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Babysitting-wise, this wasn’t David’s first rodeo. He’d watched kids for friends and neighbors in the past, so he was prepared to go through a few obligatory rituals: He talked about safety, about how the boys’ mother expected them to behave, and then he submitted himself to a short tour of the house before sitting down and discussing what the kids could do during his visit.

Of course, all of this was done from the surreal vantage point of being snatched up and passed between squeezes from tree-trunk-like fingers on an extended roller coaster ride around rooms bigger than airplane hangars during a barrage of questions and loud, hyperactive conversation. At least Cade had asked politely before picking him up and starting the ordeal. Conor was a little less polite when he would leave David out of the decision making while whining at his brother to “give him a turn.”

In a span of the first 45-or-so minutes — the most nerve-wracking 45 minutes of David’s life up to that point — he had (after being carried all over the building) gone over house rules while Cade cuddled him against his IMAX-sized chest, he had demonstrated his (somewhat rusty) longboard proficiency while titanic bare feet thundered beside him, and he had left little footprints all around a giant homework paper, reading math problems in 800-point font, as Conor struggled with remembering the difference between mean, median and mode and bemoaned his mother’s insistence that he finish his homework before playing.

And then, as David once again found himself gently grasped by a giant boy’s hand, he knew the playing must officially begin.

“So, little bros,” David asked, willing himself away from trembling in the warm cradle of Conor’s hand, “What kind of stuff did you want to do today? Did you want to watch a movie or TV or anything?”

It was unlikely he’d get a break like that — the serene, tranquil activity of sitting quietly in front of a screen.

“Giants don’t watch TV,” Cade said in an absolute deadpan, as if it were the most fundamental concept in life. “Mom has a giant-sized iPad that we watch movies on sometimes, but I think she took it with her.”

“We were playing a game while we were waiting for you to get here,” Conor said, petting his human friend’s back a little bit. “It’s a cool game with trains, and I was going to win.”

“What? No you weren’t!” Cade exclaimed, and Conor smirked at him.

“Would you guys want to finish that game?” David asked.

Cade seemed nonplussed, but Conor piped up, “Yeah, let’s finish it! And that’ll give you a break from being held so much.”

David raised his eyebrows and beamed a smile up at the set of gray eyes hanging over him. Gold star for Conor! “Thanks for being considerate, buddy!” David said, filling the boy’s heart with joy and his twin’s heart with a burst of envy.

“We’ll start a new game, and you can play, too,” Cade said as the trio tromped into a carpeted reading room with couches and bookshelves lining the walls. In the middle of the floor sat the disorganized remains of a giant board game consisting of wooden train game pieces (as big as german shepherds), fake bank notes (as big as blankets), and a colorful map of Europe (10 times as big as David’s bedroom at home).

Conor carefully set David down on the board, and the human momentarily gazed at the sea of carpet around him, which looked like an uncountable number of fuzzy, white pool noodles sticking out of the ground. This provided a useful distraction while both huge kids noisily got down on their tummies, creating a small earthquake. “What color train do you want to be?” Cade asked, as he began setting things up, and on they went, pretending to travel the rails of Europe and see the sights.

David caught onto the game quickly — it was a simple matter of acquiring money to pay for a race around the continent — and after a while it became clear that he was the most probable winner. The boys didn’t mind; they were still overflowing with happiness that their human friend was there for them to talk to and play with. Both would occasionally sneak a little pet on David’s back or head (which he did his best to ignore), and they giggled more than once as he struggled to push his heavy train piece along.

From time to time, he would glance up at their enormous faces, most often propped up or resting on their forearms, and their gazes would always be stuck on him, their eyes twinkling. He knew that they were thinking about how “little” and “cute” he was, and it made him feel funny. To be sure, he was a studly high school triathlete, one of the most popular kids at his school, and it bruised his pride a little bit, but it also made him feel … special … in some weird, inexplicable way.

It was Cade’s turn. He launched his upper body into a kneeling position and stretched his arms out, grunting. “I’m finally getting to England,” he said. “I wish I could go there for real. I’m almost as tall as the palace where the queen lives.” He bent down to move his game piece with his right hand, and leaned onto the game board with his left.

This was a mistake. What happened next was like a slow motion train wreck.

The huge board slipped along the carpet fibers, propelled rapidly by the force of Cade’s arm, which buckled under him. With a massive CRASH! the pieces jostled and slid, and the stacks of money toppled. Worst, however, was Cade’s torso, which with a deafening THUD landed right on top of little David, smashing him into the floor.

It took half a second for the giant twins to gasp and realize the gravity of what had just happened. Simultaneously, they burst into wailing, tearful cries.

David, unbeknownst to them, was fine … at least mostly. He was just a few twitches from a hysterical breakdown, but fine. He was currently being smothered by a giant belly behind a circus tent of a white T-shirt, but still, otherwise, he was fine. The anti-crushing magical bracelet on his left wrist worked, apparently. He found himself wishing it could also provide him with air.

Conor was on his feet over his prone brother, rivers of tears gushing from his eyes, his fists clenched. “Get up!” he screamed, loud enough for even David to hear through several feet of living flesh.

Cade was sobbing uncontrollably. “I’m afraid!” he said, and squeezed his eyes shut, clasping his hands around his head. He knew his friend was dead. In the darkest recesses of his subconscious, he feared this very thing would happen, and now his nightmare had come true. He didn’t dare get up and see the mangled, flattened remains.

Conor fumed. He violently grabbed his brother’s wrists and rolled him over. Seeing the tiny human lying still on his back, the boy dropped to his hands and knees and took a close, worried look.

