“I hate leaving the kids with the sub” Ben Martin grumbled as he put in his PTO request “Isn’t there anyway else besides Jean Rhodes that we can get to fill in?”
The school secretary shook her head “I’m sorry Ben, but because she used to teach here, she’s first on the seniority list; I have to call her first. Only way is if she passes…” she added with an apologetic shrug.
“Every time I take a day, I come back to horror stories” Ben said “She must be awful”
“I don’t know…I can’t say…” Julie was being less than helpful in her responses.
Ben just shook his head and walked out “I wish there was a way I could see what she does when she’s here” he thought.
Ben took his day off and when he returned, got the usual reaction.
“That’s it! If the Principal or anyone else will do anything about her, I’ll do it myself” he decided.
Ben thought and stressed about how he could actually see what Jean Rhodes did when she was substituting for his class of 2nd graders “Is it because I’m a male elementary school teacher? Is that why she takes it out on my kids? Or is she just a stone cold bitch?”
Cameras and microphones were the most obvious. Small and discreet these days but it still just didn’t feel like it was enough and complete. He wanted to see it with his own eyes.
It became and obsession for Ben. It consumed him; “How am I going to see her teach?”
While searching the internet, he stumbled onto something. He immediately dismissed it as silly, a joke, an impossibility. But, after clicking off of it, he returned to it a few minutes later and reread it.
Ben went to bed.
He couldn’t sleep. What he had read just kept gnawing at his brain, needling him, the voice inside his head saying “You should just try it. It can’t hurt…you’re all alone here…it’s Friday night at 2:00 AM”
He tossed and turned a bit longer before getting up.
Ben’s face was burning bright red at the thought of even trying it. “It would be so dangerous…what if it actually works?”
“It’s not going to work!” his mind argued with himself “It’s stupid and silly. Magic isn’t real!”
“What if it does work? What if I get stuck like that?!” his stomach flipped at the thought. He could feel burning at the base of his neck. Something was pushing him to try it. He wanted to try it.
Ben pulled up his phone and easily found the site he had been on.
He read the spell over and over, but it said he say it out loud for it to work. He couldn’t quite find his voice alone in the dark house. He cleared his throat and jumped at the sound.
“Goreatum…veriyoriatas…secgunda…accipere…auferetur…20…annorum” Ben finally managed to say.
A wave of nausea, dizziness and burning warmth passed over him making him go numb.
Ben felt as if he would collapse, his knees wobbled and went weak. His hand found the table as he staggered but when he put his hand down, his arm just popped outward and he slouched down.
Ben’s vision blurred as her staggered down the hallway trying to get to the bathroom. He bounced off both sides of the hallway walls.
Sweat dripped off his face “What did I do?” he mumbled clutching his stomach.
Pictures lined both sides of the hall. Hung at the same height. When Ben bounced off the left side, the bottom frame of the picture was at his chin. By the time he careened to the right, the bottom frame was at his eyes.
Ben lurched into the bathroom. If he thought he was afraid before that moment, he found out that seeing the truth made reality even scarier.
At 28 years old, Ben Martin was 6’ and weighed 180 pounds. He had dark hair, dark brown eyes and a full beard. He worked out daily and was well-built and muscular.
That’s why seeing the scared face of a teenaged boy with floppy hair and barely a few wisps of hair on his top lip staring back at him made him jump and scream.
And realize that the spell was working.
Still tall, Ben’s t-shirt hung loose on him. A few sweat spots had already worked through but his arms were thin and his chest was actively shrinking down as he watched.
He recognized the face as his own from approximately his junior year of high school.
Leaning forward, he watched pimples blossom as his muscles contracted and atrophied as he grew still younger.
Teeth went crooked. Baby fat returned to his cheeks and then the growth spurt he had endured at ages 12 and 13 suddenly reversed, dropping him down steadily shorter and shorter.
Ben watched, his jaw hanging open as the mirror moved up and up on him. His face and body lost more definition as he regressed back to just 10.
He shivered as he re-entered his single digit years.
Shrinking down below 5’ tall, he lost another half foot as he felt baby teeth return to his mouth along with a few gaps of missing ones as he hit his goal age; just 8 years old.
Ben had wanted to turn himself into a 2nd grader. It was the only way, he had decided, to actually fulfill his plan. He had to observe her first hand.
