Naked Lunch (The Kid's Menu)

Chapter 1
Naked Lunch (The Kid's Menu)

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Chapter Description: “Hey, look here. It says kids under seven eat free on Thursdays,” Vanessa pointed out with an uncharacteristic enthusiasm. “And guess what day it is.”

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[size=1]“Naked lunch: a frozen moment when everyone sees what is on the end of every fork... and whose clothing has become conspicuously baggy.”

~ William S. Burroughs, as paraphrased by Sumner[/size]

[quote][quote][quote]The row of chains dangling from Vanessa’s baggy Hot Topic cargo pants jingled rhythmically as the duo approached the orange glow of the restaurant’s entrance.

“Positive you want to go through with this?” her companion asked, glancing diffidently at the rowdy clientele outside.

“Positive?” Vanessa balked. “Tipper, this book was practically invented for this place.”

“But in public, I don’t know-”

“Remember how mad you were when Scott dumped you in the ninth grade?” Vanessa reminded her friend, all the while a familiar impish grin growing across her pierced lips. “Think of it as justice, not just for us, but for every girl who’s ever been dropped for some brainless bimbo with bigger tits.”

We could be be here all night then... Tipper thought, as they passed below the giant Hooters sign.

***

“Table for two, please,” Vanessa said, flashing a friendly smile at the babyfaced blonde. Before grabbing the menus, the hostess paused momentarily. It wasn’t every day two willowy goth chicks with short punky hair and tattooed shoulders walked through the door, at least not without two enthusiastic boyfriends dragging them along. “Hi, my name’s Tammy. I’ll be your waitress this evening...”

Once seated Vanessa wasted no time scoping out the joint.

“God, this place is worse than I imagined,” Tipper remarked, feeling more than a little out of her element. “Get a load of Tammy’s cleavage when she leaned over with those menus? You could drive a Greyhound bus through there. They should give tours to the bottom.”

Amused but still distracted, Vanessa scanned the bar for signs of her ex. “I heard him say 2:30 on the phone...” She rechecked her watch.

Tipper, equally transfixed, continued her conversation with herself. “I’ll bet the combined I.Q. of this place doesn’t break triple digits though.”

“Drinks?” Tammy said, returning with little warning. For Tipper, the sea of severely stretched orange tank tops blended together, making it difficult to tell one employee from the next. Even though she’d never entertained the idea of a lesbian relationship, Tipper found she could hardly keep from admiring the mountain ranges passing by.

“Um, yeah, I’ll have just have a Coke.”

“And for you, miss?” Tammy said.

“Water, thanks.” As Tammy disappeared back into the crowd, she turned to Tipper with an outstretched hand.

“All right, fork it over,” she said eagerly, “I need a refresher.”

Reluctantly pulling the little leather-bound book from her plaid purse, Tipper slipped it secretively to her friend. “Now, be careful. Chant the six-syllable spells just like I taught you. Screw it up and who knows - you might have a table full of god-knows-what.”

“I know what I’m doing,” Vanessa reassured her. “Remember we can fix everything before we leave. No one will ever know.”

“Everything?” Tipper inquired. “Just how much damage are you planning to do?”

“Only what they deserve.” Vanessa thumbed through the tiny tome looking for dog-eared pages. “God, this spell is so flexible. You can do almost anything with it.”

“Yeah, but remember the warning-”

Before Tipper could finish her caveat, Vanessa was already thoroughly distracted by the party currently being seated. It was Kevin all right, followed by two of his frat buddies, Brad and Marty, all wearing big smiles as they took in the scenery. Vanessa gritted her teeth as she watched the team of walking hard-ons follow their hostess to the table like little dogs wagging their tails in anticipation. I thought he was different, she mused. Now look at him, a stereotype that walked as man.

“Here goes nothing,” she said, sauntering past Kevin’s table toward the crowded bar. Something made her keep going. The time wasn’t right.

Feigning interest in the drink selection, Vanessa leaned against the bathroom entrance just around the corner (a prime eavesdropping location), but not before spotting the name tag pinned to a healthy set of breasts strolling by: Krista. No doubt preparing for her shift as she tied her hair back. The name alone was enough to roil her, though not as much as the conversation that floated her way next.

“Hey dude, wasn’t that Vanessa walking by just a second ago?” Brad asked.

“Are you kidding? She’d never set foot in this place,” Kevin answered, scanning the beer menu.

“Maybe she’s here for an application,” Marty joked.

