Get younger and join the fun!

Chapter 2
Part II

Sitting on his desk chair, mouth agape, Peter could feel the Adrenaline rush coursing through his body. His head and cheeks felt hot, although he couldn’t tell whether it was the left over of the little candy’s warmness or from the shock of discovering it worked.

"A candy just made me one year younger". He heard himself. Nope, Saying it out loud still didn’t change how frigging weird it seemed. Not just weird, actually : impossible. People just didn’t get younger, and certainly not via some tiny blue dragibus wannabe whose packaging wouldn’t have made it stand out in a costly DisneyLand’s shop. That was scientifically unfeasible, plainly im-po-ssi-ble. Yet here it was, the way to push back up the sand of time that people had longed for since as far back as humanity went. And how did his little sister found it, again? By filling up a flyer, asking nicely and answering the door.

He raised his shirt for the fifth time now, still looking incredulously at his smooth belly. Self conscious as he was over his body, he had been proud of the line of hair that had begun sprouting here a few months ago. It was one of these visible teenhood steps which, even if he knew he had no power over it, allowed him to feel a bit more mature among his pairs while in the school’s locking room.

And now it was gone. and most of his face hairs with it, which was even worse. He felt a weight grow in his insides as he wondered how he could explain it at his school. His classmates were already way too prompt to mock him as it was. And what about his family! ’God, what am I going to tell Mom and Dad? Sorry for the little outburst earlier. Oh, and by the way, could you reenlist me in the tenth grade?’ He felt the weight worsen in his stomach.

A presence right in front of him finally pulled him out of his thoughts, forcing him to focus back on his surroundings.

"What are you waiting for? You’re still way too old, and Dad’s going to come up. Quick, take another."

It was Elisabeth, and she had the little box in her hands, he noticed just as she casually picked one of its contents.

"Wai-" He shouldn’t have tried to speak, he realised, as he felt the candy fly into his open mouth.

The little gelatine ball got slightly pressed on between his teeths before Peter spat it out with as much force and fear as he would have used had it been a cockroach. The candy ended up flying toward his cupboard where it bounced off and rolled under a bunch of his clothes left on the floor.

"What the hell are you doing?" he blurted out, frantically spitting the rest of his saliva before scrubbing his lips with his hands as if it could cancel out the taste. He looked down at himself, anxiously, but nothing seemed to happen, nor did he felt the distinctive warmness. He had been fast enough. Relieved, he voiced his anger, warning his sister never to do that again. Losing just one year was enough of a disaster!

His little sister had took a step back, surprise painted on her face "But you just said you would do it!"

"Liz, I didn’t thought it would really work." he sighed.

The shock of his sudden outburst was subsiding and he could see his sister’s surprised look turning into a pout, her lower lips raising. With his earlier playful humoring, it was no wonder she was confused, he realized. ’I did appear to willingly eat the first one.’

More importantly, the sight of the little box made him realise he had been panicking over nothing. Facing school as he was right now didn’t need to happen, as Liz had said the red ones would reverse it all. ’I just need the candy box.’

Calmly situating himself back in the desk chair, he decided appealing to arguments linked to her little Trick or Treating plan would be more effective. Their parents below were certain to rush him out to a hospital over this. He wouldn’t be allowed to go out, and certainly not see his ticket to the town’s party paid by them. And what about her friends, he added, they too would surely react to the sudden change in age of their friend’s big brother.

Thinking he had sent the last blow, he extended his arm asking for the candy box, but Elisabeth quickly put her arms in her back, a big grin on her face. He wondered with a chill if everything would really go as planned.

"It’s fine then", she happily waved his concern away. "You won’t have to explain anything to them. The magic will take care of it!"

"What?"

"It said so on the fliers, Those who use it will be the only ones knowing it happened and everything else will fit to make it so. Didn’t you notice your stuff changing?"

Dumbfounded, Peter looked around him. To his defense, his room hadn’t changed a lot in the previous year. A poster on the wall had reverted to a previously esteemed band. Some of the clothes scattered on the ground had been remplaced by their outgrown predecessors. Looking behind him, the Math school book on his desk was of the distinctly different color of the previous year.

His mouth once again dropped agape, but this time he nervously closed it as soon as he noticed. Reaching out for his wallet, he skimmed through his cards. Whether it was his driver license, his ID or his school’s one, they all agreed in matching his official age with his current body and, somehow, he knew that he would get the same answer if he were to walk down the stair and ask his parents.

Once again this evening, Peter sensed his grasp on reality weakening. The impossible had proved otherwise, and he had been able to accept it as a sci-fi anomaly but now, this was something else entirely. Nothing short of magic.

Reality changing magic.

A cold sweat ran down his temple as he looked up to his sister. She was the one pulling the cord tonight, he finally recognised, and him the confused one collecting himself for questions. He already felt like a little boy.

"If- if that’s so, shouldn’t you also forget I’m supposed to be older? I mean, you didn’t eat any candy, did you?"

"Well, that’s because I’m the one who asked for the charm, duh." She answered as if it was the most obvious thing of the night.

