[GTSKate]

I beg forgiveness, JimmyDimples!  Here I was only just saying how much I've been enjoying your writing, and I go and miss an opportunity to tout it!

So, I wholeheartedly recommend Jimmy's work!  Classic…sheer classic!  ;D

-Kate

[GTSKate]

Alas, I can relate.  Took me a while to get back to it as well.  But even if you never post again, it's nice to have your "voice" back with us for a time!  :-*

Hmm.  I'm getting really behind…I should stop reading forums and get back to the MSWord doc…
heh.

-Kate

[GTSKate]

My goodness!  A giantess breach of etiquette!  I can't believe I haven't left you a note of thanks for continuing your story, Mr.G!  I was sure I had….hmpf.

Well, all the better that I can offer some praise for the conclusion!  Always fun to see the trouble that Wishbone restaurant causes across the Multiverse!  🙂

Oh, and a happy belated birthday, young fella!  😉 😀

-Kate

[GTSKate]

Happy anniversary!

I hope the sun shines brightly for such a warm and wonderful vacation!  😀

-Kate

[GTSKate]

See, just like I was saying earlier!  The BEST amazons are the ones that prove how much strength they have on the inside first.  🙂

Thank you for sharing such a satisfying story!

-Kate

[GTSKate]

Aw shucks <blush> Thanks Silent One!

You know, I remember reading YOUR stuff too…and you needn't live up to your name.  'Bout time we see some of your classics reappear too!  🙂

Meanwhile, I apologize for the delay, but I'm moving next weekend, so I'm trying to pack everything, work hard, and grab occasional story writing time!  I'd love to finish before I move, but I don't know how realistic that is.  :-

In the meantime, keep enjoying the story!  Thanks very much for all your comments!

-Kate

[GTSKate]

Excellent so far, Fonk!  Thanks for sharing this!

But remember, the BEST giantesses (or Amazons, for that matter) are the ones who are strong INSIDE, as well as out.  Come on, Vanessa!  Show us that you didn't get that ring by accident!

-Kate

[GTSKate]

I like the story, Marknew!  Although, I will confess a bit of disappointment that after such a great first chapter, this story suddenly became "Smallville" fiction in chapter 2.  I'll get over it though, I'm sure, since your protagonist (I don't dare say hero, yet) is such a gripping character!

Thanks for sharing the story with us!

-Kate

[GTSKate]

Next part:

Chapter 32

Nicole read through everything she could find on Jessie’s desk, and smiled that even after all she’d read, her theory was holding up. Nothing seemed to disprove what she had brainstormed was happening, but then again, nothing seemed to point to how it was happening, either. Still, knowing that she would be able to bounce her ideas off Dr. James now made the tension that Nicole had discovered she’d been holding inside herself ease just a bit. She hoped that Jessie wouldn’t be mad that she’d made notes on the scientist’s papers, but it was faster for her now-speedy hands to write it down than to take the extra few seconds to commit the thought-path to memory.

Now and then, even over the sounds of construction, Nicole could hear a shout of laughter from her brother. Frowning, knowing that sooner or later, some curious engineer would want to know what was producing laughter, she spoke to her brother.
“Scott, keep it down. I can hear you from Jessie’s office. And I could hear you even if I wasn’t your sister, get it? Remember, we’re trying to keep Mom under wraps.” She didn’t expect a response, since Scott was with their parents and that would be awkward trying to explain who he was talking to, let alone why. She was surprised when she heard him begin to talk.
“It’s okay, Nic….” But Nicole cut him off harshly. “Shut up! Mom will hear you since you’re so close to her! I’ll come back in a minute. Let me just leave Jessie a note.” The young girl found a blank sheet she could leave a note on, and scrawled out:
Jessie,
Finished the papers. Went back to the Auditorium to be
with family. Come get me when you’ve reviewed? Thanks!

Nicole figured the note would be vague enough if Jeff or anyone else saw it. Not enough to imply that she was actually helping Jessie go back through data. She left it on top of the now-neat stacks of files and ran down the hall to reunite with her family. Checking to make sure that none of the construction crew was seeing a kid wandering around the hallways, she ducked into the converted lecture hall.

