The Big Shrink Read online

  Then she blinked hard and shrank back to her usual size. She rested her arm on top of the basketball and grinned. “I, personally, appreciate this giant basketball.”

  “Coach might not,” Marigold said. “He’s the PE teacher.”

  “All right, well, let’s see if you can shrink it.”

  Marigold tried. The basketball stayed big.

  “Could it be a timing problem?” she asked Layla. “Like, maybe I can’t shrink something if I’ve just bigged it up. Maybe there’s too much, um, leftover bigging magic. Could that be it?”

  “Let’s explore that idea,” said Layla. “Shrink the swing set.”

  “Will you re-grow it if I can’t?”

  “Maybe it would be better if you figured out how to do it yourself.”

  “Yeah, but what if I can’t? I don’t want everyone to be upset with me.”

  “Who cares what they think?” said Layla.

  “I’ll shrink this stick,” said Marigold, picking one up from the ground.

  She didn’t need to think about the snapshot of herself to shrink it. Her fingers and head tingled, and zwoop! The stick was the size of her finger. Marigold was pleased to find she had stopped it at just the size she’d meant to. That wasn’t something she could have done at the start of the school year.

  “Nice tiny stick,” said Layla. “And now we know that you can shrink right after bigging up. No rest time needed. So the problem must be shrinking what you’ve just bigged.”

  “Should I try to big it back up?” asked Marigold.

  “Sure,” said Layla.

  Marigold put her fingertips to her temple and concentrated.

  Nothing happened.

  She tried again.

  Nothing happened.

  “I think if you’re bigging up something you just shrank, you have to treat it differently,” said Layla. “Imagine it like you normally would. Enlarge it in your head like you normally would. But use a gentler touch. Don’t force the stick to grow bigger. Coax it, like maybe it’s a little scared. It helps to think of objects you’re working with as alive even though they’re not. Flickers learn that when they study how to turn things invisible. They call it learning to coax.”

  Marigold concentrated. She enlarged her imaginary snapshot and she tried to coax the stick at the same time. Zwoop! She managed to make the stick go back to its normal size.

  Hurrah!

  Layla whooped. “Let’s do more!” she cried.

  The rest of the lesson went well. Layla taught Marigold some more Flicker techniques of coaxing. They shrank and then regrew a water bottle, a necklace, and a used tissue Layla dug out of her pocket. Finally, Marigold shrank the basketball back to its normal size. Success!

  What a relief. Now if Marigold shrank something by accident, she would be able to bring it back to normal again. It was a real breakthrough. She planned to go to Mr. Wang in the library and make his books big again, right after school.

  “We’re done for today,” Layla said, reaching out to give Marigold a high five. “Could we be more awesome? I think not.”

  The two of them headed back to Ms. Starr’s room. When they reached the door, Nory stormed out, holding a bathroom pass. Her brow was furrowed and she stopped in front of Marigold. “I’m so mad!” Nory said. “I don’t even have to use the bathroom. I just had to get out of that classroom.”

  Then she turned into a dritten, blew a small amount of fire down the hallway, dropped the bathroom pass, and flew off in the direction of the restrooms.

  Layla whistled. “That kid has some impressive magic. What’s she so mad about?”

  Marigold explained about the Dreggs and the new ban. Plus what had happened this morning, with Nory getting her Dregg taken away. “It’s really unfair,” said Marigold. “It’s like, the teachers have all the power. They even get to decide how we play.”

  As Marigold talked, Layla made comments like “No way” and “Are you kidding me right now?” and “Okay, omigosh, I cannot even.”

  “Nory’s hosting an emergency after-school meeting today to talk about ways of fighting back,” Marigold said. “She passed around notes during literature.”

  “Sweet,” said Layla. “You kids have more power than you realize. I mean, if the Dreggs really are important to you, definitely make your opinion heard.”

  “But how?”

  Layla slung one arm around Marigold, pulled her close, and drove her knuckles into Marigold’s scalp. Marigold felt a bit like a puppy. “Protesting is a way of raising your voice,” Layla said. “Last month, I organized a walkout of my whole Magical Studies Department. Of the grad students, anyway. We were fighting for fair payment for the teaching assistants, you know?”

