It took all my strength to budge the door enough so that I could squeeze inside. The ceiling light was on. I stared at the dollhouses that filled the room.
The houses were taller than me now. Big enough to walk into … big enough to live in.
I took another step into the room. “Wow.” I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.
There had to be twenty or thirty little wooden buildings. Narrow roads were painted on the floor. The buildings faced the roads.
They were carefully painted. Most of the roofs were red. I saw white houses with green window shutters. And a gray post office with a tiny flag on a flagpole out front. Next to it—a red fire-house with little fire trucks in the open door.
An entire town. All built of wood and arranged in city blocks.
I moved around the side and saw a market with carts of tiny fruits and vegetables. A butcher store with a pink ham hanging in the window. A gray library with narrow columns in the front.
A row of white and yellow houses had garages at the end of black driveways.
“Totally weird,” I muttered. “Why didn’t he want me to see this?”
I came closer and looked inside one of the houses.
“NOOOO!” I uttered a gasp of horror.
Through the window, I saw tiny people. Tiny people—about my size—living in the dollhouse!
26
I froze. And stared in shock into the window.
“Who’s in there?” I shouted. “Who are you?”
No one moved.
I peered into the house. I could see a boy about my age. He had a round face and straight blond hair.
Behind him, I saw a girl with curly red hair.
“Hey! You in there!” I shouted. “What are you doing in there?”
They both stared straight ahead. Their eyes were glassy. They stood perfectly still. Like zombies.
My heart started to pound. This whole little town was so completely weird. Why did Mr. Pinker build it? Who were these strange kids in that dollhouse?
“Oh, noooo.” I uttered a long moan as I stepped closer.
“I’m losing it,” I muttered. “Totally losing it.”
My mind was so crazed. I was seeing things.
I could see clearly now. They weren’t kids.
They were dolls.
Pinker had dolls in the houses. Boys and girls.
But they were so lifelike. So real.
I stepped up to another house. The roof loomed over my head. I had to go on tiptoe to see inside the open window.
Two dolls—a boy and a girl both in jeans and checkered shirts—were leaning against the back wall. A table held a little tea set.
I stared at the dolls, and a thought flashed into my mind: Maybe I should trade clothes with that boy doll.
No. No time, I decided.
I had to find Mr. Pinker.
I couldn’t worry about my clothes. Or what this town of dollhouses was doing here.
I was six inches tall. I needed help right away.
I squeezed out of the room, back into the hall. Then I ran to the kitchen.
“Mr. Pinker? Mr. Pinker?”
I found him in the kitchen. He stood over a white counter making balls out of dough and putting them on a big metal baking tray.
The kitchen was hot from the oven. The sweet smell of chocolate filled my nose.
Mr. Pinker had his head bent, concentrating on the cookies. The bright ceiling light made his eyeglasses glow. He wore the gray suit and red necktie he always wore. He didn’t even take off his suit jacket to bake cookies!
Classical music poured from a speaker under a cabinet. Mr. Pinker hummed along with the music.
I spotted a blue step stool on the other side of the kitchen cabinet. It had two steps. I pulled myself up onto the first step.
“Mr. Pinker!” I shouted. “It’s me — Steven!”
He hummed along to the music as he dropped dough balls onto the cookie tray.
“Mr. Pinker! Mr. Pinker!” I shouted at the top of my lungs. I waved my arms wildly above my head. I jumped up and down on the step stool. “Mr. Pinker! I need help. Can you hear me? Mr. Pinker?”
No. No way. He couldn’t hear me over the music and his loud humming.
I pulled myself onto the top step. I waved and jumped and shouted.
I heard a phone ring.
Pinker wiped his hands on a dish towel. The towel looked as big as a bed sheet to me!
He picked up a phone from the counter and began to talk into it. He wedged the phone between his ear and his shoulder. And he continued to drop cookie dough onto the tray.
“Mr. Pinker!” I cupped my hands around my mouth and screamed his name.
I reached up on tiptoe and grabbed the countertop. Using all my strength, I pulled myself up. And scrambled onto the counter.
He had his back turned to me.
I had to get his attention. But how?
I took a deep breath and started to shout again. “Mr. Pinker! Hey, Mr. Pinker!” I jumped up and down and waved my arms frantically above my head.
“Mr. Pinker! Please — Mr. Pinker!”
No. He couldn’t hear me over the music from the kitchen speaker. He had the telephone clenched tightly between his shoulder and chin. And he was arguing with someone on the other end.
How could I make him see me? I had an idea.
I jumped onto the cookie tray.
I squeezed carefully through the rows of raw cookies.
“Mr. Pinker! See me now? Mr. Pinker?”
I tripped over a cookie and went facedown on the tray. Two or three globs of cookie dough broke my fall.
I climbed up. I had chocolate and dough stains down the front of my jumpsuit. I rubbed a smear of chocolate off my forehead.
“Mr. Pinker? Mr. Pinker?”
Moving carefully, I made my way to the front of the metal cookie tray.
Pinker had his back turned. He was shouting into the phone. He was bargaining with someone about buying a piano.
I waved and shouted. He had to see me there on the cookie tray.
