The Big Shrink Read online

  Lunch zoomed by, and before Marigold knew it, she and the other UDM kids were filing back into Ms. Starr’s classroom. Everyone rushed to show Ms. Starr their Dreggs.

  “They’re very cute,” Ms. Starr said. “Did that pink one—did she just wag her tail? Oh, my!”

  She was the kind of teacher who truly cared about the kids. She kept her temper, made lessons fun, and never made anyone feel bad if their upside-down magic got out of control. She took the time to look at everyone’s Dregg and then clapped her hands. “Now put them away. In your desks. I have an announcement.”

  It took longer than usual, but finally, everyone quieted down. Ms. Starr smiled straight at Marigold, and Marigold felt her tummy flip over. Everyone in the class had been assigned tutors to help them with their unique magics, except for Marigold. Ms. Starr had hinted before break that she had a possible tutor for Marigold.

  Marigold tried not to get her hopes up … but maybe today was the day?

  “Yes,” Ms. Starr said, answering Marigold’s unasked question. “I just got confirmation from Dunwiddle University’s Department of Magical Studies, and you, Marigold, officially have a tutor!”

  Willa reached over from her desk and found Marigold’s hand. She gave it a quick, happy squeeze.

  “Her name is Layla Lapczynski,” Ms. Starr said. “She’s a graduate student, which means she’s finished college and she’s studying to be an expert. So she’s not a teacher. But she has size-related magic, just like you. And she’s been doing her graduate research on how it works.”

  Size-related magic? For real?

  “Your first meeting is tomorrow,” Ms. Starr finished. “Oh, Marigold, this is such wonderful news, isn’t it?”

  Marigold grinned. “It is.”

  The next morning, Nory met Elliott so they could walk to school together. “Do you have your Dregg?” she asked.

  “Duh,” Elliott said with a grin. He patted his pocket. “I played with Groggy after my homework, and again after dinner, and first thing this morning.”

  “Does he have any new tricks?”

  “Yep. Groggy can now wiggle his backside, thump his tail, and hop three hops,” said Elliott.

  “Sweet,” said Nory. “Glowie’s learning new things, too. She’s a Luminous Dragonette, and as of this morning, she can turn green. But she doesn’t firble yet.”

  “Have you hatched your two extra ones?”

  Nory shook her head. “Not yet. I’m saving them.”

  As they approached the redbrick building, Nory’s heart gave a happy skip. Standing in the cool November air were all her friends. Except for Andres, of course. He was flying on his leash, while his sister, Carmen, held the other end, chatting with her eighth-grade friends.

  Everyone—even Andres, way up high—was playing with their Dreggs.

  Elliott squeezed his eggshell. “Everyone, look,” he said as his Dregg wobbled and cracked, then made an especially hilarious farting noise as Groggy emerged. Groggy was a tiny brown Grog Dragon with eyes like firebolts. He thumped his tiny tail. He hopped back and forth on Elliott’s palm and snapped his teeth.

  “Zwingo!” said Sebastian.

  “You didn’t tell me he bit!” cried Nory.

  “Cool, right?” said Elliott.

  Sebastian’s Dregg hatched, and out popped a miniature Blurper Dragon.

  “Nory, look,” Sebastian exclaimed. “My Blurper is saying hi to you.”

  “Hi, Blurper!” said Nory. As Nory watched, Sebastian’s Blurper waved at her. Wow!

  Pepper’s egg had hatched into a murky-brown Mud Dragon. “I’m calling her Mudpie,” she said. “I love her so so so so much!” Since Pepper’s magic terrified animals, she couldn’t have real pets. “Last night, I put her shell on my pillow so she could sleep next to me, and guess what? She snores. You can hear it even through her eggshell.”

  “So funny,” said Nory. She was happy for her friend.

  “Hey, Zinnia,” called Pepper. “Come see the Dreggs. Nory got them for us.”

  Zinnia was a Flare who was a friend of Pepper’s. Zinnia was okay, Nory thought. But she was also semi-friends with Lacey Clench, who was basically Nory’s archenemy.

  Zinnia came over and admired Mudpie. “She is just the cutest. Can I hold her?”

  “Sure,” said Pepper. “You can even put her back in her egg and make her re-hatch. You’re the best, Mudpie. Yes, you are.”

  Zinnia got to business, fitting Mudpie back into the shell. “Now what?”