Kevin grinned. “I don’t think her boobs are Hooters material... and I should know.”

“Better hope there’s not a catfight brewing,” Brad added.

The chauvinism ran so thick in the place Vanessa could hardly stand it. When she and Kevin started dating, he had masqueraded as an open-minded liberal, yet still a gentlemen who would still open doors for women. But when rumors about Krista began swirling, she realized Kevin actually fit the standard profile of a player. And she was just another conquest, just another chalk mark in the total column.

Still the remark about her breasts was enough to send her into an adolescent panic. Was she attractive? Boys at her high school seemed to think so. Sure, she’d gone a little goth since then, but nothing too extreme. Overcome by a fleeting moment of insecurity, Vanessa ducked into the women’s restroom and sized herself up in front of the mirror. Skinny, but not gaunt, with a cute face, even under the dark eyeliner. Maybe too much? she wondered, staring at the row of rings climbing up her left earlobe.

“Fuck, what am I doing?” she mumbled, shaking herself out of the trance. Soon she would have that jerk right where she wanted him.

Breathing in the courage, Vanessa emerged from the bathroom and marched toward Kevin’s table. One by one, the boys looked up in disbelief.

“Vanessa?” Kevin said, puzzled by the sheer improbability of running into his ex-girlfriend at Hooters.

“Yup, that’s me,” she sang, pasting a welcome smile on her face. “Mind if I join you boys?”

“Well, umm,” Kevin sputtered while his mates remained respectfully silent, “this is kinda awkward.”

Vanessa’s smile turned upside down into a cartoonish frown. “Aww, I’m sorry. Are you here to see your new girlfriend? That top-heavy airhead from Biology 201? Yeah, she’s a real catch.”

Now Kevin was struck mute as well.

Motioning for Brad to scoot over, Vanessa sat down opposite her former beau and glared minaciously in his direction as he attempted to avoid eye contact with the girl he’d broken up with last week. He hadn’t pegged her as the vengeful type, meaning he could hardly imagine what lay in store.

“So,” Vanessa piped up, “whatcha guys talking about, huh?”

She studied the surroundings, taking particular interest in one couple who were egging on their six-year-old son, giggling at the idea of taking his picture with the Hooters girls. Wow, Vanessa thought. Classy.

“Political theory maybe? The subprime mortgage crisis?” She punctuated her pauses with sarcastic little laughs. “Or the fine art of boob watching.”

“Vanessa,” Kevin said, coughing uncomfortably. “If this is your way of getting back at me-”

“Oh no,” she coaxed, “this is my way of getting back at you.” Vanessa pulled the tiny spell book from her coat pocket. “In fact, when I’m finished, my breasts will look bigger.”

Marty let out an amused snort. “You still into that magic shit?”

“Oh, I dabble,” Vanessa said, flipping curiously through the text. “Hmm, no breast enlargement spells I’m afraid. I guess we’ll have to work the other way around.”

“Vanessa, what the hell are you doing?” Kevin demanded. “We’re finished, broke up. It’s over.”

“Not quite,” she said, whispering a few foreign sounds under her breath.

“I’m serious. If you don’t-”

Suddenly Kevin felt dizzy, as if he’d just taken a hit of something potent. Eyes growing wider, he grasped the edge of the table and steadied himself.

“Dude, you OK?” Marty asked, receiving no answer.

Kevin’s face contorted, becoming perplexed, then concerned, then frightened. His perspective seemed to be shifting. Armies of goosebumps spread over his arms and legs. His hands retracted slightly into his sleeves and his shoes gradually left the floor. The college sophomore was changing before their eyes, shrinking back into his clothes like a turtle into his shell. As time passed, the meaning of the changes became clear; Kevin was growing younger. His sparse facial hair receding, leaving not even a shadow, Kevin appeared no older than a middle school student.

“Kev!” Brad blurted out. “Man, what’s happening to you?”

“I don’t know... hey, my voice!”

Vanessa looked on satisfactorily at her handiwork. Kevin may have been a 12-year-old going on 11, but he was still a little bruiser - despite the adorable girlish tenor he had acquired.

More seconds clicked by and with them, more years. Shorn of nearly a decade’s worth of maturity, Kevin bore only a soft resemblance to the rugged university track runner he was moments before. In his place sat a doe-eyed 10-year-old, cloaked in a floppy black hoodie, staring naively up at his friends.

“So, do my boobs look bigger now?” she asked, leaning over so her kid-sized ex could observe her modest cleavage from a new angle. “Are they ’Hooters material’?”

