Well Wishes

Chapter 2
Adjustments

Chapter Description: The new Shane has some adjustments to make, and he needs to find Robbie and try to get back to normal.

Chirping birds, the barking of a neighborhood dog, automobile engines from cars passing along the street provided the litany of routine sounds that greeted Shane when he finally awoke the next morning after an extremely sound sleep.

The only interruption had been that weird dream about finding himself in the body of a nine-year-old body. He felt a smile on his face as he rubbed his eyes. What a weird dream!

During the night, Shane had managed to burrow under the covers at some point, so for a brief moment, he awoke confused as to where he was in his gigantic bed.

He also experienced a strange funny, fuzzy feeling as he woke, which also left him relaxed and energized. He stretched and dug out from under the covers. One look at the huge bedroom brought it all back.

"It wasn’t a dream!" His shrill voice startled him with its intrusion into the silence.

He sat up in the bed. He was still wearing the Hanes extra-large T-shirt, which is more than anything else like a nightshirt that hangs down past his knees, although it also shifts back and forth from one thin shoulder to the other.

Shane looked around the big house, wishing he wasn’t alone. The faint hope that things might have gone back to normal overnight were lost in the soft glow of morning sunshine.

His stomach rumbled and his mind focused on breakfast. As he leaped from the bed, surprised at the boost of energy as he completely awakens, he wondered if he might have any good cereal in the house.

Leaving the bedroom, padding down the hall on his small bare feet, he arrived in a kitchen that presented even more obstacles, foremost being his cabinets. They were definitely not built with nine-year-old boys in mind.

He knew the cereal was located in the cabinet above the fridge. "Damn," Shane muttered as he was forced to gaze up at the distant cabinet. He looked around for a chair or something to use to gain access.

What’s really weird is that his tendency to think of himself in the third person has grown even more pronounced overnight. He can’t shake the thought that the "big grownup that lives here" is sure to make an appearance. Shane even finds himself anticipating such a event.

Then, thanks to more stomach rumbling, breakfast seems more urgent than the possibility that a "grownup" might intrude.

Feeling famished, he wondered if cereal would be enough. "I can still cook," Shane said out loud.

He went to the fridge, removed a carton of eggs and a package of sausage links. He gathered utensils and skillets, accumulating his supplies on his kitchen table.

The trip from table to stove, to and fro, is tiring, but he persevered. He gets a skillet coated with oil to fry some eggs and sausage. While he waits for the skillet to heat, he loads his coffee-maker, and the smell of brewing Joe soon has him feeling quite relaxed. He added two slices of wheat bread to his toaster.

While he once could have orchestrated the cooking process with mechanical precision, things begin to overwhelm him. The skillet heated faster than he anticipated, so he had to get busy cracking the eggs. Now lacking his former dexterity, the first few attempts don’t go well and the table was soon messy with yolk that fell outside of the bowl.

He finally got the eggs into the bowl and transferred into the skillet, but the stove is taller, so he has trouble keeping them stirred. The process exhausted him, and while he remained completely engaged with the eggs, he smelled burnt toast.

He pushed the skillet off the hot stove-eye and ran to remove the burning bread from the toaster. The hot bread burned his fingers, and he ended up dropping one slice onto the floor.

The eggs were a mess by the time he returned to the stove, but he figured they were still edible as he slid them from the skillet onto a plate.

He carried the plate to the table, added the surviving piece of burnt toast, and then returned to the counter to pour himself a cup of coffee.

He slid out a chair. The eggs were not his best culinary effort, but they took the edge off his hunger. He then drank some coffee.

"Yuck!" Shane said, spitting the offending beverage back into the mug. Why should coffee taste so bitter and awful? He had started the morning with a cup of coffee for the past 20 years. What was he thinking, wanting coffee in the first place?

He pushed away from the table and went to the fridge. He decided to have a tall glass of milk instead of the coffee.

He made the trek back to the fridge, fetched a carton of milk and carefully poured himself a full glass. He almost performed the task without incident, but a final surge of milk from the carton at the last second caused a problem with overflow.

Sighing with frustration, he carried the glass back to the table. Shane had a few more bites of the eggs and drank almost half of the milk, but then his stomach felt full. He looked down at his plate, and realized his eyes had definitely been bigger than his stomach.

Shane decided that tackling the mess he had made of his kitchen could wait. He left the disorderly scene and retreated to his bedroom.

A shower tempted him. He pulled the over-sized T-shirt over his head and left the garment on the covers of his bed. He entered the adjacent bathroom, noticing the cold tiles beneath his small feet.

He stepped into the shower, but immediately felt engulfed. The shower head loomed too far overhead, and even the "hot" and "warm" water faucets were too far out of reach. Besides, taking a shower didn’t feel quite right.

Shane reached down and pushed the rubber stopper into the drain at the bottom of the tub. A hot bath seemed much more inviting. He sat on the edge of the tub and twisted the hot water faucet to begin filling the tub. He remembered something else. Shane crossed the room and looked into the cabinet beneath the sink, finding what he wanted. He walked back to the rapidly filling tub and poured in some of the bubble bath formula. The bubbles erupted in a frothy foam, circulated by the water. Shane turned off the hot water to add some cold, adjusting the temperature.

