Big Ideas

Chapter 1
Big Ideas - Entire Story

---

Chapter Description: There goes the neighborhood.

---

[quote][quote][quote][size=2]"I’m on my way, I’m making it..." - Peter Gabriel, Big Time

The walk across the front yard and to the neighbors’ doorstep, basket of lovingly-wrapped baked goods in tow, felt like a miniature trek. In the age of instant social media communication, the idea of actually appearing at a stranger’s door with smiles and well wishes for the minor achievement of simply having moved into the neighborhood seemed as anachronistic as the bun in her mother’s hair.

“Mom, do we have to do this? Haley pouted, almost visibly shaking at the thought of missing a second of her boyfriend’s birthday soiree. “This is straight out of Mayberry.”

“You are like a complaint machine lately, Miss Complainer,” her mother replied in the sing-songy voice she always adopted when tensions were elevated by even a fraction. (Though she had to admit she was slightly impressed Haley had made a reference to something as old and uncool as The Andy Griffith Show.)

Also along for the ride was her 12-year-old son, Chris. Despite his gentle, friendly demeanor, relatives were fond of calling him a “little bruiser.” The description was apt from a physical perspective. Throughout his elementary school career, he had always appeared beefy and broad-shouldered compared to his peers. It wasn’t early puberty, however, as his voice had remained like a little flute since a few weeks ago when it suddenly started breaking lower in mid-sentence. And “mature” was hardly an adjective many would apply to him.

The trio crossed the driveway, passing a massive SUV with one of those ridiculous testosterone-drenched names like Armada or Hippyfucker 5000. The windows were all so darkly tinted it resembled a Secret Service vehicle meant to shuttle the president away to a bunker somewhere. The porch was bare, apart from a little orange bottle of pills someone had undoubtedly dropped on their way into the house. Chris picked it up and tried to make out the label.

“Tri... Triazolam?” he asked, butchering the pronunciation.

“Honey, don’t look at people’s medication. It’s not polite,” Marian said, snatching the bottle and taking a quick glance herself. Being a nurse, she naturally possessed a hint of curiosity. Someone must have some serious sleeping problems, she thought. That’s a hefty sedative.

Marian ran her hands through her hair, positioned the kids behind her like it was a photo shoot, and rang the doorbell.

A pregnant pause. Finally, the door opened. Slowly.

“Hi, I’m Marian Stevens. These are my kids, Haley and Chris. We’re your new next door neighbors and I just wanted to bring you a little housewarming gift. Some cookies we made a few days ago. I hope you like oatmeal,” she said, in an overly bubbly voice that made Haley’s eyes roll back into her head. Of all the parents on earth she had to be stuck with the chubby, church-going, suburban stereotype.

The eyes, and then face, peering out from around the heavy oak door didn’t quite register the polite excitement Marian had anticipated. In fact, even after her borderline giddy introduction, it seemed someone had pressed the mute button on the woman staring back at them. For a moment, Marian worried that they had interrupted – or worse that she had just committed an immediate faux-pas with her new deaf neighbor. Then again, she wasn’t used to anything short of unbridaled enthusiasm when dealing with others. “Church Potluck Syndrome,” Haley had dubbed it.

“Oh, I’m sorry. Is this a bad time? We can come back later if we’ve interrupted--”

“No,” the woman said, looking back periodically as if checking with her husband. “It’s... OK. Thank you for coming over. It’s very... sweet of you.”

An awkward moment then kept the Stevens family hovering in limbo on the porch while all parties contemplated the next move. Marian, for one, was simply programmed to expect an invitation into the living room. There was a protocol to these things. After a few seconds in the holding pattern, the woman cautiously opened the door further, revealing her slim, attractive figure. Behind her was a young boy, maybe six, with moppish hair and a line of auburn freckles playing peacefully on the floor.

“Please, um...” the woman spoke haltingly. “Come in.”

The last two words sounded almost like a question rather than an invitation. Marian and her crew entered unceremoniously.

“Forgive me, my name is Rachel and my husband Ethan is in the den at the moment,” she said, leading them into the sparsely decorated living room. Marian couldn’t tell whether the minimalist style was intentional or if the moving process was still underway. Either way the room had a cool, nontraditional atmosphere to it – not typical in the neighborhood.

“And this is Danny,” she said, presenting her son with a mannerly smile.

“Well hi there, Danny,” Marian immediately attacked with her usual overcaffeinated eagerness. “This is a lovely house. I hope you have a lot of fun here. You know, the people who owned this house before had a boy about your age. He just loved the backyard. So big and spacious. Maybe you and Chris can play on the big swing set in our backyard sometime.”

