Elsewhere and earlier, a rescue shelter was about to close up for the night. There was only one employee signed on for the last shift of the day. When his wristwatch reported the change of the hour, he stretched and went back to say goodbye to the inmates. An orange striped cat meowed from his left.

“I know, I know,” he answered. “Mondays. Me too.”

To his surprise, the doorbell bell rang out from the lobby.

Emerging to see who was there, “Sorry sir, we’re about to close up.”

The oddly dressed old man looked disappointed. “Are you sure? I’ll only be a moment. I lost a pet yesterday and, well, wishful thinking says check here.”

Something about the earnestness in the old man’s voice touched the shelter man’s heart. “I’ll let you look, but only for as long as it takes me to shut down the computers and turn out the lights, alright?” He took his time shutting things down as the old man went to the back.

As he was about to shut the lights off, he heard the old man seem to mutter to himself. “Too powerful this one, far too powerful…” It struck him as odd but, well, sometimes the old can be a bit odd.

He called in, “Did you find your pet?”

“Unfortunately not, but… could you come look at this?”

“What is… wait, what?” The sight utterly shocked him. The old man was standing in front of one of the dog cages with a concerned frown. This was justified, of course, because inside the cage was, instead of a dog, a little sleeping girl in green pajamas. A human girl, that is, who bore no resemblance to any dog he’d ever seen.

“I think you should let her out,” the old man said, delicately.

“I… uh… yes, of course.”

Thus he delayed the closing of the shelter as he located the key to that cage and opened it up. The old man tapped the girl’s arm to wake her up.

She stretched to the extent that the cage allowed, “I had the weirdest dream…” She looked around, “You’re a stranger…” She frowned with confusion, “Where am I?”

“Not at home,” the old man answered. “Why don’t you come on out of there?”

“Okay.”

The old man turned to the employee, “I think you should call the police.”

“Right, of course,” he said, still rather flummoxed by the situation.

As he phoned the local police, he overheard bits of a hushed discussion between the other two. “Do you ever use your mother’s phone?” struck him as a strange question and he didn’t quite get the answer and intervening discussion. He hung up just as the old man was telling the girl something had been deleted.

“They say they’ll be here in a couple minutes,” he reported.

“Ah, that’s good. As it happens, I’d best be going now.”

“What? Can’t you wait for the police to arrive?”

“Hmm? Why would I?”

“Well, to tell your side of the story I suppose. You were the one who found her in the cage.”

“There’s not much to say about it, I found her and then I called you in.”

“Well, sure, but what am I supposed to say when they ask me what happened?”

“What do you think happened?”

“I… my best guess is she wandered in earlier and got herself stuck while playing in one of the cages.”

“Sounds reasonable. I’d say tell them that.”

“But-”

“And if they don’t believe you, you can show them the security cam footage.”

“Yes, but-”

A little voice tugged on his shirt from below, “excuse me mister, but where’s the bathroom?”

“Oh, it’s right over here,” he showed her. “Now as I was saying-” he began before he noticed the old man had left.

In time, the girl came out.

“Say, do you know the old man that was just here?”

“No,” the girl answered, “my granddad is bald.”

In time, the police arrived and found themselves just as baffled as he was.

“So… the security cam footage shows the cage occupied by a dog. Then this man… did you get his name? No? Well, he walks in front of the camera on this frame and when he moves out of the way, the cage is no longer occupied by a dog. This… doesn’t seem possible…?”

In the end, the shelter closed an hour behind schedule.

----------------------------------------

Meanwhile, Helen was scrolling through her direct messages. The outermost interface listed only names and groups: Becky, Sasha, Cyborg… She picked a three person group chat and typed into her phone.

⠀⠀⠀⠀Helen: I still think that was a bit much earlier

She went back and forth for a moment and then sent it. Responses came within a couple minutes.

⠀⠀⠀⠀Sasha: u still on that?

