To Ling Chin: Thanks For Nothing! Naomi Claussen by ARthur

Chapter 7
Chapter 7

Naomi then spotted a strange figure across the street, maneuvering wobbly around the grownup pedestrians. Amanda was making good speed as she toddled down the street, despite have bits of twig and other debris tear tiny openings in the soles of her nylon-covered feet. Naomi, in junior tennis shoes, had an easier time running. She watched in amusement as her adversary’s reduced-to-fit pantyhose gradually develop holes, lengthy runs, and finally self-destruct during the chase.

Darting into an apartment building, Amanda managed to get the elevator door closed before Naomi could catch up. She slipped off the shredded remnants of her pantyhose, then doffed the bright red coat from her business power suit, as all that running had made her warm.

Arriving at her floor, Amanda reached into her pocket, but was shocked to discover that her keys had shrunk with her under the effects of the age-capture spell. Fortunately, she had a spare tucked in a crack beside the molding around the door. Just tall enough to manipulate the key and doorknob, Amanda smiled as she realized she would soon return to adulthood. Her age vapors may have burbled into the air at the restaurant, but she had another source.

Inside her apartment, Amanda moved a chair up to countertop. She climbed up with a stool that she placed on the countertop. Standing on the stool, she was able to open a cabinet and pull out the treasure she sought – the Faberge cigar humidor that contained 27 years worth of age vapors, enough to make herself 30 again.

Carefully lowering the humidor to the floor, the 3-year-old Amanda wrapped both arms around it, and haltingly moved the porcelain container with cedar-wood lining to the living room, where she would open it and breath deeply of the green globules that would restore her womanhood.

Suddenly, a taller figure jumped in her path. "So you had the humidor all the time. Give me my years back," the 8-year-old Naomi ordered. "No!" screamed Amanda, as she turned and awkwardly ran with what for her was now a huge, unwieldy container. Naomi quickly caught up with the overburdened toddler, but Amanda wasn’t giving it up easily.

Leaving the humidor on the floor, Amanda turned around to confront her pursuer. Gritting her teeth, she held up her hands and sinisterly aimed her long crimson-nailed fingertips in Naomi’s direction. "Get any closer and I’ll tear you to ribbons," tiny Amanda threatened.

Naomi found the sight of the 3-year-old threatening to scratch her unintentionally hilarious, and began to laugh. Disgruntled by this display, Amanda pouted, "I’ll have you know, I’ve played ‘Sissy Fight.’ Perhaps you’ve heard of Freakitten?"

Naomi was fully aware of Sissy Fight. Its an interactive Internet game site where visitors assume the rolls of parochial school girls and "fight like girls," mainly scratching, biting, kicking and pulling hair. Visitors select and name their cartoon representation of a girl, then maneuver it among the other participating "girls," trying to inflict as much damage on opponents while avoiding getting ripped to shreds yourself. Losing "girls" develop scratch marks, wounds, and bleed.

Having visited the site a few times, Naomi did remember seeing a "girl" named Freakitten, a particularly vicious participant who even knocked off even the nasty Biggun T. But that was a web site, not real life. What made Amanda think she could fight here like she did in cyberspace?

True, Naomi was wearing a grade school uniform (like the web characters) as part of her disguise for invading Juggz. But Amanda didn’t look like anything on the Sissy Fight site, being only two-thirds Naomi’s height, and wearing a shrunken woman’s pink blouse and red skirt. She did have those long fingernails left over from before she regressed from a mid-30s woman, but overall, Amanda looked as threatening as Lil from Rugrats.

"Back off," Amanda threatened. Naomi stood her ground, so Amanda ran toward her, leaping up with fingernails bared. Feinting backward, Naomi warded off the attack with a slap to Amanda’s neck. The reduced lawyer jumped again and planted a scratch on Naomi’s cheek. Momentarily shocked as she felt a trickle of blood, Naomi reacted instantly as Amanda leapt for a third hit. Thrusting up her knee, she caught Amanda in the stomach and repelled her onto her rump.

Looking more puzzled than hurt, Amanda again jumped to her feet and charged Naomi, this time with her head down. Naomi sidestepped the apparent head butt, then shoved tiny Amanda into a coffee table on her return attempt. "Just like at the Running of the Bulls at Pamplona in that Hemingway book I had to read in college," Naomi smiled.

Although bruised, Amanda wasn’t ready to give up.

