Timeout in Toyland

"Open your door, Pig! I need to talk to you." Kevin shouted and pounded on on Rose's bedroom door. The hall had been unnaturally quiet and calm since the siblings returned home, while each of them sequestered themselves in their own bedrooms.

Henry, a tall boy with wavy blonde hair and glasses, stood next to Kevin, watched his friend with worried eyes. And he held a panda teddy against his body, wearing gloves and being very careful not to let the bear touch his exposed skin.

Rose shouted back at her brother's audio intrusion from across the room and through the door. "What, jerk?"

"Come here!" Kevin pounded on the door once again, "I found one of your stupid toys."

Henry leaned in and whispered. "Are you sure about this? She's your sister, dude."

Kevin looked at his friend with disbelieving eyes and a gaping mouth. "Dude, after all the shit and rumors she keeps telling about us -- and making the entire school believe, you want to back out?" Kevin glanced down  and saw the panda bear inches from the skin on his arm, and he jumped back as if his friend was holding a poisonous snake. "Dude, watch where you put that thing!"

Rose's door opened with a rush of wind, "Goaway!" She shouted. Rose, though a few years younger than Kevin, stood almost as tall. And while their faces bore obvious similarities, Kevin's black hair and Rose's brown made them appear shockingly different.

"I found your stupid bear." Kevin said, nudging Henry. The other boy held the black and white teddy out for Rose to take. She looked at it, narrowed her eyes, then looked at Henry, and narrowed them again, and then stared at Kevin.

"That's not mine." She said. Her brother saw her brain starting to connect the strange puzzle pieces around her.

"Of course it's yours, you flesh eating disease. What, do you think it's mine? It's a shitty bear."

Henry rocked the bear back and forth, making it dance for Rose, a short and failed smile on his face.

"Dude. . . " Kevin said.

"What? It's cute." Henry replied. "I'm Rose's bear." He said in a dopey voice. Using his fingers, he made the little panda clap its paws. Rose felt Henry's dumb smile start to work her over, and she was not about to let Kevin see her smile.

"Ugh, you two really are gay for each other." She said to mash her smile back into place. Kevin turned to Rose, his face already tomato red, when she grabbed the teddy by its head and yanked it from Henry's gloved hands. "Now goaway!" She started to slam the door, but her body stopped in mid motion.

A long, terrible smile crept across Kevin's face. He pushed the door back open and stepped into his sister's terrible room of high school hearthrobs and bad TV show DVDs. She didn't stop him. Her eyes stared past him, past the hallway wall, out a thousand yards, her brown eyes large and empty.

She held onto the bear with a deathgrip, and her right hand and arm began to sprout shiny black fur. The right half of her t-shirt began sympathy changes, growing its own layer of short white fur with an extra furry fringe along its hem. It shifted down, the sleeves and top melting into Rose's skin, and became more like a dress. A furry white dress with a puffball black tail.

"What. Did. You. Do?" Rose asked through gritted teeth. Her eyes were trying to focus and bore holes through Kevin. But her brother just laughed.

"This is for a decade and a half of crap I've had to put up with." He said, starting to walk around his frozen sister.

He could have told her about the mystical book full of crazy spells that were actually real. He could have told her about testing the spells, and succeeding. He could have told her about their first attempt at this enchantment; about the ragdoll they had first picked out. But he thought it was best just to let her mind make up its own stories. It was more fun to watch Rose squirm.

Her fingers merged together into a single oversized mitten paw that came with three harmless felt claws. The furry fabric of her glove gave way to black nylon just above her elbow. The cool, stretchy fabric extended across the top of her chest, and began to change her other arm to match her new plushiness.

A similar dance was happening to Rose's legs, as the top of her jeans tightened and changed into nylon tights and long fuzzy black boots that had matching claws and oversized panda feet.

"I haven't figured out what I'm going to do to you. Mom and Dad are gone for the weekend, so I don't have to turn you back . . . well, I don't actually have to turn you back at all." Rose's eyes went wide and wild. "I guess I could play with you. Make you do whatever I wanted."

"So. So. Gay." Rose managed to get out.

"Or I could give you away to Goodwill!" Kevin shouted into her ear, and Rose smiled. Despite everything, it was good to know that she could still get under her brother's skin.

"Dude, really?" Henry asked, "Goodwill?" He turned to Rose. "This is temporary," he said. She gave the blonde a short smile.

"Henry, don't undermine me when I'm trying to scare my sister."

"You're. Too good. For him." She told Henry, falling a little into his blue eyes.