  “You squeeze it,” Pepper said gleefully.

  “But I just—”

  “I know.” Pepper caught Nory’s eye and grinned. “Squeeze it, Zinnia. Trust me.”

  “Oka-a-y,” Zinnia said, squeezing the Dregg tentatively. “Hey, Nory, where do you buy Dreggs? Like if I wanted to get one for myself?”

  Nory hesitated. She did have two unhatched Dreggs left. Okay, fine.

  She reached into her pocket and handed a yellow-and-green-striped egg to Zinnia.

  “For me?” Zinnia asked, eyes wide.

  “Sure.”

  “Wow. Thank you!”

  Nory glowed. She quite liked being the one and only Nory, giver of Dreggs. She could spare one for Pepper’s friend. All was well with the world.

  Later that morning, Marigold waited anxiously in the library for her tutor, Layla Lapczynski. She repeated Ms. Lapczynski’s full name over and over in her mind, the same way Ms. Starr pronounced it, to be sure she got it right. Lap-zin-skee.

  Zwingo. Marigold was a ball of nerves.

  “Big day, huh?” commented the librarian, Mr. Wang. He had lines around his eyes and wore a brown cardigan.

  Marigold nodded. Her mouth was dry.

  “You’ll do great,” Mr. Wang said. “Don’t worry.” He fluxed into a koala and hopped onto a bookshelf to tidy the top row of books.

  Ms. Lapczynski was supposed to be there at ten a.m. That’s what Ms. Starr had said. But by ten fifteen, no one had shown up.

  What was wrong?

  At ten nineteen, a young woman wearing ripped jeans, heavy boots, and a large fake fur coat strolled into the library. She was daunting and edgy, with pale skin, dyed blue hair, and a slim silver hoop in her nose. She reminded Marigold of a faerie.

  “Hi.” She came to Marigold’s table and propped her hands on the top of a chair. “I’m Layla. Are you Marigold?”

  Marigold nodded.

  Ms. Lapczynski put her backpack on the table but didn’t sit down. With a lazy grin, she said, “Well, cool. Let’s do this thing. You ready to roll?”

  Marigold nodded again, but she wasn’t sure how the process was supposed to work. Ms. Lapczynski didn’t seem very grown-up. And why wasn’t she sitting?

  With zero warning, Ms. Lapczynski expanded, right in front of Marigold’s eyes.

  She grew and grew, like a balloon being filled with air, until her head gently touched the ceiling.

  Each of Ms. Lapczynski’s fingers were now as thick as Marigold’s arm. Her clothes grew larger, too. Her face looked big and moony. She was a giant!

  Koala-Mr. Wang watched in awe from the top of the bookshelf.

  “Whoa,” Marigold breathed.

  Then, gracefully, Ms. Lapczynski shrank herself back down until she reached her original size. “There,” she said, taking a seat. “What’d you think?”

  “Amazing!” Marigold said. “Ms. Lapczynski, that was—”

  “Layla,” her tutor interrupted.

  “Huh?”

  “Omigosh, call me Layla. I’m only twenty-three. Your turn.”

  Marigold blinked. “Uh …”

  “Big up,” Layla said, shrugging out of her enormous coat.

  Marigold blinked. “Uh …”

  Layla propped her elbows on the table and rested her chin on her hands. “Come on. Make yourself bigger. Like I did.”

  “I can’t,” Marigold said.

  Layla furrowed her brow. “Would you rather make something else bigger, like a pencil or a book?”<
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  “I can’t,” Marigold said. “I only make things smaller.” Her spirits sank. Wasn’t Layla supposed to know what Marigold could and couldn’t do?

  “That’s why I need your help,” Marigold pressed on. “I can shrink things, but then they’re stuck. I can’t un-shrink them.”

  “Huh,” Layla said. “Guess I didn’t get that memo.”

  Layla looked around the library. Her eyes brightened, and she hopped up from the table. She returned with a stack of books from the M fiction shelves: the Whatever After series and the Flower Power series. Marigold had read them both.

  “Shrink these,” Layla told Marigold, and she said it with such an air of command that Marigold just … did.

  Ploof-whistle-puff! The books shrank until they were the size of Marigold’s pinkie nail.

  “Ni-i-ice!” Layla said, holding out her palm for a high five.

  Marigold slapped Layla’s palm with her own.

  Koala-Mr. Wang scrambled down from the high shelf where he was working, leapt onto the table, and started examining the books.

