by Lou Kuenzler
“Listen,” I whispered to Gran and the Calendar sisters. “Everyone else on this boat really is a millionaire – except perhaps Professor Gus. We should ask them all to donate some money to . To help the cats.”
“You can’t just ask people for money, Violet,” said Gran. “It’s rude.”
“It doesn’t work quite like that, I’m afraid,” agreed Miss July.
“But what if we had had a fundraiser?” I said. “Like we did at school when we needed new equipment for our gym club.”
“Now that is an idea,” said Miss June.
“We raised money by letting everyone wear their own clothes instead of school uniform for a day,” I explained. “Whoever wanted to take part had to pay.”
“I don’t see how that would work on the boat,” said Miss July. “We’re all wearing our own clothes already…”
“We could have a fancy dress party for the passengers,” I said. “On our last night – to celebrate the end of the holiday. Anyone who wants to wear a costume has to make a donation to . Our family will probably only be able to pay a pound or two each … but some of the other passengers might give a lot more. Especially when they know what a good cause it is.”
“I think it’s a terrific plan,” said Miss June.
“Signor Sipperetto really likes cats, so that is a good start,” I said as I watched him tickle Ozzy under the chin.
“Lola L’Amour wept buckets when I told her about the poor strays,” said Miss July.
“It’s decided then.” I clapped my hands.
“We’ll have to ask Musa, but I am sure he’ll agree. He’s such a softie about Ozzy,” said Gran.
“It’s going to be totally pharaoh-tastic!” I grinned. “We can look for bits and pieces for our costumes at the market.”
“It’s a wonderful idea, Violet. Thank you from all the poor kitties of the world,” beamed Miss June.
Musa agreed at once that the party could go ahead.
“I think I’ll dress up as a camel,” laughed Gran as we made our way up the hot dusty path towards the little town where the market was. “I’ve got a big yellow T-shirt and some baggy gold trousers. All I’ll need to do is stuff a pillow up my back to make a hump.”
“I’m going to be Cleopatra,” said Tiffany, who was looking a little less green now she was off the moving boat. “She was totally gorgeous. I’ve seen pictures of what she was supposed to look like … I think I have her nose.”
“If you have her nose, you better give it back,” I giggled, but Gran poked me in the ribs.
“How about you, Anthony?” she asked. “Who are you going to be?”
“Nobody,” he growled, staring down at his stupid game. He tripped on the path. “I don’t want to dress up. Why can’t everyone leave me alone?”
“That’s it. I have had enough of this,” said Gran. “Give me that phone right now.”
I’ve only ever seen Gran get really cross about twice in my life – but now she looked like an angry bull about to charge.
“But…” stammered Anthony as she snatched the phone away from him.
“No buts,” said Gran firmly. “I’ll hold on to this until we get back from the market.” She dropped the phone into her handbag. “You’re never going to enjoy this trip until you look around and take notice of what’s going on,” she said, more kindly.
“Take my phone if you want but it is not a good idea,” muttered Anthony, scowling at us.
“Wow!” I said, taking off my hat to fan my face as the sun beat down. “This place is amazing.” Surely even Anthony could see how incredible it was?
Sacks of spice as green and red and orange as traffic lights were spread out along the pavement. An old man with no teeth dug his hand into a basket like the one we have for dirty laundry at home. He pulled out a writhing snake and wound it round his neck.
“This is a LOT more fun than shopping in Swanchester,” I whooped as a crowd of jostling boys with gold necklaces to sell shouted prices at us and pushed us on through the narrow streets.
I grabbed at my hat as it was nearly knocked off my head and felt my fingers tingling with excitement.
“Yikes. Not now!” I gulped. I quickly dug into my pocket … but I had left my emergency pickled walnuts on the boat.
“Gran,” I called. But my voice was lost in the noise of the market.
I flung my arm out, desperate to catch hold of her sleeve. But a man selling sugared dates bustled her towards his stall.
A girl with bunches of peacock feathers grabbed Tiff. I had no idea where Anthony had gone.
“Come back, Gran,” I called helplessly. If I in this crowd, I’d be trampled as as a squished raisin.
