by Lou Kuenzler
I toppled backwards. I just had time to grab the edge of the napkin and pull it over my head again as the spade with me on board. For a moment, it felt as if I were in a super-fast lift, shooting to the top of a multi-storey building.
“Yuck!” I heard Rosie’s voice as she came closer. “That napkin is dirty,” she said, sounding very bossy. I couldn’t see, but I imagined she probably had her hands on her hips, or was waggling her finger like a teacher.
“Drop it down, silly!” Rosie commanded.
“It’s only wubbish!” said the voice. But the spade tipped…
“Wheeeeeeee!”
I flew through the air, my napkin billowing around me like a tiny superhero’s cape.
I landed face down in the sandpit again.
I lay still, trying to catch my breath. But I knew I should try and make a run for it.
A spadeful of sand rained down on top of me.
If I moved, someone might see me. But if I stayed here, I’d be buried as if I were in a desert tomb.
I remembered the school project we did last term about Ancient Egypt. I did not want to be found under a giant pyramid of sand, all and like a miniature Egyptian mummy, wrapped up in napkin bandages.
Keep calm, I told myself.
“Stinky litter. Put it in the bin,” said Rosie. She sounded as if she was almost on top of me. I could see the dark shadow of her fingers through the napkin. Her hand was just a centimetre away – like a
“Yucky. Dirty rubbish,” she said.
Her grabber-claw fingers swooped down.
Yikes! I wanted to scream. But I lay as still as a teaspoon in a drawer, trying not to breathe.
It was no good – the minute she lifted the napkin, Rosie saw me.
“Tiffney! Tiffney!” she cried, pointing down at the sand. “Look. Someone has lost their teeny-tiny dolly.”
“Really?” Tiffany sounded bored. I heard the of the little hand mirror she carries everywhere and guessed she was checking her lipstick. This is it, I thought as her shadow fell across me. No matter how still I lie or how tiny I am, Tiffany will recognize me straight away. I am her sister, after all. We share a bedroom, for goodness’ sake. Even though Tiff spends about twenty-three and half hours a day staring at her own reflection, she must have looked at me long enough to know that Rosie’s teeny-tiny lost dolly had my freckled face, my short, brown hair and…
… just at that second Tiffany got a text message.
“Hang on, Rosie. It’s from my friend Monique,” Tiff said. “I wonder what she wants?”
“What about the dolly?” whined Rosie.
“Keep it if you like,” shrugged Tiffany. She was right above me, but I could see she was staring at her text without even glancing at the ground. “Things get lost and buried in the sandpit all the time.”
“Goody!” cheered Rosie. Her hot, pink fingers closed around me and she lifted me up.
I lay as still as I could, pretending that I really was a lost toy.
Rosie opened her hand and looked at me.
“I am going to call you Princess Tiny-Twinkle-In-My-Pocket,” she said, grinning down at me with a big gappy-toothed smile.
“That’s a weally silly name,” said the boy, leaning over her. He poked his finger at me. “She doesn’t even look like a pwincess.” He pulled at my brand new purple-and-black shorts. They are just like the ones that Stella Lightfoot wears. “These aren’t pwincess clothes,” he spat.
Rosie turned her back on him.
“You are a princess aren’t you, dolly? You are Princess Tiny-Twinkle,” she said, pulling me up to stand by the roots of my hair.
I screamed inside my head. THAT HURTS!
“First I’m going to take you home,” smiled Rosie. “Then I am going to give you a total princess makeover … with real
As Rosie across the sandpit, I risked glancing from side to side, desperately hoping to see Nisha. She must have reached the bookshop by now. As soon as she realized I was missing, she’d be sure to come back to the park to look for me. But there was no sign of her yet.
At this rate, I’d never escape from Rosie and I’d never get to see Stella Lightfoot…
At the edge of the sandpit, Tiffany was still texting on her phone.
Rosie stopped skipping and peered at me. For a moment I thought she might have seen me blink. Her big blue eyes narrowed. “What’s that?” she said, licking her finger. She rubbed at my as though they were drawn on with pen and might come off if she scrubbed at them hard enough.
Then she puckered up her lips and planted a big wet right on the end of my nose.
