Shrunken Perspective - Part 1

Summary:  Follow Bennet, a young boy who gets ‘accidently’ shrunken in his own home. He quickly discovers that his sadistic older sister actually had a hand in this and that he’s not the only one who’s submitted to such a frightful fate. 

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Bennet pedaled hard, like a rider who desperately wanted to keep hold of the yellow jersey during the tour the France. Mother nature seemed to be his adversary, with gusts of wind and rain battering his face, unceasingly, making it even harder for him get to his destination in time.
Bennet wiped his eyes clean from the droplets invading his cornea, to gain a sharp view again. He could already see that the shopkeeper was about to put up the ‘close’ sign.
He plunged down his bike on the curb, darted to the entrance and knocked, looking up to the shopkeeper, with beseeching eyes. The shopkeeper, a middle aged, balding man, with a stern look upon his face, gazed at him with annoyance. Just when Bennet thought his bets were off, the shopkeeper opened the clanging door.
 

“You’ve got exactly…” the shopkeeper started off, taking a check on the clock. “twenty-eight seconds.”
 

“Thank you very much sir.” Bennet gratefully walked in, sodden all the way to his underwear. “the usual please, a box of Swiss chocolate.”
 

Bennet handed over a few coins, took the wrapped up package and dashed back outside, in the pouring rain.
He jumped on his bike and rode off. The rain was finally easing up when he perceived an old wooden shack deep in the forest, with a thatched roof and smoke whirling from the chimney. He took a deep breath through his nose. The unique smell of the damp forest was a treat for his nostrils. Bennet leaned his bike against a moss-covered tree and plowed through the muddy earth towards miss Crableman’s home.
He waved at the old lady who was already smiling at him from the hobbit window.
 

“Where would a crone like me be without the likes of you?” She said. Bennet got ushered inside by the old lady. He handed her the package with Swiss chocolate, which she took over with a liny glee in her eyes. She immediately teared it open and started to devour one of its bars. It was something he did every week for miss Crableman, to buy a box of chocolate for the sake of her cholesterol level.
 

“Please. Stay. I have hot cocoa and a bag of licorice, your favorites.” Miss Crableman winked at him, caressing his cheek.
 

“I appreciate the trouble miss Crableman, but I really have to get going. My parents are about to leave for a business trip, and I promised to help them with their luggage.” 

“God bless your parents for having such a sweet, sweet son.” She said.
After receiving a dry and prickly kiss on the cheek, Bennet took off to race back home.
 

He plunged his bike in the garden dirt and ran for the front door, who was just getting opened up by his older sister, Taylor. 

A precocious gal, seventeen springs young, with legs like a model and a feisty attitude. 

“Watch it, pipsqueak!" Taylor snapped. Her wavy chestnut hair swayed when she looked after her brother, eyes punctuated with scorn. It seemed to Bennet that his sister was always angry at him for no reason. 

Bennet ignored his sister and entered the house, in search for his parents.
 

“Mom, you’re here!” He beamed, seeing his mother rummaging about in the kitchen. 

“Still am honey.” His mother replied. She took a little sip from a freshly made cup of coffee and greeted him with warm eyes. “but where on earth did you hang out? You look like you’ve been biking through the carwash. You're soaked?!” 

“Probably hanging out with that shriveled hag again.” Taylor chuckled, leaning against the kitchen’s door frame. 

Taylor received a meaningful stare from her mother, telling her to shut up and let Bennet give the answer, then their mother shifted her gaze towards Bennet again.
 

“I uuh…” Bennet started off. “was just attending the highly necessary needs of good miss Crablemen, Mom.” 

“Highly necessary, he says!” Taylor grinned, supposedly restraining her laughter, like a spluttering garden hose. 

“You’ve bought that woman chocolate again?!” his mother reacted, baffled. “when I get back, I will have words with that lady for letting my son drown for the delight of her addiction.”
 

Bennet argued with fortitude, trying to convince his mother of the necessity for the cause, that miss Crableman needed the chocolate to lower her cholesterol level.
It was with regularity, whereby Bennet slaved away to provide people like miss Crableman in their wants, sacrificing his own spare time and hard-earned money for it.
He sincerely longed to be a good person, to help those in need. His family kept telling him that this trait of him only resulted in other people using him for their benefits.
 

