by Anita Oh
As I got deeper into the bamboo forest, the sounds from outside faded away. I didn’t know if the mob had given up or if they were lying in wait or still trying to break down the fence, but I thought maybe if I could find a nice little place to sit, once it got late I could sneak back to my room unnoticed. That was basically the best I could hope for, at any rate.
I couldn't be sure where I was headed, the whole forest looked exactly the same to me, but I seemed to walk on and on without getting anywhere. Nothing changed and I didn’t find a handy little seat or anything. The sky grew even darker and the water in my hair turned to icicles. If it got any colder, I decided, I’d have to risk going back to my room anyway. It was that or hypothermia. You didn’t want to play around with that kind of thing.
That was assuming I could find my way back out. I stopped walking and looked around. The bamboo was almost fully grown. I couldn't see over it. There was no way of telling which way I’d come from or which way I was headed. I supposed it would be easy enough to head in one particular direction until I came to the fence, and then follow the fence around to the gate. I looked up at the sky to see if I could find the sun to judge the direction from that, but there was nothing but thick gray cloud. No, there was something else, I noticed. Something falling from the sky. Snow. Wow, the universe really did not want me alive.
Hopefully, once everyone else saw the snow, they’d head back up to the school. I figured lunch had probably ended anyway, and usually the bullying ended with the bell, so I was probably safe to head out.
Once the snow started, it really started. I’d never been in a heavy snow storm and I didn’t really fancy it now. I picked a direction and ploughed ahead. As I walked, though, I noticed something funny about the snow. It seemed to have a light to it, a sort of blue glow.
“Oh no,” I said, stopping in my tracks and looking around. “Come on! Give me a break! I am having a bad enough day as it is!” I wasn’t sure if the spellcaster could hear me or was off somewhere cozy and warm. I shuddered at the thought they were in the forest with me, maybe hiding in the shadows and watching me struggle around. Whenever I pictured them, it was in some sort of creepy dungeon, wearing long black robes and goth makeup and spying on me via crystal ball, but really they could’ve been anyone, anywhere.
The last time it had happened, there had been mist and talking statues and glittery sparkly things, but this time was different. The blue glow flashed in the sky like sheet lightning, once, twice and then was gone. There was no voice, nothing to provide a cryptic explanation of what was going on or how I could maybe stop it.
“Seriously!” I yelled at the sky. “I just wanted to eat some mini pastries!”
It was the weirdest thing ever. The forest seemed to grow up around me at a super fast rate, like it was being filmed with time lapse photography or something. Up and up, it grew, until they stopped looking like bamboo stalks and more like giant wooden pillars. My bag slipped from my shoulder; it was growing as well and had gotten too heavy to lift. When I looked up, even the sky seemed to be getting further away. The whole world was moving, changing. Maybe I was having an attack of vertigo, I thought. I felt as if I might throw up and stumbled to my knees.
When I looked up again, the world had stopped moving. Everything still seemed way too big though, and I looked around for my bag. Okay, so the giant canvas mountain beside me, I was guessing that was my bag. That would make things tricky. Snowflakes fell around me, far bigger than the wafty specks they usually were, and despite their size, not even anything like a pretty Christmas decoration. More like a silvery ball of deep-fried breadcrumbs, only cold and wet and not delicious. I rushed for the safety of my bag mountain. I grabbed onto the large plastic hoop that I took to be the zipper and pulled it open.
Oh well, I thought, climbing up onto my bag to avoid the snow, at least those tiny pastries would be more filling now.
Chapter 6
It became fairly immediately apparent that I needed to get myself out of the snowstorm. The snow was coming down in buckets and I was way smaller than buckets. I had no way of knowing how long the storm would last, but if it wasn’t going to be long, I would be better off taking shelter inside my bag than trying to get to the Red House. It seemed an insurmountable distance on such short legs as I had now.
Everything inside my bag was ruined from being dumped in the fountain. I was super careful as I climbed inside the sludgy mess. The bag had fallen on its side when I’d been shrunk, so it was easy to get into at least. There were massive puddles of water at the bottom that didn’t smell so good up close, due to the mix of fountain water and bag debris. Mostly, it was being soaked up by my books, and working its way into my tablet, which was definitely fried. I propped open the zip of my bag just enough to see out and shoved some of the books into place to make a little ledge. I’d shoved my big woolly scarf in my bag that morning in case I got too cold, and I thanked past me for the thought as I fashioned it into a warm and comforting cushion.
Maybe I could just live in my bag forever, I thought. There were snacks in the pocket, some rice crackers and fruit and that type of thing. Emergency foods. This was definitely an emergency and now that I was tiny, that food could last me weeks. As far as evil spells went, getting shrunk definitely had its advantages. Well, advantage, I couldn’t really think of anything else besides the food thing. I mean, I could easily avoid the bullies now but at the same time, they could squish me like a bug without even meaning to. And if I wanted to get anywhere, it would take me forever. It was definitely best for me to just live in my bag forever.
