It was one of the teachers who had originally interviewed us for our job as tutors. I couldn't remember her name, but she was approaching fast. She looked huge. She had certainly been shorter than me when I was adult-sized, but now I was barely five feet, if that, and I couldn't have weighed more than a hundred pounds. I shuddered to think what my new clothes size might have been. "What are we going to say?" Sarah repeated.
"Maybe we can explain ourselves."
"Explain ourselves?" she squeaked. "How? We can't tell her we just changed into kids! That's crazy!"
"Well that's what happened," I shot back, wishing my voice sounded more forceful than it did. I reached up to brush my hair back and realized it was altogether too short. My hand hit an awkward few bristly strands and, of course, the pimples.
And then she was in front of us. "Where's your homework?"
"Our homework..." Sarah stammered. "Uh... we're not... We don't have..."
"Sarah," the teacher admonished. Sarah's eyes went wide. How did she...? "Everyone has homework. I know you have homework, young lady. I gave you some today. Where's your math book?"
"My... my math book?" Sarah stuttered. She was unconsciously smoothing the front of her jumper skirt. "I don't have..."
"You don't have it? Where is it? Don't you have your backpack with you?" The teacher looked around. I felt dazed. How did this woman know Sarah's name? And she was acting as though Sarah was just an ordinary sixth-grade student. An ordinary sixth-grade student who happened to be in this teacher's math class, no less. "Ah! There it is!" She was pointing under the table, and both Sarah and I leaned down to look. A bulging bright pink backpack with the initials S.A.S. was leaning up against one of the table legs. Next to it was a forest green one, unmonogrammed, but I knew immediately to whom it belonged.
"Math books, both of you, and get busy. Christopher, I know you have mathematics to do, too. Neither of you can afford to be spending this hour goofing off. Your practices start soon." She glanced up at the clock.
She strutted away, leaving Sarah and I in a sort of haze. I turned to look at Sarah. She had a completely dumbfounded look on her chimpunky, freckled face. Her mouth was hanging open, her new buckteeth sticking out and braces on view for all the world to see.
"How did she know our names?"