Yuck!
She smacked her lips together, ready to kiss me again.
I can’t stand this, I thought, just as the boy ran over and grabbed me by my feet.
“Get off,” cried Rosie.
“I weally want to look at her.” yanked hard on my ankles.
“NO!” Rosie held on by my hair.
The two of them like a tiny Christmas cracker.
“Hey!” At last Tiffany noticed them fighting and turned around. She must be the worst babysitter in the world.
“Stop that,” she said. Tiff grabbed hold of me. She didn’t look down but I was left dangling from her hand by one arm, my feet as if I were clinging to the monkey bars.
“Come on, Rosie,” said Tiffany. “We’re going home.”
“But what about Princess Tiny-Twinkle? I want to carry her,” said Rosie.
“Well, you can’t.” Tiffany threw me into her open handbag. “You can have her when we get back,” she said. “That little doll has caused enough trouble already.”
Tiff quickly zipped up her handbag and I was
Tiffany’s bag rocked from side to side like a rowing boat in a storm as she walked along.
Just when I thought I might be seasick, the swaying stopped. We must be at Rosie’s house. There was a heavy as Tiffany threw her handbag down.
Above me the zip opened and Rosie pulled me out by my head.
“Come on, Princess Tiny-Twinkle. Time for your makeover,” she said.
Peering through Rosie’s fingers, I caught a glimpse of Tiffany lying back on a white sofa in the lounge. She was already reading her magazine again.
Rosie danced out of the room, still clutching me tightly in her hand.
Her house was enormous. There were marble pillars, big gold banisters and a shiny glass chandelier hanging in the hall… All these shot by as Rosie
Her bedroom was too. I felt as if I was in a giant toyshop. Everywhere I looked, there were dolls. They were on the bed and on shelves, on chairs and tumbling out of boxes. There were zillions of different kinds – rag dolls, fashion dolls, baby dolls, a set of Russian dolls jumbled up with their heads and bottoms all over the floor… There were doll cradles, doll clothes, doll bikes and an enormous doll’s house with a red front door.
I wouldn’t mind living in there, I thought. Everything would be just the right size for me.
But Rosie had other ideas. She laid me on her pink, carpet, lifted my leg in the air and pulled off my tiny shoe. What was she doing?
As soon as she let go, I wanted to drop my leg back down to the floor. But I remembered I was supposed to be a doll, so my leg wouldn’t flop down. I kept it stuck in the air.
Rosie pulled the other leg up. She took off my other shoe. Then she leant over and tugged at my shorts.
Eek. This was so embarrassing. Rosie was undressing me. Completely!
She tossed my beautiful shorts up on to her dressing table. They were still tiny, of course, because I had been wearing them when I shrank.
“We’ll get rid of those yucky things,” she said. “And your grubby T-shirt. It’s all covered in chocolate.”
Yikes! I was left in nothing but my vest and knickers.
I could feel my face
I must be blushing as pink as Rosie’s carpet, I thought.
I was sure she’d notice, but she crawled away to rummage through a basket of dolls’ clothes.
; “Time to find you something pretty and princessy to wear,” she said.
“Too babyish!” she sighed, throwing a baby doll’s romper suit to one side.
“Too schooly.” She threw out a doll’s summer uniform. It was blue-and-white check, exactly like the ones we wear at school.
“Too night-timey.” A pair of doll’s pyjamas followed.
“You’re too small and tiny for these silly clothes anyway,” pouted Rosie. She threw out piles of outfits for bigger dolls as she sorted through the basket with her back to me.
Time to escape. I jumped up.
My bare pink carpet, as if I were walking through a candyfloss meadow.
As soon as I’m out of here, I thought, I’ll … oh no… I stopped.
What was I thinking of? I couldn’t leave. Not in my knickers! What if I suddenly grew back to FULL SIZE halfway down the stairs … or worse still, in the middle of the street? How would I explain that I’d decided to run around town in nothing but my vest and pants? I’d have to wait for Rosie to find me some new clothes. I glanced helplessly at my shorts, out of reach on the edge of the dressing table.