“This is impossible! Turn me back, you bitch!”

“That is messed up!” Marty exclaimed, moving to extract himself from the booth.

“Ah, ah, ah, not so fast,” Vanessa warned. “This whole table is under a little spell. Either of you two try to leave or alert someone and you’ll end up like little Kevin here.” It was a lie, of course, but all she needed.

Marty promptly planted himself back down.

“Now, I know Krista’s shift is just about to start, but I had a great idea a second ago,” she said, grabbing Kevin’s sleeve and yanking him up. The speed of the transition caused his pants to fall off his waist and slither down his slender legs.

“Whoopsie, better tighten that belt,” she laughed, bending down to refasten Kevin’s Dockers. “There, now you just look like a little white boy who’s into hip-hop.”

Kevin glanced back at his comrades, both frozen to the spot, as Vanessa explained her surprise. “Well, I know one thing guys love to do is get their pictures taken with the Hooters gals. And I know you’ll want to remember tonight...”

“Please,” Kevin bargained, “I’ll do anything you want. Just change me back. Anything but this.”

“What’s wrong?” Vanessa cooed. “Don’t want the big scary girls to see you like this? It’s fine. I promise you the girls will think you’re a real cutie pie.”

But Vanessa had it wrong. Kevin wasn’t scared; he was mortified. Any minute Krista would start work and discover his new fifth grade makeover.

“Excuse me,” she said, tapping on one of the waitress’s shoulders, “my little brother is kinda shy, so he wanted me to ask you if you’d take a picture with him.”

“Well, sure,” the pert brunette agreed, bending down to address Kevin. “Hey sweetie.”

His height afforded him an entirely different view of the restaurant’s trademark anatomy.

“Over here,” the waitress said, guiding the sheepish 10-year-old by the hand to an unoccupied corner. After she called over five or six of her coworkers, Vanessa whipped out her digital camera and immortalized the moment. Kevin realized, much to his horror, that he barely stood chest high to the row of smiling waitresses. As much as he enjoyed the sight of big breasts, witnessing them eye-level did little to excite him.

“There you go, sweetie,” the brunette chuckled, ruffling his hair.

“Can we go now?” Kevin responded.

“Easily embarrassed,” Vanessa explained. “OK, bro, we can go. Thanks for the picture!”

Leading the rosy-cheeked grade-schooler back to the table, she could hardly contain her inner glee. She never imagined age spells could be so entertaining, even arousing. With them, one could experience the rush of righteous adrenaline that accompanied the punishment without going all Loreena Bobbit on the victim. Better to shrink it than cut it off, she reasoned.

Seated again beside Brad and Marty, whose asses remained glued to the booth, the one-time couple resumed their uncomfortable conversation.

“There, wasn’t that fun? I told you they would love you,” Vanessa giggled, checking her watch. “Oh, looks like it’s about time for your girlfriend to come take our orders. Won’t she be surprised?”

“No, don’t-”

“Oh hush, I think you’re adorable. Krista will too, no doubt. Of course, she may reconsider the status of your relationship, but now she can finally see you for what you really are.”

Kevin squirmed at the thought of being reintroduced to Krista as a little 10-year-old. He could see convincing Vanessa to change him back was going to be more difficult than negotiating his way into bed with her. A half-dozen nights of sex was hardly worth this treatment, he concluded.

“Hey, look here. It says kids under seven eat free on Thursdays,” Vanessa pointed out with an uncharacteristic enthusiasm. “And guess what day it is.”

“Please, Vanessa,” he whined, “just don’t make me littler. I’ll do anything you want.”

“Come on, you should be thanking me. You were always on the cheap side when it came to dates,” she said, opening the book again and chanting underneath her breath.

“No...” was all Kevin managed to squeal before the woozy feeling took hold and he shed another year. His friends watched in amazement as their bud dwindled even further, regaining a photogenic innocence. Hints of his future features dissolved into the doughy smoothness of youth, leaving Kevin a cute, if not slightly chubby, boy of six.

Vanessa clapped her hands. “Oh god, you are so precious! I really think this is an improvement. And look who’s here to see you...”

Confusion spread across Krista’s face as she approached the table. “Hey guys,” she said curiously, “where’s Kev? He said he’d be here by 2:30.”

“He, umm...” Marty sputtered.

“Well, duh, he’s right there,” Vanessa stated bluntly, pointing to the first-grader opposite her.

