You stare out at the zoo through which you are being taken for a ride, trapped behind the black netting of a bottle pocket on your sister's backpack. Those black-haired boys slouching against the faded green wall of lockers seem to all have a nervous twitch which makes them fling their bangs away from their eyes. A girl nearby reeks of parking lot smoke breaks mixed with excessive cheap perfume, and her outfit suggests she already knows what she will be doing when she drops out from school. Why are those giggly cheerleaders barefoot? At least nothing will get between their developing breasts and mustachioed Principal Hackett's eyes, but a brigade of gun-wielding children could probably march by him.
You sigh.
When you graduated, you had vowed to never again come back to this miserable branch office of Hell. Is this your life now?
Jenna continues to walk through the hallway with her gorgeous best friend Alicia, blabbing away without any idea of your predicament. Maybe it was just temporary. If the illness had shrunk you down this small in just one night, maybe a day of rest would return you to normal. But could logic be applied in this situation? Who ever heard of a shrinking sickness in the first place?
A familiar face flashes before your eyes--at least, one that you are excited to see again.
Was that Ms. J.?
Being carried by Jenna, you only catch a glimpse of your former student-teacher. She must have been hired, you think. Ms. J. might be the only ray of hope in this hopeless school. A doe-eyed, brunette goddess with an absolutely perfect, lean physique and a heart-meltingly sweet smile. Not to mention so humble and insanely smart (she had a perfect ACT score in high school.) And her name was Hanna!
Ms. J. was the sole reason the spring semester grades of your entire sixth-period senior English class torpedoed so drastically. The guys couldn't keep their eyes or minds off of her, and the girls bitched jealously that the guys were no longer catering to their every whim. You were captivated by the creativity she showed with every unique outfit and hairstyle she came to school with each day, and she did all this when you could barely roll out of bed at 8 each morning! You had only barely graduated because your English grade dipped the warmer the weather became. The winter boots and scarves began to give way to flats and short skirts in the spring, and each new month revealed more of her body.
You return to your senses to find that everything is suddenly strangely dark. Were you daydreaming the entire day?
You look around, and in the distance high above and to your right are three horizontal lines through which light shines. It takes a second to process, but you realize that Jenna must have hung up her backpack in her locker. You don't even remember her leaving!
Having no desire to remain in place for the next eight hours, you decide to finally climb out of the side pocket. The netting reminds you of the cargo net on the playground in your elementary years. You awkwardly scale it and then peek over the edge, yet you can only barely see what is below. There seems to be a deep drop from your sister's backpack to the bottom of the locker, but months of returned homework assignments she plans to "someday" organize provide a padding at the bottom. You let yourself drop, feeling a bit anxious, but you safely land below, bouncing upon Jenna's bad grades.
Then, you walk towards the bent corner of the locker door. Quality has always been what Westwood High stands for.
You drop a short distance from Jenna's locker to the tile floor of the hallway and realize there's no going back. A late student walks by you, completely unaware of your tiny presence. The size of his converse sneakers alone as he passes in front of you is both frightening and remarkable. What a strange perspective. It would make for an interesting story if not for all of the danger.
You look around. The hallway is relatively quiet now. Nobody is in sight, but you don't care about him anyway. The only sounds come from the classrooms. The room you believe you saw Ms. J. in is a considerable distance away. The entrance to the cafeteria is right across the hall, and the gym is around the corner.
You suddenly realize all your options. At your size, things could get very interesting. As long as you aren't noticed by anyone, which was never a problem before, you could do almost anything you want!
You think. Where to begin?
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