Cards
Chapter 4
by Sifo Dyas Jr.
The upside of being 11 again is cheap clothes, the ability to squeeze through massive crowds at the mall with ease, and the kids’ meal at Chili’s.
The downside is being short, no respect from anyone, and Santa Claus.
Yes, Santa Claus.
He didn’t want to do it.
“Ho, Ho, Ho! What do you want from Santa this year young man?”
Jim wasn’t sure what was more humiliating, being bounced on Santa’s lap, or being hoisted up there by one of his hot elves, a petite girl who normally wouldn’t tower over him, much left be able to lift him so easily.
“I want my life back.” he sighed as the brown haired pixie with the Spock-ears took a Polaroid of the event with a flash that blinded his deep brown eyes.
“Don’t we all kid.” Santa said softly. “Don’t we all…”
Michelle paid for the snapshot plus copies as Jim struggled to climb down from the old fat guy’s lap. He stumbled into the elf, his head bouncing off her breast as he still couldn’t see very well. “Sorry…” he mumbled as he felt his way around the velvet rope to where everyone but Rachel was giggling at him—she was just plain pissed.
“Ok, I did it. Now can we get back to normal?”
Michelle smiled down as she pinched his cheek. “Sure thing short stuff!”
“Finally.” Jim said as he and the others waited a few minutes for one of the larger tables in the food court to clear out.. Rachel pulled out the deck of cards and put it in the center.
“You should have told me you had those with you. We could have done this at Chili’s.” he said with anger in his voice.
“Look, I’m sorry, ok?” Rachel spat back, fighting back tears.
“She just wanted to give you a smooch.” Michelle teased.
“Shut up! Just shut your effing mouth, ok?” Rachel yelled at her friend so loudly that shoppers stopped for a second to see what the commotion was about. “Just someone deal and let’s get this over with.”
Karen grabbed the cards and dealt them around the table. The hand went quickly and Mei won. She swapped races back with Jim. Jim felt the strange tingling from earlier go from toes to head. As the tingling happened, his face shifted and his eyes widened considerably. He looked over at Mei as she resumed her ethnicity, her hair going from wavy brown to straight jet black. She didn’t return fully to normal, as she retained the crooked nose and the blue eyes from other swaps. Jim reached up and ran my hand through my thicker hair. He was back to his own self at least. A shorter and younger self, but still him.
A few more hands were played with Karen getting her blonde hair back from Amanda, and Mei getting her regular nose. Michelle finally won the next hand and Jim felt excitement build—finally back to fully normal.
She looked over at Rachel and said “I want to swap breasts with Rachel.”
“What???” Jim yelled as Rachel’s chest deflated as quickly as Michelle’s inflated. “What about me???” He whined loudly.
“What about you?” Michelle said very angrily as she stood up over him. “You’ve been a total asshole the entire time. All Rachel wanted to do was show you how much she cared about you, but do you see that? No. You treat her like shit, just like her sister treated you. Think. I swapped breasts back first so when I do grow up I won’t be flat chested and she won’t grow up to be a model for Giant Juggs magazine, ok? Use your tiny brain for once. You’ll get your age back next game, ok?”
The argument made sense but Jim was still to angry to listen to reason. He said “Bitch” under his breath… or so he thought. The other girls just looked at him with their mouths open. Michelle turned beet red from anger. She stood there staring at him for a minute, said “Fine, be that way,” and stormed off into the crowd.
“No, wait! Michelle! I’m sorry!” he leaped to his feet and yelled out, but she was gone.
He looked back at the table to see the other girls shooting daggers at him with their eyes. Karen’s eyes in particular grabbed his attention, as they were glowing the same color red as the deck of cards had glowed.
“You shouldn’t have called her that.” Karen said in a weird voice. “I don’t like it when people call my friends the B-word.” Her eyes glowed brighter and Jim felt his body tingle again.
To be continued...