  Pop! He was human Mr. Wang again, and he was not happy. He jumped back to the floor and shook his finger at Layla. “Now, listen. Marigold just told you she can’t make things big again. And yet you let her shrink my books? What were you thinking? The library has a limited budget.”

  Layla was already on her feet, thrusting her arms into her coat and heading for the door. She threw a thumbs-up to Marigold. “Same time next week? I bet I can teach you how to big up. Maybe. If your magic works like I think it does, I’ll get you sorted out. I like you, Marigold!”

  “Okay,” Marigold called.

  “Come back!” called Mr. Wang. “Resize the books now, please. They’re school property.”

  The door swung closed. Layla was gone.

  What just happened? Marigold’s head was spinning.

  Wasn’t tutoring supposed to be like teaching? Layla hadn’t taught Marigold anything, except that there was someone else in the world who could magically alter something’s size.

  Which, now that Marigold thought about it, was pretty huge.

  And Layla was going to teach her to “big up.” That would be even huger.

  She scrambled out of her chair and grabbed her backpack. “Sorry, Mr. Wang. We’ll fix your books next week!” she called as she ran to the door. “Me and Layla. My tutor. We’ll big them back up for you, I promise.”

  After-school kittenball club had been awkward for Nory at first, because of her upside-down magic. All the other kittenballers were typical Fluxers. But now, three months after she’d joined, Nory could hold her kitten shape for more than fifteen minutes, and the other players had gotten comfortable with her.

  During club, Nory and her Fluxer friends worked with Coach Vitomin on kittenball skills so they could join the team, the Dunwiddle Catnips, in seventh grade. Coach was also Nory’s fluxing tutor. He was a bald, muscly man who could turn into nineteen different house cats. He had a whistle he was fond of blowing and he ate a lot of health food.

  Before practice, Nory, Finn, Akari, and Paige usually spent some time hanging out on the field. They ate chocolate and goofed around. Today, Nory brought Glowie.

  “Zamboozle,” said Akari.

  “Double zamboozle,” said Paige.

  “I saw one of those at my friend’s house last week,” said Finn. “It’s called a Dregg, right?”

  Nory let them stroke the Luminous Dragonette. And then she dug the last Dregg out of her pocket and squeezed its silver eggshell. She wasn’t going to give this one away, but there was no reason not to show it off.

  Paige turned into a kitten and sniffed the silver egg.

  Pb-b-b-b-b! It hatched. Out popped a tiny slate-gray Slipper Dragon. It ran toward Kitten-Paige ferociously. Kitten-Paige leapt back, her fur standing on end and her tail straight in the air. “Ha! That scared me,” she said, fluxing back into a girl. “They look a lot bigger when you’re small.”

  The Slipper Dragon stomped its feet and howled. Nory scooped it up and stroked its tiny head. The dragon howled again. “Hello, little one. I’ll name you Howler.”

  “Where do you get them?” asked Akari. “I just got my allowance.”

  “Brilliant Ned’s has them.”

  “Sweet,” said Paige. “There’s a Brilliant Ned’s on my way home. We should totally go.”

  Coach appeared at the far end of the field. “Time for carrot juice,” he called, waving a large thermos. “I have seaweed snacks, too. We’ll eat while I go over the skills we’re working on today. Then we’ll Flux and get moving. ’Kay, kittenballers?”

  “Yessir, Coach!” they shouted. But they stayed where they were. Newborn Howler was yelling. And Glowie was turning green.

  “KittenBALLERS!” barked Coach. “Now, not tomorrow!”

  “I’m totally getting a Dregg after practice,” said Akari.

  “I’m coming with you,” said Finn.

  “Me too,” Paige said. “The other Fluxers are going to go nuts.”

  On Thursday, Elliott and Nory got to school early. Breakfast was served in the school cafeteria. Anyone who wanted could come and get cereal and milk, fruit and yogurt. But the real reason they were there was that the cafeteria was a good place to have a Dregg Dash, where people could race their Dreggs. Glowie could now do a sidestepping movement that Nory called “doing the grapevine,” and she was fast. Nory couldn’t wait to pit her against Elliott’s Grog Dragon, who could now turn cartwheels like a fiend.

  Nory had instructed all the UDM kids to show up early, as well as Zinnia and the kids from kittenball, if they’d bought Dreggs like they’d said they would.

