The Big Shrink

by Sarah Mlynowski

  While a third video ran and Ms. Starr stepped out to use the restroom, a terrifying creature leapt out of Ms. Starr’s top drawer and bounded across the desk toward the kids.

  “Ahhhhh!” Nory screamed.

  The creature was mammoth, with frighteningly fluffy fur and enormous ears. There was no tail that Nory could see from this angle. Huge, dangerous front teeth and gigantic, bizarrely long whiskers. It hopped over to her, weird whiskers trembling.

  Pop! Nory fluxed into Tiny-Dritten-Nory, in order to fight it with her fire breath.

  Pffff! She spurted fire breath at it, but the creature paid no attention. The fire breath was really tiny, after all. Nory’s dritten was only a half an inch high.

  Tiny-Dritten-Nory flapped into the air and hissed at the monster. She dive-bombed it, but it swatted her away with one enormous paw.

  Maybe Pepper would fierce it, thought Tiny-Dritten-Nory. Maybe Elliott would freeze it. Even though he was never supposed to use his freezing magic on living creatures, this was an emergency!

  There was a lot of screaming.

  Tiny-Dritten-Nory saw Tiny Elliott bravely try to zap the creature with ice, but his magic, like his body, had turned small. A sheen of frost appeared on the creature’s fur, but nothing more. Now the creature was bending over Pepper, wiggling its terrible snout. Pepper’s magic was doing nothing.

  Sebastian had grabbed a pencil and was approaching the monster as if to poke it in the backside, but the creature was on the move. It sniffed and poked its terrifying toothy face at the kids, who scrambled across the desk in all directions. Tiny-Dritten-Nory hovered above, her mind racing. Andres was on the ceiling. Where was Bax? When would Ms. Starr be back from the restroom?

  What could Nory do to save her friends?

  Bax’s hand came down from the sky. He began to—what?! Was he petting the creature? What was wrong with that boy?

  Thank goodness Marigold stepped bravely in front of the monster and magicked it.

  Zwoop!

  The creature shrank.

  Zwoop!

  Bax shrank, too.

  Omigosh.

  Well.

  It looked really different, now that it was tiny. The creature was Carrot, Ms. Starr’s companion bunny. Not a monster at all.

  And omigosh again. Tiny Bax was on the floor.

  Pop! Tiny-Dritten-Nory fluxed back to her tiny-girl self. They all rushed to the edge of the desk, peering down at Tiny Bax.

  “Wh-what?” cried Tiny Bax, holding out his tiny arms and examining them. “Marigold, you shrank me!”

  “I didn’t mean to,” Marigold cried. “I’m so sorry!”

  Nory stamped her foot. All her anger at Marigold came rushing back. “You are out of control!” she told Marigold. “You’re so shrink-happy, you’re shrinking people willy-nilly.”

  “I was protecting us from the monster,” Marigold argued. Then she stopped and flushed. “I shrank Bax by accident.”

  “The monster was only Carrot,” said Nory.

  “It was?” Marigold looked around.

  Tiny Carrot nodded. “Sorry I scared you,” the bunny said. “I slept all day. And then when I saw the six of you, so tiny and cute, I just wanted to sniff you. Rabbits use their sense of smell nearly as much as their eyes, you know. It never occurred to me that you didn’t recognize me or I would have said something.”

  “It’s okay,” said Nory.

  “I’m sorry I shrank you,” said Marigold. “I was really scared.”

  “Not a problem,” said Carrot. “As long as you make me big again later.”

  From high above, Andres complained, “Am I the only regular-sized kid left? Who’s going to hold my leash on the way out of school to meet my sister? Is Ms. Starr going to have to hold my leash?”

  Tiny Bax looked up at Andres. “I didn’t ask to be shrunk, believe me. And I am really not happy about it.”

  “I’m sorry,” Marigold said. “I’ve said I’m sorry a thousand times!”

  “Marigold,” said Nory, exasperated. “Quit saying sorry and just turn Bax back. He doesn’t want to be tiny. It’s a health risk.”

  Tiny Bax leaned forward at his waist, bracing his hands against his thighs. “You guys are stressing me out,” he said. “Can everyone just back off?”

  Tiny Bax quivered and shook.

  “Uh-oh,” Elliott said. “He looks like he’s going to flux.”

  And sure enough, he fluxed. Tiny Bax was now a small rock.

