A Whole New World

Chapter 3
Kindergarten

Rachel hadn’t noticed the changes in the neighbourhood. As she rode to school her thoughts were still focussed on what had happened twenty minutes ago in the kitchen. She’d been sitting in her seat at the table while her mom dealt with her little brother. Danny had gotten ‘dressed’ by then, wearing a simple red t-shirt with white stripes and a big pull-up with yellow stars and all. It looked ridiculous on the grown teenager as he squatted on his seat, toes wrapped over the edge while mom tried to clean off his milk moustache. It was then that Rachel had looked over at the cereal box on the table. She wondered what strange foreign brand it was. She looked closer, noticing it was clearly a box of Rice Krispies. Rachel’s eyes went back to the label; it was indecipherable. That was the moment when she realised she couldn’t read.

Even as the car rumbled along the suburban streets Rachel couldn’t get over the loss of her reading ability. She always had taken such great pride in her intelligence, her superiority as a student. Now she couldn’t even read! Changes to the rest of the world were inconsequential when something so horrible had happened to her.

Her mother dropped Danny off at daycare first, lifting him out of his big car seat and setting him down on the pavement outside. Rachel only glanced over at the daycare building. She could see other teens playing in the front yard but she wasn’t interested in that. Mom was telling Danny to say goodbye to his big sister. He waved a silly little kid wave at her, flexing his fingers up and down and yelling “Bye-bye!” to her.

Rachel gave him a slight nod, noting that Mom had at least slipped a pair of shorts over his silly pull-ups, even if she hadn’t bothered to put shoes on his feet. The door slammed shut and Mom hopped back in the driver seat after handing off Danny to an attendant. Then they were back on their way to kindergarten.

With a glossy Barbie backpack swung over her shoulder Rachel edged her way across the playground in front of the elementary school. Her simple plastic and rubber flip-flops scraped across the blacktop and she tried to keep her eyes focussed on them and not on the swarming hordes of oversized children. Most of them were older than her, the oldest appearing to be close to thirty but dressed like pre-teens. She spotted a group of kids who appeared to be college-aged playing on a jungle-gym amidst the wood-chip covered playground area. One girl was hanging upside down from the metal bars, her skirt flopping down to reveal her pink panties to everyone, though she didn’t seem at all bothered. A handsome young man beside her was dressed in corduroy overalls, picking his nose and making no attempt to conceal it.

Rachel had no intention of approaching those nose-picking, dirty adult-sized kids. Clearly they weren’t like her. She may have lost her reading but she still had her mind. Just as she was about to leave the playground she spotted someone familiar. Sitting crouched on the ground beneath the jungle-gym was Brian. He was dressed as goofy as any of the big kids here but from the way he was hiding and the desperate look in his eyes Rachel guessed he was feeling like her. At least she hoped that was the case. She didn’t know what she’d do without at least one friend to commiserate with.

“Brian!” she called, rushing over and dropping to her knees in the wood-chips before him.

Immediately she saw the relief in his eyes and knew she wasn’t alone. “Rachel? You remember me?” Brian asked, sounding greatly relieved.

“How could I forget you?” she exclaimed. “You’re the only person I’ve met yet who isn’t acting like a dumb little kid.”

“I know, it’s like the whole damned world has changed. Everyone thinks we’re five years old again.”

“No, it’s worse than that Brian.”

“Worse than that? What do you mean?”

“My mom knew I’m twenty-one. But she thought it was normal for me to go to kindergarten. It’s like our whole reality has been altered and now it’s normal to go through developmental stages at much later ages,” Rachel explained.

Brian nodded in agreement. “That makes sense to me. I mean, it doesn’t make normal sense, but I think you’re right. This whole thing is messed up.”

“You’re telling me! Brian you didn’t see my little brother. You remember Dan?”

Brian nodded, “Yeah of course I remember him. He was always trying to tag along with us when we were kids.”