  Marigold nodded.

  “The cool thing was, it started out with just four of us. We thought nobody else cared. And maybe it wouldn’t work. But once the four of us walked out, other people walked out. Soon there were no students in the department. And that’s why the assistants got their raise.” Layla pointed at Marigold. “You guys can raise your voices, too. Yeah, you’re fighting for a toy, not a major social issue, but you still can find a way to say what’s important to you. Speak up if you don’t think the rule is fair.”

  “For sure,” Marigold said.

  “Thatta girl.”

  Only Marigold, Willa, and Elliott showed up for Nory’s protest meeting. Other people had after-school lessons or club meetings. Still, Aunt Margo’s kitchen felt crowded, because everyone brought their Dreggs. Dreggs waddled among the bowls of chips and pretzels Nory had put on the counters. Dreggs trotted across the table and hopped on the spice rack. They toddled across the floor. Willa, Elliott, and Marigold sat on the floor patting and tickling them. Their Dreggs had been closed up all day while they were at school, so they had probably missed learning tricks.

  “People?” Nory said loudly. “People. This is an important meeting, not a Dregg Dash.”

  Miraculously, Elliott and Willa and Marigold fell silent.

  “You guys,” Nory said. “As you know, Glowie has been confiscated. I didn’t even get to take her home at the end of the day. The school is making rules about how we can play, even during recess. It isn’t fair. We have to plan our protest. Does anyone have ideas?”

  “Could we yell?” asked Elliott. “All of us yell, all day?”

  “I think we’d get hoarse,” said Marigold.

  “Excuse me,” said Willa. “What is our point with this protest, exactly? What are we trying to make happen?”

  Nory explained. “Our point is that we should be allowed to bring our Dreggs to school, and that they’re not—Marigold, could you please egg up Tootsie so she stops farting while I’m talking—they’re not disruptive. If we yelled all day, like Elliott says, we would really be letting people know how mad we are. And the yelling would show them what’s really disruptive.”

  Willa shook her head. “I don’t think that would make Principal Gonzalez give us our Dreggs back. I think he would just tell us to be quiet.”

  “How about a Fart-a-Thon!” Elliott said. “That would make the teachers pay attention!”

  “No one can fart on demand all day,” Nory said. “I think we have to do something the teachers can’t ignore. Something that makes them take us seriously.”

  “I think they’d take a Fart-a-Thon seriously,” Elliott argued.

  Marigold didn’t seem to be paying attention, Nory noticed. With Tootsie back in her shell, Marigold was amusing herself by shrinking a pretzel, then bigging it back to normal. Shrink, grow. Shrink, grow.

  Instead of brainstorming ideas for the perfect protest, she just kept shrinking and growing that one silly pretzel. It was—

  Ooh, it was brilliant! Omigosh, yes! That was it! Nory clapped and bounced. “Marigold. You’re amazing.”

  “Huh?”

  “We shrink ourselves. Or rather, Marigold shrinks us. Yes!”

  “I don’t get it,” Elliott said.

  “The teachers can’t ignor
e us if we’re small,” Nory said.

  “Um, actually, small things are easy to ignore,” Elliott said.

  “No,” Nory said. “People. We are going to hold a shrink-in. Not a Fart-a-Thon. A big, big shrink-in!” She turned to Marigold. “You can grow things back now, right?”

  Marigold sat up a little taller. “Well, yeah. Layla taught me how to re-grow things after I shrink them.”

  “It’s settled, then. Tomorrow we’ll tell the other fifth graders the plan. Then, on Wednesday, we’ll all meet up and SHRINK. Best protest ever!”

  “I don’t get it,” Willa said.

  “Me neither,” said Elliott. “Being tiny would be super fun. But how is it a protest?”

  “I think I understand,” Marigold said slowly. “It’s a protest, but a peaceful one. Yelling would be disruptive, and teachers could make us stop. Farting is—well, we’re not farting. But if the whole fifth grade shrinks, the teachers can’t ignore us, but we also haven’t done anything wrong. They can’t even make us stop. None of them have growing magic.”

  “But you do,” Nory cried. “Let’s have a round of applause for Marigold, shall we?”