  More of a stone, really.

  A pebble.

  “Too late,” Pepper said.

  Nory stared at Pebble-Bax and clapped her hand to her mouth. If something bad happened to Bax, if Bax was permanently damaged or hurt in any way, she would never forgive herself.

  “Big him up, now,” she told Marigold shakily.

  “Oh, my friends!” Ms. Starr cried, rushing back into the room. “What just happened?”

  “Marigold shrank Bax and Carrot!” Nory said.

  “By accident!” Marigold added.

  “But Bax fluxed!” Nory cried.

  “Watch out, everyone,” Ms. Starr said. She rushed over and used a Dixie cup to scoop up Pebble-Bax. “Now he won’t get lost or crushed.” Ms. Starr gave a quick shake of her head and said, “Marigold, I’m going to have to insist that you change him back. And Carrot, too. It’s not right to shrink anyone without permission.”

  Ms. Starr set Pebble-Bax’s Dixie cup on the desk. Nory peeked over alongside Marigold. Pebble-Bax looked … like a pebble. “Change him back,” said the teacher. “First Bax, then the bunny. No arguments. You wouldn’t want to see Bax get hurt, would you?”

  “No, never,” Marigold whispered. “I would never want to hurt anyone.”

  “Right, then,” Ms. Starr said. “Please step back to the edge of the desk so you’re a safe distance. I don’t want Rock-Bax to crush you once he’s big again. Go ahead.”

  Nory, Marigold, and the rest stepped to one side of the desk. Marigold climbed up on top of a pile of books so she could see Pebble-Bax. She squinted and gestured with her hands. Zwoop!

  Ms. Starr, looking down into the Dixie cup, inhaled sharply.

  “What?” Nory demanded. She ran forward to look in. “What happened?”

  Ms. Starr’s skin looked damp. “Marigold, you didn’t big him up. You shrank him again!” Her eyes flew over the others. “He’s a speck of sand now. Bax is a speck of sand!”

  Marigold’s mind whirled.

  She concentrated all of her magic on the speck of sand in the Dixie cup. She took a mental snapshot of Sand-Bax, enlarged it, and let the energy go through her forehead just as Layla had taught her—

  Zwip-pfiff-ploop!

  Ms. Starr blinked out of sight and then reappeared, four inches tall, just a little bigger than Marigold, Willa, and the other tiny fifth graders.

  “Marigold!” cried Tiny Ms. Starr, her voice high and small. “Something is wrong. You are not bigging up. You are only shrinking. I want us all to remain calm. Let’s remember our upside-down magic techniques. Do you think slow breathing would help you right now, to center your magic? Or a headstand?”

  Marigold shook her head. She didn’t understand what had gone wrong, but she knew no headstand was going to fix it.

  “Call Layla,” she said under her breath. She said it again and again, like a mantra, and with each repetition she grew more intense. Only Layla could help. She needed Layla. She clutched her head. Everything was falling apart!

  Willa grabbed Marigold’s hands. “Shh,” she said. “We’re doing what you said. We’re calling Layla right now. See?”

  Marigold followed Willa’s gaze. She saw Andres, down from the ceiling, wearing his brickpack and digging in Ms. Starr’s purse, which was on a shelf. He found the teacher’s phone. Tiny Ms. Starr barked instructions. “Now go to my contacts. Look up Layla Lapczynski. Did you find her? Yes?”

  Andres pressed a button on the phone, then another. He turned the phone around, and Marigold heard an ec
hoing ring. He’d put the call on speakerphone.

  “Good job,” Ms. Starr said, her voice a bit more wavery than usual. She hovered over Bax’s Dixie cup and pressed the back of her hand to her forehead.

  Marigold ran toward the phone. Her heart pounded, and she readied herself to yell into the speaker.

  C’mon, Layla, she thought. Pick up.

  “Hiya,” blared Layla’s lazy voice. “Layla here—or rather, not here if you’ve reached this message. You know what to do.”

  There was a long beep. Then nothing.

  “Try again,” Ms. Starr told Andres.

  Andres tried again. But again, the voicemail.

  Marigold’s heart sank, but she left a message. “Layla, it’s Marigold. We have an emergency at school. This is my teacher’s phone. Please call back as soon as you get this. We need your help.”

  Ms. Starr was speaking again, instructing Andres to fetch the nurse. When Nurse Riley arrived, he surveyed the scene and phoned the hospital.

