This choice: Kevin quickly shrinks Johnny back to normal (for now) • Go Back... “Are you going to help me with the bags Johnny?”
Johnny crouched into a little ball and yelped, “Don’t look!”
His mother was very confused. “Don’t look at what sweetheart?”
Johnny slowly uncoiled from the fetal position and suddenly realized that he was back to his old height again. Kevin had willed him back to normal just before his mother opened the door.
“Mom! I—uh—er. Sure. I’m gonna help you with the bags.”
Kevin absentmindedly pickup up his game from the seat, unbuckled his seatbelt and stumbled out of the car. “Sure you’re alright, Johnny?”
“Yeah momma, I’m fine.” Johnny flashed her a big smile.
“Well good. And I think we got you some new clothes just in time. These don’t fit you correctly anymore.” She tugged on Johnny’s overstretched t-shirt.
“Um, yeah! Just in time,” he laughed nervously.
His mother turned around and opened up the heavy trunk door. As his mother rummaged through the department store bags, Johnny put his free hand behind his back felt around his rear. Sure enough, there was a gaping hole in the center of his khakis. “Oh no! What if mom sees?” Johnny nervously thinks to himself.
“She won’t if you hide it long enough to get to your room.”
Johnny jumped. “I forgot you were still there!”
“I’m always here for you Johnny,” Kevin reassured him.
Johnny could feel Kevin’s warmth, easing his tension. Johnny imagined that Kevin was smiling. This brought a smile to both of their faces. Johnny then focused on his new mission. He needed to get into the house and into his room without his mom noticing his ripped pants. That would raise too many questions. Questions Johnny wasn’t ready to answer.
He walk right up beside his mother and quickly took more bags than his share. Johnny then awkwardly held them around his whole body. “I need to look normal, but I have to cover my pants.”
“Do your best Johnny.” Kevin agreed with Johnny, but couldn’t help but laugh at the peculiar solution. Fortunately his mother was too focused on getting in the house after a long trip to the store to notice Johnny’s increasingly odd behavior.
They were barely five steps inside the door when Johnny dropped the bags in his hands. He took two steps in a full sprint before being halted by his mother’s commanding voice. “And where do you think you’re going young man?”
Johnny turned nervously. “Momma?”
“Aren’t you going to take your bags up to your room?” pointing her finger directly at the pile he just dropped.
Johnny’s eyes flickered down and back up again. “Yes, mamma.”
He inched his way back to the bags, held them in the same awkward manner he did before, turned around and bolted out of the kitchen, around the corner and up the stairs as fast as he could. He tripped himself nearly half a dozen times in his short sprint.
Johnny threw down the bags on his large, queen size bed, set down his game on his desk, then finally spun around and locked the door. “I made it!” Johnny thought with elation.
“I thought you would never get here.”
That was Kevin’s voice, but it sounded too real. Johnny turned around to see Kevin standing in his bedroom right next to his tall dresser. “Mister!”
“Hey little guy,” Kevin smiled, “It sounded like you needed my help. What can I do for you?”
Johnny ran up to Kevin and gave him the biggest hug. “You’re here! You really are a magical Jiminy Cricket!”
Johnny beamed and held him as tightly as he could. Now that he was a regularly sized eight year old again, that wasn’t very tight. At first, Kevin didn’t know what to do. He was momentarily stunned before returning the hug to little Johnny. Kevin had never known what this kind of adoration felt like until now. —And he liked it.
“Of course I’m here. And your mother was right.”
Kevin briefly looks up with confusion. “These clothes are a little stretched out.”
Both laughed. They were on this journey together; this brought them happiness. Kevin continued. “You were in trouble. I want to help.”
Johnny looked up once again, this time into Kevin’s eyes. He could see Kevin’s sincerity, even if he didn’t fully understand it.
“I just wish I had been more— oh, what’s the word mister?”
“Confident?”
“Yeah! If I had been more ‘codifant’, momma would have seen me as a man and I wouldn’t be a little kid anymore.”
Kevin couldn’t help but laugh at the slight mispronunciation, but he understood. “More confidence? Do you think that will help little guy?”
“Oh yeah! If I had that, then I could be big and strong. I could be a man like my big brother Dylan.”
“Is there anything else you need?”
Johnny was still holding on to Kevin. As Kevin’s mind wheeled through the possibilities, Kevin got a little better at following the massive collision of thoughts. Kevin knew through Johnny’s mind that being big and strong wasn’t enough if he was still a little kid on the inside. What Johnny didn’t know was that Kevin can change the mind as well as the body. Kevin could mold this little boy into anything he wanted to be.
So what is Kevin to do? Does he just will confidence into the boy and ask what he wants next? Does he turn him back into the “big strong man” he had almost been before, or does Kevin find other ways to help Johnny?
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