⠀⠀⠀⠀Sasha: it’s been hours

⠀⠀⠀⠀Sasha: he’s prob over it

⠀⠀⠀⠀Helen: but you saw how he took it

⠀⠀⠀⠀Sasha: boy got sad

⠀⠀⠀⠀Sasha: doesn’t mean you have to date hi

⠀⠀⠀⠀Sasha: *him

⠀⠀⠀⠀Helen: the insult tho

⠀⠀⠀⠀Sasha: wasn’t me

⠀⠀⠀⠀Sasha: @Becky

⠀⠀⠀⠀Becky: wat

⠀⠀⠀⠀Sasha: WHY DID YOU CALL THAT KID A MIDGET YESTERDAY YOU FUCKING BITCH

⠀⠀⠀⠀Becky: lol

⠀⠀⠀⠀Helen: he looked hurt

⠀⠀⠀⠀Helen: it seemed excessive

⠀⠀⠀⠀Becky: waa i hurt his wittle feewings

⠀⠀⠀⠀Sasha: lol

⠀⠀⠀⠀Becky: look, would you have gone out with him?

⠀⠀⠀⠀Helen: no but thats not the point

⠀⠀⠀⠀Becky: sure it is

⠀⠀⠀⠀Becky: I spoke up and now he won’t be bothering my friend

⠀⠀⠀⠀Helen: would it kill you to be a bit nicer about it though?

⠀⠀⠀⠀Becky: if you go on a date with him i’ll get his number and apologize

⠀⠀⠀⠀Sasha: you gotta send photo proof tho

⠀⠀⠀⠀Helen: you know that’s not fair

They went on like this for a few more minutes after that, but not much was accomplished by either side. Helen scrolled through her other friends and considered asking one of them about this. In the end, though, she figured it wasn’t that big of a deal and busied herself with something else.

----------------------------------------

Sam woke up the next day with his feet sticking out from under the covers. He was the type to roll around in bed, so this didn’t strike him as odd.

Sam went downstairs for breakfast. While he was assembling food, his father did a double take from behind a newspaper.

“Gonna join the basketball team this season?”

“Haven’t you already tried that one?”

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

This too didn’t strike him as odd.

Sam went back upstairs to change out of his pajamas. His first attempt at pants didn’t fit, nor did the second or third. Maybe they shrunk in the wash? He landed in a pair of shorts and a shirt he could swear used to be on the baggy side. The peculiarity of all this still managed to avoid his notice.

Rather, the first thing which struck him as truly odd came when he walked into school. Here was Sam, who had yesterday become utterly convinced of his own vertical challenge, looking over the heads of most of the student body. This was odd.

The gravity of the oddness, however, was not immediately obvious. Instead, Sam’s main reaction was discomfort at his head sticking out over the crowd. If he were to bump into Helen or her friends after what happened yesterday that would be… worth avoiding. Being more visible like this wouldn’t help with that.

His first class on Tuesday was world history with Mr. Harlan Stoner. The teacher spent a couple minutes on the syllabus before moving onto a parlor trick that he clearly found more interesting.

“Here’s how we’re gonna do introductions. We’re gonna go around the room. You’re gonna tell me your name, and I’ll tell you what historical figure you share your name with. Let’s start with you in the front corner. What’s your name?”

“Thomas Elliot, but people call me T.J.”

“Hmm… What's the J stand for?”

The kid sighed, “Jefferson, it’s my middle name.”

“Oh, starting off easy then?”

He went around the room like that, unpacking the previous owners of everyone’s names. In the majority of cases he fudged the premise a bit by only doing one of a person’s names. For instance, one kid called Sid turned out to have been shortening the name Siddhartha. The teacher then went on a bit about the first buddha, despite the fact that the kid’s last name was Smith instead of Gautama.

Someone else gave the name Sarah Lee. The teacher gave an account of America’s long history of Lees from Richard Henry to Robert E. Getting a bit carried away, he asked if she was related to any of them. She politely clarified that her father was Korean.

Eventually his eyes landed on

“I’m Sam.”

“Samuel Adams?”

“No, just Sam. Oh, uh, and my last name is Saxon.”

“Ah, the Saxons! You share a name with one of the German groups who migrated into Britain as Rome was collapsing. Is anyone here in geometry this semester? No? Well the other major group was the Angles, which is where we get the word English from. Angl-ish, get it?”

