The Misadventures of Emerald

I JUST SHRUNK DOWN TO THE SIZE OF A PEANUT!

So I woke up, got dressed, and stuffed everything in my backpack. All that's left is to eat some breakfast, and I'll be ready to get on the school bus. After I chomped down my first bite of goulash, strange things happened. I heard "Warning" voices all over the place, and my stomach was growling so loudly, our windows shattered. That wasn't all. Sparkles appeared, and for whatever reason, I shrunk.

The sparkles were all over the place, and suddenly I was on a large strange area. I continued forward and eventually reached an edge. I looked down from the edge and saw what looked like our floor. "Well then." I thought to myself. "It's only 6:30 in the morning and now this is happening." I heard the bus come by, then Mom's voice saying, "Emerald! You're going to miss the bus!"

No duh I was going to miss the bus. I looked at the floor again. Yup, it's our floor alright, but it looked bigger than usual. What the heck? Mom then came running in, and she looked GINORMOUS! I came up with 2 ideas on what's going on. 1: I got smaller or 2: Everything got bigger. "Emerald! Where are you!?" Mom said.

Obviously, I needed her attention, so I said, "Mom, I'm down here." She didn't hear me, so I tried again a little louder. "Mom! I'm on the chair!" She still didn't hear me, so I tried one more time with the volume REALLY cranked up. "MOM! I'M DOWN HERE! ON THE CHAIR!"

She DID hear me, but she thought it was something else, because she said, "Ruby! Come down here and get some swatters!"

"Why?" Ruby asked.

"Because our house has rats in it!"

I tried to tell Mom that there were no rats and that there never WILL be rats by yelling, "MOM! THERE AREN'T ANY RATS!"

Of course it didn't work. Mom said, "See!?"

But Ruby said, "I don't hear anything."

I didn't bother yelling again because I knew that's going to get me nowhere. Or so I thought. Mom was about to sit on the chair I was still on, so I said, "MOM!!"

That seemed to do the trick. Mom went to Ruby, and... call me crazy, but I could've swore I heard Mom say, "I swear I'm not just hearing things." Weird. I jumped off the chair and landed on a conveniently placed carpet. I didn't want Mom sitting on me, and I definitely don't want her STEPPING on me, so I went to the one place where only one person would go to: the basement. Let me just say that going downstairs while being tiny isn't exactly candy and rainbows. I had to jump off each step, and that can be pretty painful, in fact, I landed on a step and heard a cracking noise. Ouch!

Oh wait, false alarm! The cracking noise wasn't from me, it was from Sapphire's bag of Cheetos. For those of you who don't know, Sapphire is my older sister. Usually she hangs out in the basement, on the couch, watching T.V., and eating her endless supply of Cheetos. I once asked her where and how she got all those Cheetos, but she doesn't like to talk about it for some reason. Anyway, I got to the floor and started climbing to the top of the couch. I need to get on top of the couch so Sapphire can see me, and hopefully help me, but I slipped off the couch and landed on the floor again. Darn it! I then started gathering bags of Cheetos and making a little staircase out of it. Eventually, it came down to the point where the only bags left are from the world's largest pile behind the couch. If I grabbed a bag off of that pile, the whole thing would collapse, and I knew Sapphire wouldn't be happy about that, but I only needed one more bag to reach the top of the couch, so I decided to take the risk. I reached out for the bag, grabbed it, and... nothing collapsed. I face palmed. I didn't realize it was a FULL pile and not those empty piles you see in stores in which you take one and it all goes to the floor. What a relief!

I placed that last bag where it belongs and reached the top of the couch. Sapphire spotted me as I said, "Hey Sapphire!" She squinted her eyes at me, then said, "Hello there ant."

She thought I was an ant. That's expected, but what I DIDN'T expect was that she talked to me. I guessed she was feeling lonely, but I was wrong. She continued. "Ordinarily, I wouldn't be talking to ants, but you remind me of a certain someone. I think his name was Emerald or something."

You see? Sapphire has been in the basement so long she doesn't even know my NAME. I tried to see if talking had any affect. "Sapphire, it's me! Emerald!"

"Emerald! Yeah! That's his name! Wait a minute... did an ant just TALK to me?"

I wasn't expecting THAT response. She heard me, but still thought I was an ant. I asked, "Do you know how I can become a little bigger? I'm tired of being my old tired self." If pretending I was an ant was the only way to become big again, so be it.

She responded with, "Splashing yourself in water might help."

Water would ordinarily kill ants, but I'm not an ant, so I decided to give it a try. I kept pushing a glass cup until it was underneath the sink. Then I climbed up to the sink and moved the handle. After the cup was full, I turned the sink off. This may sound like a tutorial on how to get yourself a glass of water, but I was tiny, so getting a glass of water wasn't exactly easy. After I managed to get a glass of water in front of me, I jumped in the water, then jumped out about 2 seconds later. "I hope this works." I thought to myself.

Within 15 seconds, I was back to my normal size again. I was amazed, but then I started wondering what made me tiny in the first place. All I did was take a bite of goulash... wait a minute... of course! It was the goulash! I grabbed a sharpie and wrote a note on the bowl to make sure this doesn't happen again. I mean, hey! Who knows? I might forget, wouldn't I? Anyway, after that was done, I looked at the clock. It was 7:30 in the morning. I was missing class, which I guess is to be expected, but I never thought about it until then. I grabbed my backpack and started running towards school.

There's one more thing I should note: The next morning, I was ABOUT to eat some goulash again, but thanks to the note I've written down, I decided to eat some Crispix instead, but that created an ENTIRELY different problem.

TO BE CONTINUED...