Chris glanced at his mother, shooting a skeptical arrow with his pupils. He might not be a teenager yet, but there was a big difference between a seventh-grader and a first-grader and “play” seemed a pretty vague term.

Rachel hesitated to endorse the offer, instead forcing another grin. “You know, actually, Danny can have a bad reaction to too much sun, so our doctors say to keep him inside most of the time.”

“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that,” Marian said. “Well, there’s plenty of ways to play indoors too!”

Haley could hardly contain her excitement with this fascinating conversation. She pictured her boyfriend of six months, Evan, welcoming guest after guest to his parents’ mansion. (Well, a mansion in her mind.) The pool and hot tub in the back surrounded by the upper strata of Bridgemont High students. And Evan pulling his shirt off and diving into--

“Haley, say hi. It’s rude,” Marian urged.

“Oh yeah... hi. This is a really nice house,” she puked up the stock phrase on command.

The entire time a smile had been developing on young Danny’s face, one that soon enveloped it.

“Do you want to see my new room?” he asked, beaming with the hopeful sparkle only kids can muster.

“Chris, Haley...” Marian prompted, nudging them with her facial expression.

“Mom!” Haley complained, a sarcasm volcano threatening to erupt at any moment. “I’m a little old to be checking out a six-year-old’s room, don’t you think? Can’t I just--”

“Just play along,” she suggested. “Look, it’s not going to kill you to see Danny’s room. Don’t be such a grumpypuss. You’ve still got plenty of time to get to Evan’s.”

Marian greeted Rachel with a knowing parental grimace, as if to say, “Teenagers, am I right?” Rachel was less than responsive.

Slightly confused, Danny observed the momentary lapse of decorum with concern. But as soon as Chris and Haley were following him upstairs he seemed to have forgotten about the incident. Chris tailed close behind while Haley trailed a considerable distance. She couldn’t believe she was preparing to ooh and ahh over some little kid’s stuffed animals while Evan was in his swimming trunks across town waiting for her. This was beyond Thunderdumb.

Once upstairs and inside Danny’s room, Chris had to gasp. This kid’s living quarters could have doubled for a video game testing lab, not to mention it was huge. Easily the biggest bedroom in the house probably. Every conceivable game system – PS3, Xbox 360, Wii – lined the walls like a box store. A gamer himself, Chris considered the possibility that he had died and wound up in Nerdhalla.

“Geez,” Chris said, struggling to take it all in, “you’ve got everything.” Danny’s parents must have been loaded.

Being about as interested in gaming as the DOW Jones Industrial Average, Haley simply yawned. Boys and their games.

“Wanna play Lego Star Wars?” Danny asked.

“Um, no thanks,” Haley replied, all but turning up her nose.

“Why not?” he said, suddenly becoming surprisingly stern on a dime.

“Pfft,” she grunted. “I’m not sure if you noticed but I’m 17. Not a baby, OK? If you boys want to play your little boy games, that’s great. But I’m out of here.”

And with that, Haley swiftly spun around on her heels and headed for the door.

The shadow of confusion on Danny’s face soon morphed into something else altogether. Chris watched as the young boy cocked his head, as if concentrating on a puzzle. It was the face of someone mentally running through possible options, flipping through the Rolodex until the right idea magically arrived.

Haley reached for the door, turned the handle, and nothing happened. She began jiggling it.

“Hey, did one you lock the door behind you?” she asked, frustration welling up in her stomach.

She jiggled the handle harder. “What the hell.”

Before she turned back around, an unnatural feeling gripped her. First in her extremities, then gradually coiling like a python around her waist. Tiny twinges and spasms collected on her arms and legs. A strange case of pins and needles. Only the sensation was not one of numbness. It created an almost heightened awareness of every interaction going on in her body. Neither painful, nor pleasurable – just undeniably different. She grabbed her arm as if to take hold of herself.

“What is this... I feel really weird, you guys,” she said, every bit of defiance gone and replaced by a scared seriousness. Haley hung her head like a drunk college student preparing to pray to the porcelain god.

“Calm down, Hale. Man,” Chris said, moving toward the door.

“I don’t...”

Before Chris reached his sister, the changes started. Imperceptibly at first, but soon gathering speed. When she looked up, the difference was startling; Haley was no longer 17 years old.

“Haley?”

In moments, her baby blue GAP top dangled from her shoulders, one of the formerly load-bearing straps hanging uselessly on her arm. Her bra showing, Haley tried her best to maintain her current stance without losing any crucial articles of clothing. But the process was relentless, robbing years from her in a matter of seconds. Her now tear-stained face was closer to Chris’ age than her own.

