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Chapter 2
Juvenile Indulgences

Chapter Description: Andrew baby-sits the neighbour kids and gets an unexpected surprise at the end.

The Harrisons’ house was a large old Victorian with a spacious garden in the rear and beautiful hedge rows on either side. A soccer ball and a plastic kricket bat lay discarded on the grass beside the footpath and a swingset was visible around the back, clearly this was a house with young boys. The Harrison family was also a bit wealthy, Andrew wasn’t sure what they did, but they certainly had a nice car. Andrew headed up the front path onto the porch which was cluttered with a few more left out toys, then he rang the bell. He heard a boy’s voice yell, "Mum, someone’s at the door!" and then lots of footsteps. Finally the door swung open and Mrs. Harrison was standing there in her red blouse and calf-length capris. Andrew hadn’t really met her before and he was surprised to see that up close her hair was more strawberry blonde than outright red. She was also a bit younger than his mum, he judged.

Mrs. Harrison looked Andrew over a moment then smiled cheerfully and declared, "So you must be Andrew, oh you really are a handsome young man aren’t you. Well come on in then, I’m so very glad you could do this on such short notice, our usual babysitter fell ill I’m afraid, but now you’re here so she’ll be right."

She led Andrew into the front foyer which had beautifully glazed hard-wood floors and vaulted ceilings, this was a large house indeed. "You can leave your jandals there Andrew," she instructed, gesturing to a bucket filled with shoes next to the door. Andrew did as he was told and then followed her into the living room, which was much more what he had expected. It had a nice soft white carpet covered with kids toys. There was a plasma screen TV playing Nickelodian and in the corner, next to a toy-chest, was a small carpet that was designed to show streets and a whole little town to drive toy cars on. Sean was sitting on the couch eating crackers and cheese, now changed out of his school clothes, he was wearing a spiderman t-shirt and calf-length cargo shorts. He barely looked up at Andrew, he was engrossed in a "Jimmy Neutron" episode. "Sean, this is Andrew, he’s in charge while we’re gone tonight so behave yourself." Mrs. Harrison ordered. The boy looked over just long enough to nod, then returned to his programme.

"Now I don’t want him having any lollies tonight or he’ll never get to sleep. His bed-time is 8:30 and he’ll shower in the morning so no worries on that. Jake should be down anytime now, he was just having a little afternoon nap. I’ve left dinner instructions but you need to know that Jake will need his food cut up for him and he won’t have any sauce on his spaghetti, and he hates it if the veggies touch any other foods." Seeing the look of exasperation on Andrew’s face she smiled and took his hand continuing, "Oh don’t worry dear its really all quite simple, it sounds like a lot but it is a joy to have a little one to take care of. Now just try to get something in his tummy at dinner and get him in bed by eight. He’ll need a bath before bed, but you just run the water, nice and warm and leave him to it. Now just one more thing."

Mrs. Harrison led Andrew by the arm to the hall closet, on the floor of which there was a box of Goodnights. "When you get his bath ready just leave a pair of these for him to change into, he doesn’t like wearing his PJ’s most nights, just his undies, so this is all he’ll need."

Andrew nodded in understanding, "No worries, I think I’ve got it all down."

Just then Andrew heard the sound of small feet pounding down the stairs and in a second little Jake appeared from the stairwell smiling first at his mum then looking inquisitively at Andrew and he headed down the hall towards them. Immediately Andrew noticed that Jake was dressed in nothing but a pair of Batman underoos. "Who’s he mummy?" Jake asked.

His mother smiled and shook her head at her son’s wardrobe. "This is Andrew sweetie, and he’s going to be watching you for me tonight, so you’re going to behave for him aren’t you, you’re going to be a good boy," she said in that high-pitched voice reserved for small children.

Jake nodded solemly, "Mmmhmm, I’ll be good."

"Okay then why don’t you go back up to your room and put on the shorts I laid out for you."

Jake smiled mischieviously and ran back down the hall and upstairs. Mrs. Harrison smiled at Andrew, "He used to be such a little nudist till just this year. He finally grew out of it, but he still likes to run round in his undies at home sometimes," she explained.

Andrew nodded, feeling at once strange but undeniable envy of the way Jake was talked to so lovingly by his mum and also embarassment at Jake’s lack of body modesty. The idea of being tucked in by his mum, having his food cut up for him, just being so taken care of was incredibly appealing. But then Jake did so many embarassing things like wearing pull-ups to bed and running around in undies. Again Andrew felt pulled in two directions.

