The ball looked old and was a tarnished with scratches. Jenny pulled it out of the box of her grandma Ally old things and turned it around between her hands curiously. At four years old, she was still too young to read the words on it, but she could read the number.

“Three,” she said out loud.

“‘Three’ what?” her brother, Connor, said.

Jenny carried the coin over to her older brother, who was sitting in front of the TV but ignoring it to focus on his phone. “What does it say?” Jenny asked holding up the ball.

Connor looked away from his phone and at the ball for a moment and inquired, “Where did you find that?”

“In grandma’s stuff.”

“You’re not supposed to be going through her stuff,” Connor said as he started thumbing a message on his phone.

“What does it say?” Jenny repeated.

Connor sighed looked back at the ball. “It says, ‘Good for three wishes.’” Then, he turned his attention back to his text message.

“Wishes?” Jenny said, holding the ball up in astonishment as if it were made of pure magic. She carefully slipped it into the pocket of her Jacket and went back to the box of Grandma’s old things to search for more treasure, but besides some Dresses and a baby rattle that no longer rattle, there was nothing else of interest in there for Jenny .

Jenny drifted over to the couch and sat down to watch the cartoon that Connor had put on for her. She had seen this movie many times before, though, and he was starting to feel bored. “Can we play a game?” she asked her brother.

“No,” Connor said. “I’m thirteen now, and I’m too old for kids’ games.”

Jenny thought that thirteen was very old indeed, but she grew increasingly annoyed hearing about it every time her brother pointed it out, which was almost a daily occurrence now. “But-” Jenny said.

“No,” Connor said. “Watch your cartoon.”

Jenny watched her cartoon. It was not bad, but she realized that she would rather have her brother’s attention again. Ever since Connor had become a “teenager,” Jenny's brother had decided that he had no time to spend with her anymore. Instead, Connor just kept playing with his phone most of the time. He never even let Jenny touch his phone.

The alarm for the timer went off in the kitchen, and Connor stood up to take their pizza out of the oven. Jenny was going to follow her brother but stopped when she realized that Connor had left his phone on the coffee table. Jenny wondered if hiding Connor's phone would make her brother pay more attention to her. It might make Connor angry, but Jenny decided to give it a try. She grabbed the phone and hid it under a couch cushion.

“Jenny ,” her brother called, and Jenny froze, thinking she had been caught. Then, she relaxed when she realized her brother was still in the kitchen. “Get in here,” Connor said. “Let’s eat.”

Jenny joined her brother at the kitchen table, and the two of them started eating the pizza. About halfway through the meal, Connor began checking his pockets. “Where’d I leave my phone?” he asked himself.

Jenny just chewed her pizza and said nothing.

Connor checked back in the living room and returned a minute later, looking confused. “Did you see where I put my phone?” he asked Jenny .

Jenny decided that it was not lying if she did not actually say anything, so she shook her head and kept eating, thinking that this was actually kind of fun, almost like hide-and-seek in a way.

Connor’s food went cold as he searched for his phone. Jenny joined him in the search after she finished eating and pretended to look for the phone with her brother, feeling secretly proud that she had invented such a fun game to play with Connor.

“Here it is,” Connor said after moving the cushion. “How’d it end up there?” He looked down at Jenny.

Jenny kept quiet under Connor’s suspicious gaze.

“Did you move it?” Connor asked.

“I…” Jenny said as she averted her eyes from her brother and started to squirm, feeling guilty and a little scared. “I just wanted you to play with me. I only wanted to play.”

Connor sighed. “You’re not supposed to take other people’s things,” he said. “This is why I don’t want to play with you anymore. You just keep doing childish crap like this.”

Jenny felt a tear run down her cheek. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

Connor sighed again. “I can’t deal with this. I’m going to finish my dinner.” He made a point of placing his phone on the highest shelf on the bookcase, far out of Jenny's reach, and went back to the kitchen.

Jenny sniffled and wiped her face dry. She sat on the floor, ignoring the cartoon on the TV and feeling very sad about herself and her brother. She just wished her brother would play with her. If only her brother were younger…

Jenny looked down and noticed that her grandma’s ball had rolled out of her pocket. She picked it up. “Three wishes,” she said. She knew then just what she would wish were true. “I wish Connor was a kid like me, so he would play with me.” Jenny's eyes went wide when she saw the number three on the ball disappear to be replaced by a number two.

