The Big Shrink

by Sarah Mlynowski

  “All of you,” Clyde confirmed, looking at the UDM kids, the Flickers with Dreggs, and the kittenballers. “Anyone with Dreggs.”

  Marigold grinned. “I’ll be there.”

  Pepper grinned, too. “I can come, so long as you don’t have any pets I might scare.”

  “No pets,” said Clyde.

  Most of the other kids said they could come, too, and Clyde told them to come at noon. “We can get pizza and do an even bigger Dregg Dash than this,” he said cheerily.

  It was five minutes until the school day officially began. The cafeteria workers began shooing the kids out. Time to go to class.

  Nory sighed. She was glad to go to a party, but she didn’t like Clyde barging in on the Dregg scene. He apparently had a big basement rec room and parents who didn’t mind if he planned a party without even asking them first. Plus he had enough spending money to get an expensive Dregg that Nory didn’t even know about, a Dregg that ate raisins. Actual raisins!

  She couldn’t hate Clyde. He was too nice. But sheesh, she wished he would just flicker himself invisible. And silent.

  She herded her Dreggs back into their shells and put them in her backpack.

  “Nory?” someone asked. It was Clyde.

  “Yeah?”

  “Can you help me? I can’t get Juice-Juice back into his egg. I’ve tried four times. And I have to put him back because Ms. Applegate said she’ll confiscate any dragon-shaped Dreggs if they come into her classroom.”

  “She really said that?”

  “She really did,” said Clyde.

  “Can’t you just turn Juice-Juice invisible? You’re a Flicker, after all.”

  “My invisible things only stay invisible for like half an hour right now,” Clyde said. “Not all day.” He looked embarrassed. “I’m a little behind in Flicker studies.”

  Nory took hold of Clyde’s tiny dragon and his eggshell. “Hmm,” she said. “Hmm, hmm, hmm.” She noted Juice-Juice’s round, full belly. “I think he needs to poop. Then he’ll fit back in his shell.

  “Oh.” Clyde furrowed his brow, then ripped a napkin into shreds and piled the shreds together in the compartment of a lunch tray. He’d made an impromptu litter box.

  “Go on, then,” Nory said, gently urging Juice-Juice into the litter box. Juice-Juice scrunched his face and squatted. Out came a tiny purple plastic poop. Nory and Clyde looked at each other, and when Clyde laughed, Nory did, too. She couldn’t help it.

  After that, Juice-Juice hopped eagerly into his eggshell, and Clyde clicked the two halves together. “Sweet,” he said. “Thanks. I’ll see you on Saturday?”

  “Sure,” said Nory. She hadn’t been sure till now that she wanted to go. “I’ll be there.”

  In Ms. Starr’s class, they were studying poetry. Everyone sat at their desks, and they were taking turns reading a very long, sad poem about the inky death of a giant squid who fought with a whale.

  Every kid’s Dregg was back in egg shape. And except for Andres, who floated on the ceiling, every kid’s Dregg was on the corner of his or her desk.

  Bax was reading aloud about the long tendrils of the sad and lonely squid when Nory saw Elliott squeeze his Dregg. Then she watched it hatch with a large farting noise. Bluuuuuuuph!

  She laughed. Everyone laughed.

  Groggy then stood up on his tiptoes and twirled, as if he were performing ballet.

  Bax pressed the edges of his mouth together for a second, hard, and kept reading with a straight face.

  Then Sebastian squeezed his Blurper Dragon Dregg and let it hatch. It started yodeling.

  At this point, Bax completely lost it, laughing so hard he knocked his photocopy of the poem onto the floor.

  Ms. Starr put her hands on her hips. “Friends. I need the toys put away. I was flexible this morning during roll call and morning announcements, but now that we are doing literature, I’m putting my foot down.”

  A couple of students put their Dreggs into pockets and backpacks. But Pepper was still petting Mudpie. Mudpie purred. “More! More!” the tiny dragon squeaked.

  “Everybody, and I mean now!” snapped Ms. Starr.

  Nory blinked, because Ms. Starr was a super-nice teacher. She wore brightly colored clothes and had a big braided bun on the top of her head. She stood up for her students and taught them hula-hooping and headstands and foot painting to help them balance their energies and make the most of their upside-down magic. She didn’t usually get cross.