“Well he was running around the house buck naked this morning, refusing to get dressed. And right now he’s at a daycare centre and wearing a fuckin’ pull-up!” she exclaimed.

“He was naked?! Ugh, that’s awful!”

“And mom seemed to think that was normal too. He’s eighteen but he acted like he was two, maybe three at best.”

Brian looked around the playground and shook his head. “Rachel, you and I can still think like normal. But why do you think that is? I mean, why are we still able to sit here talking while all our old friends eat their boogers and play in the dirt?”

“Our old friends?”

“Yeah, didn’t you notice?” Brian asked, pointing around at other young people on the playground. “Most of these guys and girls are from college. A lot of them went to high school with us too.”

Rachel looked at the kids around her more carefully. It dawned on her that Brian was right. The nose-picking guy was in her chemistry class. The upside-down girl had been one of the popular girls in high school. In fact she knew pretty much all of these kids. Brian was right too, they were the only two here who weren’t acting like dumb little brats.

“I dunno Brian, it’s pretty weird isn’t it,” she agreed.

“More than weird Rach. I think it means all of this has something to do with us.”

Before she could comment further a loud bell rang and children began to hop off play equipment, climb out of sandpits and hurry over towards the front doors of the building. “We better go too,” Brian suggested, standing up and brushing the wood-chips off.

Rachel nodded and followed him towards the growing lines of kids. It seemed they lined up by grade. In a normal school it would have been easy to tell sixth graders from kindergarteners by height. Here though they had to judge by clothing and behaviour as pretty much everyone was in their twenties. They headed for the line of kids in overalls and skirts squirming about unable to stand still. They had just fallen in at the end of the line when another girl with a familiar face bumped right into them.

Megan looked cuter and more immature than ever with her hair tied in pig-tails with pretty pink bows. She wore a frilly purple short-sleeve shirt under hot-pink shortalls with a pair of purple Dora the Explorer sandals completing the outfit. For a moment Brian and Rachel were each certain that Megan would soon give them a silly grin and start picking her nose or doing something else childish. She just really looked like an overgrown five-year old. But as soon as she recognised them Megan yelled, “Oh my God I’m glad to see you guys!”

“Megan, you’ve got your mind!” Rachel blurted out, perhaps sounding a tad too shocked.

Megan frowned at her. “Of course I do, why is that so surprising?”

“Well look around you!” Rachel declared, trying to cover up her faux-pas.

“Oh, right,” Megan agreed.

Brian nodded at her sadly. He had never seen Megan look so uncomfortable and unhappy. She was always the cheerful party girl of the group but this change seemed to have hit her pretty hard. “You doing okay Meg?” he asked with concern.

She nodded feebly. “Everyone has been treating me like a little kid all morning, but I guess we’re actually pretty lucky. My little sister, Sue, has it so much worse.”

“How do you mean? Is she like a toddler?” Rachel asked.

Megan shook her head. “Worse. She’s like an infant, a big overgrown baby. And she’s not like us guys, she hasn’t got a fucking clue. She’s fifteen years old, but she looks happy as could be creeping around the house in nothing but a big droopy, stinky diaper chewing at her hair and drooling all over herself.”

All three stared at each other in shock. Nobody seemed able to even reply to offer some comforting words to Megan. What could they say after all?

The piercing whine of a whistle broke them out of their funk, all three looking at the front of the building where several older adults had appeared. A woman in a long red dress was blowing the whistle, calling all the children to attention. Once there was relative silence the teachers began taking the classes line by line. A kindly looking woman in a fuzzy knitted sweater and a long dotted skirt stood before their line, smiling cheerfully at them. With a little wave she urged them forward and the trio found themselves walking silently through the hallways of the school.

The classroom they were led to was clearly the kindergarten. It had a faded red carpeted floor, well worn from years of kids playing on it. At the centre of the room were several large tables with plastic kiddie-style chairs sat around them. In the corner was a pile of mats probably for napping on. One wall was decorated in big letters, going from A to Z in order across the wall, each with a little picture of some object that matched the letter. ‘A’ had a big red apple drawn next to it, ‘B’ a yellow school bus and so on. The other wall was lined with cubbies, each with a laminated yellow name tag on it. Beside that was a very large toy chest overflowing with toys.

