Night Of The Masks

Chapter 5
Part 5

---

Chapter Description: With their prospects and heights dwindling, grade schooler Tia and her friends lay down a trap for the monster causing them so much grief.

---

Miles on a rushed schedule evidently did not have quite the same artistic touch as usual, as Tia quickly discovered. Still, she didn’t much mind as she exited the boy’s bathroom, in a black dress a little too long for her current body and with a pair of rushed black angel wings to go with it.

"I’m more impressed you just happen to have these things lying around then anything," Tia confessed as she questioned, "AJ out yet?"

"Almost done," came the cry from the other room. "I just need to make sure these fit."

"Watch were you’re stickin’ that pin!" came AJ’s annoyed voice.

A moment later, the door to the den opened and AJ stepped out, wearing a goldenrod button-up shirt and some dark brown pants that had been pinned to fit his legs. Sitting low over his head and covering his eyes was a slightly oversized ten-gallon hat. The effect was slightly worried by the sneakers on his feet and the futuristic toy ray-gun in his hand.

"This isn’t all that bad," admitted the blond boy, looking at his outfit. "Too badja don’t have any spurs or a revolver or nothin’."

"Try me next year - or tomorrow assuming this doesn’t pan out - and I might," Miles replied as he exited behind the boy. The three soon set to heading back to the front room, where they’d left the matter of getting Sylvia to bed to the rest of the group, in the process Miles getting back to the subject at hand by asking, "Now, do we have any ideas on how exactly to get people together?"

"Um, ac-actually, Iris had an idea." That voice, naturally, belonged to Flora, who was spotted as the three re-entered standing next to Sylvia’s now-closed bedroom door. "M-Maybe she should explain it."

"Okay, ya know how kids tend to go running if a place is giving out money?" Looking proud of herself for this idea, Iris explained, "What we do is a few of us get together and spread the word that you’re doing that, right? Then while half of us run around spreading the news to come here while a couple more sit watching and when someone comes jump to first in line and tie things up as long as we can."

"Well, that’s...." Miles rose a finger in expectation that he would need to shoot whatever the idea was down, but admitted, "That makes sense. Eliminate the search by making the quarry come to us."

Actually, Tia felt a little disappointed by that. She’d just gotten a new costume, and to her own surprise, she was looking forward to trick-or-treating in it. But the important thing was getting her proper age back and not having to go back through middle school, so this was definitely the better idea.

"That really works, though how much money have we got," she asked to the group at large. "I left my purse at home."

"I have a jar of change on by bedside table!" cried Pammy happily. Her left arm soon began to grope the space just beside her, attempting to grab something that wasn’t there. "I bet if I just reach over and grab it, it’ll turn up in the dream!"

Sighing at this display, Miles finally just said, "I have my money from making these costumes here, so we should be alright. At least this way I don’t have to leave Sylvia here by herself."

"Miles, are you sure you want to --"

Tia found her question shot down, as the boy answered without hesitation, "Admittedly it might be sort of a drain on things, but the expense in this case is well worth it. I’ll make do."

Well, that was good to know at least. With that in mind, Tia soon had a follow-up question of, "Okay, who should stay and who should go?"

"Oh! Oh!" Raising her hand at once, Pammy asked, "If we go, can we still trick-or-treat and get candy?"

"Anything that helps you get the word out," explained Miles. "Please, go. By all means."

"YAY!"

"Um... C-Can I stay?" asked Fiona meekly, raising her hand also. "I don’t really want to go outside when there’s a monster on the loose...."

"Got it." Eyeing over the group at large, Miles soon commented, "That leaves AJ, Sammy, Tia, and Iris unaccounted for, right?"

"Right." Looking a bit unsure, Sammy soon pointed out, "Well, I guess I should go out. Since it doesn’t seem to be making me younger or anything, y’know, better to be helping out."

"Hm.... Well, I’m not sure I want you running around outside when-"

Tia was about to continue lecturing her little brother over the dangers of the situation when she noticed something. They were the same height. Standing next to him, she discovered she could make eye-contact without having to move her head in the slightest up or down. As this realization sank in for both of them, a teasing sort of smile crept onto his face.

"Yeah, yeah, laugh it up," replied the bookworm, folding her arms. "Don’t forget which one of us used to change the other one’s diapers."

"Yeah, and if I don’t wanna return the favor, I guess I better do as much as I can to help stop it," added Sammy, inching toward Pammy. "I’m on the trick-or-treating team, lil’ sister."

"Well, I’m probably still older..." For right now, but it was hard telling how long that would be the case. With a sigh, Tia turned to AJ and commented, "Help me out here. I kind of want to go but I think I should --"

Her cousin cut her off there, grinning a bit as he teased, "Boy still got your eye or somethin’?"