Carolyn was playing a modified game of checkers with Scott and Jim, which had been producing all the giggles from her son. The pieces were scaled up to be easier for a woman of Carolyn’s size to handle, so the dinner-plate sized red and black discs were funny to Scott. He loved watching his Dad exaggerate the weight of one as he “jumped” one of Carolyn’s checkers.
“Sorry, Angel. That’s one more down for you. Oh, by the way, King us!” Scott beamed as his Dad walked across the “board” on the floor back to the boys’ side. He hoisted his son in the air, hefting him towards Carolyn, who frowned playfully then bent over to kiss her son on his head. “I can’t wait to see you actually MOVE that King. Perhaps the game will be mine yet!” Scott giggled more softly than he had been, waving to Nicole at the doorway as his mother doubled the weight of the hapless checker by plopping another black disc on top of it.

“Nicole! Come help your mother! The boys are teaming up against little-old me. We need some mother-daughter power to take ‘em down!” Carolyn waved her daughter over to her side of the board, where Nicole happily sank down and propped herself against her Mom’s knees. Carolyn rubbed her daughter’s head lovingly and said, “It’s our turn. What should we do, short stack?” Nicole smiled at the old nickname again, then pondered the board. The board was painted onto the floor, almost the size of a queen mattress, eight feet by eight feet. Curious, Nic picked up a red piece to find that it was nothing more than a thick plastic disc, about twelve inches in diameter. Contrary to her father’s pantomime, it wasn’t heavy, but it did have a bit of heft to it, probably so that Carolyn wouldn’t break it easily; perhaps two or three pounds.
She put the checker down, and pointed to a piece on the other side of the board. “That one. Move right.” Examining her daughter’s choice, Carolyn raised an eyebrow. “You sure, Nic? We’ll get jumped again…”
Nicole nodded firmly and looked back towards her mother. “Mm hmm.” She willed her mother to see the double jump she was setting up that she knew her father would fall for. Carolyn shrugged and stretched over, sliding the disc underneath her palm into place. As she moved, she saw the peril for her husband and son materialize. Either they would jump her and set up the move that would cost them two pieces, or in two more moves, Carolyn would have her own kinged piece. “Clever girl. I didn’t see it before. Good job, Nic!” Nicole smiled at the praise from her mother, but wondering why Scott wasn’t avoiding such a trap better. Checkers should have been easy for him. She aimed a raised eyebrow of her own at her brother, silently questioning him. While his parents were both studying the board, Scott gave a quick shrug at his sister, smiling enigmatically.

Nicole noted that the board was a little large, even for Carolyn, and spoke up. “It’s kinda fun that the board is too big even for you, Mom. I guess that’s REALLY a family-sized portion, huh?” The amazonian mother chuckled and replied, “Veronica’s team made it large enough that I wouldn’t outgrow it for a while. But if Jessie’s shields work, then maybe we’ll just have a neat souvenir of what could have been. Besides, it’s nice to have a game that we all have to throw ourselves into.” She winked and gave her daughter’s shoulder a pat as Jim sighed and resigned himself to the double jump. He refused to give up the more powerful kinged-piece so early. Picking up the checker, he literally hopped over Carolyn and Nicole’s piece to place his own in peril. Seizing the red checker he had just jumped, he triumphantly tossed the disc like a Frisbee back to his son. Scott clapped and caught the checker, putting it on a slightly larger pile than the one Carolyn had on the other side of the board. Nicole understood finally, that Scott didn’t care who won or lost, he just liked watching his parents try to top each other with their outrageous play with the pieces.

The game went back and forth, Scott and Nicole delighting at spending time as a family again. Carolyn stared down at the scene from her kneeling height, still towering over everyone even with her legs folded under her. She realized that even if Jessie’s shields worked, this was what would become the norm for her. Trying to adapt to raising her children at her unbelievable height might not be so hard, as long as Veronica could come up with little twists like checkers on a giant scale. Maybe all she really needed was a few Carolyn-sized adaptations. Things might not be so bad if she could just settle at one size and move forward from there. She was gazing at everyone so intently that she gave a bit of a start when Nicole slapped her knee playfully. “Mom! It’s our turn. Geez, way to space out. Come on, we’re going to win!”