After he got through the last student, he pointed to his own name on the board and made a big show of drawing a blank. He asked the room if anyone knew someone knew any historical figures with his name. The room replied with shaking heads and shrugs.

“Hmm… I think you’re right about that. If y’all ever think about doing drugs remember: there are no Stoners in history.”

The bell rang right after he finished.

Sam’s next class was swimming. A few months ago, when Sam’s father had found out swimming class was required for graduation, he’d suggested that Sam join the swim team. Obviously.

The first day was not spent in the water. Rather, the students were gathered in the gymnasium, assigned padlocks, and informed that they’d need swimsuits and towels. During this process, he encountered a friend on crutches.

“Oh, hey Cyborg.”

The fact that she had that nickname was yet another thing which didn’t strike Sam as odd. She was human, obviously, and she hadn’t had leg braces since elementary school. Sometimes names just stick around.

“Yo. Wanna see something neat?”

She showed him her key and made a show of closing the lock. Then she pulled out an odd stick with some staples in it and jammed it into the lock. One turn later it was open.

“Ta da!”

“Huh. How’s that work?”

“Nothing too special. Look, I just made the teeth on here match the key.”

The genders were separated as the students went to put the locks on their lockers. On his way back, the teacher pulled Sam aside.

“Hey Sam,” the teacher began, having learned his name about a half hour ago, “you free today after school?”

This struck Sam as an odd thing for a teacher to say to a student.

“Uh… I guess?”

“Basketball practice is here after school. If you train up you could probably get on the team.”

“I…” it took him a moment to think of an exit strategy. “I take the bus home.”

“No worries, there’s another bus for extracurriculars. Last class in the gym is over at three so just show up and the balls will be yours.”

“Uh…” Sam said whatever he needed to to exit, which in this case happened to be “Sure.” Unfortunately this teacher was a force to be reckoned with.

“Oh, Sam! I see you’ve got your phone there.”

“...yeah?”

“You’ve got a calendar app right? Why don’t you put a note in there so you don’t forget to come to practice.”

“...like right now?”

“No time like the present,” the teacher said, beaming.

Thus Sam remained a hostage for the minute it took to enter “basketball practice” into a 3pm slot in his phone.

As he finally tore himself away, he heard the teacher call out behind him, “Tell ‘em Jerry sent ya!”

Luckily the class he was arriving late to was lunch. He grabbed a salad and located his friends at a distance.

Ben had his arms out, gesturing emphatically. “...and it was this big, and slimy!”

Cyborg sighed from behind her laptop. “This is unironically a big fish story, you know that?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You mean to tell me you caught a catfish,” she said, putting her arms out mockingly, “that was this big?”

“What? No, this was from a video I saw.”

Her face landed somewhere between disgust and offense. “Then what was the point of making a whole story out of it?”

“I was building to the fact that catfish hand fishing is called noodling! Noodling, woman! Word big funny! But then you’re all ‘big fish story’ and I’m just trying to say- oh hi Sam.”

“Hey,” answered Sam.

“So I’m just trying to say I saw a video of a guy NOODLING and he caught a big fish with his hands and it was neat.”

“Okay, okay, I get it.”

“I’m sure you do, now. Anyway, how YOU doing, Sam?”

“Hmm?” His mouth contained lettuce.

“Well, you had that thing with Helen yesterday.”

“Oh man, don’t tell me he’s still on that?”

“Shush, you! Sam, did you have a class with her?”

“...‘s.”

“What?”

“I said yes. We had a class.”

Ben waited a second before pressing on, clearly expecting Sam to elaborate.

“...Did you ask her out?”

“I… uh… well, not in class.”

Another pause was spent before Sam was made to explain what had happened. After he gave his rejection’s rationale, the other two gave him a look like he’d just said something crazy.

“What? That’s what they said.”

“Yeah, but… short?” Cyborg said. “That doesn’t make… Well, firstly that doesn’t sound like her.”

“Well, like I said it was one of those other two.”

“Sure, but… it still doesn’t…”

Ben frowned. “Hey, could you stand up real quick?”

