Big Fran

    Fran was a typical librarian, at least on the surface.  Just a couple years past forty, though she kept that as vague as possible.  She was a little short, being only five feet and five inches tall.  She was quite slender and slim, often called a scarecrow by others, and her bones tended to show through her skin.  Her skin itself was quite pale and colorless, as she spent just about all of her time indoors.  Other then scarecrow, people often called her a ghost.  Her light blond hair went down to the to her shoulders, but she almost always wore her hair up.  Her small eyes were a light brown color.  Fran often dressed very plain, at least by the standards of the day.  She almost always wore brown, though with a bit of color.  She was almost always found in a skirt.



    In someways, Fran was less then typical.  Fran was a student of magic, though she never used the word witch herself.  She used her magic of various things, but most of all she used her magic on men.  She had never dated much, men just did not go for a woman like her.  Fran spent most of her time alone.  Until she discovered with her magic the power she could have over men.  She tried to control minds and such, but never had much luck.  She figured she could try and enhance her own power, make herself a more powerfully personality.  Maybe even enhance her beauty.  After working for a couple of days on the spell, Fran was ready for her first test.



    The day was like any other, as Fran worked at the library.  It was not so busy with patrons, but there was always other work to be done.  Finally she spotted her first target.  A nice looking man, maybe a few years to young for anything serious, but still he would make a good test.  He walked down the technology isle, looking at the car books.  She moved to the head of that isle and cast her spell.  A tiny ball of white light formed in her hand and she tossed it at herself.  The ball of light bounced right off her cheat and fell to the floor.  Fran opened her eyes in surprise, that should not have happened.  And worse, the ball of light bounced along the floor, right towards the man.  Before she could react, the light hit his foot, and with a soft pop-like sound he was gone.  She frowned and lowered her brows, that was not right.  He could not have vanished.  She looked at the spot where the man was, and with a further shock, saw that he was still there.  Except the man that was a good six feet tall just a moment before, was now only a couple inches tall.



    Fran took a deep breath.  That should not of happened.  What could have made her spell go wild like that.  She would have to do some research when she got home.  That still did not help her now, though.  What would she do with the little shrunken man?  the spell should wear off in just over an hour, so she would just need to hide him until then.  It sure would not do to have someone find a tiny man in her library.  He would sure be easy enough to hide.  She took the couple steps forward until she was standing right next to him.  He had not moved much after he shrunk, but he sure moved when he saw her approach.  He ran right for the bookshelf, and the floor shelf was taller then he was tall.  He stopped and looked around, quite confused.

   

    Fran squatted down a bit and went to grab the little man.  The shadow of her hand fell over the tiny man before her hand got there, causing him to look up.  The tiny man then shrieked and ran away from her hand.  She did not even come close to grabbing him.  She moved her hand and tried to grab the tiny man again, but he quickly changed direction and ran the other way.  For the next couple of minutes she tried several times to grab the little guy, but every time he ran away.  He was quite fast for a little guy, she thought.  Fran could not let him get away, though.  She went to grab him with her left hand, and when he turned to run, she set her right hand down in front of him.  Her flat hand was like a wall to the tiny guy, he could not stop in time and ran right into her hand and then flopped to the floor.



    While the tiny little man lay on his back, a bit stunned after his run in with her hand, Fran wasted no time.  She cupped her hand and and dropped it on top of him.  She curled her fingers around his little body, pressing him against her palm, and lifted him up off the ground.  She stood up fully and turned her hand around so it was face up.  Fran uncurled her fingers a bit and looked at the tiny man in the palm of her hand.  He was so tiny, she thought, not even as tall as one of my fingers.  Suddenly the tiny little man jumped to his feet and stood on her hand.  The feel of his tiny shoes on her palm made her smile a bit.  Then turned and ran at full speed for the edge of her hand. She quickly brought her left hand over and attempted to grab him again, or at least trap him between her cupped hands.  The tiny little man, ran and jumped and wiggled and squirmed to stay out of her grip.  Then, suddenly, he fell off her hand and to the floor.



    Fran let out a silent scream, quickly covering her mouth with both her hands.  Then she leaned forward a bit, and looked down.  The tiny little man was just laying on his belly on the floor.  He was not moving.  Fran started to shake with worry, she hoped that he was alright.  Still the tiny little man did not move, and she could not even tell if he was breathing.  Slowly she slid her shoe towards him, dragging it on the carpet, hopping the sound might get him to move.  Soon enough her shoe was right next to him, and he still had not moved at all.  She gently tapped his tiny body with her shoe, but he still did not move.  Then she pushed with a bit more force and rolled him over onto his back.  He did not move at all.  She did notice a bit of a dark stain on her shoe from where she touched his body.  Blood.