Andrew decided to sit down next to Sean and watch cartoons for a while. Soon Jake came back down to join them, now wearing some blue athletic shorts but still no shirt. Mr. Harrison was fidgeting with something down in the basement and his wife was upstairs putting on make-up so Andrew decided to just mellow out. Jake was sitting on the carpet watching cartoons and idly playing with his toes, so Andrew went over to the toy bin and pulled out a big RC truck. "Wow this is pretty cool." he told the boys, immediately distracting them from the TV. A compliment from an older boy beat cartoons any day. Sean got off the couch and came over to show him how it worked.

"See, the battery here has gotta be charged for a while, like an hour I think, and then it can go real fast, we can even take it outside!" he exclaimed.

Andrew nodded, "Yeah I bet that’s sweet as, eh!"

Jake now crawled over and joined in, "Yeah, I gots a faster truck in my room, its the most fastest one we gots. You come and see!" Jake ordered, taking Andrew’s hand and trying to pull him up to his room.

"Okay, okay, Jake I’ll see yours real soon I promise but lets play with this one for now since its here." Andrew told the excited boy.

Jake looked a bit disappointed but agreed, clearly trying to be a good boy. Andrew realized that playing with these little kids might actually be really fun. There was no one around to make fun of him here, and soon their mum and dad would be gone, no one would no if he acted a bit immature and played with kids toys.

Mr. and Mrs. Harrison left twenty minutes later, telling Andrew they’d be back by midnight. Once the car had disappeared around the corner Andrew turned to Sean and Jake and declared, "Charge her up!" Both kids giggled and Sean plugged in the battery. Then Andrew noticed Jake was on the little map carpet pushing a little toy firetruck around the streets. "What you got there Jake?" Andrew asked.

"A firetruck." Jake answered, then added, "You wanna play too," hopefully.

After a moment of hesitation Andrew nodded and soon was pushing a toy ambulance around behind Jake. Andrew was indulging his most childish desires in playing with the toys, but as long as no one knew it would be okay. It wasn’t like Jake or Sean would tell his friends and their parents would just think he played along with their games, not that he actually enjoyed playing them like a kid. This play came to an end when the battery charger beeped and Sean switched off the Disney Channel and unhooked the battery. "Okay, let’s take her out for a test drive." Andrew told the expectant duo.

Andrew happilly drove the radio controlled car up and down the footpath and even out into the residential street. He would race it full tilt towards the two boys, who would skitter back away from it as it got close to keep their toes from being run over, as both Sean and Jake were barefoot. Every so ofter Andrew would succeed in driving the car up one of the boys’ exposed feet. Then inevitably both boys wanted their turns and Andrew had to be mature and let them have a go. They paid him back in turn and even though he’d slipped his jandals on, they didn’t offer much protection and they slowed his ability to dodge the wheels. But it was quickly growing dark so Andrew called an end to the fun and took the boys inside. No matter how fun it was to play with a kid’s toy he had to acknowledge that he was older and he had to take responsibility.

Andrew made spaghetti for dinner, pouring meat sauce on Sean’s and cutting up jake’s to small peices since he couldn’t twirl the fork yet. Jake was a messy eater and Andrew was glad now that the kid had no shirt on because it would have been very dirty even without the sauce. Andrew considered getting the boys some dessert despite the warning but the ice cream was past date and looked a bit dodgy so he decided to forego it. Jake and Sean then went back to the living room to watch the end of spiderman on the dvd player, for what Andrew was sure was the umteenth time they’d seen it. As they sat on the couch Andrew got a good look at the soles of Sean’s feet and he realized the real downside to not wearing shoes was that the kids were now getting all the dirt they picked up running around on the asphalt right on the couch. But hey, that was the freedom of being a kid. Parents expected that from their 10 year olds or 5 year olds and adjusted accordingly. Teen-agers were held to a higher standard and of course as he got older Andrew knew still more would be expected of him.

Andrew ran Jake’s bath, careful to get it the right temperature, not boiling hot, but not cold. Not many boys Andrew’s age were trusted to baby-sit, and as he sat there laying out towells Andrew wondered why he had been. But there were other things more pressing to think about. Andrew put a pair of goodnights on the toilet then went down to fetch Jake.

"All right mate, time for your bath, go up and get ready, I already laid out your towells and night, umm, undies, do you need your jammies?"

