ADVENTURES IN MINIATURIZATION
By Minimizer
Chapter 11
After filming was done for the day, the director carefully carried the three girls back to the dollhouse and left them there. This time, the ride in his hand was much less frightening. Caitlin sat up on her knees for most of the trip, watching the walls and ceiling slide past with amazing speed, and realized near the end that she was not only unafraid, but actually enjoying herself.
While Tania and Randi did not yet appear to be having fun, they at least didn't cower in terror this time. Tania leaned back against a curled finger and closed her eyes, trying to relax, while Randi sat with her head in her hands, watching the walls go by with a depressed look of resignation on her face.
When he set them down, Randi was still the first to scamper off, and looked immensely relieved as he departed. "I'm never going to get used to that," she said, taking a few deep breaths to calm her nerves.
Caitlin thought about admitting she had enjoyed the ride, but didn't want to sound pretentious. "At least he's gentle about it," she replied instead. "You could tell he was doing his best to keep his hand smooth and level as he walked."
"Yeah, well, let's not talk about it any more," Tania said. "Let's eat. I'm starved."
"I just want to get out of this stupid costume," said Randi as they headed inside the house. "Maybe if we go to sleep right away tonight, we'll wake up tomorrow and find this was all a dream."
"If only," Caitlin agreed. However, much to her surprise, there was a small part of her that hoped otherwise. During the long day of filming, while they had walked around on giant desks and climbed all over enormous objects, Caitlin had found she'd adapted to the idea of being three inches tall. It was not a change that had come all at once, and she didn't even realize it until the ride back in the director's hand, but she had indeed adjusted. If nothing else, being shrunk was an experience like no other she'd had in her life, a fact which made it strangely exhilarating.
Being tiny wasn't really all that bad, she thought as she inspected the cabinets for something to eat. There was a strange feeling of freedom associated with being so small. During a couple of the scenes they had filmed, she and the others had hidden behind lamps and stacks of books as they crept secretly around the mad scientist's lab. Caitlin felt it would be easy, at her size, to move just about anywhere unseen. As she thought about it, a daring plan began to form in her mind, but for the moment it stayed in her subconscious.
"This sucks," Tania complained as she rummaged through the cabinets. "Nothing but canned or dehydrated stuff. Are we actually supposed to live on this?"
"Well, there's no stove or fridge," Caitlin reminded her. "I guess they didn't feel the need to shrink those, along with whatever generators they'd need for power."
"Well, it still sucks," groused Tania, but she selected a couple of items and began to pry them open with a manual can opener. "They could have just given us a full-sized piece of bread or something. One slice would probably feed all three of us for days."
"We'll have to ask them about that tomorrow," Caitlin said, picking out a couple of cans for herself and opening a bottle of water. For some reason, despite all the work they had done that day, she didn't seem all that hungry or thirsty.
As they sat down to eat, Randi came in, wearing a red one-piece bathing suit and carrying a towel. "I need to relax, so I'm going to check out the pool," she said, actually managing to sound cheerful for the first time that day. "Oh, while I was upstairs, I found these." She tossed Caitlin a large medicine bottle.
Caitlin examined the container, which was filled with wide, flat tablets. A handwritten label advertised them as "nutritional supplements," and suggested that they each take one in the morning. Caitlin shrugged and set the bottle on the counter. "I guess they're vitamins," she supposed. "We probably won't get enough nutrition in all this canned stuff."
"Whatever," Randi said, dismissing the whole thing as unimportant, and headed out to the pool.
Tania shook her head as Randi departed. "She seems to be getting on better. I thought she might be in real trouble there at first."
"Me too," Caitlin agreed. "She's going to take longer to adjust than I--er, we--did."
"I'm still mad at the way they tricked us into this," Tania admitted, "but being small is--well, I'll never get completely used to it, but now at least it doesn't seem so weird."
"Well, I'm kinda glad they made us jump right in," said Caitlin. "Do you think we'd have been any better off if we'd had to think about it for too long?"
Tania looked dismayed. "Wait a minute, are you saying you agree with what they did to us?"
"No, no, don't get me wrong. I can just understand it, that's all. Do you think we'd have agreed to this if they had shown us this itty bitty house and said we'd be living in it for the next couple of weeks?"
Tania sighed. "I guess you're right, but that doesn't excuse what they did. I've been thinking about the way we got ourselves into this all day long. Part of me still wants to blame myself."
"Don't worry," Caitlin reassured her, "it wasn't your fault. I don't know about Randi, but I'm not blaming you at all. It was all very well planned."
"That's what I'm getting at," Tania insisted. "What he said and how he said it, it was like that was scripted, just like the movie is. Did you notice how he's always carrying around those papers? I think he was reading off them."
"Well, I imagine he decided in advance what he wanted to say," Caitlin suggested. "If he said too much, we might have bolted."
"Yeah, but how did he plan it so perfectly? Have they done this sort of thing before?"
"Ahhh, you're just being paranoid."
"Maybe so. Maybe I am," Tania admitted. "But this whole movie is strange. Whoever heard of a set with only two people on staff, a director and a producer? No gaffers, no best boys, no grips. No one except a single other actor."
"Are you complaining?" Caitlin asked. "The less people who see us like this, the better! Besides, the sets are as small as we are. What good would more staff be?"
"None, I guess," Tania replied with a shrug. "It just seems really strange, that's all. There's more, too. The director--well, he doesn't do a lot of directing, does he? He tells us what the scene should be, and we do it. If he likes it, we go on, otherwise we do it again. All the directors I've ever seen, they always give out all kinds of acting advice. This guy doesn't. And he always gets the take within one or two tries. I've seen pictures where the average number of takes for a single scene was ten or twelve, and a single take is unheard of. They always seem to do at least two in case there's a problem with the film, except for really expensive shots with explosions and stuff."
"Well," Caitlin said with a shrug, "our scenes have been short, for the most part, and usually have three or four cameras running simultaneously. I'm sure they capture enough from every angle to get what they need. Besides, at our size they probably can't capture a lot of detail."
"Yeah, you're probably right," the brunette replied, but it was obvious she didn't believe it. "I guess I'm just being foolish."
Before the conversation could go on, they heard a splash come from outside the dollhouse. "Yipe!" they heard Randi yell from the distance. "Wow, that's cold!" This was followed by more splashes as she swam around the doll-sized pool.
"You know," Caitlin said, "I think she has the right idea. A swim would do us all a lot of good."
"I'm with you," Tania agreed, putting her suspicions out of her mind. Without another word, they headed upstairs to get changed.