Chapter 1
“There are many ways to start a story. You could start at the beginning, or you could start at the end and go back to the beginning. You could even start in the middle, skip to the end and forget about the beginning altogether, although that might not be practical.
“None of these beginnings seemed to fit my story. ‘Once upon a time’ was too common, and the rest are too confusing. So I decided to start with an introductory speech on beginnings of stories and once everyone is bored to tears, I would start my story.
“What’s that? You’re bored? Great!”
* * * * * *
I blinked slowly, looking at the clock. It was 4:30 in the morning, and I was awake. Why was that? I had no idea.
I realized that I was hungry, so I quietly got out of bed and snuck down the hallway towards the kitchen. I opened the refrigerator and surveyed my choices.
“Ham? No. Chicken? No. Turkey? No! Don’t we have anything besides meat?” I sighed and opened the freezer.
“Frozen ham, frozen chicken, frozen turkey…” Finally, I saw something that looked edible!
Quickly, I took the thimble of ice cream out and set it on the table. I smiled as I scooped some for myself and replaced the thimble in the freezer. I thought over the conversation I had had with my friend Spencer that day as I started to eat.
I had only taken a few bites when the alarm started.
It was a loud and shrill blaring, accompanied with a red light perched over the city that blinked on and off. I hurried to the window to see our army marching towards the east end of the city, my father among them. I sighed. The dust bunnies were back.
“Rosie!” called my mother. I looked over my shoulder to see her beckoning for me to follow. I rolled my eyes, knowing we were headed towards our attack corner.
The attack corner is a large shed made of reinforced plastic. Kind of like the bomb shelters the Giants used during their world wars. Plastic is the main resource in the Litol world.
You see, the Litols live underneath the beds of the Giants. We can fit whole colonies underneath one king-sized bed! My city, Pokito, is underneath the bed of six-year-old Spencer Stevens.
Whenever small plastic toys get pushed under Spencer’s bed, the toy gets melted down to create our buildings, cars, Attack Corners, and just about anything else you can imagine.
Did I mention that the Litols are only an average of three inches tall? I am a full inch and a half high!
I ran into the next room and scooped my baby brother, Joshua, up out of his walnut shell crib. Joshua was crying. The alarms always scared him.
I followed my mom into our attack corner and settled myself down on one of the small mattresses as my mother shut the door and closed us into the darkness. Joshua was crying still, but more softly.
“Ssh,” I whispered, “It’ll end soon.”1
Chapter 22
If only that had been true.
This battle between the dust bunnies and the Litols had continued for five days straight, and the Litols were loosing pitifully. My mother was a nervous wreck. She tried to keep herself calm so Joshua and I wouldn’t notice, but after three days, she couldn’t help it.
Living in the attack corner was not very fun. The corner was dark and musty. All we had for light was a few small candles. The alarms had been going off constantly since the attack had started, and sleep was nowhere to be found. Then if you add in mother’s nervous pacing, and Joshua’s crying, and you get a bad situation.
One night, after Joshua had finally stopped crying, and mother had dropped into a restless sleep, I started to think.
Could there be a way to help out the army? There has to be some way to destroy the dust bunnies… And suddenly I got it. The one surefire way to get rid of the bunnies for good!
Vacuum Foxes! That’s it! The enemy of the bunnies… The foxes could destroy them and save us!
There was only one problem with my plan. There was one place you could find these Vacuum Foxes, if they were real. You see, ever since Kindergarten, the teachers would tell stories of these wonderful foxes that could drive away all of our predators. No one knew for sure whether they were real, or just a myth, but either way, I intended to find out. In order to do that, I would need a little help from a friend…
In the dead of the night, I snuck out of the attack corner, careful not to wake my sleeping family. I crept out to the edge of the city and gasped as I saw the ray of light in front of me. I knew that I was in the right place.
I had decided that in order to find the foxes, I would need the help of a little boy. Actually, he was a Giant little boy.
I had come to the end of the Litol lands. I was about to cross the line from Litol lands into the Giant lands.
I closed my eyes and stepped carefully into the light, and walked out onto a large rug in the middle of the room.
The sight I saw was incredible! Everything was ten times bigger than me, at the least. I turned around, looking at everything, three times. I couldn’t believe it!
Not long after I had stopped spinning, I started to get this weird feeling. It wasn’t like anything I had ever felt before. I felt like I was slowly expanding. Then, five minutes later, I had grown up to almost two feet tall! I kept growing until I had gone from an inch and a half tall to a full three and a half feet.
I examined myself. I looked the same; I was just much bigger than usual. I smiled, and peeked over at the bed. A small lump, which I could only guess was Spencer, was curled up by the top of the bed. I quietly walked over to him and poked him.
“Spencer,” I whispered, and poked him, “Spencer!” He turned over and looked at me through sleepy eyes.
“Who are you?” he asked. I smiled.
“It’s me,” I said, “Rosie!” He blinked.
“I thought you were tiny!”
“So did I,” I muttered, “I’m big now though. And I need your help.” He swung his legs over the edge of his bed.
“What would I do?” he asked with a yawn.
I told him that he would have to come with me into Litol territory to help me find the Foxes.
“Why can’t you find them?” he asked.
“You can only find them if you absolutely believe that they exist. I figured that you could find them better than any of the Litols, since you haven’t heard all of the rumors we have,” I explained. He nodded thoughtfully. I sat on the floor and looked down at the bottom of the bed. I had trouble believing that my city was in that tiny space, even though I knew full well that it was.
“Ok,” he finally said, “How do we get in?” I gave a sheepish laugh.
“I, uh, don’t quite know. I’ve never been out as a Giant before.” I turned around the room, as I had when I was small, looking for something that could have triggered my growth. I circled three times, staring intently at everything, but I couldn’t see any possibilities. Sighing, I sat cross-legged on the floor.
“I don’t know how to get back in,” I wailed, “I’ll be stuck giant forever!” I closed my eyes. I could feel my head starting to ache.
When I opened my eyes a few moments later, I was staring up at Spencer. He once again was towering over me. I blinked quickly.
“How did I do that?” I asked. He shrugged and started spinning around.
“What are you doing?” I asked him.
“What you did!” he stopped spinning and sat down. I watched as little by little, he began to shrink to my size.
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Author notes
This would be the fourth of fifth (i can't remember) story in my book When Pigs Fly. :)