"Shut up, that’s not it. Just --"

Before Tia could elaborate, Iris interrupted by announcing, "Well, I don’t know about you all but I’m goin’ for candy."

"Uh... Iris?"

"Don’t worry, Tia, I can watch your brother some if you’re worried about him...." The wrestler put one arm around Sammy’s shoulder, ignoring that the boy was slightly taller than she was, "I’ll make sure he’s perfectly safe."

"I-Iris?"

A light sigh in her voice, Iris looked over her shoulder at the teddy bear standing just behind her, "What is it?"

"I-I’m not sure you sh-should go out..."

"Pft..." Rolling her eyes, the little wrestle complained, "Look, I’m not gonna stay inside and hide from the boogey man like you guys. I can take care of myself."

AJ gave the little wrestler a long stare before pointing out, "Yeh do realize you’re the shortest person here, right?"

"Oh."

Admittedly, Iris hadn’t been the largest person around even before, but with Sammy being younger than the rest of the group and Sylvia being present that wasn’t quite as obvious. Now, though, the excitable girl was quickly clued in to the fact that she was significantly shorter than the rest of the group, and that wasn’t likely to change.

Frowning at this, however, Iris still insisted, "Well, little kids go out for candy all the time. And I’m still really grown-up no matter how small I am, so I’ll be fine."

"Still," mumbled out Fiona nervously. "Y-You should try to be careful..."

"Ah, don’tcha worry about a thing!" Pammy soon pulled Iris into a tight, one-armed hug, which only made the tiny wrestler growl, "I’ll make sure little Iris is juuuust fine!"

"If I wasn’t a little kid I’d suplex you."

Pammy’s reaction to that was of course excitable, but specifically it came in the form of, "Oh, you can cook? I haven’t had a soufflé before but I bet --"

"Anyway..." As the last member of the group unaccounted for now, AJ added in, "I reckon I could go along, but might not hurt to stay here and help with crowd control. Seems like the ones we’re leavin’ aren’t our most natural folks on the social front, if ya get me."

"I don’t see what you mean," responded Miles in annoyance, folding his arms.

"I think she’s talking about me." Well, okay, Tia knew that wasn’t true, but better than Miles getting offended by the whole thing. Plus, AJ had a point. "Yeah, I think it’d be useful if you handed out candy...."

"Admittedly, I never cared much for the whole thing," mumbled out Miles.

Fiona nodded to that idea as well, admitting, "I-I was hoping I could spend some time l-looking after Sylvia."

That made it four and three, then. Though after a moment of contemplation, Tia supposed, "Well, I guess I really should go out instead of stay here now that I think about it."

Semi-reluctant and it showed on her face, so of course it fell to Iris to misinterpret by demanding, "What do you mean ’should,’ you just want candy, don’t ya?"

Tia shook her head in response (though that wasn’t entirely true), and then she began to explain, "Well... It makes more sense to have more people outside than here, you know? We can spread the word further and faster."

"Well.... Not necessarily," responded Miles assuredly. "If the creature does wind up coming here we’ll need more hands here to make sure we can handle it."

"I don’t think a bookwormy nerd is gonna help you fight a magical monster," snarked Sammy, giving his now-shorter sister a nudge. "Unless she can use her knowledge of Dungeons and Dragons to beat it."

"I don’t play DnD...." grumbled out Tia, annoyed.

"Nah, only use for books she has is studyin’," AJ added in teasingly, afterward further joking, "Never been one for fun’a any kind."

"Yeah, yeah, whatever." Trying to get off of that subject now, Tia decided, "Okay, then, I... I think I’ll stay here."

"Good, I think I’ll need the company," replied Miles slowly. The boy began to retreat from the room, saying over his shoulder, "I’m going to see if I can find any of my Grandmother’s old books on the Gilne. Maybe there’s something in there about stopping or identifying them."

"If you can get me back to normal, I’ll give you half my loot," announced Iris helpfully. After considering that statement though, she added, "Wait! No, make that a fourth!"

"Shhh..." In a slightly scolding tone, Fiona hissed, "Don’t yell, you’ll wake up Sylvia."

Miles called back, making sure to keep his voice low, "Trust me, I have enough to gain from this myself that I don’t need compensation."

"I’ll go with him - I’m plenty good at searching through books." Tia sighed then, afterward commenting, "Whatever’s doing this is apparently getting more excitable tonight than it has been given how fast this is going. Ideally by morning we’ll have this fixed so that the rest of us won’t have cribs of our own."

Tia gave her brother one last hug before dashing off after the dark-haired boy. Once she fell in line behind him, he grumbled out, "I don’t get why I’m being regressed so far. It’s not like I can make costumes if I’m in grade school."

