Right there on the height chart, it was officially confirmed - the fresh black mark had him at 4'18", six whole inches taller than he was before.
This...somehow didn't seem right to him. Was he wrong about how tall he was before?
Keith quickly checked the height chart again to see where his last mark had been, but it was just as he thought before: 4'0" inches, right there from when he was 8, all marked in black, way below the new height of 4'8". And from what he remembered, kids didn't normally grow eight inches in only two years, and he knew that he didn't feel any taller yesterday.
The only conclusion he could come to was that somehow, overnight, Keith had grown six inches just like that.
The sight of such an impossible occurrence had Keith completely floored - for a while, he was pretty sure he forgot how to blink, let alone how to breathe! He didn't just a growth spurt: he got, like, a SUPER growth spurt. A MEGA growth spurt! No wonder his clothes didn't fit - there was no way anything he had would fit him if he was a whole six inches taller!
Wait, so if none of his clothes here actually fit him now, then...
Before his mind could fully grasp the implications, his legs were already racing right out of his bedroom, his mouth blossoming into a radiant, eager smile as he headed straight to the room across, eagerly digging through the contents of his father's closet as he fished for hand-me-downs that the old man had worn from when he was in middle school...
~~~
He knew it! These fit perfectly!
The crispness of early dawn had long passed as Kieth admired himself in the bathroom mirror, taking stock of the way his dad's black-and-white blazer, the same one that had gotten his mom's eye all those years ago, fit him perfectly like a glove. He had already gone through most of dad's old middle school clothes, and it had been the same story there - the corduroy pants, the fedora, the red muffler, they all fit him perfectly!
And the cherry on top, that old blue speedo that dad used to wear all the time for his swim meets also now fit him nice and smug like a glove!
Yeah... he could see it now. His swim mates would be talking amongst themselves, wondering where he was, when suddenly, he'd come busting in, head held high and proud as he just about reached the ceiling. Everyone would be looking up at him with the jaws slammed onto the floors, eyes bursting out of their sockets as they witness just how tall he was now. They'd be swarming all over him, asking questions like "How'd you get so big so fast?" and "What's your secret?" and "Will you be the captain of the swim team!?" He'd be modest, of course, stating that he just woke up like this and that he was still the same Keith they knew and loved, but that would only get the others in even more of a fervor over him.
Yeah... he couldn't wait to show off the new him once the swim meet started. Speaking of, what time was it right now?
Idly, Keith looked over at the clock that had been prominently displayed on top of the bathroom mirror, the arms reading 2 pm on the dot.
Wait.
The swim meet was at 3 pm.
The meeting place was 2 hours away on foot.
HE WAS GOING TO BE LATE!
Without delay, Keith rushed out of the bathroom, not even bothering to take off any of the miscellaneous junk he had put on. He burst out of the front door and took the bicycle that was standing idle right beside it, putting the pedal to the medal as he tore through the sidewalk like his life depended on it.
This was how the neighborhood got to bear witness to a tall 10-year-old boy, dressed in nothing but a salt-and-pepper blazer and a blue speedo, rushing through the streets in a panic on a bike that was already starting to look too small for him.
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