    Fran's whole body was starting to shake now, but she did not allow her mind to think about what had happened.  Slowly, she squatted down again and picked up the body on the tiny little man.  She made a mental note of how easy it was to pick him up now.  She set his tiny body face up on the palm of her hand, and then brought her hand up to her eyes for a good look. As Fran looked him over closely, she was now sure that he was not breathing.  Most of his body was covered in wet, red blood.  He was not moving, of course, and his head lay at an odd angle to his body. Fran felt the lump rise in he throat, and the realization of what had happened hit her like a ton of bricks.  The tiny little man was dead.



    Fran felt her eyes water over and felt the tears run down her face.  She had never killed anyone before, never even thought about it.  She had never even seen a dead body.  And now she was holding the body of a tiny man in the palm of her hand, a man that she had just killed.  Fran tried to tell herself that it was not her fault.  Her magic had just run wild, she had no control over it.  She was trying to cast a spell to enhance her beauty, not shrink people.  She would have never thought to shrink a person, on purpose.  Why could he have not just kept still and not moved around so much while she was holding him, she thought.  As she told herself that it was not her fault, her tears slowly stopped.



    Fran used her free hand to wipe away the tears on her face and then took a deep breath and her body stopped shaking.  All of this was not her fault at all, she thought firmly.  The magic had gone wild on it's own and she was even trying to help the little man, she told herself.  He was the one that over reacted, and he was the one who fell off her hand.  She was, after all, trying to hold onto him.  And then he fell.  And then he fell, she repeated in her thoughts.  It was all his fault, she did not have a hand in it.  The incredible amount of irony in her last thought even brought a small smile to her face.  Fran took a couple of breathes to steady herself and stood up.  She the easily wrapped her fingers around the tiny body, hiding it from view.  She had to get rid of the body.  It was not her fault, but some people might blame her for his death.  The spell should wear off in less then an hour, and it would not be good for a dead body to be found in her library.



    Fran made her way through the rows of books in the library and encountered no one.  She opened the side door and went outside, looking around for a good spot to dump the body.  Moving along the side of the building she looked up at the roof and then to the row of bushes.  She figured she could put his body there and maybe it would just look like he fell off the roof.  Fran looked around to make sure no one was around and looking her direction.  Slowly she uncurled her fingers and took her last look at the tiny dead guy.  She wondered for a moment if she should attempt to find his wallet or something, as she did not know his name or anything about him.  Then she changed her mind and figured it might be better not to know.  Fran then leaned over and tilted her hand a bit to the side.  The tiny dead man simply fell out of her hand and landed in the dirt under the bush.



    Fran stood up straight and brushed her hands off, quickly turning away from the bush and the stop where the tiny body was laying.  She made her way along the building back towards the side door.  When a loud engine roared just off to her left and made her jump.  A couple feet away a Hispanic groundskeeper in a bright orange jumpsuit and a blower walked across the grass.  Fran got a bit wide eyed and wondered if he had seen anything, like her dropping a tiny body on the ground.  He did not look at her, or acknowledge her in any way, but that was normal.  Before she took another step, a white ball of light formed in her hand and fell to the grass.  She was a bit shocked and stopped to look at the ball of light.  She did not cast any spell, so why did the spell ball form, she wondered.  The the ball of light then bounced a couple of feet away in the grass and then a couple of feet more and made it's way across the lawn.  And bounced right over and hit the groundskeeper.



    Suddenly, the groundskeeper was gone, and the leaf blower fell to the ground with a loud thunk and turned itself off.  Fran watched in shock and covered her mouth.  Did it just happen again, she wondered.  Slowly she walked through the grass, taking tiny steps, looking down the whole time.  She stopped a couple feet from where the leaf blower was laying in the grass and got down on her hands and knees.  Carefully and slowly she looked over the grass, until she saw a tiny bit of orange color.  She leaned in to get a closer look and she saw the groundskeeper man, now very tiny, making his way through the grass.  He did not look up at all, but just kept walking and climbing over the blades of grass.  It must look like a huge forest of tall grass to him, Fran thought.  But why did this even happen, she wondered. 