  “Hey, everybody,” Nory cried as she banged through the swinging doors of the cafeteria. “It’s time for our first ever Dregg Dash!”

  She stopped short. There were a lot of kids in the cafeteria. Nory had forgotten how many people would be there, just to eat breakfast.

  Oh, well. They could watch the Dregg Dash! Breakfast entertainment!

  She and Elliott cleared an aisle between tables. Andres waved at them from up on the ceiling, with Willa holding his leash. Bax, Pepper, and Sebastian came over, too.

  “Is the Dregg Dash a race?” Pepper asked.

  “Yup,” Nory said.

  “But Mudpie doesn’t move,” Pepper said. She held her Mud Dragon in her palm. “I mean, I love her.Don’t get me wrong.” Pepper stroked Mudpie’s head. “She’s learned to turn herself inside out and back again, but she does it while staying in the same place.”

  Mudpie squeaked and retracted her head like a turtle. Then Mudpie’s head disappeared entirely, swallowed by her inside-out-ing body, which popped and twitched when the process was done. Mudpie’s insides (now outside) were bright yellow. She looked a bit like a tennis ball.

  Marigold joined the group. “Tootsie’s no good at racing either,” she said. “Unless she figures out a way to motor herself along using fart power.” Tootsie lifted her tail and farted on command.

  Nory felt warm as she looked at her friends’ happy faces. She had done this. With the Dreggs. She’d brought her friends together! And if racing wasn’t going to work, she’d look at the bright side. “The Dregg Dash doesn’t have to be a race,” she said. “It can be, um, a circus-type thing, with all the Dreggs showing off. How’s that?”

  “Watch this!” cried a fifth-grade Flicker named Clyde. He elbowed his way into the group, his right hand clenched in a fist. “Make way!”

  Nory was confused. She knew Clyde, but not well. He was round, like a plum. His dark hair was super curly, more curly even than Nory’s, and when he smiled, dimples flashed in the warm brown circle of his face.

  Nory had nothing against Clyde. He seemed like a nice enough guy. He hadn’t signed Lacey Clench’s horrible petition against the UDM kids at the beginning of the school year. He’d never made fun of Nory and her friends in the halls. But why was he barging in now, acting all important?

  A long, loud farting s
ound busted out from between Clyde’s fingers.

  Ooooooh.

  Clyde beamed and opened his hand, revealing a freshly hatched, bright orange dragon. A tiny Tangerine Dragon!

  “Great Dregg,” Nory said, trying to shove away a surge of envy. On the UDM field trip last month, she and her friends had seen Tangerine Dragons at a dragon rescue and rehabilitation center. The real live Tangerines were huge. They loved eating cantaloupes. This was the first Tangerine Dregg she’d seen.

  “Check it out,” Clyde said, digging around in his pocket. “Tangerine Dragons love fruit. And look what Juice-Juice does.”

  He withdrew a small red box of raisins. “Gobble up, Juice-Juice,” he said, shaking two raisins onto the floor.

  The tiny toy dragon walked over and ate a raisin. And then another.

  “This particular Dregg cost a little extra,” said Clyde. “It only eats raisins, though, and nothing else. I tried feeding it peanuts, but it wouldn’t touch them.”

  Another Flicker kid came and sat down by Clyde. “Can I see?”

  Then another Flicker came over. And another.

  All the Flickers oohed and aahed over Juice-Juice and Tootsie and Mudpie. Paige, Finn, and Akari pulled out their new Dreggs to show, too. Their Fluxer friends clustered around, curious what was going on.

  Nory put Glowie and Howler down in the aisle between the tables. Bax did the same with his dragon. So did Sebastian, Willa, Pepper, Elliott, and Marigold. Paige had another Luminous Dragonette. Akari had a Bumblebee Dragon, all yellow and black. Finn had a Seashell Dragon, a kind that Nory hadn’t seen before.

  Dreggs were hopping and rolling over. One sneezed a tiny sneeze. Another jumped high in the air. Glowie tap-danced, holding a pretzel stick like a cane. Other Dreggs walked on hind legs, or barked, or scratched their ears with their hind legs. Juice-Juice chased his tail.

  It was a tiny Dregg circus!

  “How about if all of you come to my house on Saturday?” Clyde said. “We can have a Dregg party!”

  “Who does he mean?” Elliott whispered to Nory.

  “Who do you mean?” Nory asked Clyde.