“What? Hey, aren’t you-” Krista began to ask the obvious.

“Kevin’s old girlfriend. Nice to finally meet you,” she answered, peering again at her name tag, “Krista, is it?”

“I don’t understand. Kevin was supposed to meet you guys here...” the well-endowed redhead asked, trailing off as she finally caught a glimpse of the boy’s steadily reddening face. He did bear a strange resemblance to her boyfriend, but no, she thought, that couldn’t be right.

“Oh, I’m sure there are plenty things you don’t understand,” Vanessa shot back. “In fact, that gives me an idea.” Smirking, she flipped to page 89 and started reading softly.

“What is this?” Krista laughed, trying desperately to lighten the mood.

Then the grogginess hit her like a shot of morphine. Pencil and paper still in hand, she grabbed her head and worked to maintain balance.

“See, Kevin here was acting like a spoiled little boy, so I turned him into one. But you seem like an intelligent girl,” Vanessa snickered, “so I thought I might give you a chance to keep your years. Since Kevin told me he digs smart women, I thought I might administer a little I.Q. test.”

“Wha... I’m...” the waitress stammered as she swayed back and forth.

“I can tie this age spell to virtually anything. Cool, huh? So here’s my idea. If you’re over 100, you’ll grow up a little. If you’re average, nothing will happen. And if you’re below that, well... the penalty for every point is a year.”

Krista’s score had already begun to reveal itself as signs of de-aging were apparent. Her height diminishing and her clothing beginning to sag, she reentered her teens while struggling to comprehend her circumstance. Once stretched taught, the famous Hooters owl logo on her camisole grew creases as her breasts started losing their teardrop shape. Freckles sprouted down her arms and lightly across her chest as the spell withdrew another year, then another. No longer tight-fitting, her orange shorts wrinkled and threatened to slip from her thinning waist along with her apron. Every second spelled the end of womanhood.

“Aww, pity,” Vanessa sighed like a game show host. “Well, brains aren’t everything. At least you still have...”

One of the formerly load-bearing straps on Krista’s top cascaded down to her elbow, revealing a comically oversized bra and the pointy, pubescent remainders of her once proud bosoms.

“Or maybe not.”

“What... what happened to me?” she whimpered, swallowing deeply.

“You should have studied harder,” Vanessa replied in deadpan. “Guess it wasn’t your smarts Kevin was into. Maybe it was your body after all. Ironically, you don’t have either now.” She thoughtfully surveyed the sexual devastation wrought by the spell. “Yeah, I’d say around 11. Still very pretty though, even with your little training boobs.”

“I’m a... you turned me into a kid!?” she squeaked as she examined her lithe, girlish arms.

Regaining her footing, Krista, now draped by her useless Hooters top, struggled not to scream. With one quick turn, the sixth-grader moved to run, which only served to loosen her neon orange shorts. The apron fell first, however, causing Krista to trip and nearly wipe out completely. But much to her credit, she managed to catch herself and stumble toward the bathroom as tears welled up in her eyes.

“Well, that was fun,” Vanessa continued. “But you know, now that I think about it, only making you two suffer is kinda unfair. I mean, being surrounded by all these adults. Especially poor Krista. Maybe this will make her feel better.” A wolfish smile developed on her face, and she again mumured a string of unfamiliar words.

“This one is a group spell,” she clarified. Brad and Marty began to stir. “Don’t sweat it, guys, I’m not talking about you. You’ll love this one. The next Hooters girl who says the word ’like’ will be in for a shock. I’ll bet we don’t have to wait too long. What do you think?”

“OK,” Kevin finally spoke up tentatively, “you’ve made your point. Just change us back now, all right?”

“You know, for a kid you’re not much fun,” Vanessa said. “Aren’t you guys supposed to be wide-eyed and full of wonder?”

“Vanessa-” Kevin grumbled, grinding his baby teeth.

“Just give it some time,” she said, before being interrupted by a commotion at the bar.

An Asian waitress named Miyu had dropped a tray of food on one of the customers, an accident greeted by a smattering of sarcastic applause from the restaurant-goers. What followed were gasps and confusion, as people in the immediate vicinity noticed Miyu’s loose clothes and strikingly younger appearance. Her fellow employees rushed to the scene, only to find themselves equally astonished. With shoulder straps flapping to her sides and a crumpled outfit to match, the unfortunate waitress looked like a 9-year-old aspiring to join the Hooters team when she grew up.