"I’m pretty sure you could see it too, though, because I included you in it. But I’m not trying the candy." she hastily added. "Anyways, it’s pretty logical. If it didn’t change everything around, you wouldn’t really be able to ’join the fun’. So it does, and that mean you can use it and join us on the Halloween night! I know it must be weird, but it’s only for tonight and I promise you will have a lot of fun. Emma and Chloe are great friends and I swear they won’t mock you. You will be part of the group so-

"Ok," He heard himself whisper "I will do it", and it took him a few seconds to fully register what he had said. He had been staring at the little box whose opening lid still showed a myriad of tiny spheres, and the more he thought about it, the more it seemed like the obvious conclusion. He had been headed to a disastrous night with no hope of a good escape, yet his sister had just offered him one. A part of him was screaming about the crazyness of the whole plan involving being reduced to a little kid - Goddammit! - but whatever the magic at play here it at least followed some defined rules. Eat one candy, get one year younger. Join the fun without worrying about anything else. At the end of the night, eat the other type of candy. It had a reassuring side.

Besides, he couldn’t deny a part of him was longing for it. To stop worrying and simply go with the flow, among a friendly group who would just accept him and enjoy the once in a year festivities, it wasn’t so strangely appealing.

He interrupted the joyful sister who had unsurprisingly gone into a row of thanks after jumping on his legs, her arms around his neck at the first word of approval, to put down some conditions. "I’m keeping one of the red candies, for security." She put the box on his desk. "I’m still staying the big brother and you will listen to me." She nodded. "And would you please get off me, for the tenth time this week you aren’t a weigthless little girl anymore, Liz!"

She promptly obeyed, and he eyed the little lady with the pretense of a stern look. ’If this madness of a plan go as planned, I will find her too big to handle way sooner than I expected’, he noted.

"So, what are you waiting for? Leave my room, now."

She was obviously disappointed to be asked to leave, but Peter was already handling the box’s content.

"Oh, wait, what about the costume?" He inquired

"I told you, it’s under your bed, duh." She pouted.

She stayed, watching him reach for it, hesitated a bit, hopping from one leg to another, then eventually fled the room, blurting that she was going to put on her own costume as she closed the door.

----------------------------------------------

He could see why she was so disappointed, he considered while absentmindedly rubbing his shin. Those few years left promised to be quite the sight. But he wasn’t going to change clothes as a kid in front of his little sister. Beside, he was curious to see the changes, and for some of them he preferred to witness it all with some... intimacy.

Grabbing the costume his sister had hidden beforehand - she obviously had no doubt he would agree to her little scheme, he noted - he examined what would be his clothes for the night.

At first glance it looked like a bunch of vaguely grey colored rags. The whole thing appeared tattered before he finally untangled it. It was a mommy costume, he realised. On a pair of cream colored pants and long sleeved shirt were sewn long streamers of rough looking fabric circling around. On some part, red blood oozed between the grey strips, which was a bit dumb, he noted, as mummy don’t have blood. But it offered a quite good looking result, a fitting costume considering the theme of the night. The shirt even ended in a hood sewn with strips alike. ’At least I won’t take a cold.’

Placing it in front of his chest, it looked like the worst case of shrinking clothes a badly misused washing machine could result in. Lowering the whole thing to his ankles, the hood didn’t even reach his shoulders.

’I must be crazy.’ He couldn’t help to think. Or maybe his little sister’s over excitement had eventually proved to be contagious, he smiled.

Laying the costume on his bed, he turned back to his desk. There, six of the gelatine candies awaited him, innocently disposed on a line. The owner of the costume - Emma’s "big brother", if he recalled well - was ten, so he had placed the equivalent of the remaining six years to get rid off out of the little box. Better not end up accidentally taking more than needed.

Still processing the fact that magic was at play there, Peter wondered if he wouldn’t chose to believe it had all been a dream when it would eventually end.

He could almost hear the soft voice of Ms Magtton, his french speaking teacher, sternly introducing their last lesson. *"Le Fantastique is a French term for a classical litterary genre which is defined by the sudden appearance of a supernatural element in what began as an otherwise entirely realistic setting." "It distinguish itself from Science Fiction by never trying to rationnally explain what seem impossible to the reader, and from Fantasy by the supernatural event not being an usual and accepted part of life in the fictional universe."*

Most characters in such stories were reacting with dread and worry, though, while he felt strangely calm.

Picking the small gelatin candy, he thought back to the slogan on the little box with a smile, and swallowed it.

The warmness quickly came back, a bit stronger, although he may have been more concentrated on it knowing what it did. Facing the mirror, he saw the last remnants of his wispy hairs retreat on his tingling lip. Now there was nothing but smooth skin on his face, *pop* on which a few zits swelled up right there on his cheeks and forehead.

"Crap" He uttered at the sight before looking down as his baggy shirt, whose neck hole appeared to be slightly drooping near his schoulder, but not as much as expected. He promptly got rid of it just in time to register how his chest and belly were swelling a bit.

"Seriously, magic? Seriously?!" He didn’t pay enough attention to the timbre of his voice to notice the younger zing to it.

Apparently, not content enough of making him one year younger, the magic went as far as to bring back his body exactly as he was at that age, which meant, at fifteen, right when his BMI had peaked.

He was obviously shorter, as pointed out the end of his wrinkled jean that was beginning to pile on the ground, but whatever narrowing of his upper body had been drown under his thick skin. Meanwhile, his limbs had shortened unevenly, leaving him with the dangly look of a growing teen.

Doing it slowly wasn’t a good idea, he decided, grabbing two of the remaining candies. He chewed them with haste, blushing at the image reflected by the mirror, eagier to see it replaced. He had just entered high school the last time he had seen it. Those were memories that were better left buried alone.

’At least I was skinny in middle school.’