Kit Lamb’s Journal—I’m Shrinking

I’m nervous. I feel it everywhere in my body. Any part of me I think of, I feel it there. My waist. My stomach. Tingling. Hot. My elbows, my fingers, my neck. My joints don’t feel right. Somebody’s replaced my joints with water. There’s nothing holding me up, nothing holding me together.

And I’m shrinking.

I’m getting smaller. The more that happens, the less I can do.

Jolly, I’m so nervous I can’t speak. Mom and Dad aren’t yelling into the phone this time. This time they’re silent. Dad is sitting on the edge of their bed in his shirt and jeans. Looks like he’s lost something key to who he is. Mom is standing in the hall just outside their bedroom door. She doesn’t know where else to be.

Melanie…

Oh, I can’t even write it down. I don’t WANT TO. I want whatever is coming for me to just COME ALREADY, because I can’t stand the waiting and I can’t stand the cold freeze of shrinking. I’m so scared. I saw this woman online teaching people to replace the word “nervous” with “excited.” She said, “Now watch how amazing your life becomes!”

Jolly, help.

I’m so nervous it’s all I am.

Am I having an attack? Am I under attack? That’s what’s happening, isn’t it? I think this is as big as it can get, this feeling, but I don’t know how big it can get because it’s never gotten bigger than this before.

Am I going to die of fright? Am I slowly being scared to death?

Jolly?

Talk to me. You do the writing.

I’m shrinking.

When your parents go past fear and stand still in the halls, when they can’t even stand up off the bed they’re so scared, there’s no longer anybody to protect you.

Melanie had police at her house.

I do too.

Parents, police. Warnings. What more can we do? Distance? Yes, we need to leave Samhattan. Maybe that’s what Mom and Dad are thinking about right now. I bet they’re so EXCITED about it. I bet they’re so EXCITED about the fact that a killer is picking off their daughter’s friends. Two now. Two from the team.

It’s her. You know it. I know it. Mom and Dad might be knowing it as we speak, slowly, stupidly, knowing it. Remembering her name just like we all did when Natasha spoke it.

Oh God, it was like being reminded of something terrible in your past.

Did we all suppress her together? Is it possible for an entire city to suppress a memory, a story, a name?

I wonder if everybody’s as EXCITED about her as I am. I wonder if everyone in Samhattan is thinking about

DAPHNE

I’m so EXCITED, Jolly.

I’m shrinking and I’m so EXCITED because the smaller I get, the less I can do.

What can I do against someone so big?

Isn’t it EXCITING, Jolly? Isn’t it?