“Goodie, this will fit,” said Rosie. I just had time to flop flat on my back again with my legs in the air before she turned round. “It belongs to my Patty Pocket doll … but I lost her.”
I’ve seen tiny Patty Pocket dolls in the shops. They’re exactly the same size as me when I’m shrunk. Easy to lose. She’d probably been dropped behind a radiator or under a chest of drawers somewhere.
“Here you are, Princess Tiny-Twinkle,” said Rosie, pulling me up by my hair again. I wished she wouldn’t do that. “You’re going to look so pretty.”
She was holding a small green rubber suit with a silver fishtail hanging off the end.
“You’re going to be a princess mermaid,” she grinned.
Rosie almost broke my arm as she bent it backwards and me into the tiny rubber mermaid suit.
At last the dress was on. I could barely breathe it was so . It came right down past my ankles with my feet just poking out of the bottom and the tail dragging along behind.
Rosie bounded across the room away from me. “Now you’re a princess mermaid, you need ” she said, grabbing a tube of greeny-blue glitter glue out of a big box with ART THINGS written on the side.
She smeared shimmering all over me – even on my toes. There was nothing I could do except lie still. She swirled it over my cheeks and lips and prodded me in the eye, trying to use it as eyeshadow. My top lashes stuck to my bottom lashes, gluing one eye shut.
“Look, Tiny-Twinkle,” said Rosie. She picked up a little hand mirror from her dressing table and held it above me as I lay on the floor. “You look beautiful.”
Even with only one eye open, I could see that I did not look beautiful. The mermaid dress was as tight as slug skin and the glitter was stuck all over me in
“I wonder if the mermaid hairdresser is at Mermaid Cove today,” said Rosie. “Let’s swim over there and see if she can cut your hair.”
Uh oh! This did not sound good.
Rosie crawled across the floor, bending my knees to make it look as if I was swimming along.
“Hello, Mr Hairdresser,” she said, plunging her hand into the art box and pulling out a pair of round-ended scissors.
A lethal weapon.
I was pleased my eye was still stuck shut as Rosie jabbed the scissors towards me. She started to hack at my fringe. A fell to the floor … and then another.
This is going to look terrible. Mum had told me yesterday that I needed a haircut. I don’t think this was what she had in mind.
“Not sharp enough,” said Rosie, throwing the scissors down. “Wait there, Princess Tiny-Twinkle. My mummy’s got a really pair.”
“You’re too young to play with scissors,” I muttered as Rosie charged out of the room. Where was Tiffany? Babysitters are supposed to look out for this sort of thing.
But this was a chance to . The minute Rosie disappeared down the corridor, I scrambled up. It wasn’t easy trying to move quickly in the mermaid suit. Every time I took a step, I kept tripping over.
“Stupid tail,” I groaned. But there was no time to figure out a way to climb up the dressing table and rescue my lovely Stella Lightfoot shorts.
I needed to get out of here … and fast. I touched my fringe and felt the gap where great chunks of hair had been taken out of it. That was just with paper scissors. If Rosie came back with the sharp ones, I’d probably end up bald … or blind … or she’d cut off my ear by mistake.
I rubbed my eyelashes until they blinked open from the glitter glue. Then I quickly pulled my shoes back on, hitched the mermaid skirt above my knees, draped the tail over my arm and to the door.
I could see a grand staircase. There must have been fifteen or twenty steps – each one three times as as I was. It would take me half a day to climb down them. The pale blue carpet spread ahead of me, like a waterfall cascading to the hall below.
A waterfall! Of course! It would take hours to climb down each step … but how about if I rode them like rapids?
I back to Rosie’s room and found what I was looking for.
I remembered the Russian dolls I’d seen when I first came in. The whole stack was lying muddled up on the floor, all unscrewed so their hollow bottoms were in one place and their heads in another. I grabbed the largest one’s bottom and it to the top of the stairs. Then I went back for the big red-and-yellow smiling head.
I clambered into the bottom half of the Russian doll. It was as if I was standing in a bucket. I leant over the side, heaved her head up over me and twisted it tight. Now everything was dark, but I knew what I needed to do.