    Fran slowly backed away from the tiny groundskeeper and stood back up and headed back towards the library.  It was not her problem, she told herself.  Even thought the spell went off without her even casting it, it should still work as normal.  And that meant that it would only last an hour, and she doubted the tiny man could make it off the lawn in that time.  So he would walk through the forest of grass for an hour and then return to normal size and be alright.  Fran walked over to the side door and put her hand on the handle.  She then turned and looked back over to the grass and the leaf blower.  She got a little worried, what if some animal came along and gobbled him up, or if someone walked across the lawn and stepped on him, or worse someone simply just found him.  Fran felt she should do something to help the little guy and keep him safe.



    Slowly, Fran walked back across the lawn, to the spot where she saw the tiny man.  It took her a minuet, standing there, to spot the tiny man.  He had not gotten far on his tiny legs, and was easy enough to spot in his bright orange jumpsuit.  Fran flexed her fingers and wondered how she should go about picking up the tiny man.  She sure did not to repeat what happened to the other little guy.  Maybe she could just trap him with something like a box and have him walk inside, she thought.  That sounded like a good idea to her, except she did not have a box.  She glanced around the lawn, but of course saw no boxes or anything similar.  Fran quickly checked her pockets, and did not find anything box like, but she knew she did not have a box in her pockets anyway.  What could she use, she wondered, tapping her foot in the grass.  She then looked down at her foot, and thought, her shoe!



    Fran lifted her left leg up and took off her shoe and held it up to her face.  Her brown flat shoe should work, she thought, it was like a small box in shape.  Fran got down on her knees and leaned forward looming over the tiny groundskeeper man.  He had not even so much as looked up and just kept making his way through the mass of grass. As he climbed over a patch of grass, she quickly brought her shoe down on it's side, right in front of him.  He let out a tiny yelp and stopped walking, looking at the giant shoe in amazement.  She took advantage of him just standing there and wiggled her shoe a bit and moved it towards him.  And at the same time she moved her other hand towards him, from behind, thinking to give him a push inside her shoe.  Just then the weight of her shoe pressed down on a couple of the blades of grass he was standing on, and he perfectly tumbled right inside of her shoe.



    Fran quickly turned her shoe upright and stood up.  She was quite happy with herself that her idea had worked.  She now had the tiny guy, safely in her shoe, and he could not fall and hurt himself.  Not like the last guy, she thought.  Fran brought her shoe up to her face to look inside.  The tiny Hispanic groundskeeper was laying there, looking quite shocked and confused.  She let out a tiny gasp when she saw how tiny he was compared to the other guy.  The tiny groundskeeper was not even as big as the label on the bottom sole of the shoe.  Fran figured that he could not be much taller then an inch tall.





    Fran was a bit shocked he was so small and tiny, not much bigger then a bug.  The last guys was at least like doll size.  The groundskeeper,however, was hard for her to even see.  He leaped to his tiny feet and she noted that the sides of the shoe were higher then he was tall.  He started to wave his arms and started talking, yelling really, very fast.  She could not make out much more then a tiny squeak that somewhat sounded like words.  Fran started to say something a couple times, but he just kept on shouting.  She did not want to interrupt him, but she needed him to listen.  After a couple minutes of his non-stop squeaky screaming, Fran could not take it anymore.



    Fran shook her shoe quickly from side to side.  She was careful not to tip the shoe or move it up or down.  The tiny man got suddenly quiet as he slid along the sole of the shoe and into the toe.  He did not have much time to yell, as Fran tipped the shoe back in the other direction.  Again the tiny man slid across the shoe bottom, his tiny hands grasping for something to hold.  She then slid him from side to side, watching as his little body slid into the walls of her shoe.  Fran slid the tiny man around for a good couple of minutes, until he stopped making any squeaky noises.



    "Do I have your attention now?" asked Fran, holding her shoe still and bring it up to her face.

    "Yes," he replied in his tiny, out of breath, squeaky voice.

    "OK," Fran said softly, "Now I guess it's kind of obvious you have shrunk."

    "W-what?" squeaked the tiny man.

    "I know it's hard to believe, but just look around you...your in my shoe right now," she said, being a bit vague about the whole shrinking.

    "Yea," he said, looking at the giant shoe all around him.

    "I might be able to help, you just need to stay clam and wait.  I'm Fran, what is your name?" she said.