  Pepper put Mudpie away. “Thank you,” Ms. Starr said as everyone finally settled down. “All right, then. Willa, would you read aloud the next stanza?”

  As Willa read, Nory felt a squirming in her hoodie pocket. Oh, no. Howler was hatching. She must have accidentally squeezed the egg.

  “Very nice, Willa,” said the teacher. You read with so much expression. Marigold, will you go next, please?”

  Cr-ack. Nory felt it happen.

  And then: p-b-b-b-ffffffffl!

  Ms. Starr jumped to standing. Nory sank down in her seat. The class exploded in laughter.

  Ms. Starr folded her arms. “Students. I understand that sometimes it is hard to tell if your toy is resting or if it is ready to hatch. I’m going to ask you all, please, to confirm that your toys are resting so that we can focus on this unhappy giant squid. When we are done reading, we are going discuss internal rhymes. Nory, will you read?”

  Nory put Howler back into resting egg shape and read aloud a stanza of the poem.

  But she couldn’t help thinking that literature was more fun with Dreggs than it was without.

  Marigold concentrated on her headstand. School would be through in less than an hour, and Ms. Starr was finishing the day by having everyone practicing being upside down. As she tried to keep from wobbling, Marigold thought about Clyde’s party. She had said she’d go. But she was nervous. She had never been to Clyde’s house. She and Clyde weren’t friends.

  In fact, Marigold wasn’t friends with any typical kids except for Zinnia, because so many of the typical kids had been rude or mean about the UDM kids’ talents. And with Marigold in particular, lots of the typical kids were scared of her. Earlier in the year she’d accidentally shrunk Lacey Clench down to the size of a gerbil.

  Shrinking Lacey had been a huge mistake, but Marigold had lost her temper after Lacey mocked her hearing aids. Lacey had been taken to the hospital, where it took ten different shots to re-grow her to normal size. She’d had to drink eighteen glasses of coconut water to flush her system out.

  Since then, things had gotten a bit better between the kids with typical magic and the kids with upside-down magic, but Marigold was still surprised to be invited to a party.

  “Oh!” Ms. Starr exclaimed in a surprised voice. “Hello, Layla. Can I help you?”

  Marigold opened her eyes. Layla stood in the doorway, breathing hard. “I’m here for Marigold,” she said.

  She met Marigold’s gaze, and her eyes vibrated with electricity. Layla was a force of nature. Or maybe just extremely hyper.

  “Come on, M-Boogie,” she said. “I have fun stuff for us to do.”

  Marigold came out of her headstand.

  “Hold on,” Ms. Starr said. “Marigold, it’s not your normal tutoring day.”

  “But I’m here,” Layla said. “And since when does a UDM teacher care about normal?” She pushed back a chunk of her blue hair. “Please let her come. M-Boogie, I have a plan for you.”

  “Well … all right,” Ms. Starr said.

  “Aces,” Layla said, giving Ms. Starr a thumbs-up.

  In the hall, Layla didn’t turn toward the library, where they’d met before. Instead, she led Marigold right out the front door of the school.

  Marigold felt light-headed. “You got permission for me to leave school?”

  Layla looked at her funny. “Don’t worry. I’ll get you back before the bell rings.”

  They walked down the block to the Daily Grind, a cute coffeehouse. Inside, they sat on an old-fashioned couch with
wood trim and velvet upholstery. The menu was posted on a chalkboard above the counter. People were reading and working on laptop computers. It was so grown-up!

  “What can I get you?” Layla asked.

  “Chocolate milk, please,” Marigold said, looking at the menu. Then she felt silly for choosing something babyish. “I mean, um, hot chocolate. With coffee? That’s a thing you can get, isn’t it?”

  Layla nodded. “That’s a mocha latte. One sec. My treat.”

  She returned with a large steaming drink for Marigold and a very small ceramic cup filled with black stuff for herself. She saw Marigold’s expression and said, “Espresso.” She took a sip from the teeny cup.

  Marigold had never drunk coffee before, except little taster sips. Here was her own coffee drink. Would it be terrible?

  Phew. It was delicious. Sweet and creamy, with a pretty white milk foam on top.

  “What’s your plan for me?” she asked Layla.

  Layla took another sip of her espresso, then leaned forward across the table. “In the last few years, I’ve done a ton of research on the magic of making things big and small,” she said. “Usually it’s Fluxer magic. Fluxers always change size when they flux, right?”

