The Halloween Party

Chapter 1
The Halloween Party

The Halloween Party

by Tabula Rasa and Egarednu Sphinx

[I’ve been to parties where costumes were required, and where I didn’t have one. Sadly, the costumes they had on stock were never nearly as good. -Tabula]

"Dude, give me a break. I was going to get one, but I just didn’t have a chance."

Sure, the invitation had said costumes were mandatory. But Jake hadn’t taken that seriously. First, because Lindsey was a friend who he figured wouldn’t give him a hard time about, and second, because no one took that kind of thing seriously.

"Rules are rules. The invitation said costumes were mandatory, and I meant it."

Jake shrugged at her. "So, what, you’re turning me away?"

Lindsey sighed. "No. I have some extra costumes in the basement. But I’m warning you, you’ll probably be feel pretty silly wearing one."

"Whatever. I’m just here to see friends and hang out."

"I’ll be back in a sec." Lindsey slipped past another guest down the stairs to the basement, and returned with a rather second rate tiger costume, consisting of a tail with a safety pin at one end and two "ears" made of fabric attached to a headband.

Jake looked at it skeptically, then rolled his eyes. "Fine." He put on the headband and, rather awkwardly, fastened the tail to his pants, a bit off center. "Satisfied."

"I told you to bring your own costume. You brought this on yourself. I’d give you the shirt and pants that go with it, but I think you’d be a little uncomfortable in them, given that they fit my little brother last year. Although I considered making you wear them, too, just to teach you a lesson."

"Whatever, Lindsey. Can I come into your precious party, now?"

"Sure. Have fun." As Jake walked over to the table with the snacks, Lindsey called after him, "And get into the spirit a little."

Most of Jake’s friends were already there. He saw that a few, mostly female, had come up with nice costumes--three dressed as Charlie’s angels, a surprising number of cats, James Bond, and so on. And some looked like they’d thrown together costumes at the last minute--for instance, Leo, one of the few nerds Lindsey had considered worthy of being invited, had apparently decided to show a complete lack of gratitude by "dressing" as the number 4, represented mostly by a single piece of cardboard sticking out from his waist.

And a few more looked like they’d followed Jake’s path, and were wearing costumes passed down from Lindsey and her brother--there was Tony, wearing a spiderman mask that barely covered his face, the unrecognizable person (Derek, probably, from the pants) whose "ghost" costume consisted of a sheet which didn’t even make it to his knees, and Rhea, who had a magic wand in her left hand and a badly-stretched band of pink fluff around her waist.

The ghost wandered over as Jake grabbed a few pieces of candy from the snack table. "No costume?" It was indeed Derek.

Jake ate a handful of M&M’s. "So Lindsey gave me one of Zach’s hand-me-downs. I’m a tiger. Grr," he added, half-heartedly.

"Yeah, I’m a ghost, if you can’t tell. Boo."

"Oh, that’s adorable!" One of the Charlie’s Angels--Trisch, from Jake’s English class--came over. "You must be a tiger, and you must be a ghost!" To Jake’s surprise, she mussed his hair condescendingly.

A bit embarrassed, and unsure of how else to respond, Jake played along. "Yeah. A tiger. Grr."

Trisch walked past them to the snack table, and Jake gave Derek a puzzled look. "What was that about?

Derek shrugged "No idea, Jake. Guess Lindsey got her friends to give us a hard time about not wearing costumes. They are her little brother’s after all. Just ignore ’em and have fun." Derek grinned and waved his arms and added in a spooky voice, "Soooo speeeeaks the ghoost of the hallooweeen partyyyyy! BOOOO!"

Jake rolled his eyes and began wandering again. He ran into Tim, one of the more popular athletic types from school. Usually the two got along pretty well, even if Jake wasn’t as much of an athlete. "Hey Tim!"

Tim was dressed us James Bond, and the tux suited him surprisingly well, making him seem a bit older and more mature. He looked down at Jake and smiled. "Hey tiger! See you took your nickname seriously. Cute costume. Let us know if you want to try out for the mascot position on the team in a few years, huh?"

He laughed, maybe a bit unkindly, but it was clear he was simply trying to be nice. But more like he was being nice to Lindsey’s little brother, or someone that age, than to one of his peers.

"Cut it out Tim. I’m not some little kid." Jake was starting to get annoyed. Trisch was a girl, and they had weird moments. But Tim was a buddy. He wouldn’t have gone along with Lindsey for a dumb joke about him not wearing a costume.