The thought had come to him and he simply couldn’t push it aside. Once he saw the spell, something spoke to him and he couldn’t move on until he tried it no matter how absolutely terrifying the thought of actually transforming himself into an 8-year-old boy was.
Ben panted looking up to the mirror in front of him. He felt like crying. He felt like screaming. Instead, he froze.
Ben’s mind raced “Calm down…breathe…” he told himself and finally he blinked. “It worked but at what cost?!” his mind roared “Look at yourself! You turned yourself into a little boy…do you know how hard that is…you have no rights, no respect! You’d better pray that the reverse spell works or else you’re in a world of hurt”
Ben finally managed to focus. His vision had gone wonky on him; blurry and hard to focus but now he became hyper-aware of his surroundings.
His shirt felt like a tent or blanket hanging on his narrow shoulders. The sleeves came down past his elbows; his twig like arms stuck awkwardly out.
Ben focused on his small, pudgy hands for a moment. He held them out, lifting them up slightly. He felt the effort it took and how odd it felt, his arms were so light, his hands so tiny “I’m dreaming” he thought “I’m hallucinating…there’s no way this is real”
Ben swayed; his t-shirt moved like a dress on him and with that movement, his boxer shorts dropped to the floor. He felt his cheeks flush bright red even though he was alone, it was the thought that he had become so small that he couldn’t even keep his pants on.
Ben leaned forward looking down. His legs were pencil thin and hairless and his feet were as awkwardly small as his hands.
His head snapped back up to look in his mirror but all he could see was the top of his head. “This is nuts” he said out loud and his hand slapped across his mouth as his eyes went wide.
“Is that my voice?!” he thought as his eyes darted back and forth.
“Hello” he said, the childish voice ringing out in the quiet house.
“Oh wow” he thought, not realizing that the voice inside his head was now rising in pitch to match the external voice.
“Testing…testing…this is Benjamin James Martin and I…” Ben began to laugh.
It took him a minute to get composed and then, Ben climbed on the toilet so he could see himself in the mirror.
His second grade picture looked back at him.
“No way” he said nearly falling off before jumping off.
Ben wandered through his house marveling at how big everything looked to him.  He gradually calmed down and spent another hour exploring before his nerves began to eat away at him. “What if it doesn’t work?” the child’s voice inside his head began to ask “You’d better test it”
Ben found his phone and his stubby fingers worked their way to the website.
He found the reverse spell and began to try to pronounce it. It was a lot harder.
 “Goreatum…veriyoriatas…secgunda…accipere…rursus…20…annorum” Only one word was different but it did the trick.
Little Ben lurched forward grabbing his stomach as nausea, dizziness and numbness swept throughout his body in a sudden wave.
“This must be what the Incredible Hulk feels like” he thought trying to lighten his own mood.
His shoulders began to lift and spread outward taking his back with them. He could feel his arms and legs lengthening, stretching out and lifting him back up taller. Muscles rejuvenated and reformed. Hair began to emerge all over. His t-shirt lifted up as he filled it out making it tighter and tighter as his body matured.
He stepped his muscular legs back into a pair of boxers, briefly embarrassed as he felt his most important part grow back to size.
Ben worked his jaw as his facial features returned and his beard came back sprouting back looking like it had never left.
“What a fucking rush” he said out loud, his voice dropping as he spoke, briefly cracking like a young teen. “I can’t believe it actually worked!”
Ben patted down his body feeling the hard muscles. He surveyed the room, grateful that it looked smaller and more proportional again to him. He examined his hands, his legs, his feet, all were back to what he had known.
Still dark outside, it was 4 AM “Did I really just do that?” he thought on a pure adrenaline high “I actually did that! There’s a spell that really turned me into a boy”
He paced his house before finally sitting down to try to find out more about the spell; were there ripple effects? Were other people affected by it or did it create a vacuum. He didn’t find anything at all. In fear of losing it, Ben wrote down both halves of the spell.
Exhausted, he laid down and fell asleep.
It was noon on Saturday when he awoke.
Ben shot straight up in bed grabbing at his chest, arms and face taking in a deep breath. As he felt his beard and muscles, he relaxed “It was just a dream” he said.
Ben had been dreaming that he was an 8-year-old boy.
The previous night’s events came back to him.
“Was I…? Did I…?” He thought confused before saying “That wasn’t just a dream”
He got up and made his way to his bathroom where a discarded pair of boxers still sat on the ground; the boxers that had slid off of him when he had transformed.
