Zac to the Rescue!

by Katrina Kahler

“Joe, do something!” I screamed. I wasn’t sure what the best course of action was, but I really didn’t have a lot of options. My goal now was to survive until Meg got out here.

  “Woof, woof woof!!!” Joe barked.

  “Joe, it knows you’re not a dog. The cat’s not stupid!”

  “I know that,” Joe said. “But I want to get it thinking.”

  Sure enough, the cat now turned its attention to Joe. It had a choice to make. Take the strange little person it had trapped under its claw, or make a run at this new strange little person.

  “Woof, woof!!!” Joe growled.

  The back door to the house swung open. Meg ran out. “Mr. Tabby! What are you doing?” she yelled. She raced over and picked up the cat. “Bad, bad pussy cat!” she scolded. “You’re going to cost me money!” She put the cat on the ground. She stomped her foot. “Go home!” she shouted.

  The cat took off.

  Meg looked at Joe and I. “Boy, I can’t leave you two alone for a second without you getting into trouble!” She picked us up. “Come on, I’ll take you into the kitchen and wash you off.”

  Meg carried us back into the kitchen. She dropped us into the sink. She turned on the faucet. The water started dripping down. She motioned for us to walk under it.

  “I don’t know about this, Meg,” I said.

  “Trust me. You’ll smell better,” Meg said.

  “I think we’ll smell like wet dog,” Joe told her.

  Meg laughed. “Trust me. That would be better. I have a hair dryer in my bathroom. I can use that on you.”

  Joe and I both walked through the stream of water. It felt kind of good.

  Meg snatched us up in her hands, shook us out a bit then started walking out of the kitchen. Bobby walked in as Meg walked out. Meg dropped us into her pockets.

  “Oh, you’re back,” Bobby said, looking around behind Meg.

  “Yep,” Meg said.

  “Did you see anything in the kitchen?” Bobby asked.

  Meg smiled. “I saw a bunch of things in the kitchen: a stove, a fridge, a table…you know, the normal stuff.”

  “Did you see anything weird?” Bobby asked.

  “Just you!” Meg laughed, walking past her brother.

  “Oh, good!” he said.

  Meg raced upstairs and into her bedroom. She shut the door behind her. She dropped us gently on her bed. She ran into the bathroom. She came out with a hair dryer.

  “Ahhh...was your brother, Zac still on the phone?” I asked.

  Meg snickered. “Yep, I think that phone is connected to his ear sometimes. He’s always talking to this girl or that girl or some other girl. Really, they all seem alike to me. They just drool over him because they think he’s so handsome!” She stuck out her tongue. “Yuck.”

  I couldn’t help noticing Joe grinning.

  Meg looked at me. “Listen, Becky’s sister…”

  “My name is Isabella, my friends call me Bella.”

  “Listen, Isabella, my big bro isn’t all that great. He’s okay, but I really don’t understand why girls like him so much! Does getting older make you dumber?”

  “You’ll understand when you’re older,” I told Meg.

  Meg grinned. “I hope not!” She plopped down on the bed between us, sending Joe and I bouncing in the air. “To tell the truth, right now I find most boys, how can I say this…icky!”

  I nodded. “Yeah, I know what you mean.” I pointed at Joe. “I’ve known him for as long as I can remember. We were friends before we could really even talk. So I could always talk to this guy. But other boys…no way!”

  “Really?” Meg said. “I thought it was just me.” She looked over at Joe. “Do you ever think of him as your boyfriend? I know he’s tiny and smells pretty horrible right now, but if you clean him up, he’s probably kind of cute.”

  Wow, now that was a question I hadn’t been expecting from Meg. This hyperactive seven or eight-year-old actually thought about things. Sometimes I forget that little kids are people too. I had to be really careful with my answer here. First off, because Joe was sitting right next to us, I didn’t want to upset him or give him the wrong impression. Second, because this was something I never really thought about. Me and Joe?

  Nah, it just seemed weird. I think. At least for now.

  “I like Joe, I like him a lot. He’s my BFF,” I told Meg.

  “But you don’t like, like him,” Meg answered.

  “Like he said, we’re like brother and sister,” I told her.

