“Almost.”
“Can you tear the bag open?”
We both tried. The paper was too tough for our shrunken fingers to tear it.
“Do you still have that magic stick?” I asked. “See if you can get us out of here.”
Rustling sounds as he hit the bag with the stick. “I think it only works on doors,” he said. “Maybe the opening at the top counts as an entrance. Can you help me rock the bag over so we can reach it?”
“Okay,” I said. “On the count of three. One, two, three!” We flung ourselves against the side of the bag, which toppled over. I sat up and rubbed my elbow. Marc crawled up to the top, where Aaron had stapled it shut, and hit it with his stick.
The bag burst open with a bang.
Stepping out, we found ourselves on the bottom shelf of a returns cart. It was standing in a vast, empty corridor lit by fluorescent tubes far, far above.
“Let’s get out of here before that jerk comes back,” said Marc, swinging himself down from the cart and striding ahead of me down the hall.
With our short legs, it took us forever to reach the lobby. We crept along the edge of the room toward the heavy front doors, freezing whenever anyone moved and hoping the page at the desk—Josh—wouldn’t notice two soda-can-size colleagues. We had almost made it to the doors when Marc grabbed my arm and put his finger to his lips.
Bad luck. There was Aaron in his coat, presumably heading out to rescue Anjali. He hadn’t seen us yet, but when he got closer, he could hardly miss us. The door opened from the outside and cold gusted in. Marc and I looked at each other and frowned, calculating whether it would be safer to run for it or stay still and hope Aaron didn’t see us. Marc raised his eyebrows. I nodded. We ran.
It was the wrong choice. “Hey!” Aaron came clomping up behind us. We heard a scuffle as he tangled with whoever was coming in, but that didn’t hold him up for long. “Sorry, sorry,” he told them, pushing through.
We had forgotten the stairs! How would we get down? Marc let himself down the first step, leaning on his magic door stick, and beckoned me urgently with his arm. I threw myself over the edge, twisting my ankle as I landed. Marc caught me. We flattened ourselves against the step, barely breathing, and hoped Aaron would step over and past us.
No such luck. The familiar hand, with the familiar hangnail, swooped down and snatched me up.
Anger flooded over me. I grabbed the hangnail with both hands and pulled. It ripped back. Aaron’s finger started bleeding.
“Ow!” he yelled, letting go. I plunged through thin, cold air. “Oh no! Elizabeth! Are you okay?” He sounded genuinely freaked.
Was I? I’d landed in a patch of not-yet-melted snow beside the stairs, crashing through the grimy crust to the wet coldness beneath. After a moment of shock, I scrambled out of the snow and ducked through a gap behind the stairs. It was dark and dripping back there. Shapes gathered in the corners.
“Elizabeth! Where are you? At least tell me you’re okay!” called Aaron.
I felt something touch my shoulder. I jumped, choking back a scream. “It’s all right. It’s only me.” Marc.
“Elizabeth! Elizabeth!”
“Don’t answer him,” whispered Marc. Aaron’s eye blocked the gap between the building and the steps, the pupil hugely dilated. “Are you in there? Please come out! Please, I promise—I’ll take you both straight to the shrink ray and make you big again.”
“Don’t believe him,” whispered Marc. I stayed as still as I could.
“Don’t do this, Elizabeth! Marc! Come out of there!” His voice got louder and softer and louder again. I imagined him hunting for us, checking behind the trash cans, peering down the gutter drain.
“Are you okay?” Marc asked me.
“Not really.” My teeth were chattering.
“Come on, let’s get out of here.” He looked over his shoulder. There was something in his voice beyond the usual arrogant impatience.
I looked to see what he was looking at. A pair of eyes shone. Something twitched.
“A rat!” I forgot about my ankle and scrambled through the gap as fast as I could. Marc followed fast.
Something else followed faster.
“Get out into the middle of the sidewalk,” said Marc, pulling my arm. “They stay in the shadows.”
Maybe small rats do, but this one was huge, even by normal-size-person standards. It ran parallel to us along the side of the building with a sickening, bobbing gait, its snaky tail whipping behind it, while we ran for the middle of the sidewalk. It reached the point opposite us, against the wall. Then it glanced around, put its head down, and bobbed tentatively toward us.
“Aaron!” I screamed. “Aaron! Help!”
Something whizzed past my shoulder. Marc was throwing stuff at the rat: a shrunken pen, a full-size paper clip. He hit it squarely on the nose. It snarled and compressed its body, but it didn’t run away.
I threw my shrunken iPod, no bigger than a grain of rice; it bounced harmlessly off the rat’s shoulder. What a waste of an iPod. The rat took three hunched, jumping steps toward us. Marc raised the door stick. I stood rooted to the sidewalk, too scared to run, too scared to scream.
A deeper shadow fell over us. The rat froze. Then it spun in its tracks and ran like an express train, vanishing into the crack behind the steps.
“Elizabeth! Marc! Are you okay?” Aaron knelt down in the street, slush soaking his enormous knees.
“Aaron,” I said, almost crying.
“Come on, let’s get inside.” He held out his hands.
“No way,” said Marc.
“I swear—I’ll take you right back to the shrink ray. Come on, before someone sees us.”
“Don’t, Elizabeth,” said Marc, but I stepped onto Aaron’s hand.
“We have to trust each other,” I said.
Marc shrugged, then followed me.
Aaron was true to his word. He took us straight to the shrink ray and restored us to full size, pausing only briefly at the end to argue about Marc’s true height.
“Using a shrink ray to make yourself taller is worse than steroids,” said Aaron.
“I don’t cheat,” said Marc coldly. “I think I know my own height better than you do. Another half inch. Now, please.”
“Go on, Aaron,” I said. “A little more. That’s good—right there.”
“Thank you,” said Marc. “Now let’s go find this Gloria Badwin and rescue Anjali. And we’d better do it quickly, because I have to be back here when Mrs. Walker drops off Andre.”
My cell phone rang when I was in the bathroom washing off the worst of the grime. Good thing I hadn’t thrown it at the rat. It was Jaya calling to find out where Mr. Stone had said Anjali was. “Meet you there,” she said, and hung up.
Gloria Badwin, Esq., lived in a wood-frame house with gingerbread trim on a crooked back street in Greenwich Village, surrounded by brownstones. I would never have found it on my own.
“See if the key works,” said Jaya impatiently. “Go on!”
Aaron got out the key Marc had given him.