Tim smiled and noogied him, much like Jake did to his own kid brother. "Aww, don’t worry about it tiger. I know you’re a big guy. I was just goofing off." After that he turned back to one of the other football players and ignored Jake. After standing for a minute, expecting Tim to notice him, Jake wandered off.

Surveying the party, most people seemed to have already formed little clumps, dancing, talking, or drinking, depending on the group. Tim’s cluster of athletes had already rejected him, so Jake went for the safest bet: Leo and a few other boys were standing around the computer, modifying the play list and arguing about the various merits of parts of the stereo setup. As Jake walked over, Leo ("the number 4") was arguing with Mark (dressed as a stereotypical nerd...a gutsy move for a guy with leanings in that direction to begin with) about whether or not the sound quality was being reduced by the cabling.

"Hey guys, what’s up?"

Leo looked momentarily flustered. "Well, you see this wire?" He gestured at the connection between the computer and the stereo. "It’s what lets the computer talk to the stereo, so the stereo knows what music to play." Leo was speaking slowly, and being more than a bit condescending. Jake’s first reaction was that Leo was playing along with Lindsey’s big joke, before he remembered that Leo talked to everyone that way.

Jake interrupted him. "Leo, I’m not an idiot. I know what a computer cable is."

"Wow, you must be a pretty smart kid, then." Or Leo actually might be playing along. Jake just walked away just as Leo was asking him, in that same slow, condescending tone, enunciating each word, if he knew the difference between whatever types of cables they were arguing about. The effort was ruined when Leo called out an overly cheery, "Okay, bye!", with the same sort of indulgence you’d give a child who walked off in the middle of a conversation.

Jake noticed Rhea, also drifting around the edges of some conversations, and went over to her. "People are really taking this costume thing seriously."

"Yeah. Lindsey must have told everyone to make us feel stupid. If one more person tells me what a ’pretty princess’ I am, I’m going to punch them. I didn’t even like princesses when I was actually a little kid."

"We should do something to get back at them. Make them break out of this stupid joke."

Rhea nodded her approval.

It was easy enough to recruit Tony and Derek to the cause, since they’d been having much the same experience. Quickly, a plan took form. First, Rhea approached Leo.

"Hey, Leo." For a moment, Jake was worried that the plan would fall apart if Leo ignored her, but she tried harder. "Leo, hey, Leo, I’m talking to you."

"What can I do for you, little princess?" Jake noticed Rhea’s arm twitch as she restrained the assault she’d promised earlier. With Leo distracted, Jake "tripped" over the computer’s cord, conveniently shutting off the music, causing everyone to look in their direction.

At that moment, Tony and Derek, who had snuck behind Leo when he responded to Rhea, grabbed his pants and pulled them down while the room was looking at them.

As the foursome had hoped, the room burst out laughing. Victory.

And then, as the laughter died, some anonymous voice in the crowd said, "That was so CUTE!"

Others joined in. "I wonder who taught them to do that."

Even Leo looked obnoxiously amused. "That was good teamwork, kids," he said, tousling Tony’s hair. And then he knelt down and turned to Derek--putting him face to face with Derek’s waist, since they were actually almost the same height. "You did pretty good there. I bet your brother taught you to do that, right?" Derek, who didn’t have any brother’s just looked at him in confusion, and Leo, oddly, seemed to be referring to Tony. And then, unexpectedly, Leo lifted up the sheet as he pulled down Derek’s pants. "But I bet he didn’t teach you how to avoid that!"

Much of the room had already lost interest in the topic, but those who were still watching chuckled indulgently. And then, most gallingly, Leo patted Derek on the butt and added, "Nice training pants, kiddo."

Derek was glad he couldn’t be seen blushing through the sheet as he pulled up his pants over (he glanced quickly to check) his boxers.

The four regrouped in a corner of the room as the music resumed.

"I can’t believe they’re sticking with it."

"Nice training pants!" Derek griped. "Earlier someone asked me if I was excited about starting kindergarten next year. I’m getting pretty sick of this."

"Me too. Apparently that didn’t go far enough. Let’s try really pissing them off." Jake paused. "Speaking of which, I’m going to take a brief trip to the bathroom.

Jake went to the bathroom and quickly relieved himself of all the soda he’d had. And then, as he went to pull up his pants, he happened to look at the mirror next to the toilet. Instead of seeing himself, he saw a boy, about seven years old, in the process of pulling up orange sweatpants with stripes drawn around in black marker, over childish red pokemon briefs. He quickly pulled up his pants and looked more closely, moving around to try different angles, hoping that the freckled boy with a missing tooth and whiskers drawn in face-paint would turn out to be him in some sort of unusual optical illusion.