  “Right.”

  “But the bigger the size change, the harder it is, and the more unusual. Lots of people do house cats. Almost all Fluxers do. And that does involve getting smaller. But very few people do bugs. They’re just soooo tiny. And it’s more common for people to big up than shrink down to the really small sizes. Elephant Fluxers aren’t actually that unusual. Or rhinos. All those tigerball players can do tigers, and some of them weigh six hundred and fifty pounds. It’s a tough flux, but not exactly rare.”

  “My friend Nory can do mosquito and elephant,” said Marigold. “Well, only mixed up with other animals. But she can do them.”

  “Then she’s a super-rare Fluxer,” said Layla. “Most people do medium-sized animals, and they only go really big or really small, but not both. Tigerball players don’t do caterpillars. People’s natural talent is usually for one or the other. Anyway. My own magic has always been labeled upside down without a category, like yours. But in grad school, I had a revelation. I’m a Fluxer! Just, I don’t do any animals. Instead I just flux my own body.”

  “Oh, cool,” said Marigold.

  “I can make myself big or I can make myself small. Take, for example, my foot.” At this, Layla’s foot (and the sneaker it wore) became enormous. Then it shrank down to the size of a doll foot, while the rest of her leg remained normal size, starting at the ankle.

  “Or I can make my hands big or small, whatever I like. I can grow my nose if I want it longer, or my hair.” Layla’s short blue hair thickened and stretched out all the way to her waist, where it remained. “And I can sustain it. But it takes effort, just like fluxing does. Fluxers don’t stay in animal shapes all day, just the way Flyers don’t stay up in the air all the time. Too much work.”

  “Totally.”

  “But my magic is different from fluxing in one key way: I can affect other people’s bodies. I can big them up or shrink them, whereas typical Fluxers can’t do anything to other people’s bodies. Now, think. Which of the five Fs can do things to other people’s bodies?”

  “Flickers,” answered Marigold. “And certain Flyers.”

  “Well done. Flickers can turn a variety of things invisible. Small animals, objects, buildings, even other people.” Layla gave a nod. “So there’s a way my magic is related to flickering as well.”

  “I think I have fitting magic,” Marigold said. “Not one of the five Fs at all. I fit things to a different size.”

  “You’re an original thinker, kid. I like it,” said Layla. “I’ve studied other kinds of size-changing magic. Some of them don’t seem to be fluxing and flickering at all.”

  Marigold smiled. Layla took her seriously!

  “Now,” said Layla, “I dug into some of my notebooks this morning, and I think I found a technique for bigging up that might work for you. Not the same as what I do. More related to some of those rarer size-changing magics. Let me be sure I understand: You can shrink, but you can’t big up. And you shrink things by accident sometimes, right?”

  “Right. Though I do it less than I used to, because of studying upside-down magic techniques with Ms. Starr,” said Marigold.

  “Thatta girl. Now, I want you to take a picture of yourself in your mind. Make it a picture of your whole body, cool clothes and all. Taking up space. Being awesome. Okay?”

  “Okay.” Marigold took a mental snapshot of herself.

  “Now,” said Layla, “we need to choose something to big up.” She took another sip of her espresso and looked around. She grabbed the heavy hoodie Marigold had been wearing under her jacket. “Perfect. We’ll big this up. Add the hoodie to your mental snapshot and then enlarge the snapshot in your head. We do it on computers all the time, right? We make something bigger. So you can do it in your head. Give it a shot!”

  “Should I enlarge the whole snapshot, me included?” Marigold asked. “Or just the hoodie?”

  “Oh, right. Just the hoodie.” Layla rolled her fingers to say Go on, then.

  Marigold did. In her mind she made the hoodie bigger than everything else in her mental snapshot. Her head began to tingle and her fingers began to buzz, the way they did before she shrank something.

  “Okay, now. When you shrink things, you let the magic out of your fingers, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “When you big up, you’re going to let this big snapshot zwoop out your forehead. Like a bubble. Okay?”

  Marigold imagined the big snapshot as a bubble, ready to burst. She directed the bubble and imagined throwing it hard. Zwoop!

  “M-Boogie! You did it!” Layla cried.

