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"We should have taken the bus" Uncle says from the back seat as I look for a parking spot.

"Look who's talking." I reply. "You're the one who is always going on about image. Got to show up in the fancy car when we go to visit my sister and her family. Look important to the neighbors."

"That was before it took an hour of showing off the fancy car up and down the street before we could find a place to park. Right now I just want to get out and stretch my legs."

I cut the conversation short when I see an open spot just up the block.

"There's a spot" Brother says.

"I see it."

"Well, hurry up and take it before someone else does."

"Don't rush the driver. Rushing the driver is how you get accidents."

As I'm pulling the car into the open spot, it starts to free-fall for a split second. We all feel it, though none of us know how that could be possible. It lands on an expansive rocky field, bounces, and settles on its side. Oddly enough, there doesn't appear to be any damage. All three of us are shaken up, but apparently not hurt.

I think I piece together what happened before brother or uncle. Looking out over the rocks, I see something vast and black rising from the landscape. It's a gigantic tire, like the one of the car in front of us as we were parking. And this landscape before us looks a lot like the asphalt road, if it were greatly enlarged somehow. We've been shrunk, car and all.

People really get shrunk, like randomly assaulted on the street by women with shrinking machines? I've heard that's a thing that happens sometimes now, but I thought that was nonsense the broadcast companies made up to sell more news. I've never seen a shrunken person before, much less been one.

"What are you seeing?" I ask apprehensively, hoping somehow this is all some strange dream. Hopefully I haven't fallen asleep driving!

Brother reads the license plate of the giant car in front of us.

"All I see are shoes" Uncle says. I turn to look out the back window to see what he's talking about. As I'm turning I glance upward out the side window and see a gigantic girl leaning over us. She reaches down with a hand over our car, enveloping it with just her fingers. We feel the vehicle lift, and a moment later we're rightside-up, seeing her face out the front windshield. Now that I'm seeing her tower-sized face, I recognize her as the more-or-less grown up version of a neighbor girl my sister's children used to play with as kids. I can't remember her name, but all of us have met her at one time or another.

"My first car." she says with a laugh, her voice reverberating through the car.

"She thinks she's stealing the car!" Uncle exclaims. "Wave to her. Let her know we're still in it!" Before we can react, the girl is carefully dropping us into some small plastic bottle. It looks like a test tube, or one of those little jars that vaccines come in. We see the lid popped on from the inside and we're slid into what I can only assume is her pocket.

There's fabric all around us. We're so small I can easily see the individual threads woven together. It never stops moving. We're jostlled about constantly, our car rattled in the bottle and us rattled in the car. The safety belts are the only things holding us in place.

"Shut off the engine." Brother says. "Or else we'll suffocate from the fumes."

I don't think the bottle is small enough to kill us with carbon monoxide buildup from just one engine, but I do it anyway. Just to avoid an argument.

"Why her pocket?" Brother asks. "She could have at least tucked us in her underwear."

"Don't talk like that." I answer. "This girl is half your age. Until recently I would have called her a kid."

"It's only polite. If she's going to abduct us like this, the least she could do is give us a show."

"Shut up, DiCaprio."

Brother has been a bit of a pervert for all of his adult life, really. It wouldn't be so bad if most of his tasteless jokes weren't about women much younger than him. It's gotten bad enough that half the family has started calling him DiCaprio as a joke. And a hint, which he has refused to take. We do our best to keep him from getting himself in trouble. And occasionally we have to cover for him when he does screw up. That's what family does; we take care of eachother.

"Fine time to lose signal!" Brother snaps, fidgeting with his phone.

"It's not going to work." I say.

"Why not?"

"It's too small. The radio waves that cell phones use are too big for a shrunken phone to use. It's about the size of the transmitter and receiver. It's science stuff."

"You're just making that up."

"Also, on our scale the nearest cell phone tower is probably a couple hundred kilometers away."

We spend hours rattling around in the tube in that pocket. I'm sick to my stomach. Brother's complaining constantly. Uncle throws up. Twice.

Without any warning, we see her hand wrap around the tube and we're yanked out. The tube is opened and we're dumped out onto a hard, smooth surface. I think it's glass.

With us rightside-up again, it's a little easier to get my bearings. Looking around I see some sort of laboratory. It reminds me of a science classroom, but it's very fancy. It probably is a classroom. Sister likes to talk about how she moved here because the schools are first-rate.