Laughing, Carolyn bent to jump the last black checker on the board but dropped her red checker as it shrank in her hand. She stared at her hand guiltily, watching it expand slowly and her family get smaller. “Dammit. We were so close! Dammit, dammit, dammit!” Carolyn’s voice grew louder as her frustration matched her size. Jim winced sympathetically. “Carolyn, sweetheart, it’s okay. Those shields are going in as we speak. They’ll work. I just know it. We just have to wait a little longer.”
“I know. I know.” She tried to calm herself, still slowly getting larger. “It’s just a little harder when the end is in sight, Jim. I’m so tired of this cycle of adapting and changing. I want to start just adapting. God! I’m so sick of it! And I just keep getting bigger and bigger during each round! I can’t STAND it!” She gasped as the growth of her knees pushed Nicole over. “Nicole!” Carolyn frantically picked up her dazed daughter and held her in an embrace. “Oh my God, I’m so sorry Nic! Are you okay? Why didn’t you move?” Her heart was beating rapidly and Carolyn was trembling with fear. Her growth gave a last little push, then petered out. “Nicole! Sweetie, please! Are you hurt?”

Nicole, having been in the grip of her vision, blinked her eyes a few times as it left her. Realizing her mother was hugging her to her giant body, Nicole reached a hand up to pat Carolyn’s chest. “Relax Mom, I’m okay. I was just…surprised. I …felt your knees pushing against me, and I guess it just stunned me. I’m fine.” She hoped her mother would buy her excuse for her near-catatonic state. With a subconscious part of her mind though, Nicole put something together that she’d seen in the vision with what she’d felt as her mother enlarged. The tears that had come so quickly to Carolyn’s eyes when she thought she’d hurt her daughter dropped away from her cheeks. Carolyn refused to put Nicole back on her own two feet for a good five minutes as she made certain her daughter was unharmed. Scott came out of his own vision as the sight of his mother’s huge teardrops falling to the floor made him connect something he’d seen as well. He came over to Carolyn’s knees and hugged tight. “It’s not going to be long now.”

If anyone had asked, Carolyn wouldn’t have been able to tell why her son’s comforting phrase, which she assumed referred to the soon-to-be-completed shielding, didn’t comfort her at all.

Chapter 33

Jim made the calls to the automated attendance phone lines for Nicole and Scott’s schools that night. Just for comfort’s sake, the whole family camped out with Carolyn in the auditorium, and would spend the day with her tomorrow. Sleeping bags had been brought in for the kids, and Carolyn and Jim shared the giant-sized mattress bed as they had the night before. A speaker-phoned call to Dan and Alex gave them the update on Carolyn’s new size of twenty feet, seven inches. Alex had reacted better than she had a couple days ago. “Well, cleaning the gutters is going to be a lot easier. Can you come over next Tuesday?
Despite herself, Carolyn smiled at her best friend’s joke. “I don’t think so, Alex. Cleaning gutters is…beneath me.” Alex laughed. “That’s the spirit, pal!”
“Speaking of gutters, Alex,” Carolyn changed the subject. “nice escape from the picnic yesterday. My dear daughter informs me that you and your husband left me in my time of need to attend to carnal pleasures?”
The laughter continued on the other end of the phone. “I won’t go into detail, Car, but there’s something about seeing a woman with a rack the size of Texas like yours that makes my husband frisky. And since you had YOUR fun in the morning while I was attending YOUR children, it was only fair that I take advantage of the moment.” Carolyn was sure that Alex was winking from her side of the phone.
“True enough I suppose. It’s hard for you little women to hold onto your men while I’m around.” Carolyn tried to vamp, but broke down in giggles of her own. “Anyway, I do appreciate you keeping the house functioning while I’ve been here, Alex. We’ve depended on you and Dan a lot, and I want you to know we appreciate it.”
“I know you do, Car. You’re family. And you know I’d do anything for you, even if we weren’t. Dan and I are just looking forward to you coming home, one way or another. And we’ll be there to help. Anyhoo, have to go! I’ve got a program that’s got to be coded by tomorrow, and Dan’s got some paperwork to catch up on at the station. See you tomorrow, pal!” Carolyn nodded to Jim, who hung up the receiver, ending the call.
“I’m somehow always astounded when I think of Alex as a whiz-kid computer programmer.” Carolyn shook her head, smiling down at her husband. “All that time in college, and I would have sworn she got a degree in party planning. But then, I guess I always liked that about her too. Never a heavy moment; she was a good roommate.”