I took another step toward him—and stopped.
I stared at the cookies all around me on the metal tray. I couldn’t take my eyes off them.
The strong aroma of chocolate was making me dizzy.
A wave of cold horror rolled down my body.
I couldn’t move. I couldn’t breathe.
Why did it take me so long to realize?
How could I have been so stupid?
27
The cookies.
The big chocolate chip cookies. The cookies I was standing in …
I ate two of them at my piano lesson. And he watched me with such a strange smile on his face.
He watched me eat the cookies with so much excitement. And he didn’t take his eyes off me until I had eaten every last crumb.
I thought about how heavy they were. How rich.
I ate TWO of them on the afternoon before I shrank.
What did he put in those cookies?
Some kind of shrinking ingredient?
Suddenly, I put it all together. Why didn’t I realize?
Mr. Pinker’s doll town. The little houses and stores and buildings in his back room.
He didn’t want me to see them.
Of course he didn’t want me to see them.
Because that’s where he planned to keep the kids he shrinks. The kids he shrinks with his cookies.
Kids like me.
He planned to keep us in those little houses.
My teeth were chattering. My whole body shuddered. My knees started to fold, and I almost fell off the cookie tray.
Mr. Pinker seemed so kind, so nice.
But it was all an act. An act to trap kids like me.
So we could live with those dolls in his tiny dollhouses?
I had to get away from there.
I couldn’t let him see me.
I had to get home. I had to tell my parents about Mr. Pinker and his cook
ies. I had to show them what he did to me.
I turned and started to the edge of the cookie tray.
My plastic shoe got stuck in a ball of cookie dough.
As I struggled to pull it out, Mr. Pinker reached for the tray.
Then—to my horror—he lifted the tray off the counter.
Still talking into the phone, he swung the tray into the air.
“No, Mr. Pinker! Please—noooo!” I cried.
He didn’t hear me. He didn’t see me.
He pulled open the oven door.
I felt a blast of heat.
“Mr. Pinker—noooo!”
I gazed around. Could I jump off? No. No way.
Waves of heat rolled over me, burning hot. Burning my face.
Pinker swung the cookie tray down and shoved it into the oven.
28
I shut my eyes. The heat burned my skin. My face felt on fire.
I tried to breathe, but the air burned my nostrils. Burned my throat.
The oven rumbled loudly. A wave of heat knocked me to my knees.
“C-can’t … breathe. Too … hot …”
Behind me, I heard a cry.
Mr. Pinker?
The tray shook beneath me. I struggled to keep my balance as the tray began to move again.
Out of the blinding heat of the oven. Into the cool air. The tray swung high. Then it landed gently back on the white kitchen counter.
I wiped the sweat off my face with both hands. I brushed back my soaking wet hair.
And when I could finally see again, I gazed up at Mr. Pinker staring at me. His eyes bulged and his mouth was wide open. He gaped at me through his owlish glasses.
“Steven? Is it you?” he murmured.
“I … I …” My mouth felt burning hot, so dry I couldn’t speak. “Water …” I gasped.
He filled a glass with water from the kitchen sink. But the glass was too big for me. He shook his head, thinking hard. Then he returned with a tiny plastic measuring spoon filled with water.
He held it for me, and I lapped up the cool liquid like a dog.
When I finished, he set the plastic spoon down and brought his face close to me. “Steven—how did this happen to you?”
“You know how!” I screamed. “Your cookies!”
“Excuse me?” He scratched his fringe of hair. “My cookies? What about my cookies?”
“You—you put something in them!” I cried. “Your cookies made me shrink. You want to put me in that town you built!”
Mr. Pinker squinted down at me. “My cookies? I didn’t put anything in the cookies, Steven. They are supermarket cookies.”
I gasped. “Huh?”
“They come out of a tube. I get them at the market in the mall,” he said. “You just slice the dough and roll them into balls and put them on the baking tray.”
I blinked a few times. My heart was pounding. “You don’t add anything to them?”
He shook his head. “No. Just slice, roll them, and bake them.”
“But—but —” I sputtered. “All those dollhouses.”
“It’s just a hobby,” Mr. Pinker said. “I love building things.”
I stared hard at him. He was telling the truth. He didn’t shrink me.
I was back where I started. Clueless.
He brought his face down closer to me. “When did this happen to you, Steven?”
“This afternoon,” I said. “I did a magic act at school. And when I got home … I shrank right out of my clothes.”
“Home,” Mr. Pinker repeated. “Home. Aren’t your parents home? Have they seen you? Have you told them?”
“What time is it?” I asked.
He glanced at the kitchen clock. It was a big copper-colored sun. “It’s nearly eight-thirty,” he said. “They must be home by now.”
I nodded. “Yes. Probably.”
“They must be worried about you,” Mr. Pinker said.
“They’ll worry even more when they see me,” I replied.
“I — I’m so sorry,” Mr. Pinker said. “I’ve never seen anything like this — except in movies, of course.”
He pulled out a cell phone. “What’s your home number?”
I told it to him. He tried it.
“No answer,” he said.
Next, we tried their cell numbers. No answer.
“I’ll take you home,” he said. “We’ll wait for them.”