  “Yes, you heard me correctly,” he said. “A mass shrinkage. Six children in human form, one rabbit, one adult, and one child who fluxed into a grain of sand. Yes, sand. And we’ll need—what’s that?”

  Elliott, Willa, and the others talked on top of one another, hurrying to tell Nurse Riley the rest of the awful details. He listened, his expression growing increasingly alarmed, then returned to the call.

  “Ah, strike that,” he said into the phone. “Sounds like … well … dozens of students. Upwards of thirty, maybe quite a lot more, and yes, all tiny. Plus the rabbit and the grain of sand. What? Now? Yes, I understand. Yes, of course. See you soon.”

  Nurse Riley ended the call and gazed at Marigold, who burned with humiliation. I know, she thought. It’s all my fault.

  She slumped to the ground and put her head in her hands, knowing Ms. Starr would look after Bax and Carrot. Twenty minutes later, parents began arriving in the UDM classroom, and presumably, elsewhere at school. Nurse Riley had told everyone that Marigold was unable to big them up. The tiny kids all had to go to the hospital. Nurse Riley was taking the kids whose parents couldn’t come and get them.

  Nory’s aunt Margo got to their class first. She took Nory and Elliott, whose dad was home with his baby brother. Then Willa’s mom came. Then Pepper’s mom. And Bax’s dad, who was weeping as he took Sand-Bax off in the Dixie cup. Sebastian’s parents came together, both of them Flyers who hovered nervously a couple of inches above the ground.

  Out in the hallway, other parents walked by, holding their tiny children in cupped hands. Principal Gonzalez stood in the doorway and acted like a traffic guard, directing them to go straight to the hospital and ask for Dr. Garibaldi. “Tell her you’re with the Big Shrink,” he instructed.

  “Utterly unacceptable,” one mom said.

  “I’m so scared,” said a father.

  “I knew it was a bad idea, bringing in these upside-down kids with their wonky magic,” said a third.

  Marigold wanted to die from the shame. How had she felt so proud of her powers all day, and suddenly they were back to being out of control and terrible? But that was how it was. She sat on the desk and watched Andres bring Carrot in her Dixie cup to Ms. Starr. Tiny Ms. Starr fussed over the bunny, lugging a ziplock bag of broccoli over and breaking off small pieces for Tiny Carrot to eat.

  “I’ll stay at school until the end of the day,” said Ms. Starr to Andres. “Then Principal Gonzalez will take me and Carrot to the hospital, too. But, Andres, I think you’d better just work on your poetry essay or do some independent reading. I don’t quite have the energy to go through my lesson plan, when everyone else is at the doctor.”

  “Sure thing, Ms. Starr,” said Andres. He chose a book and began to read.

  “Sweetheart?” said a kind voice. Marigold felt the rise of warm tears. It was Grandmom Flora, standing before her with Granddad Lorenzo. They’d come to pick her up.

  Were they mad? Or disappointed?

  “We were so worried when we got the call,” said Grandmom. “Are you okay?”

  Marigold began to cry. “I did this!” she wailed. “I got so wrapped up in making things better for everyone that I made things ten thousand times worse! I made everyone have to go to the hospital!

  Grandmom Flora stroked Marigold’s hair with the tip of her finger. “You’re okay,” she said soothingly. “It’s all going to be okay.”

  They had brought a fuzzy mitten to carry her in. Marigold broke off a piece of a giant tissue and wiped her face. She climbed into the mitten. Grandmom held her carefully on the way to the hospital. They went by bus. It wasn’t far.

  “Hush now,” Grandmom Flora said, since Marigold was still sniffling. “You were doing what you thought best. Fighting for student rights, yes? And, Marigold, that’s admirable. When I was younger, I took part in protests, too.”

  “You did?” Tiny Marigold said.

  “You better believe she did,” said Granddad Lorenzo. “Women’s rights, changes in school policies, changes in national policies. Whatever was unjust, your grandmom marched for it.”

  Grandmom Flora smiled. “I did. You have to stand up for what you believe in.” She paused, as if picking her words carefully. “Of course, you also have to know when to back down. Backing down, sometimes, is the only way to get back on track.”

  Marigold’s face flamed.