The kids were busy polishing off dinner at the table near the conversation area of the room. Nicole wiped her fingers and chipped in to her Mom’s musing. “She’s a good housemate too. But she can’t cook like you, Mom. Her French Toast is kinda flat.” Scott nodded his agreement while stuffing the second to the last piece of the pizza in his mouth. Jessie came in to find the domestic scene and Carolyn noted absently the lack of dark circles under her eyes for a change. Dr. James bent over Scott to steal the last piece of dinner and mussed his hair. Scott looked wistfully at the empty box, then back at Jessie. She actually winked at him with her head turned so that Carolyn and Jim couldn’t see. She whispered as softly as she could, “Nicole told me about the both of you, Scott. And I read your notes, Nicole. We definitely need to talk more. Help me find an excuse to go to my office?” Then turning back casually, she stuffed the last piece of pizza in her own mouth, mimicking Scott.

“How’s the installation coming along next door? Sounds rather quiet in there right now.” Carolyn inquired to Jessie. The doctor swallowed. “Just like me, the crew has taken a short dinner break. They’ll be back at it in a half hour. But things are going well, Carolyn. I’m really pleased with just the few tests we’ve run while calibrating the first couple sheets. I think they’ll be able to finish the whole conversion by tomorrow night, but it might be a little loud for you folks in here tonight.”
The giantess laughed. “That’s okay. Jim can sleep through anything. And the rest of us won’t hear a thing for his snoring.”
“Hey!” Jim looked offended until Carolyn rubbed his back with two enormous fingers. He still pouted slightly as he muttered, “I don’t snore.”
“Yes, dear.” Carolyn smiled and winked again as she bent over to give her now very tiny husband a kiss on top of his head. Jessie hesitated, and Carolyn could see that she wanted to say something. “Jessie? Was there something you needed?”
The doctor stared up at her enormous charge with a slightly lost look. “Needed? Er…no. Nothing I need.” Her voice trailed off, and Nicole jumped in.
“Does that mean you have time to show me the telescope Project:Nostradamus has been using? You said you could show it to me when you had a break.” Jessie broke into a grin.
“Oh, yes! Yes, that’s right. The telescope. Would that be okay, Carolyn? Could I borrow Nicole for a while? It’s dark enough out now that she could see a few stars.” Jessie turned to Scott. “You could come too, Scott, if you’d like. I’m sure there’s a few things you’d find interesting.” Scott shrugged and glanced over to Nicole. Jessie had the peculiar feeling that the two of them were still somehow communicating when Scott turned her down. He wandered over to his mother and climbed up onto her knee, while she sat Indian-style on the floor.
“Naw. I’d rather stay with Mom and Dad. Nicole’s the science geek.” He grinned to soften the statement and Carolyn bounced her knee gently.
“Now, now, sport. Geek isn’t a nice thing to call your sister.” Carolyn smiled at her daughter. “Go on, Nic. But don’t bother Jessie for too long. She’s had a long enough day already.”
“Oh it’s no trouble, Carolyn. It’s nice to have a fresh pair of eyes to look through. Maybe I’ll even get a bit of inspiration from it.” Jessie had such a bright look in her eyes for a change that Carolyn felt a bit of hope that maybe things would turn out okay at last.

[GTSKate]

Growth Encounter!  That was it!!  Thanks Alex G!

As always, my knight delivers the save!

By the by, I would be so terribly amiss if I didn't give proper recognition to Alex G for all the support he has always given me.  Even in the times that I had disappeared for years, there would occasionally be a kind email from Alex about a new story he'd written or a new collage he'd made, or any news from the community.  If everyone does not appreciate the effort he puts into stories or the ferocity with which he defends and supports his friends, I would be one very upset giantess!

Special snuggles to my favorite Knight!

Anyway, back to the documents folder to keep typing…

-Kate

[Author]

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