  “I spend so much time at her house, I think her mom and dad might think I’m actually one of their kids,” Joe added.

  “Did you even spend time there when the house smelled like poop?” Meg asked, once again showing surprising awareness. (And also showing how famous - in a bad way - I had become.)

  Joe hesitated for a moment, then said. “At first the smell was too much, even for me. But I missed hanging out with Bella, so I finally visited her place with a mask on. That’s how strong our friendship is. I actually felt bad that I didn’t show up every day, especially when I knew she needed me.”

  I looked at Joe. “Believe me, I totally get it. I know I spent a lot of time at your house during the pigsty time.”

  Joe laughed. “True, my mom thought about charging you rent.”

  Meg shook her head. “Wait a minute now! You two get along way too good to be brother and sister.”

  Joe and I both laughed. “Yeah, I guess we do,” we both said. We laughed harder.

  “We even shrank ourselves together,” I noted.

  “Did you do it on purpose?” Meg asked.

  “Nope, that was a pure accident. Remember, we thought we’d be time traveling to a different time zone,” I told her.

  “Right, I remember. Well, that was pretty stupid of you!” Meg said. “I’m only a little kid and I know shrinking yourselves by accident just isn’t very smart.” Her eyes lit up. “Hey, how’d you get to my house?” She leaned in close to me. “Was this your plan to get close to my bro? Cause if it was, that was really dumb.”

  I shook my head. “Nope, we fell into a box of toys that your grandma bought at my mom’s yard sale.”

  “Ah, so you were in the dead doll box,” Meg said. “I’m surprised I didn’t notice. But I had just eaten like a billion cookies. Zac says that makes me something called hyper. Silly Zac.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, I have NO idea how he came to that conclusion!”

  “Me either,” Joe said.

  Meg sighed. “Like I told you, he’s kind of mean. Plus, I have to help him with his spelling. If it’s not emoji he can’t spell it.” Meg sniffed at us. “You guys still smell worse than our dog when he’s wet. Can I dry you off now?” she asked.

  “Sure.”

  Meg turned to plug in the dryer.

  The door flew open. A red-faced Bobby burst into the room. “Meg! Did you steal my fairies?” Bobby saw us sitting on the bed with Meg. He shot towards us. “You did! You did steal my fairies!”

  Oops. I had a feeling this was about to get ugly. And when you’re just two inches tall, you really need to avoid ugly situations.

  Chapter 4

  “Bobby, these are people, not fairies,” Meg told him. “And I found them. So now I’m helping them.”

  Bobby bent over and looked at us. Some drool dropped on us as he shook his head feverishly. “They don’t look anything like people! People are big! They’re small. They told me they are magical fairies and fairies never lie!” Bobby insisted.

  “Then that proves that they’re not fairies!” Meg said, turning on the hair dryer.

  The hot air from the dryer hit us. It forced us back a step. It felt really hot. “Ah Meg, can you raise the dryer please?” I asked.

  “Sure,” Meg said holding the dryer higher.

  I kept my eyes mostly on Bobby. He stood there with his mouth open and his tongue out, not a pretty sight.

  “But you said you were fairies,” Bobby whined.

  We had le
t Bobby think that we were fairies when we thought Bobby would be the best chance for us to get out of this predicament. But now, strange as it seemed, Meg was our best bet. Yep, we were team Meg now. I figured it would be best to tell Bobby the truth.

  I lowered my head. “Sorry Bobby, my friend, we shouldn’t have lied to you. But we didn’t want to scare you by saying we were little people. We thought it would be more fun for you if you thought of us as little magical fairies,” I told him as sincerely as I could.

  “Yeah,” Joe said, leaning into me and grinning.

  Bobby itched his head, dandruff rained down on us. “Well, that was pretty darn stupid. I’m smart you know.”

  We both lowered our heads in fake shame.

  Bobby stuck out his tongue at us and gave us a loud wet raspberry.

  Meg laughed. She looked at me. “Mom says Bobby reminds her of a young Zac. Only Bobby is better looking at this age than Zac was.”

