It took a few minutes for the reality to truly sink in. These were, after all, 13-year-olds, regardless of how they now
looked.
Simon knew he had to do something to reverse what had happened to Heather - but what?
He looked to Ed, still tangled in his teen-size clothing and just reached down and scooped up his now 6-year-old firend
and, one hand under Ed's butt, carried him to the couch.
Ed was still in a slight state of shock. He realized he was clad now in only an oversized shirt, and that his (to him) HUGE
buddy, Simon, was carrying him like a little kid, but stil, almost instinctively, wrapped his little arms around Simon's
neck when he was picked up.
Simon sat on the couch, then popped right back up, wincing (he had sat on his tail!) and plopped Ed down onto the sofa's
soft cushion. Ed's pudgy legs stuck straight out, feet just barely poking past the edge of the cushion.
Simon, a hand on each hip, skooched his jeans down until they hung low on his pelvis, then reached around and freed his new
appendage from the elastic of his briefs.
"Ahh, that's better," he said, testing how the tail moved by slightly shaking his hips back and forth. Quickly, he realized
he kind of liked the new addition, and made a mental note to grow a tail again in case he lost this one.
Holding the furry tip up with one hand, he carefully sat next to Ed, brushing the long locks hanging over one eye aside. He
grabbed the youngster's shoulders and shook him slightly.
"Look, Ed, I know you're still YOU. We've got to fix what happened to Heather or we're gonna catch holy hell! Ed! Bud! Stay
with me here!"
The insistent sound of Simon's voice was something Ed could finally focus on. He looked up - way up - into Simon's frantic
eyes and nodded.
"OK, I'm going to go over and try to undo this. You stay put here. Don't move. Don't touch anything. OK?" Simon asked.
Ed nodded again, now aware that his vision was becoming blurry from incipient tears as the full realization of Heather's
fate hit him. Ed sniffed loudly and ran one drooping sleeve across his nose.
Simon didn't know how much time, if any, he might have to bring Heather back. He went to the computer desk and grabbed the
manual (his tail, sticking out from beneath his shirt, wagged as he walked) and turned to the index, looked for a chapter
on 'restore' or 'undo.' Still standing, tail slowly swishing in a horizontal arc, he moved a finger across the page he'd
been directed to by the index.
"Got it!" he shouted. "There's a universal undo command. That should fix up Heather and then we can restore you and me,
too." Simon's tail was bobbing back and forth more vigorously now.
Carefully, he sat in the desk chair, reaching around behind to position his tail so that it stuck out between the seat and
the chair's ergonomically-designed backrest. Again he had to brush his very long hair aside and hook it behind his ears.
Simon brought up Heather's stats on the screen and entered the restore command. Before his index finger had lifted from the
Enter key he stared at the still-darker spot on the carpet where Heather had been.
5 seconds.
10 seconds.
15.
Nothing.
"Damn. Damn, damn damn!" Simnon shouted, pounding a fist onto the desktop.
"Um, Thimon?" Ed lisped. "Thimon? Maybe it'th becauth Hea-thuh wan it thwough the thee-D pwogwam? Maybe we have to all be
togethuh and, wike, thtand wheaw we wuh befaw?" Another loud sniffle followed the boy's comment.
"Huh? What?" Simon answered, distracted. "Of course! It ran through a buffer, she said, and then all three of us got zapped
at once!" With that he went to the couch and picked Ed up by his underarms, high into the air. "Ed, you're a freakin'
genius! Heather's hacking must've overridden a safety feature. I'm sure when I first looked at the manual that it said you
couldn't go back that far!" Ed grinned broadly, showing a gap where one tooth was missing.
"Put me down!" he insisted, wary of how long a way it appeared to be to the floor. "I thtand wight wheaw I wath befaw. You
can pwobabwy weach the keybawd by bending ovuh - hey, I bet that tayuw of yaws can weach! Wet'th thee!"
Ed grabbed Simon's tail, pulled and, as if casting a fishing rod, dropped the tip in a long arch towards the desk. "Hey,
careful. That's attached, you know!" Simon protested, but Ed was right. Simon's tail could just reach the keyboard.
"All right, then. You stand over here," Simon pointed to the spot, "and I'll stand here and hit the key with my tail. Now
we have to make sure we know which program Heather integrated into the game. I remmber whe said something about music ...."
"Wike a jukeboxth!" Ed offered.
"That was it - she said it would use a random access and play program. I know which one that is!" Simon exulted. "So we
have to set up the game with all three of us onscreen, access the CD and use the undo command three times to put the 'undo'
into the buffer - I hope!"
Ed, raealizing his present size effectively made him useless for this part of the task, was studying parts of himself at
their new dimension. He glanced over to Heather's 'position' and prompted, "Huwwy, Thimon! The thpot'th dwying up!"
Simon brushed hair aside yet again. Although it wasn't particularly hot in the room, he was sweating. A trickle of moisture
ran down his back, splitting into two rivulets as it hit the base of his tail. "That -- ought -- to -- do -- it!" he said
and stepped back to his designated spot. "Cross your fingers, bud," he told little Ed.
Grabbing his tail, Simon, looking over one shoulder, guided it towards the desk, until the furry tip hovered just over the
keyboard. "3 -- 2 -- 1 -- NOW!" he shouted.
The soft sound of the CD whirring up was all they heard.
It wasn't like the previous time. Simon and Ed would later swear they had blacked out and couldn't recall anything. All
they knoew was that the whir of the computer was replaced by a clunking and then grinding sound, and, the next thing they
knew, thew change had occurred.
Ed, 13 again, was naked from the waist down.
Simon, now tailless and with his original hairstyle, was strill as tall as he'd be at 16, just as he's been before the
three of them had tried the game.
And Heather. Heather had not so much grown up as just popped back in, lying on one side on the carpet. She was 12 again.
She was also naked as a jaybird and covered from head to toes with a film of something moist and a bit sticky. It took
several minuted for the boys to wake her. They tried to wipe off as much of the substance as they could, but were too
embarrassed to accomplish much.
No matter what the boys said, she insisted that nothing had happened except that, somehow, "you two perverts" had conspired
to undress her.
The serious insistence of both boys finally calmed her down and she began to accept their story, but a veneer of doubt
still kept her in a foul mood. She was upset at the ';yucky' stuff on her skin, too, and neither boy had an explanation for
that - Heather coudn't even begin to guess why they'd done that to her and slowly, slowly acquiesced to their denials and
apologies.
Ed, heedless of his own half-clothed state, handed Heather her clothies and turned away, pulling Simon's arm to signal him
to do the same.
"Don't you wiggle your ass at me, smarty-pants Simon. I'm still mad at you, you know," Heather said as she dressed.
"What?" Simon thought. "Oh," he smirked. Unconsciously, he had been trying to move his tail, which was now no more. Simon
sighed. He really missed it. In just a short time, it had seemed to be so natural a part of him!