Later that night, after Tom had gone home and Jim and Judy had cleaned up for bed. Jim was sitting on his bed in his sleep shorts and T-shirt when he heard his sister call his name.
"Jimmy," she said. "Um, could you come here a second."
Jim frowned and walked into her room. He saw her standing next to her bed, wearing a long T-shirt like she normally did when she slept. She held a red baseball cap in her hand.
"Whoa," Jim said as he looked at her bed. The frame below it was noticeably bent in the middle. "That might be hard to explain."
"Yeah," Judy said sadly. "That's one problem."
"One problem?" Jim asked.
"Yeah," Judy said. "Then, there's this other problem." She lifted up the red cap and put it on her head. When she let it go, the brim immediately slid down over her eyes. It was a bit too big for her head.
Jim winced. "Did that used to fit you before?" he asked.
She nodded her head as the cap slid around on top of it. She turned the brim around backwards and gave Jim a worried look. "It's still too small," she said. "My head isn't back to normal."
Jim nodded thoughtfully. "Well," he said. "What do we do?"
Judy just thought a moment and shrugged her shoulders. "I guess we'll think up some story about the bed. We could say a bookshelf fell on it."
"Yeah," Jim said. "And the other thing...?"
Judy sighed and lifted the cap from her head. She adjusted the plastic straps on the back of it, resizing it down, and put it back on her head. It fit her just right, then. "I guess that'll do it," she said hollowly.
"I guess," Jim replied. "No one should notice."
She sighed and took the cap off. "Right. Well, goodnight. It's been a long day." She climbed up on her bent bed carefully and said, "Ew, it's still a little damp from my tears." She sighed again as she lay down and turned off her light.
"Good night," said Jim.
When he was back in his bed, he smiled contentedly to himself. It HAD been a long day, but a fun one, in spite of all of the problems. He decided two things then as he drifted off to sleep. One, he wasn't going to play around with the size of his sister's head anymore. She would just have to get used to it being a little bit smaller than usual, a little reminder for her to behave better. And, two, he and Tom were going to try some even crazier things with the balloon as soon as possible.