I pushed forward, trying to make it to the pavement. But I tripped and…
I to the size of a crocodile’s tooth.
“aAAAAAA-CHOOO.” A giant sneeze shot through my tiny body. I had landed in a sack full of black spice. “Peppercorns!” They looked like cannonballs beside my mini feet. “AAAAAAAA-CHOOOOOOOOOOO!” I sneezed again.
The force of the blast as it shot through my pin-sized nostrils was supersonic. It blew me up into the air like a
I turned a somersault above the sack of pepper, shot forward and landed in a barrel of short brown twigs, each one about as long as I was.
“Ouch.” One of them dug into my back. “Cinnamon sticks.”
I smiled as a scent of Christmas filled my nostrils. I love the smell of cinnamon. Gran sometimes puts ground sprinkles on toast for me with sugar. It was a whole lot better than the peppercorns. At least I wasn’t going to blow myself up from sneezing.
The twigs made pretty good camouflage too. I ducked down inside the barrel, hiding myself like a stick insect in a mesh of tiny branches.
My nose was still tickling from the pepper though.
I dug in my shorts pocket, hoping to find a mini tissue. It would be the smaller than a bumble bee’s wing by now. Everything I’m wearing and anything in my pockets always shrinks when I do. But, of course, I didn’t have a tissue with me. Mum’s always going on at me about sniffing but I never remember to carry tissues, not even on a cold, rainy Swanchester winter day. So I certainly didn’t have one here in the sweltering sunshine of Egypt.
“A-choo!”
As I sneezed, I caught a flash of movement out the corner of my eye. Was there a mouse in this barrel with me? Once I ended up in a litter bin with a rat when I shrank at a theme park. It was a giant one – a Ty-RAT-osaurus rex. Don’t get me wrong, I like mice, they’re cute. I LOVE my hamster, Hannibal. But I am not too keen on rats – especially when I’m just the right size to be mistaken for a chunk of nibbly cheese.
With the little hairs standing up on the back of my neck, I peered between the sticks of cinnamon.
There was nothing there.
Perhaps I was imagining things.
But I had a definite, creepy feeling I was being watched.
I peered upwards to see if someone was looking down into the barrel.
There was nobody.
“Awk.” I heard a small, strange, gulping sound behind me. Like a whimper of surprise. I knew hadn’t imagined it this time. I was being watched for sure.
“Who’s there?” I whispered. My legs were trembling and my heart was fluttering like a cage of swirling butterflies. Very slowly, I turned my head and peered among the sticks of spice.
“You?” I gasped.
I was staring into a pair of small bright-blue eyes, each the size of a grain of rice.
“Anthony?” I spluttered. “You’re … you’re as tiny as I am.”
My teeny-weeny cousin was dangling by one arm from a cinnamon stick, swaying like a Christmas decoration.
“I don’t believe it…” I whispered, “you’re a shrinker too.”
I was so surprised to see Anthony, I opened and closed my mouth like a baby bird in the nest of cinnamon sticks.
I’d always thought I was the only person in the whole world, other than Gran, who’d ev
er shrunk. Now here was Cousin Anthony, just as small as I was.
There were a zillion questions I wanted to ask him. How long had he been shrinking for? How long did he usually stay tiny? What was his best shrinking adventure ever?
But as I opened my mouth to try and speak, a shadow passed over our heads.
“Quick!” I grabbed Anthony by the hand and pulled him downwards. The cinnamon sticks prickled our legs and arms as if we were falling through the branches of a scratchy, scrapey tree.
The stall holder dug deep into the barrel, his scoop like a giant digger above our heads.
“There you are, madam, that should be plenty,” he said, filling a paper bag up to the top.
“Give me more,” said an American voice. “Hurry.”
The stall holder filled another bag to the brim. The scoop missed my head by a millimetre.
Anthony and I slithered deeper down into the barrel.
“And some nutmeg too. Be quick.”
There was a second American voice now and I realized they both sounded familiar.