    "Berto," he said, look up at her face.

    "Al right, Berto, just stay calm and everything will be fine.  We just need to wait about an hour," said Fran. 



    She felt a bit odd not telling him that it was her magic that shrunk him.  It was not her fault though, so why bother him with the details.  The spell should wear off in an hour anyway.  And he would just think it was some type of crazy day dream.  Berto was being a good sport about all this, as she watched him sit down in the bottom of her shoe.  Fran walked over to one of the outside tables and sat down, carefully setting her shoe on the table top.  Then she alternated between watching Berto sit there and checking the time on her watch.  Slowly the hour went buy.



    "OK, time to get out, " said Fran as the end of the time approached.  She wondered how to get tiny Berto out of her shoe.  She was not sure she wanted to risk picking him out.  He stood up and looked at her, arms wide.  Fran then had an idea and picked up her shoe and slowly turned it over on it's side.  Berto was easily able to walk from the sole to the side of the shoe and then walk out onto the table top.  Fran then slipped her shoe back on her foot.  She placed her elbow on the table and and turned her wrist so both of them could see her watch.  The minuets slowly went by, and nothing was happening.



    "Should..should..something be happening?  You said an hour?" squawked Berto's tiny voice.

    "An hour, give or take or so," Said Fran.  More and more minuets passed, and nothing was happening.  If the spell was going to wear off, it would have done so by now.  Fran got a little concerned, not only was her magic going wild, but it was braking the rules.  Spells always had a finite duration, as far as she knew.  So why did he not grow back, she wondered.  Berto started to tap his tiny shoes and walk around in tiny circles.



    "OK.  I guess nothing is going to happen, " Fran stated.  She did not add that she needed to get back to work.  Slow day or not, they would notice if she was not there.

    "What..what...was going to happen? Why did we wait?" squeaked Berto.

    "This will take longer then I thought," she said, "I'll need to get home and look up somethings in my books.

    "What?" He squeaked.

    Fran placed both her hands on the table top and leaned her head forward so it was just a couple inches above his head.

    "I'm going to help you.  Just, right now, I need to get back to work.  But as soon as I get home, i will figure this all out," she said, but did not add the 'I hope' that she was thinking as she said that out loud.

    Fran reached down and took off both of her shoes and set them on the table top.  Berto turned and looked at her shoes, each easily the size of a bus to him.  She tipped her right shoe on it's side and held it steady.

    "I need to get back to work, so if you could hop in..." she said.

    "OK," said Berto as he walked into her shoe again.

    Fran careful picked up the shoe with tiny Berto and held it right side up, and covered it with her other shoe.  Then she walked, barefooted, back inside the library.  Sure, she might have looked a bit weird caring her shoes in her hands, but no where as weird as it would be caring a tiny man in her hands.  Fran made it over to her desk and set her shoes down next to her purse.  He then opened her purse and tipped her shoe so Berto slowly slid into the heel.  Then she placed her shoe's heel into the purse and gently tipped tiny Berto out onto her pile of tissues.  Fran then zipped up her purse, put her shoes back on and went back to work.

    Fran's day went by fast.  She resisted checking on tiny Berto, he could not get out of her purse and it's not like anyone would touch her purse.  She was a bit careful the first couple times she approched anyone, worried that her wild spell might shrink them too.  Thankfully, that did not happen.  She had a pleasant lunch with tiny Berto.  He took some bites from a chunk of chicken from her salad that was  half the size of his body.  She normally ate alone, and found it quite nice to have someone to talk to while she ate.  Even more so, she sure found that she liked the idea of having a tiny man for a companion.

    When the end of the day finally came, Fran raced home.  She went straight to her stack of lore books and went to work trying to figure out what went wrong.  She only paused to have a quick dinner with Berto, another salad, and then she went back to her reading.  Eventually, midnight rolled around and Fran felt very tired.  Berto had already curled up, asleep, in a little ball.  She was not having any luck with her research.  Her spell should not have gone wild and nothing should have gone wrong, according to her books.  And she could not find any type of shrinking counterspell.  So she made Berto a little bed out of three of her socks on the night stand, and went to sleep herself.

