Fresh Start

Chapter 28
Big Mistake

The effect was instant and Rowan could see it actually happen. Just to the left of their table a middle-aged woman was walking along with a little boy who was actually on a leash. The kid looked to be about four. He had neat bowl-cut hair and wore an All Blacks rugby t-shirt and baggy jean shorts under a blue t-bar strap child-harness bucked around his arms and across his chest. He had been skipping and running along ahead of his mummy, hopping up and down on his filthy little bare feet and needing to be held back by the harness. But suddenly he stopped mid-jump and stood stock-still with his eyes unnaturally wide. Rowan could actually hear the boy gasp as he looked down and felt the harness between his pudgy fingers. He ran his hands across his t-shirt and then lifted up one of his feet and looked at the blackened bare sole, wiggling the little sausage toes experimentally. His mum seemed surprised not to need to hold him back either.

“Did you get an owie on your footsie Petey?” she asked. “Next time you’ll listen to mummy when she tells you to wear shoes to the mall,” she chided.

The boy stared up at her with shock and his mouth hung open as though he’d seen a monster. “I… I’m so little!” he finally gasped.

As the mother dealt with her suddenly mature and coherent pre-schooler Rowan looked around to see if anything else had changed, hoping the couple were being paid by Howe to put on an act for him. But he soon saw that if this was an act that couple wasn’t alone.

At the table next to theirs a baby girl of about 20 months was sitting in a high-chair wearing a little sleeveless pink play dress and a bib. She was already covered in gook, some food in her curly hair, some down the part of her dress not protected by the bib. She’d also smeared yoghurt all over the tray of her high-chair. But now she had that same wide-eyed look of confusion mixed with unusual intelligence. She looked at her messy hands, touched the bib as though it might bite, then gazed at the chattering women at the table with her before demanding, “Why am I in a friggin’ high-chair and bib?”

In the play-place itself things were also changing. Several kids continued playing normally, as did most kids in the food-court. But a pair of boys who looked to be about six or seven emerged looking very confused. Rowan recognised the wide-eyed look of shock immediately now. He knew it was true even before one asked, “Dude, why is this kiddie play thing so big?”

Howe was smiling now, the jerk. He thought he’d won. But Rowan wouldn’t let himself be duped. It could still be an act. He had to find out for sure. “I’ll be back. Don’t move!” he ordered, getting up and hurrying out of the food-court.

Rushing through the mall Rowan glanced at all the passing kids. Nothing seemed amiss here, no one wide-eyed and angry or scared. For a moment he felt a bit of relief. Maybe it was just an act. Or maybe the device only had a very small range. He had almost convinced himself of that when a woman approached practically dragging a skinny little boy of eight or nine. The kid was dressed in a pale yellow long-sleeve shirt and some knee-length cargo-style jean shorts. He didn’t look too juvenile really but he was pulling away from his mum and arguing “Please mum I need to buy some shoes. The floor hurts my feet and it’s sooo embarrassing,” in a tone that sounded exactly like a status-conscious teenager.

“Oh please,” the exasperated woman replied to the barefoot boy, “you haven’t had a pair of shoes on in weeks. Your feet are as tough as leather.”

Rowan rushed on to the mall exit, hurrying out onto the cement promenade out front, looking for a sign this was fake. The large fountain in the middle of the pavement caught his attention first. A number of small kids were happily playing in the spraying water, all looking happy and properly childish. But over at the side he saw something disconcerting. A tiny little boy of two or three was crouching between a planter and cement bench. Even though he was trying to hide it was obvious that he was naked. His hair was soaking wet and dripping, so obviously he’d been playing in the fountain. His mum was kneeling before him, trying to coax him out.

“Okay Tommy, we can go home okay. But you know you got your clothes all soaked. You can’t wear wet clothes silly-billy, you’d get all chilly. So c’mon, let’s just go to the car. I’ll carry you so your footsies don’t get too hot,” she insisted.

But the boy shook his head. “No, you aren’t gonna carry me. I’m not wearing anything, they’ll see everything.”

The woman seemed perplexed. “Tommy, you were only just doing your ‘nakie dance’ for everyone. Why are we Mr Bashful all of a sudden?”

Rowan turned around and hurried back into the mall. It was true, the device worked and it had a long range. Now he had to get back to that table and stop this thing before it was too late.