Finally, he ran out to the others. "Guys, you’d better come see this." He led the confused group to the bathroom and pointed out the mirror.

The four of them stood in front of it, and saw a collection of children dressed for Halloween. The tallest boy, who still looked like he wasn’t even ten, was standing where Tony should have been, wearing a full spandex Spiderman costume from top to bottom. The boy Jake had seen before stood next to him, several inches shorter, still wearing the complete tiger costume. Next to him was a girl, several years younger still, wearing a tiara and a frilly pink tutu. And finally, in place of Derek, a small boy covered by a sheet that went down to his shoes.

Derek pulled off the sheet, looking rather conflicted what he was about to see, and the boy in the mirror did the same. Jake, looking back and forth between the two, saw that the reflection really did seem to be mirroring Derek, but at the same time managed to look much less coordinated, as if removing the sheet were a relatively difficult task.

Underneath the sheet, the boy apparently had a sesame street theme going, ranging from his shirt to his sneakers. "Guys, I want to check something. Would you mind turning around?"

Remembering Leo’s comment from before, everyone solemnly turned away. Jake fell prey to morbid curiosity and angled himself so he could still see the mirror. Sure enough, when Derek pulled his pants down, his reflection was revealed to be wearing training pants. Ones which matched the shirt and sneakers.

After a brief pause, Derek pulled his pants back up. "Okay, I’m done." Everyone turned back, and they stared at each other, wondering what to do. After several seconds of this, Jake finally announced, "That’s it. I’m sick of this" and charged out of the bathroom.

Jake was getting beyond frustrated at this point. Everyone was treating him like a kid in Zach’s old costume. Lindsey had gotten all of them to play along. She’d even set up some sort of bizarre fun house mirror that made him look like a kid. If he couldn’t see that he was wearing his normal clothes he might be convinced too. But he was sick of it. He wanted someone to address him like the normal high schooler he was.

He went back over to Leo and looked him over, nervous about what he was planning. He couldn’t possibly do it to Tim or the jocks though. With Leo he stood a chance of making his point.

"Hi Leo."

"Oh hey. Back to talk about cables s’more?"

Jake shook his head. "Leo, how old are you?"

Leo chuckled softly. "I’m 16, squirt. Why? You wishing you were big like me?"

Jake sighed loudly. "Oh come on. Drop it. I’m 16 just like you are. We were in the same shop class last year! Stop treating me like I’m someone’s kid brother!"

"Whoah! Calm down little guy. I know you’re getting older. But you can’t catch up with me. That’s not how it works!" Leo chuckled and reached out to pat Jake’s head as the teens had been doing all night.

"I’m not a little KID!!!" Jake snapped.

He swatted Leos hand away and hauled back to punch the geeky boy in the stomach, following through with as much strength as he could. Leo deserved all the hurt Jake was about to give him.

He grinned triumphantly and waited for Leo to crumple over and admit to the whole stupid prank. But Leo wasn’t crumpled over. He looked a bit startled, and slightly annoyed that Jake was hitting him, but he certainly didn’t appear to be in pain.

Jake lost it. He started pounding on Leo with both fists wildly and blindly, almost crying. "Stop it! I’m not a little kid! I’m NOT!!!" All he succeeded in doing was ruining Leo’s 4 costume. Then Lindsey came over, looking furious.

Lindsey grabbed Jake and dragged him away from the party. Initially she just held his arm, but the more he tried to squirm away, the more he seemed to end up entirely in her arms. By the time they reached the top of the stairs, off limits to the party goers, Jake found himself grabbed around the chest, underneath both arms, with his feet kicking helplessly several inches off the ground.

Lindsey dropped him on Zach’s bed. "That does it Jake. I’m sick of you acting like a little brat at my party. I can’t send you home, because it’s not safe out there for little kids. But I can make you fit in better."

She grabbed the ears off his head, and Jake hoped for a moment that she’d let him return like a normal teen, until she grabbed at his shirt and started pulling it off. "Hey," he exclaimed, and reached down to hold it on.

Lindsey just rolled her eyes, and one hand kept tugging on one side of his shirt while the other reached around and tickled him on the other side. Jake giggled helplessly as she deftly finished pulling it off.

"I used to babysit, kid. I know all the tricks."

