Stacey had a shrunken boy in a blue balloon. All the cool girls had one these days. It was a new voodoo spell that spread through the high schools and girl cliques like a combination of wildfire and flash flood, burning some, washing away others. Fun things could be done with the boys. You could inflate or deflate their personal space, tie the balloon to a string, bounce it around, or even pop it. That was not good for the boy, as his atoms would then scatter in the wind. Many girls tied the balloon to the foot of their bed and drove the boy crazy with the eyeful he might have had, if he could see clearly through the translucent rubber. Others teased the boy by blowing up the balloon to the maximum tension, then stopping. Miriam and Stephanie saw the fun that Stacey had and would probably get themselves a boy in a balloon soon, after finding the right boy. Beth looked up in the air, wondering what had become of her boy when the balloon accidentally slipped from her fingers and jetted out through the skylight.

Story #157