Rose started to feel the spell lifting. The transformation was ending and the final changes began to sweep over her face. She felt a furry collar tighten around her neck, and it felt like someone was painting on her face, leaving her skin a mask of soft nylon and cotton cloth, all white apart from the large black spots around her eyes. She felt tiny needle pokes stitching thread into her nose and down to her mouth; black thread to give her a cute panda nose. It tickled. Her already short hair turned white, and tufty round ears unfurled on the top of her head.

Rose looked down at her strange new body, and took one paw-hand and poked her plush belly. The stuffing inside both gave way. She looked up to her brother with still disbelieving plastic eyes, and then chucked the panda teddy that had done all this at him.

"Is that all you got! I'm just as big and just as . . ."  Her body shuddered and Kevin laughed. Rose braced herself as if the ground was shaking. It happened again, and this time when she looked at Kevin, he was taller than she was. Almost three feet taller. Her cotton mouth fell open as it happened a third time and this time took Rose all the way down so she stood eye to eye with her brother's disgusting, hairy, shin.

She looked all the way up Kevin's body standing over her, a complete giant to her doll self. Rose realized just moments too late that it would have been a very good idea to hide from such an angry giant. But still in shock, she didn't do anything until her brother's hand wrapped around her plush middle, squeezing her stuffing in a way that would have suffocated a human, but did no harm to a plush teddy.

"So what now, big brother? Are you gonna play with me?" She pretended that everything was fine. That she wasn't suddenly at every whim to her bother. That she wasn't a doll and he wasn't a giant. That she wasn't scared out of her mind. "I think I still have my old doll tea set! We could have . . ."

"Shut it, Rose. I own you now. You're just a pathetic doll. A little toy that I can do whatever I want to. I can play with you, hide you in the attic, give you away to Goodwill, or sell you to someone on the other side of the world." His words were harsh, bold, and terrifyingly true. Rose saw that in his eyes. "I was going to turn you back. I really was. But now that I'm holding you, I realize how much better it will be for everyone if you stay just the way you are."

The little doll kept had no choice but to keep her happy face on, but looked over to Henry, hoping that . . . Henry was gone. Sometime in the middle of her transformation, the blonde haired boy had slipped out of the room and neither she nor Kevin had noticed.

And then she looked back to her brother, and something in him had changed in the span of moments. He wasn't angry, or insane, or even happy. He just looked . . . blank. His hand let go of Rose and she fell what seemed like a mile to the ground. She saw Henry on her way down, standing behind Kevin. And he held a doll against Kevin's arm. The doll that they had first tested the spell on. The one they thought had failed.

The panda doll hit the ground and looked at her brother. And the first thing she noticed was that he didn't have gross, hairy legs anymore. He was wearing yellow and blue striped tights and his legs looked became a little more soft and a little more plush than they had been. His shoes morphed into pink ballet flats with cute bows on them, and his shorts exploded into a wild green skirt.

"Dude." He said, trying to turn his head to look at Henry. "What. The. Hell."

"You needed a time out. Seriously." Henry replied.

The changes kept coming, turning Kevin more and more into a doll. And, more embarrassingly, more into a girl. Kevin's skin turned to soft cotton, striped arm warmers wrapping around his lower arms, while his fingers merged into a doll mitten hand. His shirt tightened and turned yellow with short green sleeves, and he grew a respectable set of plush boobs to accentuate his girl dolliness. A fashionable scarf, striped blue and pink, wrapped around his neck, while his hair exploded into an adorable blue yarn with huge curls at the end.

Kevin's face softened, his mouth turning into a happy smile instead of a creepy, insane one, enhanced by cute pink lipstick. His chin tucked in just a bit, his eyes grew a little brighter and more colorful from the appearance of eye shadow. And then perfect pink circles blossomed on his cheeks. He was the spitting image of a rag doll.

The transformation stopped, and Kevin spun around almost like a ballerina to face his former friend. He swung his plush hand, and Henry let it connect.

"That's fair." He said, "But you seriously needed to be calmed down. She's your sister, dude. You can't just sell her or give her away."

Kevin said nothing, he was trying to look Henry eye to eye when his body shuddered. Rose started to clap her paw hands. "Shrink! Shrink! Shrink!" She chanted. Kevin's body shuddered again and he was half his normal height.

"Please don't leave me with her." Kevin said, moments before the third and final time his body shuddered. He turned around slowly, to look at his panda sister eye to eye. She had her paws up covering her mouth and the wild grin on her face.

"You're adorable." She said, drawing out the second word and making it so much worse for him. "I always wanted a sister instead of a big, dumb ape. I guess you'll do."