"Freakitten says, Die!" she screamed, making another run at the AAAARG girl. Obviously, this fight was no longer for sissies, so Naomi reacted by thrusting her leg forward to halt Amanda’s progress. Regaining her lost breath, Amanda jumped up and grabbed the back of Naomi’s short blonde hair. "Yeeeoow!" Naomi screamed as her head was pulled backward. "I’ll scratch your eyes out," the miniaturized lawyer yipped as she reached for Naomi’s face.

"Enough is enough," Naomi grumbled as she twirled Amanda over her shoulder. Trying to pin the little attorney to the floor, Naomi felt a tiny set of teeth maneuvering around her arm. Reacting quickly, Naomi gained a grip on Amanda’s leg and jerked her upward. Twisting madly upside-down, with her skirt flapping inside-out over her chest, Amanda reacted with arm hits and language so foul that even Lysol would be hard pressed to purge it from her palate.

Carting the squirming toddler to a closet, Naomi looped the belt from her skirt onto a clothes hook, leaving Amanda kicking and screaming while suspended off the ground. "Game over, Freakitten," Naomi said as she closed the closet door and returned to the table to reclaim the humidor. But the closet soon flew open, and a skirt-free Amanda emerged, yelping, "The humidor’s mine!" She attempted to pull the humidor from Naomi, but only pushed it upward, causing both girls to lose their grips. The humidor thudded to the ground, and a small bit of the porcelain lid blew out, leaving a small gap.

Amanda dived to the hole and inhaled deeply, but only dust flew up her nostrils. An inspection found the humidor empty.

While Naomi’s heart sank, as she realized that her quest had come to naught and that she would for now remain an 8-year-old girl for an extended period, she was disturbed by Amanda’s playful reaction.

"So you didn’t get it! Neeeaah!" Amanda razzed as she pranced and stuck out her tongue. "You’re stuck as a little girl and you can’t do anything about it," the girl laughed and again stuck out her tongue.

"You’re stuck as a little girl too; even littler than me. And I can do something about it," a sizzling Naomi carefully stated. And the grinning Amanda soon found out what she meant when Naomi seized her arm and backed into a stuffed chair, pulling Amanda with her. The no-longer-jubilant Amanda found herself being secured over Naomi’s lap, and assorted fast and furious spanks being rained down on her Maidenform control-panty-covered bottom. As much as Amanda kicked and squirmed, she couldn’t break Naomi’s grip; and her 8-year-old adversary was now using a paddle-shaped wooden award plaque Amanda received months earlier from the Woman’s Business Roundtable to upgrade the punishment.

Amanda was crying like the 3-year-old she had become when her punishment was interrupted by another large figure – a grown woman Amanda didn’t immediately recognize, but who was wearing one of her Wonderbras and teal lace-trimmed panties.

"Who are you?" a tear-stained Amanda asked on leaving Naomi’s lap. "Don’t you recognize me, Mom?" the woman asked. The now 3-year-old Amanda stared upward at the giant. "Darva?" she said.

Amanda climbed onto a chair to get a closer look. "How did you get grown up? You’re only 9 and not ready to live like a woman, or take on a woman’s responsibilities," Amanda said, adding, "And who gave you permission to wear my clothing!"

"During my lessons in Hedweigian techniques and traditions, my teachers always said I was a better witch than you were," Darva explained. "They said you rejected their teachings, made money the center of your life – that you were an embarrassment to the Hedweigian community. One teacher even suggested that it would be better if I were the adult, and you the child.

"Then early this morning, I saw you take out and return that porcelain jar from the cabinet," Darva said, as she began to unbutton Amanda’s blouse. "I sneaked a peak, and heard those age vapors bounce around inside. I knew that if I inhaled them, I’d age. And I did! I planned to use another spell on you when you returned home, but someone beat me to it," she added as she slipped off Amanda’s blouse.

"Well, as your mother, I’m against it. You’re not ready to be a woman. Now Darva, we’ll go see the Hedweigian coven leader and get this corrected," Amanda said.

"I think you should start calling me Mommy," Darva said. "Starting tomorrow, I’m enrolling you in Hedweigian preschool. This time, I’ll make sure that you learn all those magical techniques, and that when you reach 18, you get your certificate of accomplishment and earn your bat wings."

