The Tiny Curse by Anita Oh

Author:Anita Oh [Oh, Anita]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: BluA
Published: 2016-03-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 10

"I can still smell you," said Nikolai, hiding his nose inside his sweater.

I sat in the middle of the table, freshly washed and dressed in a handkerchief, which was wrapped around me like a toga. I'd bathed in Althea's sink, with all her fancy toiletries, and I thought I smelled pretty darn good. Like fruits and flowers. Really expensive fruits and flowers. Nikolai was obviously just being dramatic. The four of them stared down at me with unreadable expressions. Well, they might not have been that unreadable, it was hard to look at the whole of someone's face when you could fit inside their nostril.

"That's creepy," I told Nikolai. "And I smell awesome so shut up."

"I think that two things about this situation are becoming apparent," said Althea. "The first is that none of you are capable of keeping a tiny human safe —"

"Hey!" said Nikolai. "Nothing bad happened when she was with me!"

"Your ugly hat says otherwise," said Althea.

"And you can hardly blame me for someone else's poor decisions." Tennyson Wilde humphed and folded his arms across his chest.

"And secondly," Althea said, ignoring him. "This isn't a situation that is sustainable in the long-term. We need to find a solution, as soon as possible."

"I agree," said Sam. "Do you think she's getting smaller?"

The four of them tipped their heads back and squinted down at me, as if that would help them judge my size.

"Maybe?" said Nikolai. "I've never really looked at her much to tell."

"We need to know," said Althea. "It will help determine what type of spell it is."

"You're researching?" Tennyson asked, sounding surprised. "But we have people to do that."

"Inept people," she said. "How do you even know they're really working for us? Somebody on the inside must have helped steal that orb, I don't think we can assume the loyalty of anyone outside of this room."

I was kind of sleepy after my bath, and the four of them seemed to forget I was there and kept on with their conversation. I wondered what would happen if I kept shrinking. Would I vanish completely? Would I just get smaller and smaller until I was tinier than an atom? The world would be completely unrecognizable to me if that happened. It was strange enough now. Well, let's be real, it was strange enough when I was at full height. But if I was just a speck — as spick on the back of a speck — I wouldn't be able to communicate with anyone, wouldn't be able to function in the same way, use things the same way. I'd have to relearn everything in my whole life.

When they finished talking, Althea moved to pick me up, but Tennyson Wilde stopped her.

"Did you not look at the schedule?" he asked her. "I didn't just make it for fun."

"Is this because Mother wouldn't let you have a Barbie doll?" she asked, but withdrew her hand.

Tennyson blinked at her. "Mother subscribes to some very arbitrary notions about gender," he said, sounding more stern and dignified than ever.

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