"First things first," I said slowly, avoiding Sarah's question. "What's in the backpacks? That should give us a little bit more information."
Sarah knelt down, moving somewhat awkwardly in her new school uniform. She reached over and grabbed first the green backpack, which she slid over to me, and then tugged the pink one over for herself. "Jeez. These are heavy. What's in these?"
"Let's see," I muttered. I hauled the green backpack up onto my lap. It was heavy, though I of course had to attribute a large part of that to my much smaller and weaker body. Ten minutes ago, I could certainly have carried this thing with little effort. It really was crammed full, though. I shuffled through a couple of books. "They're all textbooks. There's a math book here, sure enough. Social studies. Science. Ew. 'Geology.'"
I pulled out the math book out and opened the front cover. Sure enough, there was a sticker with my name, in big block markered print the way a middle-schooler might write. The way I might write, I realized. I wondered if my small motor skills had regressed, too. Sarah had done the same and was staring wide-eyed at "Introductory Geometry: Grade 6."
I fumbled around a bit more in the backpack and found a small notebook. "Assignment Book," the front cover read. I opened it to today's date and saw, in the same ungainly handwriting, "Math: Exercise 7.2, #1-25 odds." There were other assignments, too, in almost every subject. Some had little check marks next to them, as if someone (me?) had already completed them.
"We can't be... do you think?" Sarah was saying quietly.
I didn't know what to say. Clearly something bigger had happened than simply the regression of our bodies and clothes to their sixth grade form. The teacher's approach to us, these backpacks full of things that clearly belonged to us, all pointed towards sudden full membership back in the pre-puberty club. I looked despairingly down at my starched white polo and bulky navy dress pants. What if we were stuck like this? How were we going to find out what was going on?
Out of curiosity, I opened the math book to Exercise 7.2. Triangles. At least this wouldn't be difficult, I thought glumly. After all, this was what we were here to do, to help kids with stuff like this. "Should we just blow through the homework?" I wondered out loud. "One thing at a time. We finish what's apparently expected of us, since we look like this, and then we can at least show someone that we don't belong here? I think they're going to think otherwise, though..."
"Show who, though?" Sarah asked.
I wasn't sure, so I stared blankly at the math. Triangles. Area of triangles. I grabbed a sheet of looseleaf paper from a folder in my backpack and looked at number one. "Base: 6, Height: 10. Area: [?]."
I looked at the question blankly. I knew I knew how to do this. I'd been helping kids with these sorts of questions less than a half hour ago. And yet... I realized suddenly I wasn't sure what a base was. Base of what? Did triangles have bases? I looked around the page, hoping there was a picture or something. My heart sank. "Sarah..."
"What?"
"See if you can do this question." I showed her the first math problem.
"Yeah, of course, it's ... uh... Oh. Shit." She looked up at me. "Have we forgotten everything? Can you not remember how to do this either?"
I just nodded. As much as I racked my brain, this simple little geometry problem stumped me. My palms were sweating, and I folded my now-tiny, hairless arms to try to hide the fact that I was shaking slightly. Not only had the little girl made us look like sixth-graders. It seemed our knowledge was suddenly back at middle-school level, too.