When they were both up, Sam found himself looking down.

“...are you wearing stilts or something?”

“No… but this is odd…”

Finally the realization broke its way into Sam’s skull. He had to sit down to process the fact that something utterly impossible had somehow happened.

“Ben. Do you remember that thing you mentioned the other day?”

“I don’t,” Cyborg said, “wanna share?”

He pulled out his phone.

She grabbed it and started poking through. “Name’s cute, decent pun.” A silence emerged as the realization spread and her eyes widened. She looked up at him, “You’re joking.”

Ben still hadn’t caught it. “What?”

“The other day you told me about that app that the weird guy was looking at?”

“Yeah?” Boom. “Wait, you’re not telling me…”

Sam shrugged. “I thought it would be worth a shot.”

Cyborg noticed “This thing’s got some kinda 3D model of you?”

“Oh yeah, I forgot about that.”

Ben pulled out his phone. “What the hell, I can’t find it. I guess it got removed?”

“Well yeah,” Sam chuckled, feeling a bit like he was going crazy. “Of course they would remove it.”

Cyborg gave back the phone. “So you’re telling me that you just dragged a slider in some app and it put a few inches in you?”

“I guess so, yeah. Wait, don’t phrase it like that.”

“Could you try another one just to test it? Like, try resetting your height.”

He pulled a slider, pressed “update” and waited a moment. Nothing happened.

“...did you do it?”

“Yeah.”

“Huh. That’s closer to what I was expecting.”

The trio poked around the app for a bit longer after that. They tested the search feature a bit and were impressed that it seemed to have a slider for almost every trait they could come up with. Almost, because Cyborg tried and failed to find sliders for latitude and longitude. After that they screwed around with the Sam-model, ate their lunches, and a bell sent them to their next classes.

----------------------------------------

At the end of the school day, Sam’s phone buzzed in his pocket. When he pulled it out, it dutifully reminded him that he had basketball practice in 10 minutes.

I could just not, he thought.

However, the blur of the intervening classes hadn’t fully dulled the surrealism of his situation. He giggled in mild terror when he realized why everyone was suddenly on his ass about basketball. Then he began to seriously consider the sport as an option. His mind was flooded by the image of himself magically transformed into a star player scoring a three pointer on Helen’s heart.

Basketball is still kinda cool, right? Ah, what the hell.

So he made his way down to the gym. As he got closer, it became more obvious that the teacher hadn’t told him who to talk to or where exactly in the gym to look. When he got to the open door, he stopped walking. With a side to side scuttling motion he tried to get a look at what was going on in there.

An older woman’s voice came from behind him. “You here for basketball?”

He jumped, spun, and then tried to act as if he had not just jumped and spun.

“Oh, uh, yeah. Jerry sent me.”

Despite the fact that she, as sports faculty, almost certainly knew what he meant, she showed no signs of it.

“Okay, well we’ve got balls in the closet over there. You ever played before?”

“I- a bit, but not like a lot.”

“That’s okay, there’s a few weeks until tryouts. Let’s see what you can do.”

She had him dribble a bit.

“No, see, when you slap it like that it spins and you don’t want that.”

She had him do some throws.

“No, I keep telling you, the net isn’t that high. Just aim lo- Yeah, more like that.”

They passed the ball back and forth a bit.

“Knowing when to rely on other players is important in any team sport, especially when you… Well, just remember that it’s very important.”

Eventually she left him to go check on the other students.

“Just keep at it. Nobody comes out the womb shooting hoops.”

He took that parting line a bit harder than she meant it: Did she just compare me to a baby?

The particular hoop she left him at happened to be sandwiched between a couple other active students. To his left was what seemed like a prodigy, shooting hoops while constantly changing position. To his right was a giant standing under the net, giving his ball small tosses through the hoop and then catching it as it came back down. Seeing these two in action brought Sam to a conclusion.

He grabbed his bag and left. He somewhat expected a “leaving so soon?” type comment, but the coach didn’t seem to notice when he left. That isn’t to say he gave up, though.

I’ll need practice, but that’s not the only way to get better.