I don't know if it was because of my relative size, but the snowstorm seemed to get worse. Outside my bag was just a whirl of white and cold. I huddled down into my scarf, pulling the bag closed to block out the wind. I kind of wished I’d put my snacks in the main section of the bag, rather than the pocket, because climbing out there in the cold did not seem like fun. I would probably be blown away, actually. I snuggled into my scarf with a sigh. Being small was kind of boring, everything in this world was for giants. I decided to have a nap to pass the time.
Napping was not my best idea ever.
I woke up kind of confused, as you’d expect after being shrunk down to the size of a Pokemon. I groaned as I remembered what had happened. Oh, for those golden days when I didn’t know about all this magic stuff. I could’ve convinced myself I was hallucinating and just gone back to sleep. I peeked out of my bag and a pile of snow fell in. The storm had passed but the snow was still coming down, and it had reached halfway up my bag, burying the bottom. I couldn’t stay there, I realized. I was only an itty-bitty person now, if this snow started to melt I would drown in a sludgy ice pile within seconds. And if I got snowed in, I’d probably freeze to death, or be suffocated, or who even knows what. Being tiny was no joke, you had to think of all these extra dangers.
I pulled my way out of the bag, but as soon as I stepped onto the snow, it became very obvious that I was an idiot. I started sinking down almost immediately. The snow was all soft and fluffy and couldn’t take my weight. I climbed back into my bag and snuggled back into my scarf to rethink the situation. I needed to compress the snow, make it firm enough to walk on. Surely I had something in my bag to help with that.
I shuffled down to my inside pocket and made a little noise of triumph. My pencil case was full of useful things. A pad of post-its, that would do the job of flattening the snow. And I could use a pencil as a staff to navigate the treacherous terrain. Like Gandalf. Well, more like a Gandalf action figurine, I supposed. The pencil had been sharpened down to half its original size, but was still almost as big as me and kind of a pain to carry but it made me feel badass, so I took it with me anyway. I was literally freezing, but my scarf was too big to take with me and all my other clothes were shrunken on my body, but there was a little fabric tie around the opening of my bag, so I pulled that out and wrapped it around my neck. I was all set to go.
The post-its weren't the best thing for
flattening the snow, they were heavy and cumbersome and it was hard work whacking them down over and over again, enough to make the snow solid. There had to be a better way. I folded my arms and sat down on my pencil like it was a log while I thought it over. I was working on a limited timeframe; the snow was not slowing down. I couldn't spend hours compressing the snow enough to walk on. But maybe if I pushed the post-its in front of me like a snow plow, the snow would flatten out and compact on its own. I gave it a try. I sank down a little, but if I got up some speed, it was definitely workable. I needed two hands to push it, so I shoved the pencil down the back of my blazer like a sword, tied back my hair, and got going.
It wasn't fun. It was wet and cold and hard work, but I soon got into the kind of rhythm of it. Push and run, stop and sink, start over. The effort of it kept me warm enough to keep going. Over and over, I did it. Push and run, stop and sink, start over. My socks were soaked right through and I was fairly sure I had frostbite in most of my toes, but I knew I had to keep on. I had no other choice. Fairly soon, the safe haven of my bag was out of sight, so I had to keep on or else just curl up into a ball and sink under the snow forever. The chants of everyone telling me to die were so fresh in my ears that it made me want to stubbornly keep on living, if only to annoy them.
As I pushed on through the snow, I went back over what had happened. This spell seemed different to before. The last time I'd been hit by a spell, it had all been very elaborate, with the talking statue and everything. I wondered if he was still in the bamboo forest somewhere, he'd been a pretty sturdy old guy. It was probably significant that the spell happened in the same place, and it made me wonder if the whole bullying thing hadn't been orchestrated to herd me there, like a lamb to slaughter. It seemed like a kind of paranoid thing to think, but then, somebody had just used magic to shrink me to the size of a string bean, so it seemed justified. Even the form that the magic took was different. It was still a blue glowy light, sure, but this time it was sort of flat and dull, not sparkly and buzzy. Tennyson Wilde had said that the last time, the magic had sort of been possessing Mr Porter. The magic belonged to somebody else, was a sort of energy that they'd used to get Mr Porter to do their evil bidding. And it made sense in a way, because Mr Porter always had a thousand ideas going on, brilliant, glittering ideas buzzing around, just like the magic had been. It made sense that if somebody else was using the magic now, it would be a bit different. But who was it? And was it the person who owned the magic or another puppet? I had my suspicions but no proof to back anything up. Still, there was one person who had stepped forward to face me down before anyone else, so surely that person was the number one person of interest.
My muscles began to seize up and I wasn't sure how much farther I could keep going. The world was really big when you were miniature and everything was super far away. I looked behind to be sure I was moving in a straight line. It seemed as though I was, but I couldn't be sure. The trail I left in the snow looked straight but vanished into a white swirl only a few paces back, so that didn't really help. It was so cold that it hurt. I began to rethink my plan of leaving the bamboo forest but staying didn't seem a much better option. Maybe I could climb the bamboo. I looked up at one of the big, thick stalks and immediately dismissed the idea. No way could I hold on enough to climb anything. I tried to think of something to keep my spirits up, to keep me marching forward, but I was rapidly running out of motivation. Even if I came to the end of the forest, what then? I had very little hope of getting all the way back to the Red House, somehow gaining access and making my way up to my room.