  I felt pretty certain Meg was playing with my mind. Then she walked over to her nightstand and grabbed a photo. She showed it to me. I saw three kids, a very awkward looking boy with more teeth missing than what was still in place, a cute little girl, and a baby. “This is Bobby when he was born, that’s me when I was two and that’s Zac when he was seven. He dropped Bobby right after this picture was taken because he farted and started cracking up.”

  I guess that might explain a lot about Bobby. Wow, Zac wasn’t a good looking young kid. Guess that’s why I never noticed him back then. Hard to believe the kid in the photo became Zac.

  We all heard a grumbling coming from Meg’s stomach. She put her hand over her stomach. Her face looked a little green. “Oh no, I shouldn’t have eaten like two dozen cookies and then sushi from the mall…” she groaned.

  “Ha, she said sushi!” Bobby said, laughing and pointing at her.

  Meg turned and raced towards the bathroom. “This might take a while!” she said frantically. With each step, she let out a fart and a “sorry about that.”

  The door to the bathroom slammed shut. The room now smelled of old cabbage mixed with dead skunk.

  Bobby waved his hand in front of his face. “Wow, that’s worse than Zac’s!”

  Bobby bent down and picked us up.

  “Wait, what are you doing?” I asked.

  “I’m saving you!” Bobby said.

  He rushed out of the room. In one way, I felt relieved to be out of the stink zone. In another way, I felt worse to be at Bobby’s mercy. He rushed down the stairs. Peeking through his fingers, I saw Zac still lying there on the couch with his phone curled to his ear, a smile on his face. I sighed. Bobby opened the front door as he went outside. The sunlight felt good hitting my face. Bobby seemed to be heading for a big oak tree at the side of the house. Looking up, I noticed an old wooden fort in the middle of the tree.

  Bobby starting climbing up, sticking myself and Joe in his back pocket as he worked his way up the ladder. He reached the tree fort and rolled up the rope ladder. He pulled us out of his pocket.

  He placed us on the floor of the fort.

  “Ha, we’ll be safe from Meg up here! She hates heights. So you fairies can tell me the truth. You are fairies, right?”

  We were now pretty much at Bobby’s mercy. The question was...did I want to go with the truth - that he didn’t want to hear. Or tell the lie that I couldn’t deliver on - that he wanted to hear. I know they say the truth is always best. But what really is the truth to a five-year-old? Is the truth what actually happened, or what the five-year-old wants to happen? I mean he’ll be way happier if he thinks we are fairies. We’ll be safer if Bobby is happy.

  “Ah Bobby,” Joe said. “You know my friend and I are thirsty and hungry.”

  Bobby shook his head. “No, I don’t know that.” He smiled. “Luckily there are some donuts here from my secret donut collection.” He pointed to the corner. Sure enough, there was a box of donuts there.

  “But we’re still thirsty,” Joe insisted. “Don’t worry, we can’t get down from here, our fairy wings have been clipped.”

  “Okay,” Bobby said slowly. Bobby picked us up and carried us to the corner near the box of donuts. “I’ll bring you some milk.” He dropped the rope ladder and climbed down it.

  Joe and I walked into the box of donuts. Sure they were a little old but we needed to eat. I grabbed a chunk of one of the donuts and popped it into my mouth.

  “Not bad,” I said.

  “That got rid of Bobby for a while. I thought we needed to talk,” Joe said.

  “We can talk and eat,” I said, grabbing another piece of donut. I hoped this would help clear my head some. It’s hard to think when you’re small and hungry.

  Joe started munching. “You’re right! These are pretty good!” he grinned. “So, what’s the plan?”

  We heard a high-pitched buzzing sound behind us. Turning, we saw a mosquito hovering.

  “Oh, this is not good,” I sighed, the smile quickly disappearing from both our faces.

  Normally, if we were big, this would be no big deal, just a minor distraction at best. We would swat the thing away and that would be that. But when you are two inches tall, a mosquito is a very big deal. It’s pretty much nature’s version of a vampire.

  Joe stood up. “If that thing bites us, it can suck out half our blood!” he shouted. “Man, that would be so bad!”

  I shot up to my feet. “Yeah, I did the math in my head. This little bug could actually kill us.”

  “Man, being drained by a mosquito in a five-year-old’s tree house is not the way I wanted to die,” Joe moaned. “This is so uncool!”

