No Worries

Chapter 3
School Days

Chapter Description: A lengthy chapter in which Chris awakes a new man or rather boy and spends some time at school.

A quick note here before we continue. You may notice that I mention characters being barefoot sometimes. This is a trait I beleive is unique to New Zealand among developed nations. Like wearing shorts in Britain, going barefoot in NZ is something that adults do as well, but that is strongly associated with childhood. All kids are allowed to go barefoot to school until they reach high school and they are often encouraged to. Now on with the story,

Chris awoke at about 6AM, at least that’s what the clock said. Chris couldn’t understand it, he always got up after 8AM, he hadn’t been able to wake up this early since he was a little kid. Yet he felt fully awake, full of energy, it was a foreign feeling, not unwelcome, but odd. The next thing he notied was how large the bed was. Funny it hadn’t seemed like a King mattress last night. Chris sat up and climbed out of bed. As he did so his boxers fell to his ankles. Chris reached down and pulled them up but they were far too large, they looked like boxers for a giant. That was when he noticed his hands, they looked too thin, too small. Walking over to the mirror it took all he had in him not to scream. Clearly he had somehow taken a psychotropic drug that had affected his perception. The image staring back at him was that of a small boy, skinny, pale, with short blonde hair. His hair had become more brown than blonde by the time he was twelve. Yet his mind told him that the boy he was looking at was indeed him. It was exactly how he looked at age eight or nine at most. Chis could feel himself hyperventilating and he did his best to slow down his breathing. He felt soaked in sweat and he realized his legs were shaking so hard he couldn’t move. Adrenaline pumped through his system.

After five minutes of deep breathing and lying down to stop his increasing dizziness, he found he was able to get back up and felt in control again. He reasoned through what had happened and realized that he was in a house filled with scientists, surely this had something to do with that paper they had written. Melanie would know what to do.

Chris found Mel laying in her bed out cold. "Mel, Mel!!! Wake up!" he screamed at her, shaking her.

After a moment she awoke and looked at him with bleary eyes. "What is it Paul? Did you have a nightmare?" She asked in a sleepy voice, yawning as she talked.

"No, its not Paul, I’m Chris, look at me! What were your parents working on, because it had to be them!"

Mel opened her eyes wider and looked stunned. She scanned Chris head to toe and finally exclaimed, "What happened to you?!"

"What does it look like? I’m a kid again, you have to do something! Your parents probably planned this to scare me off. I bet they aren’t even in Europe. I bet they’re at your aunt’s house right now waiting for this."

Melanie seemed horrified by the prospect. "No, they wouldn’t, they couldn’t. I mean maybe they could, but they’d never do this to you, not on purpose."

"Well forgett why for now, just fix this!"

"I don’t know how too, I dunno what happened to you. Maybe I can take a blood sample and take to our lab at the university." she suggested.

That sounded good to Chris so he nodded vigorously. "Yeah lets go to the lab, right now."

She shook her head, "No the lab is closed now, and there’s no way they’ll let you in as a child. If my parents are in any way responsible for this they could be in huge trouble, so we have to keep this quiet."

"I’m more concerned with not being stuck like this."

"It may be temporary anyway, we have no way of knowing and I’m not accusing my parents till I have seen the blood results myself."

Chris pondered this a moment then agreed, "Okay take the blood and test it, I’ll wait here."

"You can’t just wait here, you’re forgetting Bob is coming over to fix the sink, you can’t be here or we could all be in trouble," explained Melanie.

Now Chris was really getting concerned. Where was he supposed to go then, did she expect to hide him in the basement, the terrible experiment gone wrong. He pictured himself a horrible looking monster chained to the floor, Mel and her brother throwing him dinner scraps. He shook his head clear, that was a ridiculous thought, absurd, yet so vivid. And then another problem occured to him.

"What about Paul?"

But before Mel could answer, a high pitched voice chimed in, "What about me?" Paul was standing in the doorway in his nightshirt and underoos rubbing the sleep from his eyes, his hair standing straight up in a couple places. Chris froze, he hoped maybe Paul would think it was a ream, actually Chris hoped it was all a dream. But no such luck. Paul’s eyes widened and he exclaimed, "Who are you?" Then after a long pause in which Mel and Chris stared at each other grasping for an explanation, Paul exclaimed, "You’re Chris! But you’re little! Cool as!"

"Look Paul mum and dad could be in big trouble if anyone knew about this, then you’d have no one to tuck you in or buy you toys or anything! We can’t tell anyone understand?" Melanie said, looking hard at Paul. Paul nodded, "Okay, I promise I won’t tell, but this is cool, are we gonna share a bedroom now?"

