The Regression Stone

The Bus Stop Surprise

"Come on Sone, you'll miss the bus!" Darcy shouted across the room to Sonia, who was still asleep in bed.

"Give me five more minutes" she groggily responded.

"I gave you ten, now get up before mom and dad notice."

Sonia rubbed the sleep from her eyes and groggily pulled off the cover and climbed out of bed. Staying up late to watch the meteor shower had left her more tired than usual.

Darcy was the early riser of the two, and watched out for her sister when she could. She applied her makeup and checked her outfit to make sure it was just right, and once happy looked over to her sister who was hastily throwing on clothes in an attempt to rush and get ready for school.

"See you downstairs!" Darcy teased her sister as she walked out the bedroom and down to grab some breakfast before catching the bus.

Sonia grabbed her phone and texted Cole,

"I slept in WAY too much, hope you're up!"

She waited briefly for a response, smiling, and when she heard nothing, placed her phone down and continued to get ready. She grabbed her bag, her phone, and rushed out of her bedroom to grab what was left of breakfast.

Their dad was sitting at the kitchen table drinking coffee and reading the newspaper, while their mom was just heading out the door to drive to work. Darcy was munching on some toast and looked over at her dad.

"Hey gramps, you know they have the news on your phone now right?" Darcy teased her dad.

"What? Sorry missy I'm a little hard of hearing in my old age" her dad responded by making his voice sound as old as possible.

"DID. YOU. KNOW. YOU. CAN. GET. NEWS. ON. YOUR. PHONE." she loudly enunciated for him as both burst out into laughter.

Sonia walked into the room and wondered what all the laughter was about,

"What did I miss?" she asked.

Darcy and her dad gave each other a knowing look and both started chuckling again. Sonia rolled her eyes and grabbed a piece of toast, buttering it before sitting down at the table to eat.

"Did you get to see the meteor shower last night, dad? It was amazing!" Sonia tried again.

"Sorry hun, I was fast asleep. If I stayed up any later I wouldn't be able to get up today. You take after me like that"

Sonia rolled her eyes again,

"Did Darcy tell you what we found?" she perked up. Darcy beamed a smile over to her dad, nodding in agreement with her sister. Their dad shook his head no and asked Sonia to share what they found.

"A piece of a meteor broke off and we saw it fall into the woods! Cole found it and thinks it has some sort of metal or something in it that gave it a cool color!"

"Cole? What were you doing out with him that late at night? I hope his parents were ok with that. That's a great find, he should hold on to that, that's a once in a lifetime find!" their dad remarked.

Darcy and Sonia gave a confused look at each other. Of course Cole would be with them, he's always hanging out with them.

Their dad placed his newspaper closed on the table, walked over to each of them and kissed them on the forehead,

"Gotta run, have fun at school today!" he smiled at them and walked to the door to leave for work.

The girls finished their breakfast and left the house, making their way to the bus stop.

When they got there they saw the usual crowd, but Cole was missing. Sonia looked around to see where he could be, but he wasn't anywhere to be found. She pulled out her phone and texted him,

"You're late for the bus Mr. It's Always Better to Be Early"

She looked up to her sister and commented on it,

"That's weird, Cole's never late for the bus. Do you think he slept in?"

Darcy shrugged her shoulders in response and pulled out her phone to text some friends. Sonia kept an eye on her phone but no response from Cole.

A minute later Sonia could see Cole in the distance walking to the bus, and she knew she would make fun of him for being late after making fun of her for so many years. As he got closer, Sonia noticed something looked different about him, she squinted to figure it out, and when she did she gasped in shock.

Cole looked like he had shrunk! He was slightly taller than the twins, but it looked now like they were taller than him.

Sonia tugged on Darcy's sweater and pointed over to Cole. It took her a moment to notice but she also had a shocked expression on her face. She grabbed Sonia's hand and started to walk toward Cole to figure out what happened.

Cole saw the girls walking toward him and was super embarrassed, he had shrunk overnight and this morning his parents thought that he was a high school freshman! He couldn't bear the thought of the girls thinking he was a younger kid, but as they approached he took a deep breath and was ready to face what came.

"Cole, what happened to you!" Darcy exclaimed.

"Wait, you noticed?" Cole questioned her, now having to look up to meet her eyes.

"How could I not, you're just a shrimp now!" she responded.

Cole looked hurt at that comment and started to get quiet.

"Oh shoot, I'm sorry, that just came out. People don't get younger like that, what happened!"

Cole nodded and looked back up at her friend,

"I have no clue! I woke up today and everything was bigger, and I look in the mirror and I'm younger! I tried to tell my parents but they thought I was crazy! To them I've always been a freshman, I was never a junior."

The girls looked at each other confused, trying to figure out what happened.

"So your parents don't think anything crazy's happened?" Sonia chimed in, the shock wearing off.

"No! And my room and everything changed overnight, it's like I was never older!"

"So then how do we know you got younger? And wait, your ROOM changed overnight?" Darcy pointed out.

"Yeah! My clothes were gone, these ones were there in its place, my posters were different, and it's CRAZY!" Cole began to talk faster.

Sonia remembered when Cole was this age, his voice higher than it used to be, but he was still cute for his age. She stopped herself from thinking about that, thinking it was too weird to be thinking about the cute younger Cole.

Darcy thought about it for a second and turned to the group of kids at the bus stop,

"Hey! Mandi! What grade's this guy in?"

Mandi gave Darcy a confused looked before shouting back,

"He's a freshman! Leave him alone!" then returning to her phone.

Darcy faced back to the two and thought about it for a moment.

"Ok so your parents have no clue, Mandi has no clue, everything changed, but the three of us are the only ones who remember."

Cole and Sonia nodded along.

"So Cole, you're going to spend your day as a freshman, try to see if anyone else notices anything different about you, or if they all think this is the same."

Darcy looked to her sister,

"Sone, do your thing. Google this and figure out what's going on, see if we're all hallucinating or something, I don't know, anything you can find."

Sonia nodded and began texting away. Cole sheepishly nodded as well, still not comfortable with how short he had become and how high his voice was.

The bus pulled up to the stop and everyone began to climb aboard. Sonia and Darcy went to the back of the bus, while Cole was called over to sit with another freshman. He awkwardly sat down and talked with the boy for the trip. Sonia and Darcy hit the internet, hoping to figure out what was going on.