"Okay, something is definitely wrong!" Jon realized as soon as he looked in the bathroom mirror. He saw less of his body as he expected, much of it covered by the sink and cabinet. He quickly brushed his teeth, deciding it would be useful to look for the stone before worrying about anything else.
He spent several minutes in his room looking, but to no avail. "I wonder if Karyn has noticed anything strange going on too..." Jon considered, and picked up his phone to call her.
"Jon! Aww, couldn't wait until you got to school to talk to me?" Karyn sounds really...peppy. "Hey Karyn, have you seen any weird changes recently? I might have used, uh," he looked around and continued in a hushed tone, "the stone, by accident."
"I'm not really sure what you mean, Jon. Is everything alright? Do you need me to come back home to check in on you?" Karyn asked, some concern in her voice.
"N-no! I can handle things on my own, thank you very much." Jon blinked. What was with the attitude? And what did Karyn mean by coming back home? But he was distracted by giggling over the phone.
"That sounds more like the Jon I know and love! By the way, sorry I didn't wake you up...but you looked so peaceful and adorable in bed I just didn't have it in me to disturb you..."
Jon felt his cheeks burning. "Have you tried sleeping in instead of being a creepy stalker who watches people sleep? And don't call me adorable..." Why was Karyn waking him up in the first place? And wait, he definitely woke up in the laundry room, not his own bed...what the hell was happening today? "Just forget what I said earlier, okay? I'll see you when I get to school."
"Okay! See you there, cutie!" Karyn replied, teasingly.
Jon groaned. "I'm NOT cute! Stop calling me- ugh." She hung up. He sat on the edge of the bed. So Karyn doesn't know about the stone? Where could it be... As Jon looked down at the ground, he realized his feet just barely managed to avoid touching the carpet. Am I getting even shorter? I want to know...wait! He remembered that, near Mikey's room, there were markings where his mom measured each of their heights over the years, etched into part of the wall. I should be able to see how much I lost.. It only took him a minute to get over there, but...
"W-what? No! That can't be right!" The markings for his two siblings seemed right, and when he looked at Zoe's lines, he could see the highest one was labelled at 5'4". His markings, however, stopped abruptly at 5'2". He put his back against the wall to check his height, and when he turned around, found that the measurement taken was correct...he was two inches shorter than his sister! But there was something even weirder- he saw a marking higher than anyone else's at 5'9"...but it had Karyn's name next to it!
Okay, calm down Jon. This is really weird, but nothing you can't handle! He knew he didn't have much time to eat breakfast, so he thought it would be better just to get his backpack and go. He looked down and still saw his jean shorts and his white T-shirt. "Maybe I should change, it's kind of embarassing...." ...but it IS cute...
