RR Lori Warren - Chapter 41

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A little shorter than I like to make them. Next two will be larger to make up for it!

Reduction & Relocation: Lori Warren

Chapter 41 - Best Intentions

[January 21st, 2006]

The early morning light filtered through the curtains, casting a soft glow over Isabella’s room. From the moment she woke to the sharp beeping of her alarm clock at 6:30 AM, her mind already began racing with her master plan. As Isabella had slept peacefully, Michael had five hours to practice his lines. Perhaps more importantly, he had five hours to breathe nothing but the aroma of Vicky’s gross foot.  If that wasn’t enough to add a little resentment to the little man’s feelings toward Victoria, nothing was.

The wide-awake teenager laid out a dark gray skirt that came up a few inches above her knees as well as a yellow, low-V neck VANS t-shirt.  It didn’t quite show as much cleavage as she would have liked, but it was as much as she was allowed to flaunt at school.  She placed the folded skirt and shirt at her study desk and retrieved her favorite pair of flip flops from her walk-in closet. Upon closer inspection, there was a pronounced scuff mark on the right flip-flop. Isabella frowned, glaring at the scuff right near the thong.  Sure, her toes would cover the scuff but the fact that it was there was enough to bother her!  

It was Victoria’s fault, no doubt; probably from when the little gremlin would kick her clunky skater shoes off and send them flying like little shot puts.  Isabella sighed, setting them neatly on the floor and padded softly out of her bedroom.

Victoria’s door was still shut and the annoying sister was nowhere to be seen.  She’d beaten her younger sister to their shared bathroom, so this was already starting out as a good day. The hot, steamy water of her morning shower cascaded over her body, washing away the last traces of sleep. She luxuriated in the warmth, letting it relax her muscles and clear her mind. Isabella’s thoughts drifted back to her scheme with Michael. She smirked at the memory of his tiny, mesmerized face. Today was the day they’d get back at Vicky.

She normally would have taken her time, enjoying the warmth of the shower, but the sooner her and Victoria left for school, the less of a chance that something could go wrong. Isabella’s little, less than thrilled partner-in-crime had just about crossed into six hours confined to her little sister’s well worn sock and was probably aching to rat her out.  At this point, he was probably even excited to get back into her Mom’s butt…yuck.

Isabella stepped out of the shower and wrapped herself in a plush towel and set another towel around her long, thick brown hair.  Billows of hot air emerged as Isabella opened the bathroom door and she expected to see Victoria stamping an impatient bare foot, waiting for the bathroom to be available. 

In reality, Victoria’s bedroom door was still closed. 

Was she really still getting ready?  Isabella clutched the towel tightly around her chest, supporting her swaying breasts best she could with a free palm as she dropped to her knees and took a quick peek under Victoria’s door. Ew.  She could smell Vicky’s room, even through the small gap under the door.  The lights weren’t on.  Was Victoria oversleeping?  It wouldn’t have been the first time.  No…something else was going on.  Something…didn’t feel right.  

Isabella raised a fist, ready to gently rap on Victoria’s door when she noticed something out of the corner of her eye.  Something that immediately made her heart skip a beat.  

Her mother’s bedroom door was open.

Isabella crept toward her mother’s bedroom door, leaving small damp prints of her feet in the soft plush carpet. Her knuckles were white as they clutched her towel. This was not normal.  Not at all.  

‘…maybe Mom went downstairs and got a snack or something…and just forgot to shut her door….and maybe she also forgot to turn her lights back off..” Isabella thought optimistically.  

Isabella slowly peeked around the corner into Lori's bedroom. What she saw sent a shockwave of fear that reverberated from the top of her towel-wrapped head to her damp toes. It was her mother.  She was on her knees and she was facing away from Isabella. Her enormous butt sank into her bare heels and was splayed comically wide against the loose, thin fabric of her pajama bottoms. The waistline of her bottoms seemed to pull down as if under the influence of a black hole’s gravity, distorting and curving down enough to reveal the dark cleavage of her butt crack. Normally, Isabella might have giggled at the compromised position her mom was in, but this was not a time for laughing. Her mother being awake right now wasn’t part of the plan. In fact, the plan was unraveling before her eyes.

It looked like a team of burglars had just been through that room.  An upside-down laundry bin lay next to Isabella’s mom, dirty clothes strewn everywhere. The top drawer of her dresser was pulled out and resting on the floor. Her nightstand drawer was wide open, and all her slippers and shoes were scattered, pulled out from under her bed. Isabella’s mom was feverishly looking through bedsheets that had been ripped off her bed, her movements frantic and desperate. Isabella's heart pounded in her chest as she realized the severity of the situation. Isabella’s mom was searching for something that was stolen, something that Isabella knew full-well was currently cocooned in her Victoria’s threadbare ankle socks within her backpack.

She was looking for Michael, of course…and she was tearing her room apart to find him.