"Don’t be cheeky!" Chris retorted, "I am not staying this way."

"Look," Melanie continued, getting back to the subject at hand, "We need a place to put you today while figure this out." When no one had any suggestions Melanie stood and ran out saying she had a call to make.

Paul continued to stare at Chris with awe while Chris did his best to preserve his modesty by wrapping himself with the blanket. "When did it happen, did it hurt? Will you get littler?" Paul inundated him with questions, eyes wide as saucers.

Finally Melanie arrived back with a look of purpose on her face. She was carrying a pack that clearly contained blood testing materials. "Alright now, Paul I want you to go get dressed, but first we need to get something for Chris to wear. Get out your extra school shirt and shorts for him and put them in his bedroom." Paul agreed and left the room still eyeing Chris in disbelief. "Now Chris, I’m going to get dressed then we’ll take your blood." Chris nodded and waited for her to change but she just stared at him. "Could you leave so I can change." Chris was shocked, "But I’ve seen you naked before, why do I have to go!" "I’m sorry swetie but it just feels weird now, please do this for me." Chris grumbled but left her alone. He found the school clothes laying on his bed. He pulled on the ugliest looking pair of spiderman underoos first, then the sky blue polo shirt with the school emblem on the left of his chest. Finally he pulled up the baggy navy blue shorts that fell a bit below his knees. He looked at himself in the mirror and shivered again, he looked like an ordinary primary school boy.

A moment later Paul walked in dressed in an identical uniform, still giddy at the idea of having a new playmate. "Look Paul, this is only temporary, okay, you know we aren’t brothers or anything." "I know, but this is funny." Chris wasn’t ready to be reduced to arguing with an eight year old so he shrugged and went over to Mel’s room, knocking on the door. She popped out a moment later and explained what was going to happen as she swabbed his arm with alchohol and readied a needle an vial. "Okay, I know you won’t like this but I arranged for you to go to school with Paul today. They think you’re a cousin visiting from Gisborne. I have to get you out of the house but you can’t come with me, this is the only option. Paul you are to tell no one, remember. Its only for one day so you’ll be alright."

Chris was horrified, this was worse than he imagined. "You have got to be kidding!"

"No I’m not, now go downstairs and I’ll get breakfast."

"Mel, maybe its best if we go to a hospital..." Chris started.

"A hospital," Mel cut him off, "Whatdo you think they can do for you Chris, we have to get you help I agree, but this is not fall under the scope of current medical knowledge." Chris agreed and headed down for breakfast.

After eating eggs and bangers that he had to admit were absolutely amazing on his rejuvinated tastebuds, Chris went up to Paul’s room and looked for some shoes to wear out. Paul had some jandals laying by his bed, but those wouldn’t be allowed at school, tripping hazard. So he threw aside a pile of clothes by the closet and buried under a mound of laundry was a pair of sandals and some clunky skateboard trainers. There were no socks to be seen anywhere so it would have to be the sandals. Next Chris found a well worn old hat that would have to do and finally stuffed two pencils in his shorts pocket. He only had one good pocket as it seemed Paul had stuffed gum in the other some time ago.

Chris headed down to the kitchen as Mel called for him to leave for school. Paul was waiting by the door and giggled again at seeing him dressed in a school uniform. Mel grabbed the car keys then looked down at Chris. "Chris why on earth do you hav those sandals on, its February the ground isn’t cold." "I’m not going barefoot I may look like a kid but I don’t have to act like one." Melanie shook her head sadly. "Yes Chris you do have to act like one, at least today at school. No one can know the truth or we’ll get in trouble remember, you can’t very well walk up to the teacher and say ’hi there I’m really 21 years old but I’m hiding here today because I shrunk.’ They would think you were nuts." Chris was fuming inside, of course he wasn’t that thick, why was she talking to him like a real kid. "I won’t do that!" he shouted.

"Good now take off you sandals, you’ll fit in better without them." Melanie advised.

"No, there are other kids Paul’s age who wear shoes to school, just because some kids go barefoot doesn’t mean I have to." Chris rebutted.

Paul giggled, "Only sissies and wimps wear shoes in the summer. All the kids who got mums that make ’em wear shoes just take them off soon as they get to class. What’ll you do when we play at lunch?"

"Hey, I’m still older than you even if I’m not bigger and you will not give me cheek like that," Chris demanded.