“What the heck?” Connor said, his voice sounding squeakier than normal.

Jenny slipped the eight ball back into her pocket and ran into the kitchen to find her brother sitting at the table, rapidly shrinking. Connor’s feet lifted off the ground as he grew shorter and smaller, looking younger and younger every second until she stopped shrinking, leaving her as girl and the same age as Jenny.

They both stared at Connor’s body in stunned silence for a moment. The former teenager’s clothes had shrunk to fit her, but the table and chair were as big as ever, making Connor aware of just how small she had become.

“Wow!” was all Jenny could think to say. Her wish had come true. “You’re my size!”

“What?” Connor said and gasped as she heard a voice come from her mouth that sounded much more like her sister’s than her own.

“You got smaller,” Jenny said. “You’re a kid like me and your even the same gender as me.”

“That’s… impossible,” Connor said. “People just don’t shrink. This is impossible. This can’t be happening.”

“We can play now,” Jenny said. “Come on. I’ll get my toys out.”

Connor watched her sister run off and said, “Hey, wait.” She hesitated a moment before getting off of her chair, which now seemed very high up, but then she hopped down and chased after her little sister. Part of her wanted to follow the girl to keep an eye on Jenny, while another part of her was scared to be alone now that something strange was happening to her. When she caught up with Jenny in the living room, she was unnerved to find that her little sister was no longer littler than her. In fact, they could be mistaken for nonidentical twins now. “Jenny ,” she said as her sister dug around in her toybox. “Stop playing around. This is serious. I need to figure out what happened to me.”

“You got smaller,” Jenny said, matter-of-factly.

Aiden sighed. “I’m aware of that,” she said. “I mean I need to figure out how this happened.”

“Magic,” Jenny said. “It happens in cartoons sometimes. Magic can change you.”

“This is not a cartoon!”

Jenny was confused about why that mattered.

Connor sighed again. “I need to get some help,” she said. “That’s it. I’ll call for help.”

She went to get her phone from the coffee table, but it was not there. Then, she remembered she had placed it on the high shelf to keep it away from Jenny . She walked up to the bookcase and realized that she was way too short to reach her phone anymore. “Crap,” she said.

She thought about using the landline phones in the house to call her parents, but she needed their phone numbers first, which she did not know since they were saved on her phone. “I’ll just call 911,” she said. She started walking to the kitchen and then paused and asked herself, “What will I tell them? ‘Hi, I know I sound like a kid, but I’m actually a teenager who suddenly shrunk? Send help!’ They’re not going to believe me.” She would have to call her parents. At least she could convince them of who she really was. She walked back to the bookcase and considered how she might reach her phone.

“Aren’t you gonna to play with me?” Jenny asked as she pushed around some of her toy cars and with Barbie's in them on the carpet.

“No,” Connor said. “I’m not playing with you. I need to call Mom and Dad for help.”

“But-” Jenny said.

Connor ignored her and went back to the kitchen to grab a chair to stand on. She was shocked at how heavy the chairs had become, but even with her weak little body, she managed to slowly drag one of them into the living room.

“Come play with me,” Jenny begged. “Pleeeease?”

“No,” Connor said as she positioned the chair in front of the bookcase. “Not now.”

“But, you’re not thirteen anymore. You’re a kid. You can play kid games.”

Connor growled. “I am thirteen! I don’t care what I look like. I’m still your big brother. I’m the one in charge, and you need to listen to me. So, just be quiet and leave me alone.”

Jenny angrily stuck her hand in her pocket. Then, just when her sister had climbed up on the chair and reached for the phone, Jenny said, “I wish I was the big Sister.”

Connor felt her balance tip as she began to shrink again, she shrieked as her legs gave out beneath her and she fell backwards off of the chair, landing on her butt. She was shocked, not only because she had shrunk again, but also because she was not hurt. Her landing had been surprisingly cushioned somehow. She touched her butt to find something padded and crinkly was now beneath her pants where her underwear had been.

“Wow,” Jenny said as she ran up to Connor. “You’re a baby!”