David’s eyes popped open and he took a deep breath just in time for a single stray teardrop to drench his face. “Ackpth!” he said, his arms flailing wildly.

Conor’s brain nearly short-circuited with exultation. “He’s OK!” he almost sang. “Cade, he’s alive!”

Cade scrambled over to his brother’s side and looked, his mouth hanging open and his eyes red with intense crying. He had the hiccups, now.

“-hic- DAVID!” he said. “Are you OK? -hic- … Can you … -hic- get up and walk?”

With some effort compounded by the annoyance of being soaked, David stood up on the unsteady carpet and turned around, managing an embarrassed smile at his young friends. Conor stood up and let out a long, relieved sigh, his hands on his hips. Cade, however, immediately took hold of the human and pressed him against his cheek in a show of affection.

“Well, this is awkward hug number one,” David thought as his body was pressed up against the soft skin, but in his heart he appreciated the loving gesture, and he smiled sincerely as Cade set him back down.

“I’m so sorry, David,” Cade said, his lip still quivering, and he hiccuped again. Like many kids his age, he anticipated the worst, that his friend might not like him anymore. Even those few fleeting thoughts were close to making him cry again.

David waved his hands desperately. “Cade, it’s no prob! I’m safe!” he said. “Look at me, nothing broken! Accidents happen, that’s why your mom gave me some magical protection from crushing.”

Both boys’ eyes widened a bit at that, and Conor smiled with appreciation for his mother’s skills.

Cade, however, while relieved, still felt embarrassed and guilty. “I -hic- need to go to the bathroom,” he said, and with seismic but speedy footsteps, he turned and left the room.

Conor still gazed down at David from his standing position, biting his lip in thought. “You can’t be crushed?” he mused, in almost a whisper.

David had been watching Cade walk away, but then almost had a heart attack when he turned back to Conor. He began to shake, and fell backward at what he saw.

Conor’s left foot — the innocent, unblemished foot of a young boy — was hovering over him. It had to be at least 10 or 12 feet long, big enough to crush a car. Big enough to obliterate David’s body, were he not impervious to damage.

Despite the magical protection, David seized with an instinctive fright. “Conor, what are you doing?” he shouted in a quavering voice.

As if he had been in a trance, Conor suddenly snapped back into alertness and retracted the threatening appendage. “I-I’m sorry,” he said as his face turned crimson. “What is wrong with me?” he thought, mentally berating himself. “What was I thinking?”

David’s left brain made an executive decision to forget what just happened forevermore. It was time to be the babysitter, not the frightened human trapped in a giant house. He cleared his throat. “Conor, I think we need to go cheer up your brother,” he said.

Conor politely picked the little guy up and strolled over to the bathroom. Cade was calming down, his hiccups gone. He was wiping his face with a moist towel as his brother and human friend entered.

“We should play another game,” David said, feeling like such a goof while taking charge from his position in a giant hand. “I think we can all agree that I was going to win the last game — we don’t need to go back and finish.” This made both boys smile just a little, and then they stared at each other for a moment, looking almost as if a little twin telepathy was taking place.

Conor seemed to get a little excited. “There was a game we were wanting to play with you,” he said, and Cade chimed in with a cheerful, “Yeah! Let’s do it.”

The huge twins and their tiny guest went back into the reading room, where Conor set David down on a couch. Cade was walking with a less-than-confident posture, but he seemed almost back to normal as he looked down at his older friend. “We want to play hide and seek,” he said.

David raised one eyebrow. This kind of game seemed a little simplistic for these guys, and his size would be an issue. “Hide and seek? I don’t know about that, little bros. You’re too big to hide, I think. And I don’t know if I can move very fast around this place.” As he said this, he had a flash of memory about his longboard still being on the floor of the entry hall.

“That’s OK!” Conor said, baring a toothy grin. “We figured out a special way to play the game! Wait here!”

And to David’s surprise, both boys ran out of the room and around the corner. He could tell they had stopped there for a bit though, because he could hear them whispering:

“Let me be the good one!”
“What? But I was supposed to be good! We decided!”
“Please! Let me be the good guy! I’ll pay you back!”
“Fine!”

And with that, their massive footsteps receded. David had to wait for quite a few minutes (trapped, bored, on the plateau of a couch) before the twins finally reappeared. They were both grinning like crocodiles, and it took the human just a little bit to notice what was different about them.

They were both dressed exactly alike. They both wore a white T-shirt and blue basketball shorts, and they were both now barefoot. It even seemed like they had pushed their long hair behind their ears in exactly the same way. To top of the creepiness of the situation, in unison they both said, “Hi, little guy! How’s it goin’?”

David just sat there, feeling uneasy, looking up at these somewhat menacing giant kids. He couldn’t tell them apart at all now.

“What are we going to do?” he slowly asked, a little afraid of the answer. “Are we playing hide and seek?”

“Yup,” they said in unison, but then started to alternate.
“You’ll hide somewhere …”
“And one of us will help you …”
“But then, the good one will go away …”
“And the bad one will start looking for you …”
“And the good one will still help you …”
“But you won’t know which is which.”

David felt only the slightest chill go down his spine. This was a neat idea! He wouldn’t know which of them to trust. “Good job guys, this is kind of exciting!” he said. “What happens if the bad one catches me?”

The twin on the right seemed at a loss in response to this question, but the twin on the left grew a predatory smile. “Trust me, you don’t want to be caught,” he said, successfully sounding ominous.

At the beginning of the day, David would have guessed this to be Cade. Even since first meeting the boys, he had figured that Cade was the Chip and Conor was the Dale of the duo. But today, Conor had shown more cleverness. They were both, really, very bright boys.

“OK, guys,” David said. “When do we start?”