“Look,” I mouthed, tugging Anthony’s sleeve. We ducked under a thick stick of cinnamon. “It’s the Calendar sisters.”
Even buried in the barrel I could see the bright patterns on their clothes.
What did they want so many spices for? As far as I know cats don’t like cinnamon and nutmeg in their food.
“Come on.” Anthony pointed upwards as their shadows moved away. “Let’s get out of here before it’s too late.”
He was right. One more scoop of spice and we might be sold to another passer-by.
I followed him as he from one cinnamon stick to the next, climbing them as if they were the rungs of a ladder. He out of the barrel, ran around the rim of the sack of peppercorns, slid down the seam of the bag, – one, two, three – across the bars of a drain cover and to a stop inside the scooped-out skin of an old watermelon, which had rolled under a stall.
“Wow! Where did you learn to move like that?” I gasped, ducking into the melon shell beside him.
I had never even seen Anthony run when he was full-grown. Now he was tiny, he was like a mini action hero.
“Maze of the Mummy,” he shrugged. “You don’t play computer games as much as I do without learning how to jump around a bit. Touch the floor and POW!” He made a noise like an exploding bomb. “Game over!”
“That’s incredible,” I said. I’m pretty fit. I’m in the gym club at school and I spend loads of time in the adventure playground in King’s Park near our house … but Anthony was like a tiny runaway ninja.
“Whenever I’m small I just imagine I’m inside a game,” he said.
“I reckon you must be on level one zillion and ten,” I cheered, holding out my tiny hand to give him a high five. If I’d just planned a route like Anthony’s, I’d be grinning from ear to ear. I was smiling now, even though all I’d done was follow his lead. But Anthony’s mouth was all pinched up and cross, as if he’d just swallowed a teaspoon of super-yucky cough medicine.
“What’s wrong, Ant?” I asked.
“For the last time, my name is not Ant. It is Anthony.” He kicked the spongy wall of the empty watermelon, sending a spurt of pink juice splurging past my knees. “Ants are small and stupid. They get squashed by people’s shoes.”
I was about to tell him that ants are actually pretty clever – like on this nature programme I saw once where they built a moving bridge out of their own bodies. But, suddenly, I understood what was going on.
“Oh, I get it,” I said. “You don’t like shrinking, do you? You don’t like being small.”
“Of course I don’t.” Anthony kicked the watermelon again. High above us, I could hear the sounds of the market going on but down here it was like we were in our own secret cave. “Shrinking is stupid … and dangerous.” His tiny hands were trembling and his face was as white as salt. “Don’t tell me you actually like it?”
“I love shrinking,” I said. “It is super-scary sometimes. But I always have the most amazing adventures. Once I caught a thief red-handed. Another time, I rode on a real live lion. And look at us now. Here we are in the middle of an Egyptian market and we’re smaller than two teaspoons. Anywhere we want to go, anything we want to explore, and we can do it. Nobody will even know we’re here.”
“Yeah. If we’re not squashed like a couple of slugs under someone’s shoe,” sighed Anthony.
“I do try and stop myself shrinking at the wrong time,” I said. “I’ve been chewing pickled walnuts for days.”
“That’s why you were eating those disgusting things,” said Anthony. “I just thought you liked the taste of vinegar.”
“I hate vinegar,” I said. “But I shrink when I’m overexcited and eating yucky food stops it sometimes. Is it the same with you?”
“Sort of.” Anthony nodded. “I shrank for the very first time when I heard we were coming on this trip. It happened again every time you sent an email talking about all the cool things we were going to do.”
“So that’s why you stopped replying to me?” I said.
“Yes. I didn’t tell anyone,” Anthony sighed. “Not even my mum and dad. But it kept happening when I was packing my suitcase and thinking about going on the plane. That’s when I knew I had to find a way to take my mind of all the amazing sights I was going to see on this holiday. I’ve wanted to come to Egypt my whole life. But instead of looking around, I’ve spent my entire time staring at a screen playing Maze of the Mummy. If I’m concentrating on that stupid game – scoring as many points as I can – I don’t seem to shrink.”
