That’ll Be the Day or Daydream Believer
by theEvolver
Joe sat quietly in the back of the science class. The school day was moving at a glacial pace that cloudy afternoon, and he found it next to impossible to stay focused on the sounds coming from his Mrs. Brannigan’s mouth: something about rock layers, magma temperatures, and types of shale. The subject never seemed to end; there was always another rock classification to explore. Joe liked exploring, but not this brand. He even discovered it was impossible to daydream effectively with Mrs. Brannigan’s monotonous litany playing out in the background -- she was a human quaalude.
”Who gives a crap about this?” Josh at the neighboring desk whispered to Joe.
”You’ve got me. My pulse flatlined fifteen minutes ago,” Joe replied.
”Mr. Fugate!” the teacher silenced them. “What, pray tell, is so important, so enlightening, so earth-shatteringly essential that you discuss it during my class?” Mrs. Brannigan had a hair-pin trigger that allowed her to border on Tourette’s Syndrome without actually
having Tourette’s Syndrome.
”I... uhhh,” Joe stuttered, trying to fire up that infamous imagination of his but failing terribly. His eyes moved away from Mrs. Brannigan’s and met with Julie’s. She seemed to be the only one wearing a sympathetic face. Red freckles dotted her pale Irish face, lending her a childish innocence. He liked Julie. But she was too tall, for him anyway.
”You... uhhh... don’t have an answer I take it? Well, this is a 10th grade science class, Mr. Fugate (always with the requisite “Mr”), and if you can’t handle that, then I suggest you inquire about returning the middle school from whence you came.”
The class let out a collective snicker.
”That goes for everyone in this room. You are not a bunch of second-graders; you are young adults. And I expect behavior that’s becoming of young adults. Playtime is over and gone. Do you hear me?” Everyone nodded solemnly.
”Sorry,” Joe said, hanging his head and feigning remorse. Everyone in class was turned around in their seats watching the performance, so he had to make it convincing. He could see Sara out of the corner of his eye -- gorgeous, unattainable Sara -- holding back an obvious oncoming giggle. The moments which proceded felt like hours as Joe awaited the infamous, singular wrath of Mrs. Brannigan. But before she spoke again, the bell sounded, freeing him at least temporarily.
”Very well. I’ll see all of you tomorrow, and Mr. Fugate, please do some growing up before out next meeting. Don’t forget pages 35 through 60 for tomorrow and your essays are due this Friday.” Mrs Brannigan put her hands squarely on her hips and sighed, all the while giving Joe a look that would melt several types of rock. As the students collected their belongings and exited, they began taunting Joe.
”Nice escape, Fugate. Thanks for getting us all a lecture from Mommy,” Patrick sad, deliberately elbowing Joe on the way out. “Maybe you
should go back to middle school.”
”Yeah, Joey, maybe you would fit in better there, being your height and everything,” Brandon added, putting his hand on Joe’s head like a doctor measuring his growth.
”Cut it out, you guys,” Joe steamed, swiping Brandon’s hand off his head. Even Sara laughed, though covering her mouth with her hand -- that gorgeous, unattainable hand. Joe didn’t even know why he bothered fantisizing about Sara anyway. She was approaching a head taller than him (a common problem), and word in the halls was she only dated jocks. It hopeless for a short, scrawny guy like Joe, but he could dream, couldn’t he?
”See you in gym,” Brandon yelled to Joe from the other end of the hallway. Gym. Joe’s worst nightmare made flesh. He tried to block it from his mind walked toward the lunch room with Josh, his one and only true friend.
”Don’t let them get to you. Just remember -- on one hand, they crack jokes about you constantly, but on the other hand, they’re gold-plated morons.” Josh tried his best to mend the feelings he knew Joe had to feel inside, especially after being scolded by Mrs. Brannigan, but lately it wasn’t enough. Both he and Joe were now sixteen. They’d known each other all their lives, and Joe had always been the smallest, the kid who stood on the front row next to the teacher in every elementary school class photo. He would have sold his little soul to be on the top bleacher with the strapping young alpha males. Doctors had confidently predicted that he would soon catch up with his peers, but it just wasn’t happening. In the locker room, the disparity was all too obvious. Josh tried to think of something new to say, as he took a swig from his Nevian water.
