is coming over later, and I don't want to mess up my hair."
"You never want to play with me," said the boy, dejectedly.
"Big girls don't play with little boys," She said and smiled. "Big girls play with the big boys." Ty felt that she was talking about Kevin.
"I don't have anyone else to play with."
"Tough luck. I don't have any time for you, squirt."
The boy sat down in a huff, splashing water out of the pool. "Stupid Dana," he muttered to himself. "Never has any time for me."
"Maybe I can fix that," said Ty quietly to himself. He considered his options. Sure he could make her younger, younger than her little brother even. That would make her eat her words about big girls, but Ty felt like he needed to be a bit more creative. He thought back to the IHOP. That last wish had worked well, because he had left most of the details up to fate and chance. He liked the idea of doing that again. He just needed a rule to work with.
Ty watched as the boy crept from the wading pool with his full squirt gun aimed at Dana. He tip toed up to her slowly, took aim, and fired a stream of pool water at her chest. She gasped and screamed, "Jason! You little maggot!" Jason giggled and ran as she stood up. "You come back here," she shouted as she chased after him, but he was too nimble for her to catch. "Give me that gun!" she shouted. Ty smiled. Jason had managed to get his sister to play with him after all.
Dana quickly tired of chasing the boy and said, "Fine then. If you don't come back here and give me the gun, then I'll pop that damn wading pool of yours."
Jason stopped. "No, wait!" he wailed. "Don't. Please."
She beckoned him with a finger. The boy sighed and sauntered over to her with his head hung low. The game was over.
He handed over his gun, and Dana just shook her head. "Such a baby," she said. "Next time you want to play squirt guns, find someone your own age."
That was the last straw for Ty. Luckily, an idea came to him just then. "I wish she would grow younger to be the same age as the first kid she sees whenever she puts on a bathing suit. I wish that her mind would become just as immature as her body does as well. And, I wish that her transformation would last for one hour each time she changes, but she can change again and again once every hour as long as she has a bathing suit on."
Dana looked down at her brother, and immediately she started to shrink. Feeling her body getting smaller and less mature, she said, "What the hell? What's happening to me?" Her height diminished, and her chest flattened, as that dynamite teenage body of hers melted away into childhood. Her glasses slipped off her smaller face, and her bathing suit seemed to flow around her chest like water, reforming into a simple pink one piece bathing suit. It was much more fitting clothing for a little girl to wear than a bikini, Ty thought. He was happy to see that change happen even though he had never specifically wished for it. It would have been awkward for her to have turned into a naked little girl.
Dana stared wide-eyed at her brother as she rapidly found herself eye-to-eye with him. Then, the changes stopped. Two preschool kids stood there in the yard in their bathing suits, staring at each other.
"Whoa," said Jason. "Dana. You're little."
"What?" she squeaked in her newly girlish voice. Her little hands ran over her flat chest and her slightly pudgy belly. "What!?"
"That was cool! How'd you do that?"
"Me? It wasn't me. Why the heck would I do this to myself?" She looked around confused. "What the heck is going on?" She put a hand on her forehead and shook her head. "My head feels all funny. I'm, like, dizzy or somethin'"
"Come on, Dana. How'd you do it? Did you make a wish. Can I have a wish too?" Jason was taking his sister's transformation in stride.
"Shut up, poop head," she said, sounding more like a petulant preschooler. "Even if I had wishes, I wouldn't give one to a poop head like you."
"You sound like a real little girl," said Jason. "And, you're the poop head."
"Nuh uh, you are."
"No, you."
"No, you. Poopy face!"
"Well, you... you're just a big baby."
Dana pointed the gun at Jason and squirted him in the face. As he recoiled and sputtered, Dana took off running. She giggled and taunted him, "Poop head is all wet. Poop head is all wet. Poop head can't catch me."
He chased her around the yard. Once in a while she would stop and take a shot at him. They giggled, and shouted names at each other, and raced about on swift little bare feet. Anyone who might stop to look at the two of them would see nothing but a couple of kids having fun on a sunny day. The only thing anyone would find strange is that there was no apparent adult supervision.
Eventually the two kids found their way back to the wading pool and started gleefully splashing around in it.
"Mission accomplished," said Ty to himself. He left the fence and started back down the sidewalk. The sounds of their splashing and playing followed him around the corner. As he walked by the front of their house, a jeep pulled up into the driveway, and an athletic looking teenager stepped out of it. He wore a T-shirt and board shorts, and looked to be the type of guy that could get a girl like Dana.
"Kevin?" said Ty, smiling.
"Yeah?" he said. "What do you want?"
"I go to school with you," Ty said.
"So?" Kevin looked annoyed.
"Nothing. Just out for a walk. I recognized you and thought I'd say, hi," said Ty, trying to hide his amusement. He could still hear the kids playing in the backyard. "So, hi."
"Buzz off, weirdo," he said and walked to Dana's backyard fence gate.
"Have a fun day," Ty said and walked off down the street. "I sure hope you don't mind babysitting, Kevin," Ty said when Kevin was too far away to hear him. "You'll probably end up doing a lot of it if you and Dana like going to the beach a lot. It's too bad really. She had a nice bikini body."
Ty imagined the confusion that was waiting for Kevin in Dana's backyard. He imagined the next time Dana dared to wear a bathing suit in public. How young would she get then? He worried that she might stop wearing bathing suits altogether if she figured out why she kept turning into a kid. And so, he made a final wish for her, "I wish that Dana will always want to put on a bathing suit whenever the weather is nice enough to wear one. She won't be able to stop herself." He smiled, imagining all the playtime that Dana was destined to have in the future. "That ought to do it."
He walked on looking for his next target. It was a beautiful day, and he was really having fun.