He made his way to his kitchen table where he saw the spell written out before his eyes.
Ben stared for a minute, picking up the paper and reading the words; he remembered how the words felt coming off his tongue.
He tried to make it a normal day.
No matter what he did, his mind kept drifting back; his obsession was deepening and taking on a second aspect. Not only did he want to bust Mrs. Rhodes, he also wanted to feel his body transforming again.
Ben cut the grass, he showered, he went to the grocery store. Everything he did was now filtered through the lens of thinking about how much more difficult it would be to do if he were 8.
“Pushing a mower would be so hard. It would be heavy and the handles over my head…” he thought.
“Imagine showering…” he thought while soaping up, picturing himself at 4 and half feet tall. Ben didn’t even realize that the longer he thought this way, the higher the voice inside his head rose.
Ben was openly holding back laughing as he shopped. “I couldn’t drive here, the manager would have already stopped me and asked me where my Mom was…I couldn’t reach higher than the third shelf…I’d probably crash my cart into someone.
He began to hurry near the end, feeling impatient to get home. He had decided to do it again.
Ben decided to make one more stop on his way home.
He swung into the parking lot for Target and he headed to the boys’ section. He grabbed a few t-shirts in 8-10 and jeans and pants in that size as well. He picked up socks, a pack of underwear, Marvel designs, and went to shoes where he guessed picking up boys’ size 4. Going through self-checkout, he smiled on his way out nodding to the manager who wished him to “have a good day sir”
 “It’s a great day” he replied.
As he stepped out, he heard his name “Mr. Martin!”
Ben spun and saw Alyssa Raymond, honestly one of his favorite students, about to go inside with her Mom. “Well Hello Alyssa!” he said swinging his bag to his other hand.
“What are you doing?” Alyssa asked.
“Well teachers have to go shopping too haha…you can spot us out in the wild sometimes” he smiled and looked up from the little curly headed blonde to her Mom “How are you doing?” he asked with a friendly smile.
“Oh you know…always on the go…somebody here outgrew more pants; she’s definitely in a growth spurt”
“Oh I can tell! She’s definitely gotten bigger since the start of the year” Ben replied all the while thinking “We could be classmates…not teacher and student…and I bet she’d be bigger than me” His spine tingled at the thought and he got warm feeling a wave of embarrassment imaging her as taller than him “I could do it; I could do it if I wanted to” his internal voice was rising in pitch again. “Not could…we should be classmates!”
“Well I won’t keep you from shopping” Ben said “I’ll see you on Monday morning” he added with a smile to Alyssa.
“You bet” she replied as she skipped into the store with a wave and a glance back.
Ben was sweating when he got back in his car. He drove home and put away his groceries fast. He went to his bedroom and took the tags off his new clothes. He held them up, examined them, and lay them out on his bed.
His heart was pounding, his mouth practically watering. He said the words.
As the wave of warmth and dizziness and nausea hit him, Ben quickly put his phone and the paper with the spell written out on the top shelf of his closet. He wanted to have to work to get back.
His vision was blurry but he was prepared for his symptoms this time, knowing what to expect. He felt his body begin to slim. His torso shuddered and almost glimmered as it shrank down, his muscles thinning and changing his physique. His shirt fluttered as his body diminished underneath it.
Ben put his hand out and held onto the closet shelf to steady himself so his arm was up, his hand began to slip. He rose up on tiptoes to maintain his grip but the shelf now slipped away from him, moving higher and away from his outstretched hand as he shrank down.
His stomach lurched at the thought of how hard it would be to get back to his phone and his cheeks burned as the thought rang out “You could get stuck like this” sounding like a grown-up in his head; a grown-up who was yelling at him.
“I’ll get it back” the child’s voice in his head answered defiantly. 
Ben felt his face shifting. His beard was long gone but now he could feel his cheeks lifting and his chin rounding. His shorts slipped off and he knew it was getting close to being complete.
His vision blurred as it felt as if his whole skull compressed down “Well of course it did dummy…you can’t have a big old head anymore” he thought just as a shiver wracked his body.
Ben lurched forward and bounced off the side of his bed. He felt so light as he landed on his hands and knees on the floor, sweating and panting but smiling as he saw how close to the floor he was, how thin his arms were that were keeping him up, and how it hadn’t hurt at all.
