This choice: There's a knock on the door. Andy DID notice! • Go Back... At first Andy thought the house rattling was due to a minor earthquake. Growing up in San Francisco, he had experienced a few of them during the thirteen years of his life; they weren't a regular occurrence by any means but hardly unheard of. But the rattling was too uneven and too focused on his house to be from plate movements. It almost sounded as if there was a large animal knocking things over in the room next door. Ryan's room.
A little nervous, Andy nevertheless stood up and walked out of his room and to the closed door of his younger brother's bedroom, knocking on it. "Ryan? Are you okay?"
"YEAH!" his brother practically seemed to yell back. "You won't believe what happened, Andy!"
Confused, Andy slowly opened the door, letting out a yelp of surprise when he saw the figure before him stretching from the floor to the ceiling. He was so caught off guard that it took him a few seconds to realize he was looking at his brother!
"R-Ryan?" he gulped. "What— how—?"
"I know!" Ryan beamed down at his formerly bigger brother. "Isn't it GREAT?!" His voice, still childish and giddy, was also significantly louder than before, echoing throughout the house. He looked down at Andy, his smile only getting wider. "Hey, I'm even bigger than YOU now!"
"Uh, yeah— you're quite a bit bigger," Andy slowly nodded as he tried to process what he was seeing. He had gone through a bit of his own growth spurt recently, going from a modest five-foot to a respectable 5'4" over the course of a year or so, though he had always secretly wished he could've grown a little more. But this was beyond anything he had ever heard of before! Ryan not only had more than doubled his height in a few minutes, he had done it without losing his stout, boyish proportions. He still looked like a ten-year-old boy— just one that was taller than any adult!
All of this brought forth so many questions. What could this mean? Was that dent in the ceiling caused by his head?! What would happen to Ryan at school the next day? Or to Andy, for that matter? And, perhaps most importantly, what would their mom think when she got home that evening?
While Andy was still racking his brain looking for answers, Ryan suddenly started to walk over to the mirror in the bedroom. Even his casual steps rattled the floors and windows, causing the closet door to pop open and more bits of plaster to rain down from the ceiling from the dent. As he reached the mirror, he giggled as he realized it only reflected his body from the stomach down. He nevertheless tried to flex before it more just for fun. "How strong do you think I am now?" he asked Andy as he posed. "Do you think I could, like, lift a car or something?"
"Uh, I— I don't know," Andy replied as he blew the hair out of his eyes. "How did this happen, anyways?"
Ryan turned around to face his brother, shrugging. "Beats me. I was just doing some squats, like I had said I was gonna. I did like ten or thirty or something, and suddenly: BOOM! My head bumps into the ceiling!"
"O-okay." That seemed to be missing some details, Andy thought, but it was probably the best he was going to get from the excitable young boy. "Did you do anything different today?"
"Nope," Ryan shook his head. "Just school and baseball practice."
"Did you take any medicine, or eat or drink anything unusual?"
Ryan thought for a moment. "Not really. No medicine, that's for sure. And I didn't eat anything out of the ordinary today. Frosted mini-wheats for breakfast, and taco salad from the cafeteria at lunch. Oh, and some milk during baseball practice."
"Milk?" Andy scrunched up his nose. "Where did you get that from?"
"From the snack cart at the park."
"Hmmm," Andy sat on Ryan's bed for a moment, lost in thought. He had been to a few of Ryan's practices and all of his games, and he didn't recall seeing any specific snack cart there, though it didn't sound like something that unusual.
"Hey, don't worry about it so much, Andy." Ryan took a step closer. "I know it things may be weird now that I'm the 'big brother'," he said, putting emphasis on the last two words. "But I promise things will— WHOA!"
He was stopped by the sound of wood splintering, as he had tried to sit down on the bed next to Andy. This turned out to be a mistake, as the wooden bed frame was not even close to being able to support his new weight, and quickly began to break. Both Andy and Ryan jumped to their feet, looking at the now-sagging bed. Ryan's grin turned sheepish as he saw what he had just accidentally done. "Whoops."
Andy shook his head, grinning. "You may be larger than me now," he said, "but I think you might need your actual 'big brother' to still help you out and look out for you, know what I'm saying?"
Ryan chuckled and wrapped his big, thick arms around Andy, pulling him towards him in a hug. "I guess it's good I have you then to help, huh, Andy?"
His face buried in his brother's stomach, Andy could only reply with a muffled "Mmmhmm".  indicates the next chapter needs to be written. |
| Members who added to this interactive story also contributed to these: |
<<-- Previous · Outline  · Recent Additions © Copyright 2025 citywalker (UN: citywalker at Writing.Com). All rights reserved.
citywalker has granted Writing.Com, its affiliates and syndicates non-exclusive rights to display this work within this interactive story. Poster accepts all responsibility, legal and otherwise, for the content uploaded, submitted to and posted on Writing.Com. |
View Portfolio
Visit Notebook
Send Gift Points
Awards
Badges
Send Email
Community Newsfeed
General Discussion
Sponsored Items
Book of Trinkets
Static Items
Books
Groups
Interactive Stories
Audio
Campfire Creatives
Community Notes
Crossword Puzzles
Documents
Folders
Images
In & Outs
Madlibs
Photo Albums
Polls
Product Reviews
Quizzes
Survey Forms
Web Pages
Word Searches
More by this author