The children raced over to the cubbies, stuffing backpacks and lunch-boxes in them. Sure enough the trio all found ones with their names and dutifully put away their backpacks before heading for the tables. They chose one that still had three open seats before sitting together. Though the chairs were brightly coloured plastic and looked like they should be tiny things for kids, they were actually normal sized.

They had hoped to have some time to scheme and think up ways to fix their situations but the teacher, Miss Henshaw, ruined that by repeatedly checking to make sure they were making progress on their ‘work’. That was what she called it at least. The day began with simple colouring. At first Rachel had rolled her eyes as she watched the other two ‘children’ at their table, a red-headed girl with pigtails and the booger-eating boy from the playground, make messy scribbles with little attempt to stay within the lines. Then she discovered that it was harder than she thought. Her fingers weren’t coordinated properly. It was as though she were very drunk. It took all her concentration to stay, mostly, within the lines. Brian and Megan didn’t even try. They quickly found that it was pointless and in any case there was a feeling of freedom and relaxation they got from scribbling the crayons this way and that without worrying much about lines.

After colouring came snack time and each kid was given a carton of milk. Brian found himself wishing it was chocolate milk, then pushed aside the errant thought, reminding himself how degrading this all was. Just as he thought that he noticed the booger-eater was blowing bubbles in his milk with his straw. The ginger pig-tailed girl was laughing her head off at his antics. Brian watched the boy blowing bubbles and felt a strange curiosity roll over him. Experimentally, he blew air into his straw. His milk bubbled in a strangely satisfying way. Brian couldn’t help but let out a giggle. He blew more, making bigger and bigger bubbles. This was pretty fun!

“Brian, stop playing with your food! Show me you can eat like a big boy,” the teacher reprimanded, having appeared behind Brian while he was distracted with his bubble-blowing.

Brian was sure he turned as red as a cherry. He couldn’t believe he’d just been told off for playing with his food like a dumb little kid. At least snack time didn’t last long. Soon it was time for some proper lessons.

Miss Henshaw called all the children over to a corner of the room where they had to sit on their butts on the floor. Brian always hated that when he was a kid and now he recalled why. There was no way to get comfortable on the floor. He tried Indian-style, then sitting with his legs under him, then with legs stretched out. None of those positions was comfortable for long. Meanwhile the teacher got to sit in a nice comfy chair.

Miss Henshaw hushed the children and pulled out a pack of big cards. “Okay children, now we’re going to practice our letters. I’ll show the card and call on one of you to tell me what letter it is. The rest of you have to be quiet though. If you can stay quiet for me, everyone will get another star on their charts.”

The teacher began to flip the cards up, calling on the eager children one at a time. Seeing their former lab partners and prom dates hopping on their butts and stretching out their hands to identify letters of the alphabet made Brian, Megan and Rachel all share a collective groan.

“Rachel,” Miss Henshaw called, looking down at the girl.

Rachel looked up, stunned. All eyes were on her now and she actually felt fear. Miss Henshaw was giving her an encouraging smile. “Come on Rachel, you know what letter this is, don’t you?”

Rachel looked at the letter on the card and felt a bit sick. What letter was that? It was so familiar and yet she couldn’t quite seem to name it. How was that even possible?! She was grasping at straws, determined not to look like a fool in front of her friends, in front of this gaggle of stupid brats. Finally the name of the letter flashed into her mind, just as it looked like Miss Henshaw was about to call on someone else. “R,” she blurted out. “It’s an ‘R’!”

Rachel felt so relieved and proud for recognising the letter. Or at least she did until Miss Henshaw frowned slightly and gave a little shake of her head. “Sorry dear, not quite,” she said.

