Prologue
Amanda walked around the empty school searching for something to get into. Sunneyville Middle was a large two-story school in the center of Sunneyville County, Maryland. She loved being in the school late at night.
Her father was a custodian at the school and since she didn’t have anything else to do, she would accompany him to work sometimes. Especially, when he worked late at night. It made her feel like she owned the school.
Really she owned the school, anyway. She was the most popular student at Sunneyville Middle. Everyone did basically what she said, although she didn’t use her power often, she enjoyed it.
I mean really, who else was going to lead the school full of geeks, nerds and weirdos?
She walked into the empty chemistry lab and sat down behind the teacher’s desk. Dr. Willingsby was her favorite teacher, his class was so interesting everyone tried their hardest to excel in his AP Chemistry class.
It was something about mixing two chemicals to create something powerful. She loved how different chemicals reacted to each other. As she spun around in his chair, she thought of her teacher.
“What are we doing tomorrow”, she asked as she opened his desk drawer and started prying through his things. Atoms and chemical compounds were on the agenda for the following week. She sighed; she wanted to play with chemicals.
She pried through his folder, marked “Special”, and pulled a page out and began reading with astonishment. Dr. Willingsby was working on a new youth serum. She knew he was up to something strange. Dr. Willingsby was a research chemist at Sunneyville Medical, a medical research laboratory in town.
Her teacher was working on something truly amazing!
She read the dissertation that he wrote and couldn’t wait to try his product. According to the paper she held in her hand the serum was called ECH short from the acronym Echloridisyl.
Amanda got up from the desk and walked towards the cabinets above the kitchen in his office. As she searched through the bottles on the shelf, she finally located it, ECH Youth.
According to the paper, the product worked by skin contact. Slowly she opened the bottle and took a sniff of the product. It smelled like strawberries. She loved it.
She knew what she wanted to do, but couldn’t bring herself to it. She just kept staring at the bottle, then suddenly she heard a loud bang behind her, causing her to jump. She quickly recovered when she noticed that the noise was their pet rabbit, kicking his cage.
As she turned to face the cabinets the bottle she held tipped over in her hands. She cursed to herself and tried to rinse the serum from her hands under the hot running water. It was so much, almost like the entire bottle fell over in her hands.
After she washed and dried her hands she took a deep breath. She made a terrible mistake. How would she fix it.
Her teacher would find out that someone was snooping in his office and they would trace it all back to her. She couldn’t risk that. She was an honors student and a decorated girl scout. The last thing she needed was this situation tarnishing her reputation.
She took the tiny bottle to the sink and filled it with water. She knew that it was only a temporary fix, but she hoped there was enough serum in the bottle to mix with the water.
She began to laugh to herself after a few minutes. The serum didn’t work anyway. As she walked towards the door she reached for the knob and realized that she was in deep trouble.
The door was 10,000 times larger than it was before. She wiped at her eyes trying to wake herself from the dream she was in.
She pinched herself twice, hoping that it was all a dream. When she heard her father’s footsteps echoing through the halls she began to cry. “Manny”, he yelled calling for her.
“I’m right here Daddy”, she yelled, hoping that he heard her. Instead he walked right by the chemistry lab. She looked around the lab. Everything in the room looked like it had quadrupled in size.
That was when it hit her. The room wasn’t larger she was much smaller.