"Get out of the car and wave to her." Uncle urges. "So she knows we're in here."

"She already knows there's someone in here." Brother grumbles. "The car was moving when she shrank it."

I'm already getting out of the car, as is Uncle. Brother follows. Uncle rolls gracelessly onto the ground and takes a moment to pick himself up. Brother doesn't help him.

"What does she want with us?" Uncle asks.

"I don't know." I answer. "This isn't a movie where the villain gives you a big monologue."

Looking around again, I realize we're on a microscope slide, right as the girl sits down in front of us. Above I can see the lower half of her face as she looks into the microscope, down at us. There are other giant people in the room, a teacher and some other girls. I hear them talk but can hardly understand what they're saying. There are other microscopes, but it looks like this is the only one with shrunken people under it. They're too far away for me to tell for certain. Glancing, back, I see Brother staring right at the girl's chest.

"Stop that." I tell him.

"What?"

"You're gawking so hard even she can see it." Truth is I have no idea how clearly she can see us through that microscope.

"They're right in front of us! She won't be able to tell what I'm looking at. Anyway, she should take it as a compliment. She's very well-developed for her age."

"That isn't how compliments work." I can feel myself getting mad at him, so I take a minute to make certain Uncle is alright before talking with him again.

Brother is still staring. To distract him, I ask "Why stare at the girl when her teacher is quite the firecracker?" I'm hoping being more on his level will help me get through to him. It doesn't work, even though to be honest the teacher is quite a sight. I wish she had shrunk us instead of some teenage girl.

"They're huge." Brother mutters, probably to himself rather than me. He's slowly stepping towards the girl's chest as though it had hypnotized him. "Imagine how they-"

Brother is cut off by stepping off the block we're on and falling to the plate below. Above us I see the girl smile, and the sound of her laughing resonates through my chest and the ground I'm standing on, whatever it is. As much as I would rather be laughing at him too, I have to jump down to make certain he's alright. Uncle follows me. Family takes care of family, like it or not. But I swear if we make it through this I'm lacing Brother's food with salt peter from now on.

Uncle waves to some other student who is staring at us, presumable the girl's friend or lab partner. He's probably hoping the other girl will be more sympathetic. I barely notice it as I'm busy trying to talk some sense into my brother. The two gargantuin students exchange a few friendly words with eachother while looking us.

Brother tells me with sudden smug optimism "She knows us. I'm sure this will all get sorted out once she sees our faces." He always gets all nonchalant when he's trying to distract from some uncomfortable fact. "Just get back under the lens, look up at it so she can see who you are, and wave hello."

"If it's that easy why didn't you show her your face and wave in the first place?"

"Well, uh.." he stutters.

"Figured. You're the reason we're in this mess at all, DiCaprio." I said it flippantly, just the anger talking, but once the words came out I realized it was probably true. Brother must have said something inappropriate to the girl when none of us were there to hear it, and now she's taking revenge by shrinking us and using us for some school science project. The look on Brother's face tells me I'm right. I address him by his name. "What exactly did you say to this girl?"

He hesitates. "Well, it was a long time ago. I'm sure she's forgotten."

Incredulous, I gesture up at the gigantic girl who has kidnapped us. "Does it look like she's forgotten? What did you say to her?"

He doesn't answer. While he's hesitating the girl catches him with her gloved fingertips. He disappears in wrinkles of blue rubber. She slides the platform with the car on it away, and drops him right under the microscope lens. With her other hand she changes lenses. Brother stands as her hand comes back, this time with a toothpick in it. She taps him with the side of it to knock him over again and places the tip on top of him. Through the sound of her chuckling I can hear a crunch that I think is Brother's arm under that toothpick.

Will I be next? I can't help but wonder what she's going to do to me. Maybe we'll get lucky, and she'll let Uncle and myself go when she's done whatever she wants to do to Brother. I personally never mistreated her, and I doubt Uncle has. Is she angry with us for covering for Brother? Will she smash us just because she'll be afraid to let us go after killing Brother in front of us? Will she keep us shrunken like her little pets? The news says women who shrink men sometimes do that. Hopefully she just wants to scare Brother straight, and not actually crush him under her thumb or some other gruesome thing.

But if we do make it out of this alive, I'm never covering for Brother again. Family or no.