Rachel felt like she’d been kicked in the stomach. Tears welled up in her eyes as she sat there stunned by her failure. Miss Henshaw pointed to a dumb looking twenty-year old named Becky who was busy sucking her thumb until a second ago. “That’s a ‘F’!” Becky eagerly yelled out.

“Very good Becky!” Miss Henshaw praised, while the girl beamed and returned her thumb to her mouth.

Of course it was an F! How could she have been so stupid? Rachel recalled that as a little girl she’d always had trouble with those two letters for some reason. They didn’t even look similar though? Now she’d been one-upped by a girl so dumb and juvenile she couldn’t stop sucking her thumb! It was beyond embarrassing, it was humiliating. Rachel felt salty tears tracing their way down her cheeks and she forced her head into her drawn-up knees to hide her shame.

Since kindergarten worked on a half-day schedule it mercifully came to an end not much later. After enduring Miss Henshaw’s reading from Winnie the Pooh they were told they could have free playtime until their moms or dads arrived to take them. Brian and Megan made their way over to the toy box dutifully while Rachel just sat by herself in the corner and sulked.

At first Brian was sure the toys would be stupid kid stuff that he’d have no interest in, but then he found there were several Thomas trains. They were brightly painted and appealing. They even had coaches that linked up to them. He hesitated to touch them at first. After all, why would he actually want to play with such silly toys? But then another boy grabbed Percy and James and ran off with them. Brian instantly felt a pang of jealousy. He wanted James! That was always his favourite character. Brian gave in and grabbed Henry and Gordon toys from the chest.

In moments he had Henry’s green plastic body attached to a line of red and white coaches and Gordon’s longer blue form linked to several box-cars. He lied down on the carpet on his tummy, swinging his legs automatically in the air above him, and began to push them towards each other. Without really thinking about it Brian began to make chugging sounds, quietly at first, but then louder. What did it matter if others heard him, they were all dumb kids anyway. Brian ran the two trains towards each other, imagining the spectacular crash that was coming and beginning to imitate Gordon and Henry’s voices.

The two toy trains smashed into each other, creating a satisfying wreck of coaches and box-cars. Brian grinned and made all sorts of smashing and crashing noises, giggling to himself at the fun of it all.

“What the hell are you doing?”

Brian stopped his giggling and looked up at Rachel, feeling immediately ashamed. “I... I was just...um...” he stammered.

“You were playing like a little kid! Is this what you want Brian? Did you make this happen to us, so you could play with kids’ toys?” she accused.

“What?! No! Of course I didn’t cause this, how could I? It just, I dunno, felt right.”

“He’s right.”

They both looked over to see Megan standing there with a Barbie doll in one hand and a toy brush in the other. “I was just playing with my Barbie, brushing her hair. And, well, it felt right. It was fun.”

Rachel frowned again, her cheeks still red from tears, her eyes still bloodshot. “What are we going to do?”

Brian put the toy trains down, feeling funny about playing with them now. “I’ll tell you what we can’t do,” he spoke up. “We can’t get separated again. We need to stick together guys.”

“How do we do that Brian?” Rachel asked. “We’re little kids now. Our moms will be here soon to take us hope for damned naps or something.”

“We could ask to have a play-date,” Megan suggested.

“What?”

“You know, a play-date. My little cousins have them with friends from pre-school all the time. It gives the moms a chance to spend time with other grown-ups too. We should convince our moms to let us all play this afternoon. Then maybe we can figure out a way to fix this.”

Brian and Rachel considered Megan’s suggestion, then they both nodded in agreement.

When Megan’s mom turned up a few minutes later the girl put on a convincing act. “Mommy, mommy, I wanna play with my friends today!” she announced, hopping up and down like a hyperactive little kid. “Pleeeease! Can I go over their house and play?”