With each click of the second hand, his sister grew shorter. Soon her breasts had completely disappeared, from what he could tell. Everything about her moved backward in time, except for her clothes, which had almost instantly lost their battle with gravity. The years spun by in reverse – 12, 11, 10 – and Haley crossed the unmistakeable line into childhood. Not even a hint of puberty now touched her body. No elementary school admissions worker would look twice at her.

“What’s happening?!” she demanded. A third-grader’s voice emerged.

The door handle grew higher. Chris and Danny grew taller. The world grew larger.

By the time the process halted, Haley stood a little over three feet tall. Indistinguishable from a child entering kindergarten, her face was now the adorable image of innocence. Her black leggings had crumpled like used straw wrappers on her tiny legs and her top hung by a single strap she clutched at her shoulder.

“Haley!” Chris reported, “You’re... you’re little!” As if she didn’t know.

Danny observed the scene with what appeared to be a mixture of satisfaction and pleasant surprise. This was a new one.

“Did you do this to me?!” Haley cried. “Why...”

“You said you’re not a baby. Are you a baby now?” Danny asked with a dash of unchildlike smugness.

“What?”

“Now you can play games with us.”

Horrified beyond comprehension at the impossible events unfolding in and around her, Haley dropped her meager attempts to remain clothed in her old attire and reached for the much higher door handle. Finding it now open, she stumbled into the hallway, losing everything but the panties which she held aloft by scrunching the elastic up in her left hand.

* * * * *

Downstairs, Marian and Rachel were joined by Ethan, another tall and well-coiffed professional who seemed ill at ease with her unannounced visit. The couple were an attractive pair, both sporting olive skin and a sort of stoicism that suggested a more hoity-toity end of town. Yet, as refined as they appeared, dark patches underneath their eyes suggested some sleepless nights in their recent past.

“So,” Marian launched yet another ill-fated attempt at small talk, “Is Danny going to Brookridge Elementary? Both Chris and Haley went there and enjoyed it.”

“We don’t... we’ll we’re not sure yet,” Ethan stuttered. “We’ve been homeschooling him so far.”

“Oh, well nothing wrong with that,” Marian chirped. “Sometimes it’s for the best.”

The silence that followed was soon broken by the sound of soft, uneven footsteps and a young girl sobbing. Before anyone could react, Haley ran into the room, all rosy cheeks and tears. It took Marian about two seconds.

“Hal... Haley?” she asked, dumbstruck by the picture of her teenage daughter reduced to a balling little girl. “Honey, this is... how did you...” All words and phrases failed. The scene was a physical impossibility, like seeing a square circle.

A cold, grim seriousness took hold of Rachel and Ethan. Their muscles tightened and their faces went pale. The return of a fear that they had been praying would fade.

“Mom,” Haley sputtered. “He... Danny did this to me. He--”

Marian turned a dagger-like stare toward the already petrified couple.

“Your son did this? He turned my daughter into a child? Can you fix this?!”

Ethan clasped his hands together like a doctor delivering bad news. Though clearly shocked, he spoke like someone who had prepared for such a contingency.

“Marian,” he began, “I don’t know how to explain this without sounding crazy. But you’ve seen it with your own eyes, so you will believe me.”

Haley grabbed her mother tighter than she had in years.

“When Danny was born, he seemed perfectly normal. But after a year or two he began showing signs. Signs that he had certain powers. We would find the bottles and food he wanted on the floor when neither of us had touched them. Like he was able to move things... telepathically. We didn’t believe it at first. We’re rational, college-educated people. It just wasn’t possible. But as he grew older, it continued until it eventually happened right in front of our eyes. Every once in awhile he would do something new, like he got a new idea and tried it,” Ethan explained.

“And so you just move to this neighborhood and let us in, knowing this?” Marian could hardly contain her disbelief and anger.

“For the last six months, it seemed to be dying down. Like the powers were subsiding. And we didn’t want Danny to become some kind of government experiment in a lab. We desperately wanted a normal life and so we moved here in the hopes his abilities would continue to fade as he grew older,” Ethan said. “We... had no idea he could do this...”

Marian stopped him at the first hint of blame-shifting. “My daughter is 17 years old, OK? And whatever your son has done, he needs to fix it. Can he reverse this?”

Rachel and Ethan exchanged a how-do-we-tell-her-this glance.

“It’s up to Danny,” Rachel said.

“Up to Danny?” she repeated, incensed. “You’re his parents! You make him come down here right now and use his powers to bring her back to normal or I’ll--”

“We can’t control him,” Ethan said with a calm but unsettling assurance. “How could we?”

By then, Chris and Danny had already rounded the corner.