She pulled off his sneakers without much difficulty, not bothering to untie them, just holding one leg so he couldn’t get away and using his struggles to leverage the shoes off. His socks soon went the same way.

Next, she went for his jeans. Another bout of tickling let her get them unbuttoned, but when she stopped for a moment, Jake managed to get the upper hand, pulling out of her grasp...until, to his chagrin, he realized that as he struggled away, she was still holding the legs of his jeans and lifting them up. Jake’s back landed on the bed with his legs in the air as she pulled the pants clean off him.

Even stripped to his underwear, Jake decided to make a run for it. As he darted towards the door, he tripped over his boxers, which had fallen to his feet, absurdly large despite having fit perfectly earlier in the day.

Lindsey picked him up by the waist with one arm, and the underwear in the other. Jake was too shocked to worry about the fact that he was completely naked as he watched the underwear in her hand shift. In moments, his Joe Boxer boxer shorts had turned bright red with white trim, covered in pikachus, charmanders and the rest.

"So, do you think you’re old enough to get yourself dressed again? You’re still a little big to have someone else dress you...but if you want, I’m sure I can do something about that." Remembering what Derek’s reflection had looked like--and mindful the blatant supernatural display he’d just witnessed--Jake nodded meekly.

Lindsey put him on the bed and handed him the underwear. As Jake pulled it on, he was disturbed to notice that, even standing on the bed, he was shorter than her.

Lindsey handed him a two-piece Pikachu pajama-costume. "Here. Usually this is for sleeping in, but it seems like the perfect costume for a little twerp like you."

Still subdued, Jake took it from her and put it on, noticing as he did that his body hair was completely gone, leaving him with the scrawny body of an actual seven year old. Lindsey left a pair of colorful socks and velcro sneakers, and left him to finish getting dressed.

Fearful of incurring Lindsey’s wrath, he put on the rest of the clothes and headed downstairs, wincing and expecting the kids to lay into him with teasing for being dressed up as stupidly as was possible. There was a silence and then Trisch came over and rubbed his hair. "Glad to see you had something else to wear, Zach. You look adorable like that! C’mon, say it for me, pleeease?"

Jake looked up, embarrassed at the outfit and confused by the lack of guffaws. "Say what?"

Oh you know! The sound. You’re a pikachu!"

Jake blushed, she didn’t really expect him to...Lindsey caught his eye with a knowing glance and Jake gulped. "Umm...Pika?"

Trisch grinned and clapped then picked Jake up and spun him around in a hug. "That’s so cute!"

Jake struggled away and ran over to his compatriots. "Guys, Lindsey got me and made me put on this instead, and now I seem to look like a kid, even to me, but...."

Tony interrupted, "We’re in the middle of talking about something, Zach. It’s not polite to interrupt people."

Jake stared at him in horror. "Guys, that’s not funny. I know Lindsey made me look little, but I’m not a little kid."

"You know, that must be what we sound like to everyone else." Rhea was talking to Derek and Tony, completely ignoring him. "A little kid insisting that they’re really big, and sounding just like a little kid when they do it."

"Anyway, we still don’t know where Jake went. Do you think Lindsey just threw him out?"

Jake just backed away quietly and sat down in a corner of the room to think, but was almost immediately interrupted by Lisa, another of Charlie’s Angels--and a longtime crush of Jake’s. "Hey kid. You look bored."

And then, Jake noticed that, in order to lean down to talk at him, Lisa had helpfully put her breasts right in front of his face. Perhaps, if everyone was going to treat him like a little kid, he could get some benefits out of it.

"Do you like my costume? I’m a pikachu." After a moment, he added, "Pika pika."

"Yeah, you are. You look very cute." To Jake’s disappointment, he didn’t get a hug out of it, just another hair-tousle. "You want to come get some cookies?"

"Sure," Jake answered, milking the opportunity.

On an impulse, he grabbed on to her, clinging to her as they walked through the crowd, and she put her arm on his shoulder in return. Lindsey noticed them--"I guess he likes you, Lisa."

"Yeah. He’s a pretty cute kid."

"I’m glad he’s behaving himself." And Lindsey winked at one of them, Jake wasn’t quite sure which.

They made it to the snack table just as Tim picked up the last cookie. "Oh, I guess they’re out of cookies. Would you like some M&M’s instead?"