He picked me up around the waist and carried me out to his car. He set me down in the passenger seat.
“The seat belt is too big,” he said. “Just hold on to the door handle.”
I had to reach up to grab the handle.
Mr. Pinker drove to my house very slowly, even though there were no other cars on the street. He kept asking me if I was okay.
How could I answer that question?
I knew maybe I’d never be okay again.
He pulled the car up our driveway. Then he carried me to the front door.
He stopped when he saw the two men sitting on the front stoop.
They were both young and dark-haired and had solemn expressions. They both wore white lab coats over white pants. They had small badges pinned to their chests.
They jumped up when we came close. One of them reached for me.
“We’ve been waiting for you,” he said.
29
“I’m Dr. Marcum,” the man said. He took me from Mr. Pinker and sat me down in the palm of his hand. “This is Dr. Beach.”
“We’re from the University Lab for Experimental Research,” Dr. Beach said. He had a scratchy, hoarse voice. His dark eyes narrowed as he studied me in the other scientist’s palm.
Dr. Beach turned to Mr. Pinker. He fingered the badge on his lab coat. “We’re going to take care of this young man,” he said. “We have his parents’ permission.”
Mr. Pinker studied them. “Where are Steven’s parents?” he asked.
“They had to go out,” Dr. Beach said. “They asked that Dr. Marcum and I take Steven to our lab to make him tall again.”
Mr. Pinker shook his head. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I can’t let you take Steven until I talk to his parents first.”
“We are wasting time,” Dr. Marcum said. “Every second counts.”
“Sorry,” Mr. Pinker insisted. “I cannot let you take him.”
“You have no choice,” Dr. Marcum snapped. He wrapped his fingers around me tightly. And both men started to run toward the street.
Mr. Pinker cried out. He made a wild grab for me.
Dr. Beach stuck out his shoe and tripped Mr. Pinker, who went sprawling onto his stomach on the grass.
Dr. Marcum’s fingers gripped me tighter, so tight I could barely breathe.
Their shoes thundered down the front lawn.
They had a white van waiting at the curb. Dr. Marcum shoved me into the backseat and slammed the door.
I heard Mr. Pinker shouting from the lawn. But the two men leaped into the front of the van, and we squealed away.
“Let me go!” I tried to scream, but my voice came out in a tiny, hoarse cry. “Take me home!”
I turned and saw a birdcage beside me on the seat. I peered inside. “Bugsy!”
They had taken the bird, too.
The van squealed around the corner.
“Where are we going? Do you really know how to turn me back to my normal size?” I demanded.
“Yes,” both men said at once.
“We’ll take you to the lab on campus,” Dr. Beach said. “It won’t take long.”
“But … how did you know how to find me?” I asked.
“We saw your dad’s ad online,” Dr. Beach said. “The ad said you found a missing brown bird. That’s our bird.”
“We’re happy to have him back,” Dr. Marcum said. “He escaped from our lab.”
“We’ve been experimenting with birds,” Dr. Beach said. “Bugsy is a hawk. He was a gigantic hawk. But we shrank him down to the size of a parrot.”
I stared
into the front seat. The van hit a bump and I went flying into the air. I landed hard. The cage bounced with me. Bugsy uttered a squawk.
“You—you’ve been shrinking birds?” I asked.
“We’ve been testing the effects of Human Growth Hormone,” Dr. Marcum explained. “And Human Shrink Hormone. We had great success with this hawk. But then he escaped.”
“The bird is dangerous,” Dr. Beach said, almost in a whisper. He looked at me. “You see what the bird did to you.”
“Huh?” I uttered a sharp cry. “The bird did this to me?”
They both nodded. “You must have come in contact with the hawk’s tongue,” Dr. Marcum said.
“The Shrink Hormone is carried in the bird’s saliva,” Dr. Beach explained. “I know it sounds crazy. But any contact with the bird’s tongue will result in shrinking.”
The bird’s tongue?
I thought back. I remembered Bugsy nibbling my finger. And then … at the talent show. When I made him appear in my act. He—he kissed me.
Yes. I remembered the feeling of the bird’s scratchy tongue down the side of my face.
And then … a few minutes after that … I started to shrink.
So that was it. Now I finally had the answer. A bird’s tongue did this to me. How crazy was that!?
As we raced down the street, the two men talked quietly to each other. I couldn’t hear what they were saying.
A few minutes later, I saw the university campus outside the van window. I saw the green circle surrounded by old brick buildings. Then, a row of campus stores and restaurants.
The van picked up speed and kept going.
“Hey, wait,” I shouted. “We went past the campus. I saw it back there.”
“Our lab is not really on campus,” Dr. Marcum said. “We’re almost there.”
I knew I couldn’t trust them. They had stolen me and Bugsy.
But what could I do? I couldn’t escape.
Maybe they WILL return me to normal, I thought. I crossed all my fingers and hoped.
A few minutes later, the van turned off the road and rumbled over a bumpy gravel path. The path wound through some deep woods. We stopped in front of a long, low building hidden far back in the trees.
The building had no sign on the front. It was white stucco with a flat red roof. A row of windows ran down the long front. The windows were small and they were all shut.