Elevatia

3. I meet the Mediums

After all the non-plot-relevant children had been sorted and the ceremony had concluded, I went with my friend Jayla and all the other Mediums back to the Medium District. It was like nothing I'd ever seen before. Rows of medium sized houses each with appropriately proportioned doors and windows. Smiling people of medium height lined the streets to welcome us, reaching out to shake our hands at exactly the most convenient height. I was taken with the new initiates to a medium sized welcoming hall in the centre of the District.

"Welcome to Medium," beamed a lady in a green tracksuit who was neither tall nor short. "I am Lady Hanson. I'm played by a famous actress so you probably recognise me from that film."

"Of course," I nodded, as Jayla looked her up on IMDB.

"Medium is your family now. You will eat here, sleep here, play ping-pong here - basically you live here now, it's not that complicated. In Medium you will find no shelf too high, no car seat too cramped, no friend at a height inconveniently differing from your own. Welcome to your new medium-proportioned life!"

First, we were all given a small pill of height-stabilising medicine to take – now we had been measured and joined our faction, we were never to grow or shrink again. That would just be silly. What kind of place do think this is?

When all the other initiates took the pill, they writhed in agony for a few moments as the medicine spread through their body, altering their biology. I braced myself when my turn came but, to my surprise, I just felt a pleasant tingle spread through my limbs.

"Oh dear God the pain," I yelled after a short pause so as not to raise suspicion. "So much err... pain. Ouch?"

I think I nailed it.

Next, we changed into our brand-new lime green tracksuits and then settled down for a dinner in the medium sized dining hall, with meal portions perfectly calibrated for our BMIs. Jayla and I took seats next to a diverse group of teenagers who looked like they would play well with Hollywood focus groups.

"This is amazing," Jayla enthused to me. "How great is it that no ceiling here is either too high or too low? I'm so glad you and I ended up in the same faction, Kit."

"Yeah, I'm so glad I'm not a dirty Lowlie," a girl with short red hair sitting next to me piped up, "Having a genetic make-up that results in being less than five feet two inches tall is an unpardonable moral sin. I for one think such people ought to be punished appropriately."

We all nodded in agreement.

"I'm Sky, by the way," the red-head continued. "I saw you at the Sizing today."

"Kit," I introduced myself, "Odd how we haven't met before, given there are apparently only about five children aged 14 in this entire country."

"Well, I'm 15 years old," said a boy, roughly the same height as us, as he took a seat. "So I was Sized a year before you, which does explain why you don't yet know me."

"Does it though?" Jayla began. "Wouldn't we have known you all the way up until last year?"

"My name's Chip," the boy continued. He swept his hair out of his eyes and I took a good look at him. Then I squinted and peeked through my fingers to take a bad look at him. Finally, I sprinted to the far side of the hall to take a long look at him. Triangulating my results, I concluded he had kind eyes, a caring nose, and compassionate stubble. I disliked him immediately.

"This is my little sister Munk," Chip said, as I returned to the table, gesturing to a kid with large round glasses who was also roughly our height, sitting by his side. "She was also Sized today."