  The tingling in Marigold’s head and fingers stopped. She looked at the sweatshirt. The sleeves were definitely longer. It looked bulkier, too. She hadn’t bigged it up a ton, but she had bigged it. She really had!

  “Excellent,” Layla said. “I mean, seriously. I am amazing.” She grabbed Marigold’s hand. “And you are, too. You bigged something up, M-Boogie.” Layla jumped up. “Major progress today, right? Okay. I gotta motor.” She tossed back the last of her espresso. “I’ll see you next week. You can make it back to school on your own, right?”

  Marigold nodded.

  “Rock on. Keep practicing. But only on objects. Don’t big up anything alive until I teach you. And call me anytime if you have problems. Always happy to help.”

  Layla left.

  Marigold realized she didn’t have Layla’s number.

  The café seemed suddenly empty. Marigold looked around. People were still reading their books and working on their laptops. She took a few sips of her mocha and glowed.

  She could big up. There had been a change in her magic!

  Finally, she stood and put on the sweatshirt, then her jacket. As she walked back to school, she pulled the long sleeves of the bigged-up sweatshirt over her hands, turning them into mittens.

  School was letting out when Marigold returned. Everyone poured out of the building and into the chilly afternoon.

  “We’re going to get the bus to Brilliant Ned’s so we can buy more Dreggs,” Willa said, stopping to catch Marigold’s arm. “Everyone’s going. Want to come? I have some money. Ooh!” Willa squealed, looking at Marigold’s sweatshirt sleeves. “Did you make that bigger? At your tutoring?”

  “I bigged it up,” Marigold said.

  “Wow!” Willa hugged Marigold. “That’s a huge step with your magic. I’m so happy for you.”

  Marigold was happy, too. They linked arms and headed off to Brilliant Ned’s.

  At noon on Saturday, Nory, Elliott, Willa, and Marigold arrived at Clyde’s party. Nory felt shy as she rang the doorbell. She was glad she had her UDM friends with her.

  By now, practically everyone in the fifth grade had a Dregg. The Flickers. The Flyers. The Fluxers. The Fuzzies. And all the Flares.
Lacey Clench had ten Dreggs. Ten!

  Lunch on Friday had been crazy, in a good way. Everyone had taken out their Dreggs as soon as they’d sat down to eat. Dreggs were sitting on people’s pizza slices, hopping on juice boxes, shaking themselves like wet dogs when they stepped in spilled milk.

  After that, kids got their Dreggs wet on purpose. Elliott poured his apple juice on Groggy, and Groggy danced around like he was singing in the rain. Pepper poured milk on Mudpie, and Mudpie pretended to lap it up.

  Soon the UDM table, and then the Flicker table, and then nearly every table in the cafeteria was covered with liquid. Willa made a tiny rain cloud over her pale green Grass Dragon and the other kids put their sticky little dragons under the cloud to rinse off, rubbing them gently with paper napkins. Most of the dragons seemed to like that, but Andres’s Buttress Dragon cried.

  “Aw, you’re okay,” Andres cooed, toweling off his dragon. To the others, he said, “She doesn’t like baths, that’s all. She’s fine.”

  Anyway. The lunch workers put a stop to everything eventually. They made the kids help clean up the spilled juice and milk. Willa got scolded for her rain cloud, even though it had helped everyone clean their Dreggs.

  Outside for recess, the kids whooshed their dragons down the slides and pushed them in the swings. The UDM kids dug a pit in the yard where the Dreggs could roll in dirt. It was mud mania.

  Then nearly everyone had gone as a group to Brilliant Ned’s and bought more Dreggs so they’d have new dragons to hatch at Clyde’s party.

  And now it was party time.

  Clyde threw open the door and smiled. “Come in, come in,” he called. Nory and the others followed him as he jogged down a set of stairs. “The party’s in the rec room. Zinnia’s already here. So are Talon and Rainey. Do you all know Talon and Rainey?”

  Nory knew who they were—Flicker friends of Clyde’s. Talon was a short boy. Rainey was a tall non-binary kid. Both wore sweatshirts and brightly colored sneakers. But Nory didn’t really know them. Yeah, they had never been actively mean to the UDM kids, but they’d never been actively nice, either. They hung around with other Flickers and played soccer at recess. Also, Flickers made Nory nervous. They were known for practical jokes. They’d turn your food invisible, turn your backpack invisible, even turn you invisible and shove you in a locker.