Normally, Jake would have just gone along with that, but tonight, with everything else he was putting up with, why should he? "But I wanted a cookie!" Jake announced, loudly enough for Tim, and everyone else standing nearby, to hear. He wasn’t really feeling it--he didn’t even want the cookie that much--but he managed to make it sound like a decent whine.

Tim stopped, his hand inches from his mouth. "Here you go, tiger. I’ll just have the M&M’s."

Jake took the cookie with a wide grin. If he couldn’t get anything else he wanted, he could at least take a cookie. "Want to see my room?" Jake asked.

"Sure," Lisa answered, and Jake led her up the stairs to Zach’s room. He’d imagined something like this many times over the last year. Of course, unlike in any of his fantasies, she didn’t think she was going there to have sex with him, which meant he needed a plan.

He was still trying to work out a clever way to take advantage of the situation when they reached Zach’s room. Jake was pulled out of his thoughts when Lisa pointed at the poster over Zach’s bed. "Is that your favorite pokemon?"

Having lost his train of thought, and not wanting to lose control of the situation, Jake answered without thinking. "No, charizard is my second favorite. Pikachu is my favorite," Jake gestured at his costume for emphasis, and then added "Pika. Pika."

While Lisa giggled softly, it occurred to Jake that he’d been a little too enthusiastic about that. How did he even know the name of the pokemon on that poster? And then, to make matters worse, Lisa added, "Well, I’m going to go back down with my friends, okay?"

He should have been suave, and just gone with her, but Jake was overtaken by sudden anger, and again, before he could think, answered with, "No! I don’t want you to go downstairs!"

Lisa looked a bit taken aback, but offered, "Five more minutes, okay, Zach?"

But Jake was realizing that he had bigger problems. That had come out as exactly the sort of demand he’d been pretending to make for the cookie. Clearly, his control of the situation was rapidly deteriorating, and, more important than stealing more time with Lisa was not slipping further. Clearly, Jake needed to do something adult, and, under the circumstances, generating another opportunity to ogle Lisa’s breasts seemed like an awfully good candidate.

Sudden inspiration struck. He climbed on the bed and grabbed the well worn stuffed teddy bear on the bed, then held it up for Lisa. "Look, this is Teddy."

Lisa stepped over and reached out a hand to touch the bear, and just as she touched it, Jake dropped the bear down the side of the bed, against the wall.

"Don’t worry," Lisa said immediately. "I’ll get him." As Jake had known she would.

Jake knelt on the edge of the bed watching Lisa, trying to find the best viewing angle, as she dug around for the bear. It was only after she’d handed the bear back to him, as Jake instinctively clutched it, that he realized that not only had he not caught a single glimpse of her breast, but in the heat of the moment, he’d been watching for his bear to be found and hadn’t even been thinking about Lisa.

"Well, I’d better go down, before anything else goes wrong."

Jake just nodded. He was worried about different things going wrong than she was, but he agreed with the sentiment.

Left alone in the room, it finally occurred to Jake that since it was the clothing that had started this, the first thing to do was to get back in his own clothing. Quietly, staying out of the way, he snuck downstairs, and then further, to the basement, suppressing the urge to go back and bring teddy along with him for moral support in the dark basement. He had a hunch that Lindsey would hide his clothes down there, just like the other costumes. All he had to do was find them and get dressed, and then he could be his normal teenage self again.

He saw a table with neat stacks of clothes. A whole lot of piles. But near the front was a familiar looking pair of cargo pants. He grabbed them and found his shirt there, too. He stripped off the pikachu outfit and pulled his clothes back on. Sure they were a little baggy...a lot baggy, but that should go away once the magic fixed him. Since the pokemon briefs had originally been his boxers, he left those on. His first attempt to run upstairs met with trouble as he promptly tripped over the massive shoes. After another attempt, he reluctantly put the velcro sneakers back on to avoid the freezing cold basement floor, and then ran upstairs. He waited in the background, knowing he’d be 16 soon enough.

And he waited.

"Zach!" He heard Lindsey yelling and smiled. She smiled back. He got really nervous; she shouldn’t be smiling! He’d tricked her! So her ran over the stereo and in his still piping voice shouted. "Look at me!"

The party stopped and everyone looked. Trisch ran over. "Awww how adorable! Zach new costume is being a grown up!" She tousled his hair. "Everyone be sure to treat him like he’s...umm...how old are ya, cutie?"

Jake looked up...maybe he had to say it...maybe the magic would break then..."I’m 16!"

Trisch giggled. "Oooh! OK everyone!" she said in her more sincere indulgent voice. "Be sure to treat little Zach here like he’s 16!"