“Oh my god, are you OK?” the bartender said, abandoning her current concoction. “Miyu, is that you?”

“We have our first winner,” Vanessa chirped, craning her head to view the brouhaha around the corner. The sight captivated her. She had clearly underestimated the allure of power, the thrill of dominance. Robbing people of the one thing they almost certainly took for granted - their ages. The ability to mix love potions or affect the weather paled in comparison.

“Miyu!” an athletically-built strawberry blond named Crystal gasped. “You’re, like, a little girl!”

Sure enough, the process rebooted and she instantly suffered the same drunken feeling, an intense swirling motion that led inexorably downward. The other waitresses barely noticed as another one of their own fell victim. It took a dramatic drop in height before anyone else caught on. But by then, the process was well underway, subtracting the gifts of puberty one by one.

“This can’t be happening!” Penelope fretted. “It’s, like, impossible!”

“Contestant number three...” Vanessa chanted, hearing the third utterance of her magic word. “God, you girls are so predictable.” Of course, none of the waitresses stopped to think that their favorite verbal crutch might be triggering the regressions. To them, and the stunned audience seated nearby, the effects were alarmingly random, picking off the teens and twentysomethings without rhyme or reason.

In a matter of minutes Vanessa’s clever spell had reduced seven D-cups to perfectly flat chests. Discarded bits of Hooters outfits lay strewn about the bar area, though most had succeeded in salvaging some dignity by clinging strategically to their shorts and sports bras. In this case, the elastic provided room to ungrow before becoming mere strips of formless material.

Convinced she had stumbled upon the greatest non-drug-related rush ever invented, Vanessa finally stood up to gain a better view of the chaos. Little topless tykes scampered about like children in a haunted house. She smiled, knowing she’d given them a taste of true horror. That is, until Tipper reappeared wearing the sternest expression Vanessa had ever witnessed on her melancholy partner in crime.

“Just what the hell are you doing?” she yelled above the growing din. “The deal was one or two spells, you get your revenge, and we clean up the details with a nice memory wipe.”

“Oh man, Tipper. You’ve got to try this,” Vanessa exclaimed, still clutching the book close to her heart. “God, it’s like sex. Maybe better.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Messing around with people’s ages,” she said. “It kinda turns me on.”

“Oh yeah? Have you taken a look at yourself recently?” Tipper asked, pointing at Vanessa’s pants. Were they dragging along the ground a bit?

“What?” the witch answered defiantly.

“The spells,” Tipper elaborated, rolling her eyes. “I told you about the warnings. The more you use them, the more they affect you. Remember?”

Vanessa still wore a spacey, unknowing look.

“Do I have to spell it out for you? They’re making you younger too. And the longer you use them, the worse it will get,” she explained in an increasing crescendo.

“Nah uh!” Vanessa snarled. “I am not getting younger! You’re just saying that because you want the book back!”

“Listen to yourself!”

“I’m fine,” the slightly more youthful witch repeated, unable to apprehend the subtle changes that were steadily sucking away her maturity. “And you can’t have the book back because I’m not finished.”

Tipper, growing more nervous and unsure with each second, suddenly adopted an authoritarian tone. “Give me the book now,” she stated flatly, reaching to touch it with her black fingernails. “Trust me. You’ll thank me later. Just hand it over and we can-”

Tipper paused when she heard the faint syllables emerge from her friend’s grinning lips. Mouth hanging open, she tried to wrap her head around what she was feeling. Then a cloud swept over her consciousness as she realized what was happening.

“Vanessa!” she yelled. “What are you doing?!”

“I told you, I’m not finished having fun,” she said, entranced by Tipper’s slow but visible transformation.

“We’re best friends!”

“I know, since we were little girls. Now you get to relive some memories. Doesn’t that sound cool?”

Vanessa tallied the years in her head. By now, Tipper resembled her middle school self - circa seventh grade - with a rounder, acne-dotted face. Her average breasts began disappearing into the folds of her leather jacket. Next came the ultimate downgrade, the rather abrupt shift into pre-adolescence. In seconds the Tipper she remembered from their childhood reappeared, boyish and plain as ever, with a prominent gap between her front teeth and a chipmunk voice to match.

“Please!” she yelped, now chest high to Vanessa. “Don’t make me little!”

“But you’re so cute this way. Besides, I just need a little more time, k? Then I’ll change you back,” she coaxed. All told, the spell had reduced her BFF to a cherubic 4-year-old standing amongst a mess of gothy apparel. The definition of overdressed.