    Fran awoke early in the morning and slid across the bed to look down on the night stand.  She saw her socks, right were she left them, but did not see tiny Berto.  She slowly moved her hand over and moved around her socks.  With a bit of a shock, she realized that he was not there.  The shock woke her up ans she quickly looked around the nightstand with both her hands and eyes.  Berto was no where to be found.  She carefully leaned out of bed a bit and looked all over the floor around the bed.  Still nothing.  She crawled out of bed and slowly and carefully looked around.  And still found no trace of Berto.  Fran spent the next several minutes searching the whole room, until she cam to the conclusion that tiny Berto was just gone.



Fran left for work in the morning.  The events of yesterday still on her mind.  She was not too sure what was going on, she just hoped that it was over.  The magic must have worn off, she told herself.  Then after her short commute she made it to the library.  For the next couple of hours she went through her normal daily activities, and no one she went around was shrunk.  She told herself that yesterday might have been just some sort of weird daydream.  Fran was sure glad that things were back to normal.  And soon enough things go just too normal.

    Several patrons complained about two guys making too much noise.  Fran headed over to investigate, and not to her surprise, she saw Jack and Chaz.  They were both a couple years out of scroll, both in their early twenties now, and they had been coming into the library for years.  Not that either of them ever opened a book, they only used this as a place to hang out.  Like right now, the both of them stood by the reference section playing their video game on their phones.  The quite loud beeps and other sounds echoed around and that was on top of their shouts and laughs and such.  She slowly approached them, at ask them yet again to leave the library.  Before she could say a word, however, two dim balls of light shot out from her and one hit each of them.  And sure enough, both Jack and Chaz were shrunken down to a tiny size.

    Fran was not sure if she was more shocked, surprised or just plain angry.  She could not believe that this happened, again.  Why did this keep happening to her, she thought.  Fran glanced around and saw that no one was close enough to see what had happen.  No one was was looking at her or even in her direction.  She walked over just a step away from where the two tiny guy were on the floor.  She guessed their heights to now be about three inches tall.  They were looking at each other and around in quite a look of shock.

    "What is going on?" almost screamed Jack.

    "I got no idea," said Chaz much more softly.

    "Um..somebody help!" screamed Jack.

    "Shhhhhhh," said Fran sharply, putting her finger in front of her mouth and leaned over the two tiny guys.

    "Woah," said Chaz as he looked up at the massive form of Fran.

    "Help, help....help....help!" said Jack, each word getting louder and louder as he raised his voice and his whole body started to shake.

    "Quiet!" Fran said sharply, looking from side to side to see if anyone had heard his tiny cries.

    "HELP!" screeched Jack as loud as he could.

    "Shhhh, stop!" said Fran, softly and almost begging.  She looked around again and saw her coworker Ann a couple of steps away stop and look back.  Had Ann heard his tiny cries for help, Fran wondered.

    "Dude, just clam down, " said Chaz is a soft helpful voice.

    "HELP! HELP! HELP!" screeched Jack louder and louder as he shook more.

    "Quiet!" repeated Fran as she looked around to see if anyone had heard.  Fran then leaned over and reached for tiny Jack with her left hand.  At the same time as she reached for him, her left foot also shot forward.  Long before her hand got to him, her foot did, and his tiny body simply disappeared underneath her shoe.  With the soft tap of Fran's shoe on the floor, Jack was gone, smashed to pulp.  Fran stopped and blinked, very confused and not sure what had happened. 

    "Oh my gosh! Jack! JACK!" screeched Chaz quite loudly.

    "I--," Fran started to say, even as she watched her right foot move forward.  Her foot moved up and over his tiny body and then slammed down on top of him.  Just like Jack, in less then a second, Chaz was smashed to a small pile of pulp.

    Fran stood there, half frozen and have twitching.  This was not happening, she tried to tell herself.  Not again.  Two guys who were here just a minute ago, were now gone.  It had happened so, so fast.  She had hardly even felt her body move.  She just wanted them to be quite and not yell and attract attention.  She certainly had not meant to crush both of them.  Fran looked around again, to see if anyone had hear or saw anything.  No one was looking her way or reacting at all, even Ann had walked to the other side of the room.  She looked down at her shoes and felt quite sad.  Why could they not just be quiet?  That is all she wanted.

    Fran took several deep breaths and go herself under control.  After all, this was not her fault.  She was trying to clam them down and help them.  Then they had to start yelling.  And she was not responsible for what happened after that.  And after all, all she had done was taken two small steps.  Guys that were not even as tall as her ankles should learn to be more careful around big women like herself.  Her simple act of taking two steps had ended two lives.  Two tiny, small, insignificant lives, but they were still two lives.  But it was all their faults.

