Troy Jenkins, a 17-year-old boy genius, is in his attic completing his life’s work, a fully functional molecular miniaturization machine. As a younger child he had been obsessed with a certain movie where a somewhat eccentric scientist had created a shrink ray and had accidentally and unknowingly shrunken his children. His mother Cindy; a middle aged blonde hair, blue eyed insurance agent, had assumed that him watching the movie over and over was harmless and when he began to study physics in an attempt to design his own device she told herself it was only a phase and at least he was studying. Now three years after its beginning his machine was ready for testing. He decided he would wait until all of his family was out of the house so he wouldn’t be risking any accidents, the movie had taught him something after all.
He woke up as usual to the sound of his father, Ricky Jenkins, shouting down the hall, “Troy, time for school!”
Troy had this all planned out, he didn’t answer.
“Troy? Hello? Get your lazy butt up!” Ricky tended to be a little on the high strung side. He owned a diner in the town where his family lived and it was not what you would call easy going work what with the customer always being right. In Ricky’s mind the customer is and always has been a jackass. Unfortunately this stress followed him home at the end of the day. Running a business and being a father of three is not an easy task.
Troy waited with his head under the covers hoping his predictions would be correct, and they were. Ten minutes later there was a soft knock, and he managed to get his head out from under the covers just before his mother Cindy opened the door.
"Why does she knock if she’s just going to come in anyway?" Troy thought to himself but his plan had started, no time to hesitate, he let out a groan.
“I don’t feel good mom.”
Cindy entered and stepped over the discarded clothes and other objects that littered her son’s room that she had repeatedly told him to clean.
"Not going to school today are we?” She asked as she stood over him.
“I really feel cruddy mum.” Troy replied with another soft groan added in for good measure.
She felt his forehead, “You do feel a little feverish.” At least His blanket trick had worked. “Well I’ll be taking your brother and sister to school then. Will you be ok here by yourself today?” Troy nodded his head slightly and his mother walked out of the room. His plan had worked!
Troy waited for half an hour listening to the sounds of his 13-year-old sister Amber, and his 12-year-old brother Adam doing their normal morning routine; chasing each other around the house, stomping up and down the hallway, getting Belle, the family’s dog riled up and barking, and finally getting ready and leaving for school. Troy jumped out of bed and peeked out the window to be sure there were no cars in the driveway, and he was off to the attic.
As he entered the room everything was just as he left it; the dinosaur of a computer sitting in the corner, the ray on the table pointing at a chalk drawn square on the floor, it was all a little dusty and cluttered up here but it was an attic so that was to be expected.
Troy pressed the power button on the computer and waited patiently for the system to load up. He glanced around the room once more and let out a sigh, “So many boxes.” He really wanted his own lab but his parents still believed this was a phase and never in a million years would he be able to make an actual machine that could change the size of an object, that was just crazy, a child’s fantasy.
The computer beeped signaling that it was ready for work and Troy turned back and began loading the program size_edit.exe. The machine whirred to life. What should he test it on first? Surely not himself he was too smart for that. Human testing is never the first step. A bark resonated from downstairs,
“Belle you just volunteered!” Troy got out of his chair and went downstairs, returning shortly with the dog and its food bowl. Setting the bowl down on the square to ensure that Belle would not be moving Troy went back to his computer and began the firing sequence. “Here’s hoping you don’t disintegrate Belle” Troy said as he pressed the enter key. A bright flash that eclipsed the bulb in the lamp on the computer desk, and Belle was gone.
Quickly Troy jumped up with his magnifying glass in hand and searched the square his jaw dropped when his glass hovered over a tiny, confused, and barking Belle. The barks weren’t even registering to Troy’s ears. “Wow!” was all he could say as he returned to his computer, and with the press of a button and another blinding flash, Belle was back! Tail between her legs she ran down the attic stairs leaving her food bowl behind.
It had worked! It really worked! Troy’s mind was racing as he contemplated the possibilities of his new invention; the end of world hunger reversing the ray could grow an apple to the size of the empire state building and feed millions, government spies could infiltrate enemy strongholds right under their noses! He would be rich! “But first,” Troy said to himself, “a successful human testing is in order.” He gulped nervously but he did not intend to chicken out after spending the last 3 years of his life on this invention. He turned to the computer and set the timer for the ray to fire in 30 seconds and then to reverse and fire after another 30. If all went right he would
be the first person in history to successfully be shrunken and returned to normal size!
Pressing the enter key once again, he stood up and made his way over to the square, nudging the dog food bowl out of the way and closing his eyes as the countdown continued. The inside of his eyelids suddenly got very bright and then darkness he opened his eyes and looked around, his jaw dropped he had done it! Troy turned and saw lettering the size of his 2-story house “B.E.L.L.E. Oh my God!” it was the dog’s bowl it was titanic!
Then something struck Troy as strange, it wasn’t this dark in here before was it? In fact the only light in the room seemed to be coming from the small octagon shaped window at the far side of the attic. Fearing the worst he looked over toward the computer, no signs of power whatsoever. He had in fact blown a fuse and the power was out in the entire house. “Oh no... No! No! No, no, no!” He was trapped like this; a bug in his own home, insignificant in comparison to everything in his house, and in deep, deep trouble!
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