They had found the antitoxin. After over a year of constant shrinking, he was safe from infinite tinnyness. But that didn't make everything all better. He was still a mere 6 inches tall. Even his small 5 year old daughter was a giantess to him now. His world consisted of the living room, kitchen, and the doll house that his wife had bought for him. Not that she was really his wife anymore. They lived in completely different worlds now. At least she had their daughter, and any other man she chose to be with now.

Yes, the shrinking had finally stopped, but they said that because he was a grown man, their was little possibility that he would ever grow at all, never mind to his original size of over six feet. That amount of height seemed too far to comprehend. And he was alone in the world, despite the fact that he lived in the same house with his wife and daughter. To his wife, he was simply another child for her to take care of, and to his daughter, he wasn't her father, but merely some alive toy. That was made plain last week when she decided to pick him up, to "give him a ride." Oh, he knew that she was only trying to help, but she had clutched him so tight that his ribs had felt bruised. He never said anything though. He wanted to be able to be with his daughter, now that he knew that he had stopped shrinking.

Summer was ending soon. His daughter would start kindergarten. Louise desided that it was best to stay in the country. For Beth, she said, but he knew that she did it because he was well hidden here, especially once the summer was over, and all the city folk went home for the year.

So from his dollhouse he saw his only daughter go off to school for the first time, with her pink backpack and new dress and the ribbon in her hair. And he watched as if from another world. She came home and talked about her teacher and her friends. She loved her art teacher, "they painted today," she said.

A week later she came home from school, talking about how it was her turn to bring something in for show and tell. She wanted something amazing that no one else would have. Beth looked in my direction, but then went up the stairs to her room.

That night, after dinner, (I sat at a dollhouse table that was on top of the real kitchen table), Louise and I talked carefully of all the little things that we could think of. She was sewing a coat for me for the winter, as nothing but doll clothing would fit me now that I had shrunk so small. It was beginning to get tired, and yawned. Without saying anything, Louise carefully picked me up off the chair and took me to the front porch of my little house in the living room, "Good night, Scott," she whispered, so as to not hurt my ears, and carefully walked up the stairs to tuck Beth into bed.

I slept very soundly that night, had ever since the shrinking had stopped. I woke to find Beth's face looking through my bedroom window. "Good morning Daddy, she said. It was early. Usually Louise was the first person up in the morning cooking breakfast for everyone. "What do you want for breakfast?"

"I don't know," I yelled to be heard by my daughter, when I got to the window. "Where's your mother?"

"She went to the market to get some milk, do you want a piece of my cinnamon Bun?"

"Sure, sweetie." At that His daughters hand was seen coming from the other side of the house and, more gently than before, grabbed him and brought him to the kitchen, and tore a piece of the sweet pastry and gave it to him.

"Guess what Daddy, today I get to bring something in for show and tell, and guess what I want to bring in?" She looked at me with those eyes that made me melt with my love for my daughter.

"No, what do you want to bring to show and tell?" I asked, amusing her.

"You, I made you a special traveling house out of your old lunchbox, I punched holes in the top and everything." She pointed at his old lunch box that was sitting on the table next to me.

"Beth, you know I would do anything for you, but showing me to other people is dangerous, plus if your mother came home to find me gone, she would go out of her mind with worry, you wouldn't want to do that to your mother would you?"

She nodded, but tears were falling from her face in a great waterfall. "I guess," she answered with her head down, "But now I won't have anything to show the class today…" With that my daughter looked up with those begging puppy dog eyes that I had no defense for. She knew it, and I knew that she knew it.

"All right I'll go," her face lit up, "But first bring me a piece of paper and a small pencil, so I can write a note for your mother so that she won't worry." She jumped up and ran to the desk where I did most of my writing. It had the small pencils that I could handle and grabbed a small notebook, although to me it reached my shoulders.