  She clapped, and the others joined in.

  Marigold smiled. “Fine,” she said. “The Big Shrink it is.”

  Nory felt like a hummingbird, all flutter-flutter. She was so excited, telling everyone she knew about the Big Shrink.

  “Our small protest is going to be capital-B Big!” she told Bax on Tuesday during lunch.

  Bax regarded her dourly. “Count me out,” he said.

  “What?” Nory said. “Why?”

  “When I get stressed, I flux into a rock.”

  “Duh.”

  “Well, if I’m small and I get stressed, I might flux into a pebble.”

  Nory saw it in her mind: Bax as a pebble, kicked down Dunwiddle’s halls. She hated to admit it, but that did sound dangerous. Nory knew Bax couldn’t turn back into a boy without help from Nurse Riley. If he became a pebble, he could skid into a crack and be lost forever.

  Andres turned Nory down, too. He was afraid that if he turned tiny and somehow floated into the air, he’d disappear as easily as a dust mote or a puff of cat hair. “It’s a cool idea, and it does sound fun, and I’ll help out if you need me to. But as regular-sized me, not tiny me.”

  “Fine,” Nory said. “I get it.”

  “I’m sorry to let you down, but I’m sure you’ll get tons of other kids to say yes,” Andres said.

  Nory tried not to feel disheartened. She continued flitting from fifth grader to fifth grader, though with slightly less hummingbird energy than before. Some kids said no. Some said maybe. Lots of kids scratched their heads and looked skeptical, but Nory told herself that those kids could end up being yeses.

  At least Elliott, Pepper, Sebastian, Willa, and Marigold were locked in. If they each recruited ten more people, that would be a lot of protesters.

  “Tomorrow morning, fifteen minutes before school starts, by the invisible water fountain,” she said over and over. “Be there and help us show the administration they shouldn’t ban Dreggs. It’s not fair for them to dictate what we play with in our free time.”

  When Wednesday finally arrived, Nory stood anxiously by the fountain. She held a sign she’d made over her head that read THE BIG SHRINK. Elliott had a clipboard for writing down the names of the kids who came. That way Marigold could make sure to big up every one she’d made small.

  They waited.

  And waited.

  “Good morning, wonkos,” said Lacey Clench, strolling up with Zinnia.

  What? There was no way Lacey Clench was joining their protest. Was there?

  Lacey was easily Nory’s least favorite person at Dunwiddle. Still, Nory lifted her chin and said, “Thanks for coming. We’ll give the others another minute to get here, and then we’ll start.”

  Lacey cleared her throat. “I’m only here to give moral support. Zinnia told me what you guys are doing and I do agree that banning Dreggs is stupid. My dad took me to Brilliant Ned’s last night, and I bought four Dregg assortment packs. Each pack has ten Dreggs in it, which means I now have forty Dreggs.”

  “Gee, thanks for the math lesson,” Nory said.

  “Actually, forty new Dreggs plus the two I already had makes forty-two Dreggs.”

  “Whoop-dee-doo.”

  “I am all about Dreggs,” Lacey pronounced. “Obviously.” She turned to Marigold. “But don’t shrink me. Been there, done that, don’t want to experience it again.”

  “She can grow you back this time, though,” Willa told Lacey. “You wouldn’t have to go back to the hospital.”

  Lacey pursed her lips. “There is no way I’m going through that again, thank you very much.” She rolled her hand in the air. “But please, proceed.”

  Clyde jogged up, flushed and out of breath. “Sorry I’m late, but I’m here now.” He glanced around. “Is this all of us?”

  “Oh, no,” Nory said. “I’m expecting thirty more people at least.”

  “Just because you’re expecting them doesn’t mean they’ll magically appear,” Lacey noted.

  Marigold tapped Nory’s arm. “I think Lacey might be right,” she said. “It’s ten minutes after we said we’d meet, so this might be all of us. And we better start if we want to do this thing before the bell rings.”

  “But we need lots of people to shrink in order to make a good protest,” Nory wailed.

  “Layla did a small protest at her school,” said Marigold. “And it ended up working. Other people saw her protesting and they joined in.”