Jake shook his head no.

"Then off you go, and make sure you get those feet scrubbed clean you don’t want them in bed black like that."

Andrew watched Jake head up the stairs and listened for the door closing. After at least twenty minutes Jake finally reappeared dressed in just the good-nights, his hands and feet all pruny. "I’m ready," he announced.

Andrew took Jake to bed and tucked him in, even reading to him a short chapter from "James and the Giant Peach." Then, turning on a night-light at Jake’s urging and leaving the door partially open, Andrew left the boy to sleep and went to clean up the bathroom which was covered in splashed water and bath toys. Sean went to bed on his own with little prompting, he was wel trained by his parents. That finally left Andrew all alone with nothing to do but study. But being a procrastinator, Andrew knew there had to be something else to do first.

Andrew looked throught the cabinets of dvd’s under the TV and was surprised to find a gray object under several old dvd’s. It was a Playstation, an original playstation like he got when he was seven. He hadn’t had one of these in five years, since he was Sean’s age. And to his amazement all the wiring and the controllers were right there too. It was too good to be true. Andrew carefully hooked up the videogame system and looked through the available games. There were several violent war games and the original "Grand Theft Auto" and they were naturally enticing. But then Andrew noticed a much different game, it had a recommended age range of 8-10 years, and had a cartoon version of spiderman, right out of the 1990s on the cover. Andrew felt an internal battle being waged in his mind. For some reason, perhaps because he had war games and the newest GTA at home, he wanted to try the kids game, the night had just made him feel like that was the right thing to do. So Andrew opened the case and found the cd inside was very dusty. Andrew blew the dust off and wiped at the cd, sneezing twice as he inhaled the dust. Then he loaded the game in and powered up the Playstation.

The game turned out to be pretty fun, he played as spiderman, swinging through New York City on his webs enjoying himself, Andrew was very glad he chose this game, juvenile as it was. He was aware of tingling in his hands and feet but the game was so involving. He beat two levels and the third was very hard. It was odd but his shirt-sleeves seemed to be hindering his game progress, odd since he had on short-sleeves. It was only when he became aware that he couldn’t feel the floor under his feet that he felt a sudden rush of panic. Looking down he suddenly realized that he had indeed shrunk. At first he thought the game must have caused some kind of seizure in his brain that was making him hallucinate, he’d heard that video games could cause seizures. But this all seemed way too real to Andrew. Dropping the controller he quickly realized that he was much shorter, his arms thiner. He needed a mirror and quickly. Standing up he lost his shorts and boxers, but the T-shirt was so long now it covered everything. Running to the kitchen and looking in the window he saw a startling reflection. He looked not like a teen on the verge of manhood, but a child not yet anywhere near puberty, he looked to be ten years old.

Andrew was panicking, should he call 111 for emergency help? No, they’d never believe this and what could they do? There had to be a way to reverse it, something right here in this house. Andrew looked around the living room, then he looked at the TV, still paused on his game. The game! He had to stop it. Andrew hit the power button. Nothing happened, the Playstation was still on and he was sure he was shinking more. Now what? Terror overwhelmed him. If he couldn’t turn it off, maybe he could abort the game, he hit the reset button. The screen went black instantly then there was a crackle of static and then the screen lit back up in a brilliant purple and red swirling all over the screen. Suddenly the screen seemed to give off lots of heat and Andrew felt a dull buzz deep in his head. And it tingled outward, filling his head with gentle tickling sensations. But Andrew couldn’t look away, all he was aware of was the beautiful purple light and the warm tickle in his head as neurons were fried and brain-cells disappeared, connections within the brain severed, creases on the cerebral cortex, the center of higher thought, were smoothed. And then the screen went black and the game system turned off.

Andrew felt dull and unable to think, he stared open-mouthed at the black screen while the tickling dissipated slowly. Andrew was suddenly sure something was very wrong. Why was he sitting here in front of a black sceen and why was he wearing just an oversized t-shirt. But the bigger question now in his mind was, "Where am I?" He didn’t recognize this room at all, and where were mum and dad. The place didn’t seem threatening, there were cool toys all over, but something wasn’t right. But he just didn’t know what. The clock in frontof him said it was 10:18, boy that was really late. Andrew wondrered why he was up so late. He felt so confused now he wanted to cry. But more than that, he wanted to sleep and slowly that overpowering desire won out and Andrew gently drifted off to sleep there on the living room floor.

To be continued...