To Brian and Rachel’s surprise the little kid act worked like a charm. Megan’s mom just couldn’t say no to the eager little girl. So they swallowed their pride and repeated the act for their moms. Brian had the toughest job because they’d decided his place would be the best location to go to as he was an only-child. He had to convince his mom to have them all back. In the end though it turned out to be a piece of cake. All the moms were eager for their children to make friends, or maybe just for the chance to socialise with other moms. Either way the trio was soon gathered at Brian’s house.

The moms placed the ‘kids’ in the back yard to play while they had tea in the kitchen. Of course that allowed them to watch the children closely through a sliding glass door, just in case they got into any trouble. The backyard was no exception to the transformations the world had gone through. A plastic play place with a little ladder and yellow slide sat in the middle of the lawn. Along the side was a swing-set with an attached slide of its own. Just beside that was a small sand box shaped like a turtle. The lawn showed all the signs of belonging to a family with a growing little boy. The newish swing-set had replaced the plastic play place as the boy reached ‘big boy’ kindergarten age.

The three friends headed as far away from their moms as they could, settling on their bottoms in the grass along the far fence. Brian and Rachel hadn’t even bothered to remove their backpacks and now dropped the bright cartoon bags beside them.

“So, what’s the plan?” Megan asked Rachel as soon as they’d sat.

“What plan? Why are you asking me?” she retorted.

“Well I dunno Rach, maybe because you’re always the one with a plan,” Megan huffed.

“Well I’m sorry if having my whole reality change overnight has thrown me off my game a bit! I mean, I can’t even read. No, worse, I can’t even recognise the alphabet! How do you expect me to come up with a plan to fix that?”

“Okay, okay, we need to stay calm,” Brian reminded them. “Now I don’t know how this happened, but the only thing we can do right now is accept it and try to go with the flow.”

“You go with the flow, I’ve had it with being treated like a kid,” Rachel snapped. “I’m tired, I’m dressed like an idiot and I’m hungry. But if I go in there and ask for something to eat all I’ll get is fussed over and fed like a baby.”

“Well maybe there’s something in here we can eat,” Brian suggested, opening the zipper of his Thomas the Tank Engine backpack.

Brian rummaged through the pack, finding only crayons, a colouring book and... a leather-bound copy of Catcher in the Rye. All three gasped as the book fell onto the grass. Brian picked it up tentatively, as though it might burn him. He felt the leather in his hands, looked over the worn book. It was completely unchanged.

“What is that doing here?” Rachel demanded.

“I didn’t put it in there. I swear I haven’t seen this since last night,” he insisted.

“So it just packed itself in your backpack all on its own then?” Rachel scoffed.

“Maybe it did,” Megan interrupted ominously.

They all exchanged wary looks before their eyes returned to the book. “Do you think...” Brian stammered, “Do you think it could have caused this?”

“How could a book do this?”

“How could anything or anyone do this? I think we are beyond the realm of the normal here. And this is the only constant between last night and today that I’ve seen yet,” Brian answered.

“Where did it come from anyway? You’re sure you found it in the library Brian?”

Brian looked guilty, his eyes on the grass as the girls stared.

“Well Brian?”

“I... I did find it in the library. But, when I looked in the back, it didn’t have a library card or a bar code or anything. So I just took it,” he admitted.

“Well that’s just great! A book has ruined out lives, that makes this all so much better, knowing what caused it,” Rachel mocked sarcastically.

“We should destroy it,” Megan breathed.

“No, that could make things worse,” Brian said.

“Worse? How?! I mean, so the book is all about how much adulthood sucks and how great being a kid is right? So now it changed us into little kids, saved us from adulthood. Well I’ve got news for it. Being a kid sucks! I hate this!” Rachel roared.

“We all hate this Rach,” Brian reminded her. “None of us likes being kindergarteners for God’s sake!”

Brian had barely spoken the words when he let loose a horrified yelp and threw the book on the grass between them.

“What?!” the girls shouted.

Brian looked at them with terror in his eyes. The colour had drained from his face. “It... it was like something inside kicked at the cover, trying to get out.”