“Chris!” Marian blurted out, relieved to see one of her children the right age. “Get away from Danny right now, you hear me?” He obliged, all the while rolling off explanations at a rapid patter.

“I don’t know how he did it, but Haley said something about Danny being a baby and he somehow changed her into a kid in like a minute, and she was five years old and...” his story created one long run-on sentence.

With that, Danny’s parents understood. Haley had insulted their son and in doing so sent him looking for a response, and with some cursed luck he had stumbled upon another power. One that had never occurred to him and had, for that reason, remained untapped. Danny was far more than a psychic with an occasional telekinetic episode. He could alter age and time in others. The realization set in. My god, Ethan thought. This could mean...

“Danny,” Marian addressed the young wizard like a nun with a ruler. “You need to change my daughter back right now. Right now.”

“No, don’t discipline him,” Rachel ordered. “We don’t disciple him like this!”

Another smile slithered onto Danny’s lips.

“Would you like to be little too?” he asked, almost cheerfully.

The look of parental certainty on Marian’s face receded. “No, Danny. I... I want you make Haley like she was again. Make her a teenager.”

“But then you can’t play together,” Danny said in a disturbingly deliberate tone. “I think you should play together.”

“That’s not funny now, Danny. I need you to help me like a big boy, OK?”

Danny frowned at her patronizing delivery.

“You don’t think I’m a big boy?”

“I didn’t mean you’re not a big boy. I just need you to help me and Haley.”

“I’m not a little boy. I’m not a baby,” Danny repeated several times as Marian continued her negotiations. “It’s OK. I’m not going to make you a little girl.”

Marian sighed in relief. Only to notice, moments later, that an alien feeling was pulsing through her and her clothes had already shifted.

“No, no, Danny,” she pleaded. “No!”

Rachel and Ethan backed slowly away from the coffee table like two police officers in a hostage situation. Danny had the idea in his head and there was no way of getting it out.

“Mom!” Haley yelled. “You’re getting younger!”

It was already obvious to everyone looking on. The curvy 39-year-old housewife was losing crow’s feet and gray hair. Weight loss, but not the variety Marian had worked for over the past year. Twelve months of Weight Watchers and exercise had yielded a grand total of 15 pounds, but in a matter of seconds she could feel her entire body beginning to transform. Always overweight, Marian had grown accustomed to her size over the years, but nothing could prepare her for what would happen in the next thirty seconds.

Leaving her thirties goodbye, then her twenties, Marian underwent dramatic changes when she approached her mid-teens. What little firmness she had returned. Her face reshaped itself into something much more youthful and fresh, long before the stress of her workaday life had taken over. But the changes were there and gone in a brief flash. Breasts firmed only to be swallowed by her chest. Soon she had returned to preadolescence – a still chubby but far less shapely specimen. The pitch of her moans and groans escalating to a birdlike cheep.

“Danny, you have to stop!” she shouted, finally landing right in kindergarten alongside her daughter.

Marian now sat surrounded by a nest of adult clothes, the rest of the room stunned into silence.

“See, you’re not a little girl. You’re still a big girl,” Danny stated proudly.

The boy was out to prove a point. One his parents had allowed him to believe ever since he revealed his abilities. He was not a little boy.

Rachel and Ethan could hardly move, their worst fear – the one that dogged them night after night – was coming true in real time and there was nothing but the power of words on their side. In a hushed conference out of Danny’s earshot, they debated how to distract him. They had managed it in the past when he was younger and a shiny set of keys could turn his attention, but now it seemed nearly impossible to divert the runaway train. At six, Danny’s mind could easily become fixated to the point where the only satisfactory conclusion was the attainment of a goal.

“Danny, honey,” Rachel pretended nothing had just happened. “Are you hungry? Do you maybe want a snack? We’ve got your favorite. Cocoa Krispies!”

“That sounds good, huh Danny?” Ethan agreed, perhaps in too agreeable of a tone.

Danny sensed something was off. Surely his parents noticed his new powers and were impressed. But they weren’t even reacting.

“Didn’t you see what I did?” he asked, perplexed. “I made the lady younger. She’s a kid now, like Haley!”

“We know, honey, we know,” Rachel said, patting him on the back. “That’s very neat that you can do that. But are you sure you’re not hungry? Or want to play a game in your room?”

“Mommy, Daddy... I have another idea. It’ll be fun. Why don’t I make you littler too so we can all play and have Cocoa Krispies?” Danny appeared to congratulate himself on this brilliant plan. His mother and father must have been ignoring his abilities because they were still adults.

“I can make it so you’re not grown-ups and all grouchy all the time,” he explained. “Don’t worry, you’ll still be big just like me.”

