My first clue that my life had changed forever, happened the next morning as I was getting out of bed. My feet hit the floor a fraction of a second before I expected them to.
My second clue was when I walked to the bathroom door, intending to take a shower. I reached my hand out, fingers curled, intending to slide them around the doorknob. Instead, my fingertips smacked into the doorknob. I looked down to discover that the doorknob was two inches lower than I remembered it being.
In the bathroom, I was as clumsy as a thirteen-year-old. The handle for the shower door, the soapdish, the countertop for the bathroom sink—everything was below where I expected it to be. I swear, even the toilet was smaller!
But it was when I went to pull on my jeans that I started to figure things out. With my jeans in my hands, my eye was caught by the sewn-in tag that gave the waist size and inseam. The tag said the inseam was 30 inches!
I had never owned a pair of inseam-30 pants in my life. If I ever bought a pair of pants like that, I’d either be stepping on my own pants and tripping myself, or else the pants would be so baggy that I’d look like an orphan. And yet—these were my jeans. There was a rectangular wear pantern in the right-rear pocket, exactly the size of my wallet. The left-leg hem was fraying in one spot, and there was a gouge in the right leg where I had scraped it against a corner of my lab table in Physics Lab. Somehow my jeans had grown two inches longer.
Likewise, my shoes were made by the same manufacturer as had made them yesterday, and had the same scuffs in the same places. But today my shoes were a size 9. And the shirts in my closet were all size Medium, not size Small.
Then I got an idea, and opened my wallet to look at my driver’s license. It was a state-issued license, complete with magnetic stripe and state seal, and my photo was the same. But my height was no longer 5’2”, it was listed as—Holy Shit!—5’7”! I had grown five inches since midnight?
My next clue that things were different was when I picked up my book bag: it felt lighter. Of course, I figured that I’d forgotten a book, and opened up the bag to take inventory. Nothing was forgotten, all books were present—but somehow, they had gotten lighter.
I made a clatter while getting a bowl for my cereal—the kitchen counter was two inches below where I put the bowl. But otherwise, breakfast was unchanged from before; my parents noticed nothing different about me.
After eating breakfast, I rushed upstairs, locked the bedroom door, and thirty seconds later, I had the lamp in my hand and Fatima in my bedroom. “Thank you for letting me spend time with you, Master!” she said.
“Later,” I said. “I’m in a rush. What can you tell me about today? I already noticed that I’ve grown five inches.”
“Master, I don’t know which way to answer that. It’s 7:03, and you like to be in your car by 7:05.”
“Just the highlights, then.”
“The highlights are, you will really, really enjoy your life today. And you needn’t worry about Hank Miller at all.”
She glanced at the brass lamp, I nodded, and she green-smoked back into the lamp. As I was putting the lamp back in the footlocker, I noticed a yellow sticky-note lying inside the footlocker.
The sticky-note’s shaky handwriting said, “Encrypted folder LAMP password: 1943June3. Safe combination: 43-6-3.”
My next clue that life was different was when I arrived at PSHS and walked to my locker: Kids stepped out of my way. I was used to students intentionally blocking my way to get my goat, so kids stepping aside for me was a nice surprise. And come to think of it, I was hearing a lot more Hi, Marvins than I was accustomed to hearing.
While I was at my locker, raised voices got my attention. It turned out that Hank and Anna Kay were having an argument. At first I was interested only in the argument, but then I looked. Always before, Hank had been two inches taller than Anna Kay, but now they were the same height. Another look made it clear: Anna Kay had not magically grown taller, and she wasn’t wearing sky-high heels.
Since midnight, I had grown five inches, and Hank Miller had shortened two inches. Fatima was right—Hank was not going to be a worry for me today.