  I picked up a twig on the ground. In my tiny hands, it seemed like a giant baseball bat. “Don’t worry Joe, this isn’t how we go!”

  I swung the stick at the hovering insect. It dodged me. I knew it would. After all, mosquitos are fast. I didn’t need to hit it though. I just needed to let it know that my friend and I would not be easy eating. The mosquito flew back maybe an inch or two. I lifted the stick over my head and swung down on the mosquito. I missed, and it darted to the left.

  “Come on Joe, there are plenty of sticks around this place. Pick one up and together we can take this bug down!”

  Joe grabbed a stick. “Technically, I don’t think mosquitos are bugs.”

  “Not looking for a science report, Joe. Just trying to keep us from being sucked to death.”

  “Right! Gotcha!” Joe said, standing by my side with his stick raised. I’m sure we looked ridiculous, but in our minds, I’m also sure we thought we looked like heroes from a great sci-fi movie.

  The mosquito floated there just out of our reach. I don’t think it thought we’d put up such a fight. I poked at it with my stick pretending it was a sword.

  The mosquito dived underneath my stick.

  “Okay Joe, once again we face another creature that is faster than us. But what do we have that it doesn’t have?”

  “Our brain power!” Joe shouted.

  “Right!” I shouted back. “I will swing high and low! You swing left and right. We’re bound to knock this bug down!”

  “Then what?” Joe asked.

  “We’re still bigger than a mosquito, so we squash it!”

  Now we had a plan. Was it a good plan? Well, let’s just say it wasn’t the best plan. But we could make it work.

  We both lunged forward. I swung high. I felt my stick glance off something. Joe swung side to side.

  “I think I hit it!” he shouted.

  His stick clobbered me right in the gut. I went staggering backward and doubled over. Looking up, I could have sworn that the mosquito laughed at us. But the good news was, our attack had hit it at least once. The mosquito must have figured there were easier meals to be had. It turned and flew away.

  “Sorry about that,” Joe told me.

  I straightened myself up. “No problem, we got the job done.”

  We went back to our feast of day old donuts.

  “So, what’s the plan for de
aling with Bobby?” Joe asked.

  “I actually feel safer with Meg than Bobby, but we’re kind of at his mercy now. At least until we can get down from here and back to her.”

  “Then we lie?” Joe asked.

  “I prefer to think of it as making a small boy happy, and keeping us from certain death. Once we get out of here and become big again, we’ll give the kid a gift card or something. Let’s face it, he’s five, he’s got the memory of a fish.”

  “Who’s got the memory of a fish?” Bobby asked, popping his head back up into the tree house. Man that kid could be quiet if he wanted to be.

  “Your brother, Zac,” I said quickly.

  Bobby laughed. “Ha fish brain. That’s so funny. Wait until I tell him that my friend fairies said he has a fish brain.”

  “Let’s keep that our little secret,” I told Bobby.

  Bobby dropped a glass of milk down between us. He pulled two little thimbles from his pocket. “I figured you could use these as glasses to drink from!” he told us. The kid showed more brains than I would have thought.

  Bobby poured the milk into the thimble spilling a lot of it, soaking Joe and me in milk. Okay, now this was more like the Bobby I expected.

  “Oops,” Bobby said. He swatted the back of his neck. He lowered his hand to his face. “Ha! Gotcha!” he bragged. He showed us the squashed mosquito on his hand. “I’m really good at that!” he smiled.

  Joe and I just looked at each other. The funny thing is that I felt a bit sorry for the mosquito. But that also showed how helpless Joe and I were right now. It took Bobby less than a second to take out a mosquito that had fought Joe and me to a standstill. Yep, as sad as it may be, we needed Bobby.

  I walked up to Bobby. I motioned for him to come down to my level. He bent over. “What do ya want?” he asked.

  “I need to tell you the truth,” I said slowly. I wanted to pick my words carefully. “Believe it or not Bobby, we aren’t fairies.”

  Bobby nodded. “Yeah, I believe that. You guys are way too clumsy to be fairies. So what are you?”

  “We’re just two clumsy twelve-year-old kids,” I said.