I wrote a note saying that I was with Beth at school. I however wrote nothing about that I was Beth's show and tell project. I wanted so much to be a part of her life, even if only in this diminished capacity. The bus horn honked just as I finished the note. At that Beth screamed a, to me, ear numbing, "I'm coming," and put me rather jarringly in the same box that I had for years carried my lunch to work in. Now I could stand up and walk around in it.

I looked around as Beth bumped her way to the bus. She had covered the bottom and sides with cotton balls and tissue paper, and the little light there was, was let in by the air holes that she had punched into the top. If it hadn't been for the padding that my daughter had provided, I would have been mighty bruised by the time we even reached the bus. The bus ride was worse than most roller coaster rides I had been on growing up, and the lunch pail was stuffy with only the small holes in the top.

I waited hours in the pail, meanwhile hearing my daughters kindergarten teacher, and class. After what seemed like forever, I felt the lunch box lift suddenly and being carried to what was probably to the front of the classroom.

Then, as the lunch box with me in it was being put on what was probably a desk, I heard the voice of the teacher, "Now, Elizabeth, what do you have in there to show us today."

At that I realized what a mistake I had made. I was about to be shown to an adult woman, and who knows how many children, with only my 6-year-old daughter to protect me. "Well, Ms. White, do you remember the stories in the newspaper about the shrinking man? Well, he's my father, and he's right in my…"

At that moment I heard a crash as the classroom door swing open and the Lou's voice hammered out, to me anyway, "Mrs. White, excuse me, but I need to talk to my daughter for just a minute." At that I felt myself being quickly lifted and carried what I assumed was out of the room. I hung on for dear life to the only thing available to me, the cloth and cotton balls that Beth had provided as my cushioning. The movement continued until I heard the classroom door slam. A voice whispered as the top of the lunchbox opened up almost blinding me with the light from the hallway. "Scott, Scott honey are you alright?"

"I'm fine, I guess." I replied shouting to be heard. "Don't be too mad at Beth, she asked me if I wanted to go, and I didn't want to deny her the only thing I can give her now." The last part I said under my breath, unheard by the giantess that was my wife. "Can we go home now," I said, shouting again.

"Sure," she answered.

When we got back to the house I heard Louise tell Beth to go up to her room. The lunch pail that I was in was gently put down. I was blinded momentarily until my eyes got used to the light. I then saw a hand which I had grown accustomed to seeing instead of my wife. I had lately become simply another child for Louise. I wasn't her husband anymore I knew that. I had to let her get on with her life, it was as simple as that.

"Scott, why would you let her take you to school with her? Who knows what could have happened?" I shrugged my shoulders, and before I could say anything the phone rang. "Hello… oh, they want to see Scott this afternoon. No, no that won't be a problem. Sure we will be there at 1:30, sure, see you then." Louise went to the coubard to get out a box that had become very familiar to me. "Scott, the doctar said that he wanted to see you this afternoon, and wants to observe you overnight. Could you go pack an overnight bag?"

As usual without waiting for an answer, she picked me up and placed me at the front door of the doll house that had come to be my house lately. I went into my bedroom, and grabbed the old jewelry bag with was a suitcase for me. I packed quickly and was back out the front door. I went in an empty pill container which I rode in whenever going to the doctor's office. She simply handed the bottle to the doctor, nobody, not even the receptionist, knew about my visits. That is because we had a trouble with Journalists, and just people who wanted a view of the 'Amazing Shrinking Man.'

This time was no different I crawled in, tied myself down (a seatbelt if you will) and braced myself as I was put in my wife's purse. Into the car, to the office, it all went like clockwork. When the car stopped, I felt the purse being lifted gently, but then I felt like there was an earthquake. By the time it stopped, I had passed out from hitting my head so many times.

When I woke up, I found myself facedown, lying on some soft blue velvet. I tried to move. I wasn't restrained but I felt every muscle in my body screaming out. I was able to turn on my back and found myself looking up at an unfamiliar female face.