There was a round of chuckles and several other teens came over, telling him what a big guy he was, and some of the girls...girls who were totally out of his league, even before this nightmare, came over and asked if he’d like to go on a date.

Jake was melting down. Lindsey had won and he was miserable. He wanted to sneak downstairs and put the pikachu outfit back on, but someone always caught him before he could sneak away. They gave him cookies and giggled when his pants feel down as he held the suddenly large cookies in both hands.

And then, Jake saw himself. Or at least, someone who looked like him--the real, teenaged, him--on the other side of the party. Breaking away from the girls, one hand holding up his pants, he ran across the room. "Hey!" he shouted at the simulacrum. "Hey, you." He was ignored. Finally, reluctantly, "Hey, Jake!"

The other Jake turned and knelt down to him. "Hi, Zach. Are you having a good time tonight?"

"Who are you?"

Jake felt his pants slip off as the other boy lifted him high in the air. Fortunately, his huge shirt hung down to his legs. "You just said it. I’m Jake, kid." And then he winked and put Jake back down. Jake fumbled his pants back on.

Before he could argue, he felt a hand on his shoulder. "Bedtime, Zach." Jake opened his mouth to argue, but Lindsey cut him off. "No arguments. Remember, that was the deal for letting you come to the party."

Reluctant to leave, but more reluctant to get Lindsey angry again, he let her drag him upstairs. "Get in your pajamas." Apparently she’d moved the pikachu costume back up to Zach’s room.

Jake stepped out of his own, still absurdly oversized clothes, leaving him in just the embarrassing underwear, and had started putting the pikachu outfit back on, when Lindsey interrupted him. "Hey, you forgetting something?"

Jake looked at her helplessly, having no idea what she was referring to. Lindsey rolled her eyes, opened a drawer, and tossed a pair of Goodnights at him. Jake held them and looked at her, pleadingly. "I don’t need this. Please!"

"I don’t have time for this. Put them on or I’ll put them on you."

Jake turned his back on Lindsey as he pulled down the underwear and put on the, well, diaper, only barely preventing himself from crying. Then he pulled the absurd pikachu outfit over it.

"Okay, happy?"

"Teeth, kiddo."

And so, under Lindsey’s irritable supervision, Jake brushed his teeth. Then, finally, she let him get into Zach’s bed, surrounded by Zach’s stuffed animals, and left him there with only Zach’s nightlight. Frustrated, angry, and scared, Jake cried himself to sleep.

It seemed much later when Jake was woken up by someone shaking him. "Hey, Jake. Jake, wake up!"

Jake awoke with a start. Someone was waking him up...someone who knew who he was. He looked up and saw himself--the other himself, from the party.

"It’s me, Zach. The actual Zach. I wanted to go to the party, so I did some magic to jump on top of Lindsey’s whole costume spell thing. But it’s eleven fifty, so the spell’s about to end."

Jake bounced out of bed, and, following Zach’s lead, took off the childish clothing as Zach took off his adult clothing. Jake pulled on his old clothing, still oversized, and Zach began squeezing into the childish clothing.

"Eew, you used this," Zach accused as he put on the diaper.

"I did not!" Jake snapped back, not entirely sure that it was true. Zach threw it away and pulled out a new one just as he started to shrink. In moments, Jake filled out his usual clothes again.

"Thanks for your body. I had a great time."

Jake looked at the little boy. "You had no right to do that to me! I should..."

The boy, eyes beginning to drop from being up past his bed time, looked back at him innocently. "But, I really wanted to hang out with the big kids, and I can only do that on Halloween."

And Jake, after an evening as Zach, couldn’t bring himself to be all that angry. "That was...that was bad, Zach. Don’t do that again."

And Jake left the room and went back downstairs to rejoin the party.

"Jake!" Derek cried. "You’re back. It was really strange. Some little kid was going around, and everyone was acting like he was you. And we had no idea where you really were."

And then Rhea came over. "People are treating me normally now. It’s really weird."

Jake just shrugged. "It’s...I’ll explain tomorrow. Let’s just enjoy the party."

And they did.

And that night--early that morning, really--when Jake looked in the mirror before going to bed, just like every other night, an ordinary sixteen year old looked back. And when he got in bed, just like every other night, he was wearing ordinary, adult size boxer shorts.

And it didn’t even seem odd that, for this first time in his life, there were ordinary, adult size goodnights underneath.

With pikachu on them.

 

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