Finally, defeated, Chris took off the sandals and threw them in the closet. As he sat in the back seat of the car riding to school he felt increasing trepidation of what was to come. He hadn’t always been very popular and kids were cruel, not to mention loud obnoxious brats. And to Chris the schoolyard was filled with the screaming dirty diseased little urchins with their runny noses and uncleaned hair and bare feet with soles as black as the tar they were running around on. The identical uniforms all the kids wore gave them the look of a massive monster waiting to swallow Chris up.

Mel stopped the car turned to Chris, "Okay honey, this is it. I’ll be back at three to pick you up and hopefully with some idea of a cure. Good luck at school, and don’t be nervous it won’t be that bad."

Chris hopped out onto the pavement and headed carefully into the schoolyard, the asphalt was warm under his feet, but he feared how hot it would get later in the day. His soles weren’t tough from barefootedness like these kids and this could be painfull. A red ball zoomed past his head and three little blonde girls surrounded him and started asking his name and how old he was. "Umm.... I’m Chris and I um, I’m...eight." he stuttered. They giggled and one told him, "We’re nine, we don’t play with little kids." and they ran off snearing at him. "Dumb girls" he thought. A big Maori boy nearly knocked im over a second later. "Sorry there mate, didn’t see you." He was out of breath and sweating heavily, he looked Chris over well then added, "Hey you wanna play some footie?" "Umm, sure." Soon Chris found himself in an exhilirating game of rugby. He found out the Maori boy’s name was Jeff and he was nine. He was a nice kid and made Chris feel welcome. After Chris succeeded in scoring a try everyone pounded him on the back and Chris felt accepted like never before. Normally Chris was afraid to play rugby because he broke several ribs playing a match when he was twelve, but for some reason all that fear was gone.

Soon though Chris found himself sitting in a Year 3-4 classroom. Chris figured this would be boring, but a real breeze nonetheless. He was surprised at the evel they were studying at. It seemed pretty tough stuff. The book they were all reading was a sherlock holmes novel edited for kids. Chris was surprised to find he had trouble reading some of the words. To make matters worse while he was trying to read a fat boy behind him kept poking him hard in the back and giggling. "Stop it." Chris whispered. "Make me." the boy retorted maliciously. Then the boy stepped it up, kicking him in the back. Chris had to admit that for once he was glad most of the kids were barefoot because if the kid behind him had had shoes on this could have seriously bruised him. This went on for several minutes til Chris could take this insolence no longer. Chris turned around and screamed, "Stop it you fat moron, what is worng with you!"

"Christopher! Stop that at once!" Mrs. Weatherby yelled, looking sternly at him, "We are a civilised class and you are our guest. You do not yell at other children like that, is that perfectly clear!" Chris was sure he was as red as a tomato, he hadn’t been yelled at that way in a decade. "But.. I...he..." he stammered. "Enough, I don’t want to hear it. Now you will take a piece of paper and write ’I do not yell at other people’ 100 times."

Chris did as he was told, feeling as small as he was and smaller. If Mel didn’t fix this soon Chris was sure he’d lose it. He never even considered telling the teacher he was really a grown-up because that seemed to him like a ridulous statement, he didn’t feel like a grown-up. As the day went on that became truer and truer. By lunch he felt his adult life seemed like a dream more then reality. In maths he found it impossible to do the division they were being asked to do and he found it nearly impossible to concentrate. He felt that surely his mind was slowing down, shrinking. Yet he found it even harder to care. He felt increasingly at home in the class and soon was swinging his legs back and forth under his desk the same as everyone else. He chewed on the end of his pencil and wondered what it would be like to be spiderman, picturing himself flying though the city on his webs, that would be so cool he thought. He quickly came back from the daydream when Mrs. Weatherby rebuked him again for dawdling.

As Chris sat on the cool cement steps outside his classroom block eating the sandwich Mel had prepared, he stared up at the clouds and wondered what made them fly like that , and why was the sky so blue. Then he overheard a boy named Billy talking about his dad’s truck and how big it was. That was really cool and Chris nodded and laughed as Billy told stories about the big truck and how his dad let him drive it once. Chris wished he got to drive such a big fun truck. He wished he got to drive.

They all went out and played basketball after that. Chris thought he did pretty good, he was good at sport. Then he sat down to rest and noticed the bottoms of his feet were all black. That seemed strange to him for some reason. He remembered Mel had made him go barefoot that morning. He couldn’t remember why he’d have wanted to wear shoes, he would have looked pretty silly. But there was so much more that seemed odd to him. But the more he thought about it the less he could recall. He knew he lived with Paul and Mel and she was his girlfriend but then that must be pretend because he was too little to have a girlfriend. In the end Billy yelled for Chris to come play on the tree and Chris decided thinking could wait till playtime was over.