Description
"We should have taken the bus" Uncle says from the back seat as I look for a parking spot.

"Look who's talking." I reply. "You're the one who is always going on about image. Got to show up in the fancy car when we go to visit my sister and her family. Look important to the neighbors."

"That was before it took an hour of showing off the fancy car up and down the street before we could find a place to park. Right now I just want to get out and stretch my legs."

I cut the conversation short when I see an open spot just up the block.

"There's a spot" Brother says.

"I see it."

"Well, hurry up and take it before someone else does."

"Don't rush the driver. Rushing the driver is how you get accidents."

As I'm pulling the car into the open spot, it starts to free-fall for a split second. We all feel it, though none of us know how that could be possible. It lands on an expansive rocky field, bounces, and settles on its side. Oddly enough, there doesn't appear to be any damage. All three of us are shaken up, but apparently not hurt.

I think I piece together what happened before brother or uncle. Looking out over the rocks, I see something vast and black rising from the landscape. It's a gigantic tire, like the one of the car in front of us as we were parking. And this landscape before us looks a lot like the asphalt road, if it were greatly enlarged somehow. We've been shrunk, car and all.

People really get shrunk, like randomly assaulted on the street by women with shrinking machines? I've heard that's a thing that happens sometimes now, but I thought that was nonsense the broadcast companies made up to sell more news. I've never seen a shrunken person before, much less been one.

"What are you seeing?" I ask apprehensively, hoping somehow this is all some strange dream. Hopefully I haven't fallen asleep driving!

Brother reads the license plate of the giant car in front of us.

"All I see are shoes" Uncle says. I turn to look out the back window to see what he's talking about. As I'm turning I glance upward out the side window and see a gigantic girl leaning over us. She reaches down with a hand over our car, enveloping it with just her fingers. We feel the vehicle lift, and a moment later we're rightside-up, seeing her face out the front windshield. Now that I'm seeing her tower-sized face, I recognize her as the more-or-less grown up version of a neighbor girl my sister's children used to play with as kids. I can't remember her name, but all of us have met her at one time or another.

"My first car." she says with a laugh, her voice reverberating through the car.

"She thinks she's stealing the car!" Uncle exclaims. "Wave to her. Let her know we're still in it!" Before we can react, the girl is carefully dropping us into some small plastic bottle. It looks like a test tube, or one of those little jars that vaccines come in. We see the lid popped on from the inside and we're slid into what I can only assume is her pocket.

There's fabric all around us. We're so small I can easily see the individual threads woven together. It never stops moving. We're jostlled about constantly, our car rattled in the bottle and us rattled in the car. The safety belts are the only things holding us in place.

"Shut off the engine." Brother says. "Or else we'll suffocate from the fumes."

I don't think the bottle is small enough to kill us with carbon monoxide buildup from just one engine, but I do it anyway. Just to avoid an argument.

"Why her pocket?" Brother asks. "She could have at least tucked us in her underwear."

"Don't talk like that." I answer. "This girl is half your age. Until recently I would have called her a kid."

"It's only polite. If she's going to abduct us like this, the least she could do is give us a show."

"Shut up, DiCaprio."

Brother has been a bit of a pervert for all of his adult life, really. It wouldn't be so bad if most of his tasteless jokes weren't about women much younger than him. It's gotten bad enough that half the family has started calling him DiCaprio as a joke. And a hint, which he has refused to take. We do our best to keep him from getting himself in trouble. And occasionally we have to cover for him when he does screw up. That's what family does; we take care of eachother.

"Fine time to lose signal!" Brother snaps, fidgeting with his phone.

"It's not going to work." I say.

"Why not?"

"It's too small. The radio waves that cell phones use are too big for a shrunken phone to use. It's about the size of the transmitter and receiver. It's science stuff."

"You're just making that up."

"Also, on our scale the nearest cell phone tower is probably a couple hundred kilometers away."

We spend hours rattling around in the tube in that pocket. I'm sick to my stomach. Brother's complaining constantly. Uncle throws up. Twice.

Without any warning, we see her hand wrap around the tube and we're yanked out. The tube is opened and we're dumped out onto a hard, smooth surface. I think it's glass.

With us rightside-up again, it's a little easier to get my bearings. Looking around I see some sort of laboratory. It reminds me of a science classroom, but it's very fancy. It probably is a classroom. Sister likes to talk about how she moved here because the schools are first-rate.