He often sat in dull classrooms and fantasized about traveling through time, discovering some mysterious, unused door at Morton High and finding out that when he walked through it, he ended up back at Morton -- only ten years earlier, when all his classmates were only six or seven years old. As the fantasy usually went, he would drive over to his old elementary school and stroll down the halls, seeing his aggressors back when they occupied the first grade. He wasn’t cruel enough to envision hurting them per se, but he just enjoyed the idea of watching a seven-year-old Brandon Teeter skin his knee and start balling like the world was coming to an end.
Other fantasies often recurred as well, including one that took place in a school assembly. They would announce the winners in the last magazine sales drive, applaud those who made the most money for the school, and then the losers would have to stand in a booth and be shrunk in front of the entire student population. Then, the little losers would head back to middle or elementary school, so they could appreciate high school more the next time around and, of course, peddle more magazines. (Certainly, this was his most capitalistic regression daydream.) As expected, Brandon and Patrick were always among the losing crowd.
Fantasies, however, didn’t do much to quell the problems Joe faced day to day, namely unending jokes and name-calling. He kept most of his feeling inside and tried to laugh off any possible intrusion into his ego. But every day, it only grew worse. In the beginning, Randy Vincent was the sole troublemaker for Joe -- giving him the ocassional wedgie in the boy’s bathroom or deliberately brushing against him in the hallways so hard he tripped. But soon others followed in Randy’s footsteps and eventually Joe was officially known school-wide as “the one to make fun of.” Joe wasn’t even classified as a nerd or even that bad-looking, yet somehow his size and personality just didn’t gel with the prevailing attitudes of the school.
So, Joe made friends with a few teachers, one of which happened to be leaving her room as he and Josh headed toward lunch.
”Hi, Joe,” Mrs. Quinn always smiled when she greeted him.
”Hi, Mrs. Quinn.”
Joe would also admit to Mrs. Quinn having made cameos in a few of his fantasies; and her name always lost the “Mrs.” in his dreams. One of the younger teachers, Mrs. Quinn taught English with an edge the others didn’t dare possess. Everyone behaved for the most part in her English 200 class, whether it was becuase they were genuinely interested in the allegorical meanings embedded in Orwell’s Animal Farm or because they were entranced by her notoriously low-cut dresses (an all-together different brand of education). Joe had an all-around appreciation for the class, however -- he enjoyed reading the classics and viewed the V-necks as the icing on the proverbial cake.
The lunch room was packed to the brim that day; something screwy happened to the schedule as a result of remodeling going on in the science wing. Joe hoped he could find a seat amongst the chatting masses where he might go unnoticed.
The line moved quickly. Same old, same old. Today’s specialty was pizza and a choice of vegetable. Toward the end of the line, there was some whining when the students discovered the drink bin was nearly empty except for bottled water. “Pizza, green beans, and water. Mmmm,” Josh mused sarcastically. Joe looked up to see Julie in the next line over. She winked, but he wasn’t sure at him. He would go ahead and assume it was... just to brighten his own day a bit.
”Only water today?” Joe asked Mrs. Tate, the jolly, full-figured lunchlady.
”I’m afraid so, boys. Shipment just arrived thhis morning, but it looks like they forgot to send the milk.”
When Josh and Joe emerged from the line, they could hear some commotion coming from the back left corner of the clamorous cafeteria.
”Somebody help!” Joe heard a scream above the din. People were pointing. Some had gathered around the back table.
Must be another fight he figured, ignoring the noise and searching for an open spot.
”Dude, look at Ricky!” Brandon shouted, smiling and pointing his finger. “Look at him!”
