A crowd began forming around Dawn as her parents managed to push their way to the front of the stands.
"Is she okay?" Roger called to Zoe.
"I think so!" Zoe yelled back. "I'm going to take her to the locker room!" At this she looked over to Sarah, who nodded.
Zoe flipped Dawn's skirt back down and took one leg under each arm, and Sarah lifted Dawn from the underarms, and the two cheerleaders carried her off the field.
Zoe tried not to think about how this task seemed to be slowly getting easier as her consignment seemed to be slowly losing weight.
But they got her to the girl's locker, and they sat her on a bench, and she could sit up on her own and speak clearly, and Coach Barry arrived only a few moments later to administer some basic first aid.
Back on the field, the crowd had dispersed back to their seats. Melissa had taken temporary command of the cheerleaders. And after ten minutes, Linda Gibson's phone vibrated.
Zoe: "Dawn is still a bit dazed, but she's doing okay. Coach excused me and Sarah, and Sarah's driving us home."
Mom: "Then we're leaving too. Meet you at home. Love you."
The girls, with their slight head start, arrived at the Gibson house before anyone else, and when they pulled Dawn out of the back seat her skirt immediately fell to the ground. The belt had notched itself to its smallest hole, but it was still too wide to stay on the diminutized girl's hips.
"I can't believe she's been wearing your old clothes all day," Sarah said. "They're so big on her!"
Zoe gave Sarah a look, as if to say 'she wasn't this small in the morning,' and Sarah somehow understood.
They brought the poor girl inside and upstairs, stripped her of every garment that did not fit, which left her only wearing her Rapunzel underpants, and laid her down in her bed
"Thank you, Zoe," Dawn said once she was safely bundled under a blanket.
The voice was of a higher pitch than Zoe had been expecting. Then she had an idea. "Hey, this is going to sound like a silly question, but I want to make sure nothing was knocked loose, alright?"
Dawn nodded.
"How old are you?"
Dawn smiled. "I'm ten."
The same age as Mikey. Zoe was afraid of that, but externally she smiled back to reassure the now-ten year-old. "Good girl, you're going to be fine."