This was not good. This was not good at all. Isabella took a deep breath, trying to steady herself as wave after wave of dread crashed over her.

Isabella quickly but quietly turned away from her mother’s search and returned to her bedroom, her clean, bare feet leaving slight traces of water on the plush white carpet. Once in the privacy of her own bedroom, she leaned her back hard against the door and tried steadying her breathing. She hadn’t even noticed that the towel around her body had fallen at her feet, leaving her standing naked. Her massive chest heaved with each breath as she tried to calm herself.

"Oh, crap…!" she whispered, burying her face into her hands, her fingers now clasped over trembling lips. Her voice quivered with panic. "She shouldn’t be up right now...why is she up right now?! She’s looking for him!"

Isabella's breaths came in short, desperate bursts as she stood there, naked and vulnerable, her huge chest rising and falling with increasing urgency. She had to come up with a new plan, and fast.

Isabella stepped into a pair of black boyshorts and began hiking them up her legs. The fabric hugged her thighs, flush with a healthy, pinkish glow from the heat of the shower and abrasions of her loofa. 

"This is fine... it's going to be fine..." Isabella muttered to herself. She anchored the underwear on her hips, her voice barely a whisper as she tried to steady her racing heart. She reached for her black bra–the cute one with the polka dots on the cups.  If only it still fit. Her hands trembled as she struggled to clasp it behind her back and put her shirt on overtop.

She smoothed her flirty, pleated skirt down over her hips, adjusting the fabric until it sat just right. The rapid rising and falling of her chest had begun to slow as she tucked her shirt into the skirt and grabbed her hair brush. She barely recognized herself in the mirror.  Her large, dark eyes were wide with anxiety, her full lips pressed into a tight line. She forced herself to take a deep breath, her chest rising and falling as she tried to calm the storm of thoughts swirling in her head. 

"This doesn’t change anything.” She said, trying to convince herself as she ran a brush through her damp brown hair. “He’s still in Vicky’s socks.  Mom’s still gonna find him.  And it’s still gonna be all her fault.” With each stroke of the brush against her chestnut brown hair, she felt the chaos in her mind starting to settle.  This was just a minor setback.  A tiny little change to the plan. But everything would still work out.

Three gentle knocks on her bedroom door shattered the fragile peace she had managed to create. Isabella froze, the brush poised mid-stroke in her hair. Slowly, she turned and walked to the door. She opened it cautiously, revealing her mother standing on the other side.

“Bella…” her mom started. The tone brought on a lump in the teenager’s stomach.  She wasn’t expecting to have to lie this early.  Here it came.  

“...I won’t be angry with you…I promise I won’t.” Her mother said. “Michael is missing.  Now, you have to tell me…do you know where he is?”

It weighed on Isabella more than she thought it would, seeing the look in her mother’s eyes.  It was a genuine look of concern and fear.  She’d always considered the relationship between little Michael and her Mom to be an intriguing one, and this only made it more interesting.  She could even see desperation in the eyes of her mother. In that moment, Isabella was forced to  acknowledge that there was an innocent person tied up in all of this: her mother was collateral damage in this plot of revenge against her mischievous younger sister.  

“No, Mom…I haven’t seen him but I just got out of the shower…” Isabella lied, still brushing her hair.  This was the moment.  She had to be careful not to reveal everything too quickly. That wouldn’t look natural. That wouldn’t look genuine.  But maybe she could plant the first seed.  

“Did you ask Victoria?” Isabella inquired, deliberately avoiding eye contact.  

“No no, Vicky’s still sleeping…the poor thing.  She won’t know anything and I don’t want to wake her.” her Mom said, looking over at Victoria’s closed bedroom door.

“What do you mean?” Isabella asked.

“Oh, Victoria is staying home today. She has a very bad fever.  She’s burning up and can barely stand without feeling faint.  I think she got it when she went to that concert on Friday….”  The concern on her Mom’s face shifted from Victoria to Isabella as she reached out a hand to touch her daughter’s forehead.  “You’re not feeling sick too, are you honey?”

Isabella replied, “No Mom, I’m okay.” 

“Okay great.” She smiled, but then the smile faded.  A twitch of suspicion swept over her expression. “I’m…going to go look for Michael again.  Sweetheart, please…if you know anything…just–”

“--Mom, I’m serious, I don't know where he is.  I promise.” Isabella interrupted, trying to strike that perfect balance between sounding annoyed but sympathetic. 

Her mother nodded her head solemnly with a troubled smile.   It seemed to work. “Okay, okay.” 

Isabella pressed the door shut and leaned her back against it. This just kept getting worse and worse.  Why was nothing working out for her?? Any chance of being able to frame this on Victoria today had just gone completely out the window.  What was she going to do now? 

