It was a lovely, sunny Sunday at the Vickers household. The four siblings had all had delicious pancakes for breakfast, courtesy of Maddie, the second-eldest. They had all washed themselves, brushed their teeth, and gotten dressed. Now, with all of them in the lounge and none of them needing to work, the day was theirs to seize.
"Oh my god Gabby," Katie grumbled as she took a seat on the couch, "do you even have any clothes that spare us from having to look at your belly?"
"Hey, if you've got it, flaunt it!" Gabby cheekily countered, putting a hand on her hip and striking a sexy pose. Cory's face heated up and his palms began to sweat when he looked at his eldest sister, whose tube top left her chubby belly completely exposed. "See? Cory likes my belly, don't you Cory?" Gabby added teasingly, pinching her brother's cheek when she saw how flustered he was getting.
"Yeah, well, Cory's weird so he doesn't count," Katie argued. Unlike the two elder sisters, she was wearing a tank top that almost covered her belly. It would have completely covered it if not for the extra pudge on it that served as evidence of the youngest sister's sweet tooth.
"Come on, you two," Maddie said with an exasperated sigh, "there's no need to be like this." She had heard this argument countless times in the time she had been living with her siblings. Sadly, she knew she would hear it countless times more in the future.
"That's easy for you to say," Katie whined, waving a hand towards Maddie. Thanks to her crop top, her belly was just as bare as Gabby's, but she had a much more toned midriff than the eldest sister due to her more athletic lifestyle. "You could pull any guy you want while I have to hold out for ones who like tiny tits!"
"I knew it!" Gabby announced. "You're just jealous of me and Maddie!" The only thing Katie could do in response was pout because her big sister was right. In her eyes, both Gabby and Maddie had been blessed with curves in the right places whereas the only curve she had was poking out the bottom of her tank top. She often wished for a more voluptuous body.
"Hey, Cory," Maddie requested, "could you go get the board games before these two start World War 3?" Unfortunately, Cory hadn't been paying much attention to what anyone was saying, instead just looking at each of his sisters in turn and respectfully admiring their beautiful bodies. Or at least, that was gonna be his defence if he got called out on it. He snapped out of it when Maddie elbowed him in the ribs though.
"Board games, right," Cory babbled before practically running out of the lounge and into his bedroom to put on a pair of socks and his black sneakers. Then, wasting no time, he went up into the attic.
Yes, that was what the siblings had all agreed to do today: play board games. They used to do it regularly when they were younger, then their other commitments got too much and they had to put board game time on the backburner. The games themselves were consigned to the attic, never to be played again ... until today.
Most of the boxes in the attic were covered with dust, which made one box that wasn't quite so dusty grab Cory's attention. The other thing that drew him to it was its unfamiliarity. At first he thought it was a box for a game he just hadn't played in a much longer time than the others, but then surely the box would have more dust on it, not less. Curiosity got the better of him and, after clearing off as much dust as he could, he opened the box to see what was inside.
Inside the box were two objects. One was a white block with buttons and a screen on it that looked like the love child of a TV remote and a music player. The other was a notebook. Leaving the strange device alone for the time being, Cory opened the notebook to the first page and was immediately drawn to the words 'shrink ray' written in capital letters. He definitely didn't remember him or anyone in his family owning a shrink ray. He flipped through the notebook, stopping to look at a few random pages. What he read looked like instructions for using the shrink ray, although he couldn't make sense of all of them right away. But what surprised him the most was that he recognised the handwriting: it was his mother's! That must mean the shrink ray was also hers!
Cory put the notebook back in the box and took it out of the attic, leaving all of the board games behind. Then, after a quick detour to his room to take his sneakers and socks off, he brought the box down to the lounge with him. This was going to be so much better than what he and his siblings had originally planned! Even if this alleged shrink ray didn't actually shrink anything, he had still discovered a secret about his mother, which meant a mystery to solve.
"Check out what I found in the attic!" Cory exclaimed as he put the box down on the coffee table and opened it up once more. "Did you know mom had a shrink ray?"
"What!?" the three sisters yelped in unison. Then Katie grabbed the device to get a closer look at it, accidentally pressing one of the buttons. "Oh boy," the youngest sister said, excitement creeping into her voice, "we could have so much fun with this!"
"Hey!" Cory yelled as he tried to yank the shrink ray from Katie's hand. "We need to read the instructions first so we know how to use it!"
"Instructions, shminstructions!" Katie retorted as she tried to keep her grip on the shrink ray. "We can figure out how it works on our own!" Both siblings were oblivious to all the buttons they were pressing as they tried to wrest the shrink ray from each other's grip.
"Guys, stop!" Maddie shouted while Gabby reached for the notebook. But it was no use. Before Maddie could say anything else, before Gabby could pick up the notebook, a brilliant flash engulfed the lounge and all four siblings, forcing all of them to shield their eyes. Cory stumbled backwards onto the coffee table, but it didn't hurt as much as he would expect stumbling onto the coffee table to hurt.
A few seconds after the flash, Cory uncovered his eyes and before him was the lounge he was in, but everything was so much bigger! The carpet looked like tall grass, and the couch looked like a mountain range. He must have been shrunk down to about an inch tall!
Cory looked at the shrink ray, which had landed on the floor, and the screen was displaying a 'critically low power' message. He remembered the notebook saying that, if the shrink ray's power got critically low, it would need to charge for 12 hours before it could be used again. His heart sank as he realised he was going to be stuck at this size for pretty much the whole day!
Cory then looked over at the couch where his sisters had been sitting and they too were uncovering their eyes. Had the shrink ray shrunk any of them as well, or was he the only small sibling in the house?