"No you won’t! I’m still your mother, and you’ll do as I say. And you take off my underwear. You look silly in them," Amanda protested. "Like a toddler doesn’t look silly in a Wonderbra," Darva said as she unhooked and removed the shrunken flattened-cup brassiere from her ex-mom. "Gimme back," Amanda screamed, pulling on the reduced garment.

"I think I have to show you who’s the mother, and who’s now in charge," Darva said, as she sat down, plopped the 3-year-old Amanda stomach down across her legs, and resumed the spanking.

Darva suddenly remembered that there was other girl in the room. "Say! Just what are you doing here?" she angrily asked of Naomi, who froze in position. "No sprechen englaisch," she uneasily grinned at the now aged Hedweigian student, not fully trained, but still potentially dangerous with a spell.

At that moment, Darva heard some foul language emerging from her ex-mother. "You know what happens to little girls who cuss," Darva sternly said as she lowered Amanda’s control panty and continued the spanking more directly on its target.

On this heartwarming (actually more like butt-warming) scene, Naomi crept from the apartment, sad at not regaining her age, but assured that one of the parties responsible for her rejuvenation was paying for her crime. Amanda had in a few hours gone from the powerful head of a Wall Street acquisitions firm to a little girl whose every move would be controlled and monitored by a strict and headstrong mother. Having lost her woman’s couture one item at a time, she would likely next appear wearing one of the pink gingerbread dresses required in Hedweigian preschool, singing the sect’s anthem, which to Naomi sounded like "The Itsy Bitsy Spider" translated into Middle German. A hellish end for a woman used to dominating others.

By the time she returned to the AAAARG van, the other girls had removed the now 1-year-old witches Teresa, Petula and Heidi, diapered them, and were preparing to direct them into the local foster care system. The baby schurk had been dispatched to a zoo.

As Naomi arrived, the other girls were completing the cleanup of clothing items shed by those caught in the reflected rejuvenation spells. Boxes filled to over-capacity with men’s (and a few ladies’ items) were ready to be sealed for deposit with Goodwill Industries. Ruby continued her part in the cleanup light on her feet, swaying to the music still being piped into the dining area; a rock tune with the refrain: "This is the end of the world as we know it… and I feel fine."

Even Ryoko was in a humorous mood, having teasingly donned an oversize Juggz waitress shirt, and was pushing two 20-oz. coffee cups to appropriate places in the shirt’s front. "Today’s specials are the Super Wiener with special sauce, and the Twin Peeks tuna salad on toasted sourdough," she mocked.

Having tucked the now baby Teresa into a wicker basket, Zephyr was offering the witch, now too young to remember her spells, or even talk, a bottle of formula to quiet her tears. She must be hungry, Zephyr thought, as she had no other apparent problem. Her Huggies was dry. And she couldn’t be cold since she was wearing a shirt commandeered from the restaurant’s gift shop; the only one her size: an orange tee reading, "When I grow up, I wanna be a Juggz Girl."

But remnants of the early stages of the battle remained outside. A policeman was taking notes as a 5-year-old boy, standing in an oversize dress shirt with tie around the collar, was protesting, "But I tell you, I really am president of Stamford Investments. Why don’t you believe me?"

Two 8-year-old boys inexplicably wearing their-size men’s suits, where complimenting each other on the fine work their tailors did, not realizing that they had been subjected to an age-capture spell with clothes morph. "I swear that suit makes you look at least 20 years younger," one lad said.

Everyone seemed to be trying their hardest not to acknowledge that some adults had turned into kids, Naomi noticed. The concept was so fantastic to most people, they subconsciously eliminated the idea from their heads. Why, the evening news would blame the destruction of the Juggz outlet on a natural gas leak, and say nothing about the approximately dozen little boys, and a 3-year-old girl, naked except for a grownup-size inflatable air bra with a punctured left cup, stumbling around the site!

Inside the van, Naomi looked around, but didn’t see Ling. "Did you get her age vapors back, grow her up, and send her on her way?" She asked. "Not exactly," explained Ryoko. "We did find all her vapors, but she refused to inhale them. Took them with her."

"She said at her 3-year-old size, she could be the CIA’s greatest secret weapon," Ruby added. "In fact, she left an hour ago for the CIA headquarters. I don’t know if she’ll call."

"Not unless they have phones in Saddem Hussein’s laundry hamper," Naomi whispered, seemingly glad to have Ling out of her hair for now.

But two days later, Naomi did get that call.