Oh no.

Without any further delay, the scene began to repeat itself – with the duo trying their best to beg their son to stop while the world around them was about to balloon in size. Within 45 seconds, the floor would draw closer as the well-endowed Rachel sank further into her dress and Ethan followed close behind. Both were younger than Marian and so the process would be even speedier. Just before reaching her teens, Rachel bent down to her son’s level and pet his head.

“Baby, you have to let us be our real ages, all right? I know it seems like fun right now, but we need to take care of you and we have to be adults to do that. We can’t all be kids. It’s not right.”

Danny examined his youthening mother with a curiosity that she momentarily took to be genuine reflection. His little brow furrowed, Danny appeared to be thinking very hard.

“But wait,” he said. “You’re mad at me?”

“No, honey,” she cooed. “It’s just that Mommy and Daddy were already kids once, OK? We loved it, but we have to be adults now. That’s how things work.”

“It’s all right,” Danny soothed. “I’ll be the daddy for awhile, OK?”

The effects had slowed slightly while he conversed with his mother, but they hadn’t stopped. By now, Rachel would be lucky to pass for 13 and Ethan was about to lose his drinking privileges. Beautiful as a woman, Rachel was equally as stunning as a teen, but those days were quickly landing in the rear-view mirror. As she caught his eyes, Rachel reached 10.

“Danny, you’re such a good boy.” ... 9; “We’re not angry with you.” … 8; “We can play when we’re all grown up again.” … 7.

When she and Ethan exhausted their arguments, they were both ready for pre-school.

Wordless, the room was still as everyone absorbed the utterly fantastic event that had just taken place before them. Chris gazed on in terror, realizing he was now the oldest person in the house. He glanced back and forth between Danny and his sister, still clothed in the remainder of her womanly underwear, his mother holding her hand, now more like sisters, and Rachel and Ethan, a hot, career-minded couple stripped of all but four years.

Danny turned to Chris with the same devilish grin. “I want to go play outside like the normal kids!”

“Outside?”

“Yeah, we should all go out and play on your swing set,” he suggested, moving in the direction of the front door.

“Please,” Rachel squeaked, “Danny, stay inside with Mommy and Daddy. It’s dangerous outside and bad people can get you. It’s safer here. Let’s go to your room and play Wii,” she begged desperately.

“You’re always keeping me inside!” he shot back. “I can see out the window lots of kids playing outside.”

Before Danny could maneuver past the couch, Rachel, Ethan, and Marian lunged to grab him. It was a dumb move, but they couldn’t help but attempt one last hail mary. Once they had tackled him as well as a group of kindergarteners and pre-schoolers could, Danny’s eyes flashed. They were trying to stop him. They thought he was a little boy who needed punishing.

“Get off me!” he cried, shoving and clawing at them.

It took no more than five seconds for the second round of changes to start cascading through their bodies.

“Oh my god, no!” Rachel blurted out, baby fat spreading over her already insignificant hands. The entire cast of kids began shrinking down to toddlers. What little mobility they had slipped away. Even Haley found herself growing pudgier and unable to stay planted on her feet. She screamed and the sound of a nursery came out.

Chris watched, powerless, as they dwindled into mere babies. Some, like Rachel, struggled to maintain their grip on Danny’s pant leg in a vain endeavor to convince their son to remain inside. But once the changes ceased, Danny was encircled by a company of naked 12-month-olds. Surreal did not begin to describe the picture. Now the unassuming boy towered over them – as it were a game and he had won.

“Danny,” Chris started cautiously. “Wow, you’ve... um...” Nothing else came out.

“Now we can play outside!” Danny recommended for the millionth time.

“Did you have to make them all so young?”

“They were being all mean,” the boy responded explained logically. “But now we don’t have to worry about them. They can be the babies and stay home. You can be my friend.”

“Um...” Chris failed to muster anything but meaningless sounds. Too afraid to cross Danny but terrified by what he was leaving behind, Chris wavered by the door. This Catch-22 seemed to leave no room for miscalculation. Could he really leave with Danny and not immediately call the police or... ? Would that even help? What if he turned the entire police force into children? Danny held all the cards. And Danny wanted to play.

Chris held the door open, not knowing what else to do. At least he was still himself and maintained some sense of control. The balance of power having shifted, suddenly 12 was a lot more inviting than it used to be.

The diminutive sorcerer smiled and walked his way, eager to see the sunshine. But before he stepped out onto the porch, he paused.

“If we’re gonna be friends, I think we should really be friends,” Danny said, glancing up at him with one more great idea.

“Danny, you don’t have to...” [/quote][/quote][/quote][/size]

 

---