"Get out of the car and wave to her." Uncle urges. "So she knows we're in here."

"She already knows there's someone in here." Brother grumbles. "The car was moving when she shrank it."

I'm already getting out of the car, as is Uncle. Brother follows. Uncle rolls gracelessly onto the ground and takes a moment to pick himself up. Brother doesn't help him.

"What does she want with us?" Uncle asks.

"I don't know." I answer. "This isn't a movie where the villain gives you a big monologue."

Looking around again, I realize we're on a microscope slide, right as the girl sits down in front of us. Above I can see the lower half of her face as she looks into the microscope, down at us. There are other giant people in the room, a teacher and some other girls. I hear them talk but can hardly understand what they're saying. There are other microscopes, but it looks like this is the only one with shrunken people under it. They're too far away for me to tell for certain. Glancing, back, I see Brother staring right at the girl's chest.

"Stop that." I tell him.

"What?"

"You're gawking so hard even she can see it." Truth is I have no idea how clearly she can see us through that microscope.

"They're right in front of us! She won't be able to tell what I'm looking at. Anyway, she should take it as a compliment. She's very well-developed for her age."

"That isn't how compliments work." I can feel myself getting mad at him, so I take a minute to make certain Uncle is alright before talking with him again.

Brother is still staring. To distract him, I ask "Why stare at the girl when her teacher is quite the firecracker?" I'm hoping being more on his level will help me get through to him. It doesn't work, even though to be honest the teacher is quite a sight. I wish she had shrunk us instead of some teenage girl.

"They're huge." Brother mutters, probably to himself rather than me. He's slowly stepping towards the girl's chest as though it had hypnotized him. "Imagine how they-"

Brother is cut off by stepping off the block we're on and falling to the plate below. Above us I see the girl smile, and the sound of her laughing resonates through my chest and the ground I'm standing on, whatever it is. As much as I would rather be laughing at him too, I have to jump down to make certain he's alright. Uncle follows me. Family takes care of family, like it or not. But I swear if we make it through this I'm lacing Brother's food with salt peter from now on.

Uncle waves to some other student who is staring at us, presumable the girl's friend or lab partner. He's probably hoping the other girl will be more sympathetic. I barely notice it as I'm busy trying to talk some sense into my brother. The two gargantuin students exchange a few friendly words with eachother while looking us.

Brother tells me with sudden smug optimism "She knows us. I'm sure this will all get sorted out once she sees our faces." He always gets all nonchalant when he's trying to distract from some uncomfortable fact. "Just get back under the lens, look up at it so she can see who you are, and wave hello."

"If it's that easy why didn't you show her your face and wave in the first place?"

"Well, uh.." he stutters.

"Figured. You're the reason we're in this mess at all, DiCaprio." I said it flippantly, just the anger talking, but once the words came out I realized it was probably true. Brother must have said something inappropriate to the girl when none of us were there to hear it, and now she's taking revenge by shrinking us and using us for some school science project. The look on Brother's face tells me I'm right. I address him by his name. "What exactly did you say to this girl?"

He hesitates. "Well, it was a long time ago. I'm sure she's forgotten."

Incredulous, I gesture up at the gigantic girl who has kidnapped us. "Does it look like she's forgotten? What did you say to her?"

He doesn't answer. While he's hesitating the girl catches him with her gloved fingertips. He disappears in wrinkles of blue rubber. She slides the platform with the car on it away, and drops him right under the microscope lens. With her other hand she changes lenses. Brother stands as her hand comes back, this time with a toothpick in it. She taps him with the side of it to knock him over again and places the tip on top of him. Through the sound of her chuckling I can hear a crunch that I think is Brother's arm under that toothpick.

Will I be next? I can't help but wonder what she's going to do to me. Maybe we'll get lucky, and she'll let Uncle and myself go when she's done whatever she wants to do to Brother. I personally never mistreated her, and I doubt Uncle has. Is she angry with us for covering for Brother? Will she smash us just because she'll be afraid to let us go after killing Brother in front of us? Will she keep us shrunken like her little pets? The news says women who shrink men sometimes do that. Hopefully she just wants to scare Brother straight, and not actually crush him under her thumb or some other gruesome thing.

But if we do make it out of this alive, I'm never covering for Brother again. Family or no.