  Nory sighed and looked on the bright side. Marigold was right. It could still be awesome. “Okay, then. Is everyone ready?”

  “Is this going to hurt?” Zinnia asked.

  They all turned to Lacey.

  “It didn’t hurt,” she admitted. “It was just super annoying.”

  “How tiny will we be?” Zinnia pressed.

  “Three inches tall,” said Marigold. “About the size of a gerbil on its hind legs.”

  “What if we get lost?”

  “If you get separated from the group, or you need help, come wait here, by the invisible water fountain. We have Lacey, Andres, and Bax looking out for us.”

  “Okay,” said Zinnia. “I’m in.”

  They all agreed.

  Marigold locked eyes with Nory. “I’m ready. You’re good to go?”

  Nory puffed up, pleased that Marigold recognized her as the group’s leader. “For sure,” she said, grinning. “Let the Big Shrink begin!”

  Marigold allowed herself only a moment’s hesitation. She took a deep breath, summoned her magic, and felt the tingle in her hands.

  Zwoop-plip-ploop! Nory, Elliott, Willa, Pepper, Sebastian, Zinnia, and Clyde—they shrank, one after the other. They were each now the height of a mouse, but not the width. Their bodies stayed proportional. They were teensy-tiny miniature versions of themselves.

  And then, zwoop! Marigold was tiny, too. That was the part she’d been worried about, but it worked like a charm.

  “Whee!” she said, bouncing up and down. “I did it!”

  “High five!” squeaked Elliott, slapping Marigold’s palm.

  “Zwingo!” cried Clyde.

  “This is awesome,” Sebastian said.

  The air shattered around them as the first bell rang. The hall thundered with shoes and legs and noise and pants cuffs as kids poured out of the cafeteria door right beside them. It was so loud!

  “Up against the wall,” Marigold cried, flattening herself against the baseboard to escape being trampled.

  “Everyone’s so huge,” yelled Nory.

  Marigold was surprised by how dirty everything looked. A gum wrapper on the ground. A splooch of mud from someone’s shoe. A crumpled piece of lost homework. There was junk all over the floor. She had never noticed it when she was big.

  The second bell rang and the hallway emptied with a slamming of locker doors. Lacey was gone. The tiny
fifth graders were alone. They regarded one another with big eyes and huge grins.

  “Hey, watch this,” Nory said. She made a funny expression and fluxed into a dritten. A teeny-tiny dritten, not much bigger than a moth.

  “Nice,” said Marigold. She was proud of how her big magic made everyone tiny. Nory had stayed tiny even when she fluxed. Wowzers.

  “We still have to go to class,” Willa pointed out. She looked down the long, long hall, which looked like a highway. “Yikes, our classroom is far away.”

  Nory popped back from dritten to her tiny-girl form. “We should have asked Lacey to take us.”

  Marigold felt a wave of worry. Was this plan going to work out? Was everyone going to be miserable?

  Nory, as usual, took action. “Oh, well. We’re tough. Come on, team. Off we go.”

  Marigold felt her spirits lift.

  They set off down the hall.

  They walked.

  And walked.

  After what felt like ages, they were a third of the way to the UDM classroom. Then: THUMP, THUMP, THUMP.

  The ground shook.

  “An elephant is coming,” Willa said.

  “There are no elephants in school,” Sebastian said.

  “It could be a fluxed student,” said Willa.

  Marigold shivered. “Even if this isn’t an elephant, there are a lot of scary animals here that I didn’t think to worry about! What if a flamingo escapes from the Fuzzy lab? It would totally eat us up like shrimp.”

  “There are flamingos in the Fuzzy lab?” Elliott asked. The Fuzzy lab was a home to many animals used in teaching Fuzzies to use their animal-taming magic.

  “Oh, yeah,” said Nory. “They have a baby alligator, too.” She was the only one of them who had visited the lab.

  “That is not good news,” said Sebastian.

  “I can scare it away,” said Pepper. “At least, I think I can. If my magic works the same way when I’m small.”

  Thump. Thump. THUMP!

  “It’s just Coach,” Elliott said, turning to look behind them.

  Coach paused as he reached the tiny kids. He scratched his head.