"Maybe it’s not one of your customers after all," replied the geek with a shrug. "But look on the bright side, at least you’re not shorter than Sylvia."

"True. There is that. How old-"

Before Miles could quite finish that sentence the front door of his house gave a loud slam. That in itself wouldn’t’ve been that bad, but it was punctuated by a crying baby moments later.

"Oh, oh goodness..."

At that panicked mumble, Miles and Tia at least knew that the situation was at least likely going to be resolved by Fiona. Still, the boy couldn’t help but admit, "I know I should leave this to the two of them, but that crying still does plenty to make me worry for her."

"That’s actually sorta sweet," added Tia with a smile.

As the boy stood looking back the way they came, she stepped into the next room, clearly meant to be a den. Behind the mannequins and sewing supplies she could see rows of books that she began to kneel before.

Miles followed her in of course, once the crying had settled down. "I suppose.... You seemed to be a bit protective of your brother too."

"Well, yeah, but he’s not regressing like the rest of us," explained Tia with a shrug. "Plus the age difference for us isn’t as big. I think. It’s.... it’s kind of hard to tell now."

Miles nodded in understanding, but afterward changed the subject to more pressing matters. After a wave of the back of his hand over toward the collection of books, he explained, "Most of these of course aren’t relevant to what we’re looking for, but the problem is that quite a great many of them potentially are."

"Well, hopefully you at least know which ones are which," Tia answered, though she couldn’t help but frown as she added, "Further, I hope while doing this we don’t get too young to read. That’d be problematic."

"That would be the least of our worries," grumbled out Miles.

"Not for me, it wouldn’t be." A nervous smile growing on her face as the boy began stacking up presumably-Gilne-Related books, she joked, "Part of my thinks I’d rather be literate than toilet trained."

"I doubt Sammy would appreciate it if you made that same choice," came the honest answer, though it did put a smile to Miles’ face. Holding the five books he’d selected in his arms, he added, "These are the only ones I can think of that tackle it in significant detail. If there’s nothing in here, we’ll just have to call Florida and talk to my Grandma directly."

That did seem like the best option, but it was probably better to avoid that. Tia at once moved to take three of the books from the boy, afterward finding them surprisingly heavy; as such, she simply set them to the floor as carefully as possible and then took a seat there herself.

Grabbing the top book at once, Tia now questioned with a smile, "Shall we get started?"

"Um...." Blushing as his own muscles seemed to have difficulty moving the items, Miles added reluctantly, "I think we should take these into the living room. I want to watch any trick-or-treaters who come and keep an eye on Sylvia now that she’s up."

That didn’t sound very appealing to Tia, but she supposed she could understand the nervousness of leaving your baby sister with someone you’ve only met today. She gave a nod before sighing and picking the books back up, "Alright...."

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

"Hey! Hey! Go to that house we just came out of!"

"Will you be quiet for a second?" With a sigh as she looked over her fellow trick-or-treaters, Iris instructed to Pammy, "You have to tell them what they should go for!"

"Oh yeah, go there! Go because -- why was it again?"

Stuck between his cousin, a half-wit bird, and a wrestler who seemed like she was a year out of preschool, AJ gave a loud sigh before stepping toward some of the group. "Howdy," he remarked, tipping his cowboy hat. "You see that fancy house on the corner?"

When the closest of the bunch (dressed like Scorpion), nodded, Sammy spoke up, "They’re giving out money. We all went separately and scored like five bucks apiece."

"Oh, neat!"

"Cool!"

That definitely seemed to interest that particular group at least, who at once set to bounding for the house. As they did so, Sammy turned his attention to his cousin and questioned, "Wait, I thought you were going to stay at the house?"

"Nah, I thought about it and I reckoned that Tia was right in sayin’ more of us on the street would be a good idea." Giving a chuckle now, AJ asked the group at large, "Now, can the rest of ya keep that story goin’ ’round in separate directions?"

"Yeaaaah..." Her voice dripping with skepticism, Iris glanced over at the taller bird-garbed girl and remarked, "I think I better go with her."

"Good idea!" Unfortunately, Iris found herself pulled into yet another tight hug at that, "You probably need someone to look after you now that you’re so tiny!"

"I’m not that short! Shut up!"

That was a good reason for them to keep together. And AJ wasn’t getting any older either. A frown on his face, the boy turned to Sammy and suggested, "I think I should probably go with you too."

"Hey, I can take care of myself," grumbled out the short vampire.

"Uh... It’s not you I’m worried ’bout...."

Managing to fight off the urge to chuckle at that, Sammy soon responded with a simple, "Well, okay then. But might take a bit to be getting the word out, y’know?"

"I reckon we ain’t got a lotta choice," was AJ’s reply, sighing a bit as he asked, "Ya wanna lead the way? Ya know the town better’n I do."

 

---