Anthony’s voice was cracking. I saw a tiny tear glisten on his eyelash and realized how upset he was. But I didn’t say anything. I never cry … well, hardly ever. And I hate it if people see me when I do.
“Listen, you can enjoy the trip from now on,” I said. “It’s going to be brilliant. We can help each other. I’ll even share my pickled walnuts if you like.”
“No.” Anthony shook his head. “I took my eyes off the screen for one minute at dinner last night. Just to look up at the stars. Next thing I knew I was stuck under the heel of Lola L’Amour’s shoe.”
“So that’s what happened to you? You shrank,” I said, remembering how Anthony had been sitting across the table from me one minute and then had disappeared the next. “I can’t believe I never guessed. After all, we have the same grandma.” I already knew Gran had passed her shrinking down to me. But Tiffany had never shrunk as far as I knew.
“And that’s why Musa found your phone under the table,” I said. “You fibbed about going back to your cabin to play Maze of the Mummy.”
“I was scampering between people’s feet, trying not to be kicked into the River Nile.” Anthony shuddered.
“We’ll have fun together from now on,” I said. “I promise. We can tell Gran the truth and she’ll help. Come to think of it, she’ll be worrying where we are. We better sneak out of here and find her. Let’s go. We can explore the market along the way.”
Anthony didn’t move. “I don’t want to explore. I don’t want to have fun. This isn’t some stupid game,” he said. “Don’t you get it, Violet? I’ve seen bugs in Australia bigger than you and me. Look at us. We’re freaks.”
“Freaks?” The word was so horrible, it was as if Anthony had me in the face.
“I just want to be normal,” he said. “And I want you to leave me alone.”
He darted out of the watermelon and began to run.
“Wait, Ant,” I cried.
“Get lost, Violet,” he hissed. “Just stay away.”
I was hopping through the market like a grasshopper, searching desperately for Ant, when…
I shot back to right behind the back legs of a camel.
“Careful, she kicks,” cried the owner, who hadn’t seen me growing tall. But the camel gave me a very strange look, as if to say, “How in the name of hairy humps did you do that?”
“Sorry!” I cried, speeding on through the market
to look for Gran and Tiff. I kept my eyes open for Anthony too, but I knew there was probably no chance of spotting him if he was still tiny – especially if he didn’t want to be found.
“Violet, there you are.” Gran dashed out from behind a hanging carpet and gathered me into a hug. “I’ve been looking everywhere. I was so worried about you in this crowd,” she cried. She must have guessed that I’d shrunk.
Tiffany rolled her eyes, which made her look a lot like the camel. “You shouldn’t get in such a panic, Gran,” she sighed. “Violet’s always getting lost. I bet she was still looking at that horrible snake in the basket.”
“Something like that,” I said.
“We saw the owner feed it a dead mouse,” shuddered Tiffany. “It swallowed it whole…”
“At least it won’t be hungry for a while,” I said, glancing over Gran’s shoulder at the crowded market. The last I’d seen him, Anthony had been running back in the direction of the snake. If he was still tiddly he’d make a perfect cobra-sized snack.
Gran stopped hugging me at last. “Have you seen your cousin anywhere?” she asked. “He disappeared almost the same time you did. I think he’s sulking because I took away his phone.”
“Anthony has a little problem, Gran,” I said. “Just a small thing. A tiny bit of bother…”
“Gracious me.” Gran’s hand flew up to her mouth. “You mean … like you…?”
I nodded.
“I never guessed,” said Gran.
“What are you talking about?” said Tiffany. “And why are you both staring at the ground. If you’re looking for Anthony he’s not going to be down there, is he?”
“No.” Gran and I both laughed nervously and looked up for a moment. I have always been amazed that Tiff has never guessed about my shrinking. But now I had spent all this time with Anthony and never suspected a thing either, it started to make more sense. I remembered what Gran had said, all those weeks ago when we were searching for the last answer in the wordsearch puzzle: People don’t see what is right under their own noses. It turns out she was right.
“Anthony’s over there anyway,” sighed Tiff. “By that chemist shop.”
“Where?” Gran and I both spun around.