Messy

"Are you listening, Alicia?"

The head of the marching order was definitely hearing her friend - how could she not? Maree had barely stopped talking since this ordeal had happened.

"Yes, yes, for the thousandth time, yes!" Snapped Alicia.

"Then why..." Maree continued. "Weren't we trying this plan two days ago?"

"He was around too often - it was the weekend! He's at school now."

Maree groaned. "No, don't try that. You were the one saying you could reason with your high school punk of a brother. Lucy, back me up!"

Lucy, who was bringing up the rear, had grown so tired of her two friend's bickering that she had claimed an entirely solitary area of the dollhouse they had been forced into. "Uh, maybe let's just focus on the plan?"

Alicia saw that as a win. "Yes! Thank you, Lucy."

The 'plan' was a series of creative solutions; involving lassoing the desk chair to create access to the drawers that would then serve as an anchor for a cable to climb down. It had taken the better part of the morning.

Maree heard the response and refused to yield any ground. "This plan was my plan two nights ago! Waiting around is how we ended up being given these ridiculous doll clothes to wear and sleeping in that toy house while your brother snored up a storm. I'm beginning to think that 'accident' with his science project wasn't an accident at all!"

The head of the college-educated pack rolled her eyes. "So, my brother, what? Figured out when we would all be at my parent's place, purposefully tripped over, and made us doll sized... why?"

Maree snickered ruefully. "You know he's always had a crush on Lucy..."

"Hey!" Piped the quieter girl from the back.

Alicia's face scrunched into a mess. "Would everyone just shut up? I know this is insane and all, I know my brother is way smarter than I realized, and I know he said the device just needs a bit more tinkering before its fixed, but I think he's stalling. He's always been a perfectionist."

Maree narrowed her gaze. "Well, I wish he'd apply that genius mind and perfectionism to our clothes and lodgings."

Alicia didn't bite, she couldn't argue about the poor state of their current arrangements. "I know where he hides it, and I reckon I can figure out how the device works. Let's just find it and we can get back to our regular size, okay?"

It was Lucy who pondered that. "What if we try to use it and it just makes things worse...?"

Maree was quick to answer. "It can't be much worse than wearing these itchy outfits and walking through the bedroom of a teenage boy. The stench is way worse down here...Eugh."

That brooked no argument from any of the shrunken women, as they ventured across seemingly gigantic terrain to what was hopefully their way out of this mess.