She couldn’t just go in there and put Michael back in her mom’s underwear drawer.  Surely that was the first place she looked.  A few incredibly simple solutions to her problem flickered across her mind: getting rid of the evidence. 

Gina had once flushed an entire pack of cigarettes down the toilet in their bathroom without getting caught.  At a mere two inches tall, he’d probably flush even easier. Heck…Isabella could have just opened her bedroom window and dropped him out.  If he survived the fall into the bushes, he’d probably get scooped up by one of the neighborhood cats…or maybe he’d find himself in the high-up nest of a mama bird intent on feeding her hatchlings.  

Several more ideas flashed through her mind, and as easy as they all would be to execute, they still carried some seriously significant consequences if she was caught.  If stealing Michael was enough to be grounded for life, what kind of trouble would be waiting for her if she was caught getting rid of him? Flushing him wasn’t an option.  Throwing him out the window wasn’t an option.  So did she have to abandon the mission?  

Maybe not.

‘Maybe this will still work…maybe it just means he’ll have to stay in Vicky’s backpack for a little bit longer…’ Isabella brainstormed. ‘Maybe Vicky will feel better enough to go back to school tomorrow…or the next day.’

Could the little man stay in Victoria’s backpack and dirty socks for another day…or two?  He’d be pretty safe in there, and even if someone bumped the backpack or something, he’d be protected by Victoria’s socks.  Sure, they were practically thread-bare, but they were still probably soft enough to insulate him.

‘He’s already been in there for six hours at this point…I’ll bet he’s probably already used to the smell and stuff…It definitely wouldn't be any more two days…unless Victoria’s fever led into the weekend…then it’d be three days….or maybe four…’

Isabella had almost made up her mind that she’d wait to “find” Michael until after Victoria was better and could more reliably accept blame for the kidnapping, but one thing weighed heavily on her mind. She couldn’t help but feel sympathy for the person who didn’t ask for any of this…the person that was clearly suffering more than Isabella had expected: her poor Mom.  

The relationship was oh so very weird to Isabella.  She couldn’t get over how strange it was to be with her Mom knowing about Michael…it could be at the beach or at the supermarket.  It could have been at one of Vicky’s plays or Gina’s volleyball games. Wherever they were, even on that emotional day that Gina left for college, Isabella subtly (and Victoria not so subtly) would look at her Mom and know that there was a tiny naked little man buried in her giant fat butt and she just went on as if nothing was out of the ordinary.  It was just so crazy…and yet what was crazier was how relatively normal it had become. Michael had basically become part of the family, like a pet that only their mother played with and took care of.  God knows Victoria saw him that way, constantly calling him Paddy and offering to watch him.

The worry that Isabella saw in her Mother’s eyes just now–maybe part of it was also coming from the concern about money.  Heck, Mom was paying for 100% of Gina’s college tuition with the money she was making from keeping Michael in her butt… if there was no Michael in her butt, then it stood to reason there would be no more money.  Would they give her a new one?  Who knows… 

Isabella worried about her mother picking up her phone and calling the women at the lab. Any time they called and it was Isabella answering the phone, Dr. Walker, Dr. Bexley, or whoever else was calling would always be super friendly with her.  Dr. Walker once even helped Isabella with her math homework over the phone! But what if mom jumps the gun and calls them to say that Michael is gone?  Would she be in trouble?  Would they stop being super friendly with her?  Would they tell her that she couldn’t get paid to keep former boys in her butt anymore?  It wasn’t as if Isabella had to worry about having her college paid for; she had a free ride for her academics.  Still…money was money. 

But maybe her mom’s concern wasn’t just about money.  It had been months since the day Isabella had kicked little Michael thinking he was a bug. It was the same day that Victoria almost smooshed him under her foot.  That was the first day she’d met him and learned of the arrangement…the weird lab…and the lady that her Mom would speak with on the phone sometimes…the lady who shrank Michael and mailed him here.  

Maybe in all that time, it became about more than money for Mom.  Maybe she really did want to keep Michael safe.  It wasn’t unreasonable to think. She was a very motherly, affectionate woman after all.  Maybe she came to think of little Michael as one of her own…and now one of her own was missing.  Isabella couldn’t do this to her.  She couldn’t make her Mom wait that long to get Michael back where he belonged, even if where he belonged was weird and gross.  

Isabella sighed, resolved to her fate.  There was no way to salvage this, was there? Not without hurting an innocent person.  At this point, maybe it wasn’t going to be possible to frame her little sister.  Revenge could come another day, and maybe the added delay would make it even sweeter.  But right now, Isabella had to think about how she was going to avoid getting in trouble herself. 

“Think, Bella…think…” the teenager muttered quietly under her breath.  

She was running out of time.  Isabella would have to leave for school soon and she needed to resolve this.  She left her bedroom, momentarily peeking into her Mom’s room to see her still looking for Michael.  This wasn’t going to be easy, but it was possible…

~