Ben popped up and ran to the mirror on the back of his door. The reflection of a small boy met him “Yay!” he yelled out and jumped up and down in excitement.
He glanced up at the shelf but just momentarily before he went to his bed and picked out his new clothes.
Before he took off his super big shirt, he grabbed a pair of briefs with Iron Man on them and put them on; So small and so tight.
He put on gray pants and a black t-shirt, socks and tried on his shoes. They were a little big but fit okay “I’ll grow into them” was his immediate thought which embarrassed him.
Back to the mirror “I look just like one of my students” he said before giggling.
Ben moved about the house, this time, while everything was undoubtedly bigger around him, it wasn’t as awe inspiring. He was adjusting.
After he went to the kitchen, he found the box of chocolate brownies he had bought. He quickly ate two and went to the fridge where he pulled out a can of Coke.
His chubby fingers worked a little hard to pop it open and he took a long drink. He burped, laughed and already felt full.
Ben turned and looked out his back door. His heart began to beat faster “I want to go outside” he thought “But maybe I shouldn’t”
Ben debated a few minutes looking out the window. It was a nice, warm sunny day. He opened the door and stepped out.
He felt a rush of freedom stepping out and feeling the breeze on his face, his floppy hair tousling and lifting as he ran through his backyard, not tiring out easily.
Ben made his way to the driveway where he looked down the street. The playground was at the end of the block and while adult Ben would easily walk anywhere he wanted, now a new voice spoke up inside of him, keeping him in place. “Don’t you see the big kids riding down there?”
“Yeah but…” he replied in thought
“Yeah but nothing…those kids are teenagers!” his internal voice yelled at him “They’re bigger than you”
“But I wanna swing!” his mind pleaded arguing with himself.
“What if they pick on you?”
“What if they don’t?”
Ben picked up his right foot cautiously. He took a step, then another and another until he was at the end of his yard. He looked back at the house, then took off running down the sidewalk to the little park.
The boys were bigger than him; they looked to be 12 or 13 and they were playing basketball.
A Mom was standing by watching her daughter play so Ben felt protected.
Ben climbed a rope ladder and went down the slide. He ran back and forth across the top. Up and down, over to the twisty slide, back over and down the first slide.
“Excuse me little boy?” the Mom asked Ben.
“Um, yeah” he answered suddenly feeling very nervous and intimidated.
“Where are your parents? You shouldn’t be playing like this unsupervised…what if you get hurt?” The woman stood over him with her hands on her hips.
“I…I’m not…I just live a few houses away and, and, and my Dad is outside and he…” Ben stammered about to cry.
“Well he’s being very irresponsible in taking so long to get down here and…Hey!” the woman said as Ben took off running home.
“Look at the baby run” he heard one of the older boys say but there was no way he was stopping. His tiny legs pumped like pistons, his arms worked, houses and yards flew by in a blur until he reached his own driveway where he turned and ran to his back yard.
Panting, tears beginning to come, breath coming in hitching and halting spurts, Ben fumbled with the door and managed to get back inside.
“Oh man…” he panted closing the door and moving deeper inside the house. He made his way to his bedroom where he even closed the door behind him.
“This is stupid…nobody listens to a kid anyways” Ben thought. He caught his breath and walked to his closet. The shelf; it sat impossibly high, like 7 feet up and he had made sure he pushed his stuff back.
He walked down the hall; the ladder was out in the garage and it was going to be super heavy to carry it to his room. So instead, Ben finished his can of Coke and watched cartoons.
The blinds were drawn and Ben checked all the locks several times to make sure he was safe inside. He turned on his PS4. Call of Duty, Assassin’s Creed…he didn’t want to play those. He found an old Crash Bandicoot game and put it in.
He was awful. His hands weren’t big enough and he got frustrated easily. Ben was bored but he was also tired.
He went to his room and stripped down to his undies and crawled into his huge bed.
Ben laughed and smiled at how big his bed was compared to his body now. His feet only came about halfway down and there was plenty of room on both sides of him. He starfished and came nowhere close to filing up anything. He tossed and turned and fell asleep.
Ben woke up blinking against the sunlight coming in through the window. He felt refreshed and energized he sat up “Wha…?” His arms went out before it all hit him again “I fell asleep like this…what time is it?”
He looked for his phone but then he remembered and he looked at the shelf. He also remembered that he had promised his brother in law he would help him out today with hanging a shelf his sister had bought.
“Aw man” Ben said.