“Can I help you with your luggage, Mom?” Bennet asked. 

“Nooo.” Taylor answered instead with a playful tune. “however, I do need some aid in polishing my nails. A task which is right in the wheelhouse for a nance like yourself. Don’t you think?”
 

“Taylor!” Bennet’s mother glared at her, who shrugged and walked off.
 

With little reluctance, Bennet’s mother allowed him to help them with their luggage, although she rather saw him attending in his own neglected needs, like homework and his messy room.
Bennet greeted his father, on the driveway, who was already toiling to get all his needed inventor equipment in the van.
Both his parents would be out for a whole week to travel abroad. His dad was invited to demonstrate his new invention called, pocket pal. It was a machine meant to shrink down cargo, making conventional transportation methods obsolete.
 

“If this thing hits the market, we, and at least six generations after can live like kings!” His father always boasted.
He was probably right. However, their mother constantly warned him for the impending consequences if this became reality. It would, irrevocably, lead to a new industrial revolution and thus, countless will lose their jobs with it. Many won't welcome it.
 

“I thinks that’s all, Ben.” His father slammed Bennet on the shoulder and stretched his back. Both Bennet and Taylor waved their parents good-bye and had the whole house for themselves for the week.
Bennet frowned with worry when he saw Taylor conjuring her mobile-phone the moment their parent’s van vanished around the corner. She frantically started texting and calling friends. She was probably planning a chill-out session in their home, right now. Their mother stated that in their absent, they would both be equally in charge of the house and had to consult each other regarding social calls and inviting people over. The practical result however, ensued in Taylor holding sway. Being socially awkward, Bennet didn’t really have friends to call over. Taylor, however, just did what she liked, without taking her younger brother’s opinion into account. When she wanted friends to come over she just invited them, without notifying Bennet. If he was lucky, Taylor took the trouble to communicate it with him. Bennet was never assertive enough to take a stand against his older sister. Deep down, he was a bit afraid of her. She was merely about a year and a half years older, but stood two inches taller than him. Bennet also had a fragile posture, with scrawny limbs and a pale skin, whereby Taylor was the perfect picture of health and vitality. Being a fanatical practitioner of kickboxing, Taylor had forged a powerful pair of legs and a toned abdomen which would not be out of place on the cover of a woman’s health magazine. She had a fantastic body, a true sight for sore eyes.
It had happened more than occasional whereby Taylor decided to practice newly learned combo’s on her helpless brother. There was nothing he could do to stop her while she pummeled him, with clenching fists and lunging knees, under the roaring of an evil laughter, resulting in bulging bruises all over his body.
 

“Listen, pipsqueak." Taylor suddenly grabbed Bennet by the chin, with a firm grip while piercing him with her ocean-blue eyes. “Serenity and Madelyn are coming over, and I don’t want you to get in the way. Gather your stuff. Haste to your room, and stay there until I grand you permission to come out. Got it?” Taylor said. She gazed at him with a defiant look, awaiting his answer. It was an aggressive stare Bennet had seen her doing while facing her opponent in the ring during a match.
Bennet nodded, meekly.
 

“Good.” Taylor walked off, fishing her mobile from the tight back-pocket of her cut-off denim shorts.
 

While Bennet heard his big sister commencing her ceaseless babbling again on the phone, he made haste in preparing some sandwiches. He didn’t have time to relish lunch yet and was starving. He fooled some on his phone, waiting for the microwave to warm up his broth. For a sudden, the doorbell rang. Bennet looked at Taylor with indecisive eyes. She gestured at him, like a landlord would do to his servant, to answer the door.
Bennet placed down his phone on the counter and walked up to the front door, opened it and got greeted by the object of his deepest lustful desires. Before him stood enticing Serenity, one of Taylor’s best friends and the only friend who acknowledged his existence and was actually nice to him.
The smile she presented while greeting him wore the gleam passion of a morning sun breaking through a pack of drifting clouds.