It was so cold and I was so tired. Maybe the best thing to do would be to curl up on top of my post-its and just have a little rest. Just enough to regain my strength. Five minutes couldn't hurt, right?
I curled up into a little ball, shivering. I'd read somewhere that when you get hypothermia, one of the symptoms is impaired judgment, and I wondered if maybe napping was not the best idea, but I couldn't bring myself to care. Surely, everything would work out fine, all I needed was a bit of a kip. Some shut-eye. Forty winks.
My eyes had barely closed when there was a terrible screeching noise. I opened my eyes blearily, but then as soon as I registered what I saw, the adrenalin kicked in and I jumped to my feet, brandishing my pencil out in front of me. Forget rabid werewolves or angry mobs of rich kids, this was the most terrifying thing I had ever seen.
I had not been wrong about rodents in the bamboo field, oh em gee.
It was a rat the size of a cement mixer.
It had bright red devil eyes and it salivated when it looked at me. I didn't dare to move in case it pounced on me. Its whiskers twitched and it shuffled forward. Oh man, why couldn't I have just died peacefully in the snow? If I was dead, I wouldn't care if the rat feasted on me. I'd be a tasty Lucycicle, probably. Way more delicious than devouring me alive.
I don't know if it was that my brain had frozen out all reasonable thought, or just that the idea of being munched on by a rat was so appalling, but suddenly my escape plan seemed super obvious. Rats were fast. Rats could go anywhere. If I could harness the power of this rat, the world was my oyster, no matter how big or terrifying it was.
I would be the Rat Queen and I would rule all!
The rat moved even closer to me and I took me chance. Using my pencil for leverage, I vaulted up onto the back of the rat and held on tight.
The rat screeched again, and I really hoped it wasn't calling all its rodent buddies to come tear me to bits. I dropped my pencil in favor of clinging to the rat's fur, which was surprisingly clean and soft. The rat gave another screech and then took off running.
It didn't seem to be going in any clear direction. I think it was just confused by having a tiny human on its back, and to be honest I couldn't blame it. I hoped it wasn't taking me back to its nest, but maybe it would adopt me and I could live there among the baby rats until I got big again. It wasn't ideal and baby rats kind of freaked me out more than almost anything else on this planet, but I wasn't really in a position to be picky.
The rat ran around like crazy, trying to fling me off its back. I couldn't even ride a horse, wasn't great on a bicycle, even the bus proved a challenge sometimes, so staying on the back of the rat was a tough job. It was not like in the movies. I didn't somehow get the rat under my control and make friends with it and convince it to take me home. My hands were all stiff and cold and my muscles ached, and it didn't take very long before the rat flung me off and I landed hard against the ground. The rat advanced on me, its eye flashing red and angry. Okay, so the rat-riding had been a dismal failure and I'd even lost my brand new pad of post-its and my faithful pencil now. This was it for me. I'd done my best, but my best wasn't good enough and now the gig was up.
"Make it fast, Mr. Rat," I said, gulping and squeezing my eyes tight shut.
There was a massive thud, and then another and another. Everything shook like the end of the world. I guessed it probably was.
After a moment, when nothing had happened, I cracked an eye open. The rat had scampered off and in front of me was something big, black and shiny. A gigantic shoe. A familiar shoe.
"I knew you would be in the middle of this mess," he said, bending down to get a better look at me.
Tennyson Wilde. Of course.
I would've preferred the rat.
Chapter 7
"Were you actually trying to catch that rat and ride on it?" He squinted down at me condescendingly. "Animals don't just exist for your exploitation, you know. You can't be surprised that it was angry with you."
I didn't reply to him. Not because I had nothing to say, because my teeth were chattering too much.
"What are you doing there in the snow?" he asked, because he was the most unhelpful person alive. "Did you not realize you would sink and die?"
I glared at him as fiercely as I could while chattering and freezing and mini, though I didn't think the full weight of my disdain was conveyed.
He scooped me up
out of the snow and held me in the palm of his hand right in front of his face. It was a horrible sensation, like that moment when a plane takes off only a zillion times worse, because planes stayed in the air with science and I had no such guarantees with Tennyson Wilde. He stared at me so intensely that his massive eyebrows met in the middle. He huffed a breath out his nose so forcefully it knocked me backwards. At least he didn't have bad breath, I supposed, and I was out of the snow.
"You'd better come with me," he said. "If you're always in the middle of the mess, it seems that you'll be needed to clean it up."
And without another word, he tucked me into his coat pocket.
His pocket was warm and protected from the elements, and some sort of luxurious soft fabric. Because he moved so smoothly, I was hardly jostled around at all, and made myself as comfortable as possible. After a while, my teeth stopped chattering. That was bad, right? I remembered reading that was bad, like once your teeth stopped chattering, that was when hypothermia set in and you died. Dying in Tennyson Wilde's pocket would be super embarrassing, but definitely warmer and snugglier than being ravaged by rats in the snow. And, jerk though he was, he did seem like the sort of person who would properly notify my family of my tragic demise, at the very least.