In last week’s episode of , Stella Lightfoot shot down a Canadian waterfall safe inside a barrel. My Russian doll should work just the same way on the stairs.
I leant my shoulder sideways and toppled over. The minute the doll was on her side she began to roll.
“Ouch,” I yelped.
I’d forgotten water is soft and steps are hard – each thump on the stairs juddered my bones. Even so, it was utterly awesome … like a roller-coaster ride. I love roller coasters. They are the most exciting things in the whole world. The very first time I ever shrank I was about to ride a real one at a theme park.
“Yippee!” I cried, my voice echoing against the wood all around me. What was especially brilliant and scary about this ride was that I couldn’t see where I was going. Everything was totally dark.
With one last , the doll stopped tumbling and began to roll smoothly along. I must have reached the marble floor of the hall.
The doll crashed into something hard and popped open. I looked up and saw we had collided with a shoe rack.
I staggered to my feet, wishing I could have another go.
There was no time for that though. I had to get out of this house and find Nisha.
I tried to walk forward but I was too I stumbled sideways and underneath the shoe rack.
“Yikes,” I shivered. As my head stopped spinning, I noticed a pair of small dark eyes staring out at me from under the shoes.
“Who’s that?” I whispered. “Who’s there?”
I crawled slowly forward on my hands and knees, blinking as I peered into the gloomy world of dust and cobwebs under the shoe rack.
“Hello,” I whispered, squinting at the figure in the shadows. “Patty Pocket? Is that you?”
Sure enough, Rosie’s little lost doll was staring out at me. She was sitting inside a toy car. I her gently towards the light to get a proper look. Her hair was long and blonde and She was wearing a little bikini with pink dolphins on it. I thought about swapping clothes for a moment but decided it would be even more embarrassing to run around town in a bikini than in a mermaid suit.
“Pity,” I shrugged. Patty really was exactly the same size as me. But it was her car that made me smile. She was sitting behind the steering wheel of a
“Wow!” I grinned. As long as I stayed tiny, I coul
d drive to the bookshop in that. I could find Nish.
I shut my eyes and tried to picture a map of town.We were somewhere near the top of Hill Street. And it’s not called Hill Street for nothing – it slopes all the way down to the main road by the park. Perfect.
I round the back of the beach buggy and pushed it towards the front door. If I could just get it out through the cat flap, I could escape.
“Sorry about this,” I said, grabbing Patty around her middle and pulling her out of the driving seat.
“Humph!” It isn’t easy lifting someone your own height, but I bent her at the waist and heaved her on to my shoulder in a fireman’s lift. I’ve tried this with Nish a million times. At least Patty didn’t – or scream – or say I was tickling her.
“There you go,” I smiled as I plonked Patty on the doormat. I bent her waist and left her sitting as if she were sunbathing on the sand. Rosie would be sure to find her.
For now, I could still hear Rosie singing upstairs in her mum’s bathroom. She must have forgotten all about me and my haircut.
“Good thing or I might be bald by now,” I whispered, straightening Patty’s curls.
I to myself as I realized I was talking to a tiny plastic doll as if she were a real live friend.
“Got to go,” I grinned. “Thanks for lending me the car. I’ll get it back to you somehow…”
Suddenly, Rosie thundered to the top of the stairs.
“Tiffney!” she shouted. I grabbed the beach buggy and pulled it into the shadows just in time.
I glanced up and gasped… Even from down here, I could see that Rosie’s beautiful long blonde hair was now as short and as a brush. She was holding her mum’s sharp scissors in one hand and pile of in the other.
“Tiffney! T-I-F-F-N-E-Y!” she called, grinning from ear to ear. “I’ve cut my hair. Come and see!”
I peeped out from behind the beach buggy as Tiffany wandered in from the kitchen … and .
“I’ll call you back, Monique,” she cried, dropping her mobile phone. “Rosie! What have you done? Your mum’s going to kill me.”
“Don’t you like it?” Rosie burst into tears. “I practised on Princess Tiny-Twinkle first.”
As Tiffany shot up the stairs, I rolled the beach buggy forward. In all the commotion, no one was looking my way. I pushed the little car from behind – like a supermarket trolley – bumping it through the cat flap.