Finally, with the tub almost full, he felt ready. He slid his small form into the tub, feeling the warm water relax him as the bubbles closed around him, covering up everything below the surface. The warm water was both fun and relaxing.

Shane found himself wishing for some toys. Even a little boat would be so cool! In the absence of toys, he blew at the bubbles and parted them with his skinny arms. He leaned back and closed his mouth and eyes, then slid beneath the bubbles. He pretended he was paddling through giant bubble icebergs and trying to avoid sea monsters and...

"What the hell am I doing?" He surfaced, gasping, causing a wave of bubbles and water to spill over the edge and slosh onto the floor.

Where had that juvenile daydream came from? Had the warm, comforting water caused Shane to let down his mental guard?

"I’ve gotta find Robbie," he said aloud, cringing at the shrillness of his voice when tinged by excitement.

This...this change seemed like it was settling into a state approaching normalcy.  The longer he stayed little the more it seemed like "normal" to him.

He stepped out of the tub, and felt his feet land in puddles on the tile floor. He had made a sloppy mess on the floor, sloshing water during his childish daydreaming.

He walked over to the shelf with his towels, which were on the upper shelf. He tried to get one, but he had to reach blindly, so he ended up pulling down several of the large white cotton towels.

Frustrated at first, he made the best of the incident and simply dropped several of the large and absorbent on the floor to soak up the puddles of water. He couldn’t shake the nagging suspicion that someone would appear on the scene to punish him for all these messes he had made.

Being so short made the house look all different and it made doing simple things, like getting a towel off a shelf, a major chore. He just had to hope he didn’t get in trouble for any of this.

He returned to the shelf, did better this time, managing to get a single towel that he wrapped around his rather puny body. Shane padded out of the bathroom, leaving a trail of small wet footprints in his wake.

He took a seat on his huge bed and held his face in his hands. Where could he find some clothes that would fit his new body? He remembered that he had some old boxes of stuff from his childhood stored in the crawl space of the attic over his garage.

The thought of the creepy attic and the dusty, cluttered garage gave him some chills. He would have to find clothes before he could make his way to the mark to meet Robbie. He needed a few minutes to focus his nerve, but finally he walked out to his garage, still wearing only the over-sized towel around his puny body. His feet felt the chill from the concrete floor.

He encountered another obstacle when he discovered he was too short to reach the dangling cord that pulled down the ladder to the attic from its retractable nook in the ceiling. He sighed and trudged across the garage to fetch a step-ladder. He dragged the ladder back across the concrete floor, positioning it beneath the dangling cord.

He had to ascend the first three steps of the five-step ladder before he could grab the cord and pull down the attic stairs. Even simple tasks now required an additional step or two in the process in order for him to complete them.

The attic looked somewhat shadowy and a bit spooky, so he returned to the kitchen to fetch a flashlight. Reinforced, he returned to the hall and, a step at a time, climbed the stairs into the dusty attic. He soon located a few old cardboard boxes. He dug into the containers and found what he needed.

He didn’t want to lug the heavy boxes out of the attic, so he took what he needed, knowing he could return later if he needed anything else.

Taking his new clothes to his bedroom, he began to pull on the out-of-fashion garments. Apparently, no one had thought there was any reason to save underpants or shoes, but he was soon dressed in a green T-shirt emblazoned with the slogan "keep on trucking," which for some reason, he thought extremely funny.

Shane gazed into the mirror at his dresser. He looked OK, but his unruly hair wouldn’t be tamed. He raised a hand to try to flatten down his damp hair. His hands were a lot smaller than before and ironically his hair seemed to have doubled in size, which meant a bad combo for trying to coif up.

He frowned and turned away from the mirror. Why does it matter anyway? It’s a distraction.

He told himself yet again that he just needed to follow the plan.

Step one, meet up with Robbie. Shane remained confident that Robbie would be able to help him out of this situation.

Step two, just make sure that no one he knows sees him like this. "That would be humiliating," Shane said aloud.

He frowned again as he cast another glance at the mirror. "I look so weird," he whispered.

Turning his back on the mirror, he walked toward the front door. "Just wish I had some shoes," he said.

Shoes or not, meeting up with Robbie remained his crucial goal. He remained confident that Robbie could help him get control of this situation and back to normal.

Being a boy again had been fun so far, but Shane had no wish to remain like this. "As soon as I find Robbie he’ll help me fix this - he’ll know what to do."

The incongruity of putting so much faith in the abilities of a real 10-year-old boy failed to strike him as odd.

He was almost ready to leave when a lightbulb went off in his head. He ran all the way back into the kitchen and got some string out of a drawer. Shane had been tying knots since his days in Boy Scouts, but he found himself a little clumsy as he threaded his housekey through the string, which he tied into a makeshift necklace.

"Now I won’t lose it," he said with pride. "It’s the only other key I have!"

Still wishing he had shoes, he returned to the living room and reached for the door knob. He told himself he didn’t really need shoes. It’s summer - and the park is only a block or two away....

Although he still kept an eye out for broken glass or anything sharp that could injure a nine-year-old foot. With a sense of building excitement, he exited his home and headed for the park.