Connor held up her pudgy little hands. They did look like a baby’s hands. “I’m a… I’m a…” she started to say but could not finish the sentence. Nevertheless, her little baby voice confirmed the truth. She tried to stand up and was relieved to find that she could still stand, but her balance was a bit wobbly.

“Now, I’m the big Sister,” Jenny said.

Connor looked at her sister and was horrified by how true that statement was. The four year old was a relative giant compared to her. Connor took a few steps back and promptly tripped and fell onto her butt again.

Jenny giggled at her clumsy two-year-old sister.

Connor looked away from Jenny , too scared to deal with the idea of a preschooler being bigger than her. Instead, she focused her attention on the bookcase. She had almost reached her phone, but now she could not even see it from where she was on the floor. There was no way she could reach it now on her own. Though, maybe Jenny could get it for Jenny.

“Jenwney,” Connor said “Ya havta hewlp me.”

“Okay,” Jenny said, already enjoying her new role as the big sister. “Let me help you get up.”

Connor took her sister’s hand and let herself be pulled to her toddler feet.

“Now,” Jenny said. “Don’t be scared. I’m gonna be a good big sister to you. I’m gonna listen to you, and I’m gonna play with you all the time. We’ll have so much fun.”

“Okay,” Connor said, relieved that her sister might be willing to help her. “Buh firs’, ya havta geh muh fone from da book’ase.”

Jenny looked up at the bookcase and back down at Connor. “Can’t we play a little first?” she asked.

“No,” Connor said. “I need i’ now.”

Jenny smiled, realizing her advantage. “Well,” she said. “I’m the big sister, and I say we play first.”

Connor sighed. It seemed that Jenny was not going to cooperate unless she played with her. “Okay,” Connor said. “Wets pway a widdle. Den, I need muh fone.”

Jenny smiled even wider and ran off to her toys. “Let’s go!”

Connor toddled along behind her, feeling unsettlingly powerless compared to her energetic sister.

They began to play. Jenny chose the toys and the games and Connor participated as best as she could. Sometimes that involved pushing around a toy car. Other times it involved voicing a character in a bit of play acting with some of her dolls. After a dramatic car crash that had managed to knock Connor over onto her padded butt again, she decided that she was done playing.

“Enuf!” Connor said as she sat up and crossed her arms. “We’ve pwayed enuf. I’m done. Ya havta geh muh fone.”

Jenny was sad and frustrated. “But, we were having so much fun,” she whined. Without thinking about it, she put her hands in her pockets as she began to pout. “I wish you wanted to play with me,” she said, voicing her thoughts without really intending for anything magic to happen.

Connor’s head felt funny. Her thoughts went cloudy as her eyes stared off into the distance, glazing over and losing focus. Then, all her frustration and worry just drifted away, like waking up from a bad dream. A moment later, she had no idea why she had been upset. Instead, she smiled at the sight of a lovely pile of toys in front of her.

“Ooooh, toys!” Chole cried and cheerfully clapped her little hands. “Can we pway?” she begged her big sister. “I wanna pway! Pweese?”

“You do?” Jenny asked, feeling surprised to see this sudden change in her sister’s attitude. She pulled out the Eight ball from her pocket and wondered if she had made another wish accidentally. The number on the ball was gone now, leaving only unintelligible words on it. She knelt down and held the ball out for Chole to see.

“What does it say now?” Jenny asked.

Chole looked a the ball curiously. The words “All wishes granted” were written on it, but she could not read them. In fact, besides reading, there were a lot of other things that she had known how to do before, but which made little sense to her now. “I dunno,” she said. “Can we pway now?”

Jenny lifted the ball up to her face again. She could not read it either, but she guessed that the wishes were all gone now. “I must’ve made another wish. Ah well!” She shrugged her shoulders and place the used ball onto her coffee table. Then, she turned her attention back to her little sister. “Well,” she said. “Let’s play, then.”

“Yay!” Chole cheered. “Pway time!”

The two Sister's picked up their toys and had a wonderful time playing with them for the rest of the evening until their parents came home. As there parents put them to bed, there father pick up the Magic Eight ball and blame his wife's mom for this thing and they argue until the sister's mom grab the ball and said "I wish you understand what its like to be a mother!" And the ball flash.