EPILOGUE: THE LAST CHAPTER

Malcolm rubbed the sleep out of his eyes as he looked around the strange room. Dewey was asleep next to him, and Reese was sleeping in the other double bed. The room appeared to be a standard hotel room, with some slight differences.

"Reese, you jerk. Wake up."

"What is it?" Reese said as he pulled the pillow over his head.

"You put a book in that slot, you moron."

"No, I didn't," Reese said as he pulled the pillow off and looked around. "What happened to you? You're smaller?"

"What?" Malcolm said, then stared at Reese. He got out of bed and walked to the mirror. "What happened? We're . . . Younger. Reese, I have that cut you gave me."

Reese looked at Malcolm's leg. "I remember that and I didn't give it to you. You fell on that glass."

"Only because you pushed me. Do you know what this means? I'm eleven."

Oh God. I'm going to have to go through puberty again.

"How did this happen?" Reese asked, and both boys stared at a now wide awake Dewey. "I just realized. He's only seven. I'm going to have so much fun beating him up."

"Hold it Reese. Dewey, what book did you use, and why are we all younger?"

"That wasn't supposed to happen. And it's a good book," Dewey said defensively, "where everybody has fun and nobody gets hurt."

"Wrong, Dewey," Reese said happily. "At least one person is going to get hurt."

As Reese grabbed Dewey, the door opened, and Lois walked in. "Good, you're up. Hurry up and get dressed for breakfast. And Reese, if you don't let go of Dewey right now, you'll spend the entire trip standing in the corner. We'll meet you downstairs. MOVE IT."

"Clothes?" Reese said, as the door closed.

"Suitcase," Malcolm pointed out.

"London," Dewey said gleefully as he looked out the window.

The boys dressed quickly and made their way to the hotel dining room. Breakfast was laid out as a buffet, for everyone to pick and choose, and Malcolm asked, "What can we have?"

"What do you mean?" Lois asked. "It's all free. Are you feeling okay?"

"Uh, yeah," Malcolm said, recovering quickly. "I thought you might want to punish us for threatening Dewey."

"I should but you didn't hit him yet. Now, hurry up and eat before it's all gone."

As the boys ran off, Hal looked up from his plate, and said, "you haven't punished them for anything the entire trip."

"It's vacation," Lois said, "I've got a list. I'll punish them when they get home."

*

"Free food and all you can eat," Reese said. "That was great. Where's Dewey? We're supposed to watch him."

"He ran off as soon as he could."

"Good. Now we don't have to try and lose him. There's the train station. Do you want to check it out?"

"Why, " Malcolm said eagerly. "We've only got a couple of hours and there's a lot of other stuff to check out."

"Because that train doesn't leave until 11:30 and this train leaves at 11:00," Reese said, holding up two train tickets.

"Where did you get those?"

"I found them," Reese said smugly. When Malcolm gave him a look, he said, "No, I really found them. This is my idea. We find the train and sell the tickets back to the people who lost them."

"What if they don't show up? Did you ever think of that?"

"Why wouldn't they show up?"

"How about because they lost their tickets?"

"I'm going to check it out anyway," Reese said as he crossed the street and entered the station. Malcolm shook his head and followed.

"Fine, at least tell me what track we're looking for."

"We're not looking for a track. We're looking for a platform."

Malcolm shook his head. "What platform are we looking for? Let me see one of those tickets." He looked at the ticket and threw it on the ground.

"What are you doing?" Reese yelled back, as he picked up the ticket

"It's obviously fake, Reese. Just throw it away." Malcolm looked at his older brother in disgust.

"No," Reese insisted, "These are real tickets. All we have to do is find the right platform."

Malcolm stopped his brother. "Reese, just look around you. There's Platform Nine. There's Platform Ten. There isn't enough room for a Platform Nine and 3/4."