This newfound pleasure was just too much to give up. Vanessa couldn’t help but chronicle the list of pet peeves she could exploit. So many groups to play with, she mused. Republicans, fundamentalist Christians, gun owners - the litany of people who irked her. All of them deserve a little down time. She ran all sorts of scenarios through her head, imagining entire cliques at school suffering the same rejection they lumped on others, hostile professors failing their own tests and ending up in high chairs. While the original idea of toying with Kevin and Krista sounded quaint and amusing at the time, now Vanessa realized the age spell for the seductive, risky magic that it was.

Meanwhile, customers, Hooters girls, and other bystanders grappled with a wave of newly minted children, all in various states of undress. But Vanessa, oblivious not only to the emergencies raging behind her but to her own gradual regression as well, stayed focused on the most pressing issue: the next variation...

The petite, and rapidly regressing, 13-year-old closed her eyes and imagined the wildest aging anarchy she could conjure, and with a few simple utterances it was done. Everyone in the restaurant would see the numbers in their ages flipped. 30-year-olds would become three while 9-year-olds would age to 90.

As the alterations launched into effect, the result was absolute pandemonium.

Babies exploded into raging growth spurts while patrons whose ages marked multiples of ten shrank just as speedily. The groaning creaks of breaking high chairs gave way to an ever-rising chorus of screams and curses. Some with double-digit ages consisting of the same number, like Krista, remained unchanged. Vanessa spotted one couple undergoing an awkward divorce; the male, 20, was fast on his way to infancy while his wife, 23, had already advanced to 32. Needless to say, tables were turned - in more ways than one.

“Kara, what’s happening to you?” a father blurted out as his belt slipped down his waist.

“I don’t know, Daddy!” the pre-teen cried as two round protrusions bulged under her sweater.

Waves of righteous pleasure splashing down her body, Vanessa missed only one small, but crucial flaw, in her last spell. By the time it took effect, she herself had been demoted to 10 years old. The oversight cost her dearly, as her pants plunged to the floor, followed closely by her Victoria’s Secret underwear.

“No!!” she wailed in a rising soprano.

Likewise, Tipper discerned powerful changes coursing through her body as the babyfat melted away and she blossomed back through puberty and beyond. In fact, having been relegated to four, this meant her progression would halt at 40. Crap, she thought as she bypassed her 20s and gliding painfully into her 30s.

The window of opportunity wide open, Tipper ripped the troublesome book from little Vanessa’s shrinking hands. “Got it!”

Meanwhile, Hooters sunk further into collective insanity as former 21-year-olds mourned their new middle school status while waitresses in their upper teens advanced toward middle age. Miyu, previously seven, looked primed to qualify for social security, though her bartender needed a stool to see over the counter. Soon the noises of naked infants and toddlers overtook the restaurant, which was carpeted with slacks, boxer shorts, panties, and every article of clothing imaginable.

Just as the mayhem climaxed, the lunch crowd fell silent. Moments later, they awoke, ages corrected and attire reapplied, though with the lingering sense that time itself had skipped forward. Mothers and fathers stared intimately at their children, as if to reaffirm a sense of “rightness.” Gradually the click of forks and knives on plates resumed.

***

“Whew,” Tipper sighed. The resolution spell worked - with one notable exception. Vanessa, the jilted 21-year-old witch, still sat on the floor, a pudgy 12-month-old baby with soft brown eyes on the verge of crying.

Apologizing profusely to the hostess, despite having wiped her memory of the event clean, Tipper gathered her friend’s belongings and hoisted the gurgling infant onto her arm. Not exactly how either of them had planned to exit their brilliant piece of embarrassing theater. Though Tipper had to admit justice had found a way of prevailing, even if it meant a long night of experimenting just to get Vanessa back to normal.

“It’s all or nothing with you, isn’t it?” Tipper opined as she strapped baby Vanessa into the passenger seat. “Everything is a zero-sum game, huh? Well, I hope you learned a valuable lesson.”

Vanessa responded with the verbal nonsense one expects from a baby, as she reached in vain for the book.

“Oh well, guess I can’t blame you. That Louderoni spell book is a dangerous thing in the wrong hands.”

Pulling into a nearby grocery, Tipper stopped and stared at her infantile roommate. Pinching her plump cheeks, she said, “I’ve gotta go grab something for dinner...” Taking one more whiff before locking the door, she added, “... oy, and some diapers too.”

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