Then the cacophony broke out at another table on the other side of the room, with more gesturing and surprised faces. “Britney!” one voice squealed. “How are doing that??” The room began to echo with cries like the world was coming to an end.
Joe turned. Josh went to check the time on his watch and noticed it had slipped to the underside of his wrist. He looked at Joe, whose expression had turned serious.
”Josh.” Joe didn’t flinch.
”What is it?”
”Josh. You’re--”
”What??”
”There’s something wrong. You’re the same height as me.”
”What the hell are you talking about, man?” Josh said, realizing he was staring directly into his friend’s frightened eyes.
Joe watched his best friend de-age in shock.
Losing a year every thirty seconds, Josh appeared to be nearing the threshold of puberty. What was once his proud goatee was now simply fleshy, smooth skin and his shoulders were narrowing with each passing second. Next, his jeans dropped, leaving him clad only in his spare underwear and a tank top which hardly suited his changing build. The arms holes, already large and incredibly spacious, now looked giant with Josh’s little skinny arms protruding through them.
There was a panicked look of sheer astonishment on Josh’s face as it grew young. He was shorter than his friend now, coming up to his neck or so. The shirt hung down to his knees like a dress and the elastic on Josh’ underwear soon lost all grip on his thinning waist.
”Shit, man. Help me!” Josh wailed, raising his arms and dropping the tray.
Josh looked to be about ten or eleven years old -- he might have been a bit older but the voice gave him away. It was a child’s without a doubt. Pooled below his ankles were his pants and underwear, and in them stood two hairless little legs, shaking. And he was not alone. The cafeteria was now a confused circus, with everyone asking everyone else what was happening and why. Joe even spotted Ms. Tate, still overweight but growing more youthful, leaning almost limp against the wall and preparing to faint. Her face remained moon-like and plump, but her unappetizing mustache had become less conspicuous.
Josh looked utterly bewildered, standing there half naked in the cafeteria, staring
up at his friend for the first time in his life. The hair that usually emanated from his armpits disappeared as his forearms lost all their brawny curves.
Joe also spotted Gina out of the corner of his eye. Gina’s usual goth clothing was no more than a black canopy covering her her rapidly reducing frame. Her jewelry had all fallen to the floor as her fingers became too small to hold the large metallic spiders and pagan symbols. She might as well have been a little child, hiding in a trash bag toga.
And as amazing and unbelieveable as it seemed, Joe turned his head just in time to witness Randy Vincent and Brandon Teeter take a tumble down memory lane. Could his daydreams be a reality? Randy’s imposing size quickly became a thing of the past, and Brandon’s baggy pants plummetted to the floor, revealing his blue undies (blue undies? Joe thought curiously). Both of them looked to be entering pre-pubescence, at least physically. The expressions plastered on their faces proved they
realized what was happening to them, one by one.
But through the ordeal, Joe remained stationary at the entrance to the lunch line. Rendered immobile by what he was seeing, it went unnoticed that he in fact was not regressing like the others. Joe still stood 5’3” and weighed 110 pounds. He glanced at the unopened water bottle.
Could that be it? Nevian. He’d never heard of that brand before. And the shipment had just arrived that afternoon.
Scanning the room frantically, Joe came upon the red-headed Julie. Like Joe, it appeared she was unaffected -- still slender and mature, looking her age. She saw Joe and motioned back. “Joe!”
”Oh my god! My body!” Josh mourned the loss of his sixteen-year-old self. “And my voice! Damn, this can’t be happening!” He still appeared around eleven years old -- skinny as a twig and sporting a voice a couple octaves higher than usual.
The cafeteria was an imbroglio by now, a war zone which the teachers could not stop, seeing as how some of them were growing younger themselves. The shouts echoed off the walls, sounding more and more like an elementary school. Joe made his way over to Julie, on the way catching a glimpse of Patrick trying desperately to keep his cool as his body shrunk to nearly half its normal size. And amidst the choas, Joe couldn't help but take stock of what had happened in his mind... and feel his straight face turning into a grin.