    Fran kept her shoes right were they were, on top of the smashed forms of the two guys.  She tried to avoid looking at the bits of red and pink goo on her shoes and the carpet.  She slipped both her feet out of her shoes and took a step back.  Again she glanced around to make sure no one was looking, and no one was looking her way at all.  She walked, barefoot, over to the help desk and grabbed a handful of tissues.  Then she quickly walked back over to where she left her shoes.  She got down on her knees and slowly lifted her shoes off the carpet.  Fran turned her head to the side to not look to much at the stuff on the bottoms of her shoes and the carpet.  Still she used the tissues to clean up what she could and scoop up all the tiny smashed bits.  She then made her way around the edge of the room, her shoes in hand with the bloody tissues hidden underneath.  She then went down the short hallway to the ladies rest room and through the door.

    The ladies restroom was empty, much to Fran's relief.  She got to work cleaning off her shoes, getting all the bits of tiny guy blood and body parts she could off.  Again, she tried not too look at what she was doing much.  Luckily, both tiny guys were pretty well crushed into unidentifiable pulp, so she did not have to see a tiny head or hand.  The tissues went down the toilet and she waved her shoes around to dry them off, before putting her shoes back on her feet.  She then grabbed a handful of wet paper towels and a handful of dry paper towels.  Fran moved over to the two small stains on the carpet, where two tiny guys had been standing just a short time ago.  She cleaned up the carpet until the two stains were mostly gone from causal view.  Now they looked like all the other stains on the carpet, at least.  She then headed back to the ladies rest room and flushed everything.  She then stopped and looked in the mirror and steadied herself.  She was just cleaning up a spill, they happened from time to time, it was nothing unusual she told herself.  She then left the rest room.

    As Fran opened the door into the small hallway, she found her path blocked by a mountain of a man.  She had no problem recognizing him as yet another trouble maker in her library, and his name was Roger.  He was quite tall and quite wide too, over all a huge guy.  As always he had on dark black leather with all sorts of chains, zippers and rings that made a constant jingle.  He kept his head shaved bald and his large, heavy boots made loud thumps on the floor.  Fran was not quite sure how old her was, but he was not over thirty and she figured him for his late twenties.  What she did know about him is he often caused trouble.  She could not remember all the times she had to ask him to turn the music down as he used one of the internet computers.  Roger also like to move slow and block other people, much as he was doing now to her.  She cleared her throat a bit and he did turn around to look down at her and smile.  She frowned and wished he would just get out of her way.  Even as she thought this, a ball of light bounced out of her and and hit Roger square in the back.  And with a flash of light, the hulking form of Roger was gone.

    Fran stopped and looked down.  Sure enough, there was Roger right in front of her still, but now only three inches tall.  She took a deep breath and looked around, but the hallway was empty, except for the two of them.  Fran curled her hands into little fists and told herself, I will keep this one alive.  She moved around him, and though it funny how little space he took up in the hallway now.  Slowly she squatted down in front of him, very careful not to move all that much.

    "Don't...don't freak out..your alright,"Fran said softly.

    "I am?" Roger said simply, craning his neck to look way up at her face.

    "Yes.  Just stay calm, " she said, not wanting to repeat what happened before.

    "I'm clam...um...say, what is going on?" Roger asked.

      "You..you have shrunk, " She said.

      "Shrunk?  Well everything sure looks different.  You sure are big...and tall, " he said.

      "It's ok.  I will take care of you, " she said with a smile.

    "Ok, sounds good to me, " Said Roger.

    "I'm going to pick you up and get you off the floor, before someone comes by and steps on you.  So don't move or wiggle or anything.  Ok?" said Fran.

    "Ok," Said Roger simply as he stood very still.



    Fran reached down with her right hand and careful scooped tiny little three inch roger off the ground.  He kept himself very still and she had no problem holding him lightly in her hand.  She could feel his tiny weight in her hand, and sure had some weight to him.  He was quite a heavy tiny little person, she thought.  Fran slid his little body into the palm of her hand and covered him with her fingers.  He kept very calm and did not move at all.  She then made her way over to her desk.

    "Ok, Roger, I'll put you in my purse...you will be safe there..understand, " Said Fran at a whisper.

    "Ok, with me, " said Roger in a soft voice.

    Fran then gently set down tiny Roger in her purse and half closed the flap over him.