  Grandmom Flora tucked her finger beneath Marigold’s chin. “Hey now, sweetie. Don’t be too hard on yourself. You’re a kid. Kids are supposed to get things wrong sometimes.”

  “I wish I had gotten it right. Or that I could do something—anything!—to make it right, now that it’s happened!” She hated that all the tinies would have to be re-grown by having shots—ten of them!—and then have to drink multiple glasses of coconut water.

  Oh. Maybe there was a way to make things right. Marigold sat up straighter in the mitten. She had an idea. Maybe her magic had gotten messed up because she, herself, was tiny. Which meant her magic was tiny. Like how Tiny Pepper could only hold back her fiercing for tiny amounts of time! And Tiny Elliott only made a little bit of frost. And the tiny Flares had only baby-sized sparks.

  If Marigold regrew first—if she got poked by all ten needles and she drank the glasses and glasses of coconut water—then her magic would re-grow, too! And then—oh, zwingo! She could big up the tinies herself, with her magic! They wouldn’t have to have all those shots. Zero needles. Zero coconut water.

  True, the parents might not all let her magic their kids again, but she could offer. She could absolutely offer, couldn’t she?!

  Dr. Garibaldi was a tall, thin woman with slicked-back hair and wire-rimmed spectacles. She wore a white coat and spoke with a gentle Italian accent. “So you’re the one responsible for all this shrinkage?” she said.

  Marigold gulped. “Y-yes.” At her request, Grandmom had called the hospital, stalling the other tinies from getting their shots until Marigold got there. She was the first patient to be seen.

  The doctor held a stethoscope to Marigold’s chest, then sighed and let it fall away. “This thing’s too big to use with you tiny patients. Could you shrink the end of it? Just one end, so I can still put it in my ears?”

  “I think so,” Marigold answered.

  The doctor took apart the stethoscope and gave Marigold the tubing and the chest piece to shrink.

  Marigold concentrated, aimed, and thrust her magic at the parts of the stethoscope. They turned small with a pop.

  “Wow,” said Dr. Garibaldi. “That’s remarkable.” She turned the tiny pieces over in her hands and began to attach the tiny tubing back into the big ear pieces. “Do you realize what a boon you could be to the field of medicine? Once you get your magic under control?”

  Marigold wasn’t sure what a “boon” was, but the way Dr. Garibaldi said it made it sound good. “I could?”

  “Magic like yours? Absolutely,” Dr. Garibaldi said. “Think what tiny surgeons could do with tiny hands and tiny instruments. M
uch more delicate operations than they can do with big hands. For certain patients, it would be lifesaving. Or let’s think in simpler terms. You could shrink pills for people who have trouble swallowing them.”

  Yeah, thought Marigold. Maybe I could.

  The doctor chuckled. “If you can get your magic to do those kinds of things, you will make a really big difference in the world.” Dr. Garibaldi held up a tray. “You’re ten years old, right?” she said. “So you need ten shots.”

  Ugh. Ten shots.

  “I can’t make them small because then my fingers won’t be able to work them,” continued the doctor. “After that, you’ll go to the recovery room, where you’ll have to drink eighteen cups of coconut water. Are you ready?”

  Marigold did not like the look of those giant syringes at all. But she had no choice. She concentrated on her plan to spare the rest of the kids, or at least maybe spare the rest of them.

  She squished her eyes shut and nodded. “I’m ready.”

  After Marigold felt her body expand like a piece of bubble gum becoming a bubble, she was her usual size. In the recovery room, she drank her eighteen cups of coconut water. Then she shrank a box of tissues in the examining room. Then she bigged it. Then she shrank it. And bigged it.

  She was right! Her magic worked smoothly now that she wasn’t shrunken. She tracked down Dr. Garibaldi and gave her the news. Together they stepped back into the waiting area.

  Marigold cleared her throat. “I think I can help everyone,” she said nervously. “Is anyone willing to give me a chance to grow them? Doctor Garibaldi will stand by. Just in case.”

  The doctor nodded.

  “No way,” snapped a Flare parent. “You’ve done enough.”

  “Same here,” said a Flicker parent.

  The room was quiet. So many upset parents. So many tiny students. Marigold felt her heart sink.

  But Nory raised her tiny hand. She stood on the armrest of her aunt’s chair and said, “Instead of being poked with ten ginormous needles? Yes, please! Big me up, Marigold!”

  “Me too,” said Willa, from her perch on her mother’s knee.