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was a chubby baby of
somewhere between one year and two years of age (Rodney was not good at telling
the age of babies and toddlers since he didn’t spend much time around them).
The baby looked very much like Wayne had looked when he was very young, for
it had taken at least two years for Rodney to gain some weight and Wayne to
lose some weight and the two to look more like twins. This is the way it often
is with identical twins: one is born bigger than the other, and it takes a while
before they grow into their identical-ness.
The baby looked quite comfortable and casual sitting against
    the headboard. But he did not look entirely happy. “Will you get a load of
this? I’m a baby!” he said in a not-very-happy voice. “And you’re a baby too.
And I would have woken you up sooner but you were sleeping so peacefully. You
were sleeping like a baby.”
    Rodney stretched out his little arms and stretched out his little legs and
knew now for certain that he was a baby too.
“Has everybody in Pitcherville been turned into babies?” asked Rodney in his
own high and squeaky voice.
Baby Wayne shook his baby head. “I don’t think so. I heard Aunt Mildred a little
earlier singing in the bathroom. I’m pretty sure she wasn’t singing in a baby
voice.”
“But that doesn’t make any sense!” said Rodney. “Usually, when a bad thing happens
to the town, it happens to everybody equally.”
At just that moment the boys could hear the bathroom door open.
“Now we’ll find out!” said Wayne. “AUNT MILDRED! COME IN HERE!”
A moment later Aunt Mildred stepped into the room. She had a turban on her head
made out of a bath towel. There was something very different about her that
the boys could not put their finger on (besides the fact that she wore a towel
turban—something they never remembered her doing before).
“I wondered when you were going to wake up,” said Aunt Mildred cheerily. “You
were both sleeping so peacefully. You were sleeping just like babies.”
“Because we are babies. Look at us,” said Wayne. “And why aren’t you a baby?”
Aunt Mildred shrugged. She had a smile on her face that did not go away.
“Why are you smiling?” asked Wayne testily. “Are you enjoying the fact that
your great-nephews have been turned into babies?”
“I wasn’t enjoying that at all! I was merely taking momentary pleasure in the
fact that when I looked at myself in the mirror this morning, it seemed as if
I had grown at least ten years younger!”
Rodney nodded. It was making perfect sense to him now. “Aunt Mildred,” he said,
“how old would you say Wayne and I look right now?”
“Well, if I can remember back to when you actually were babies, I would
say you look as if you’re about eighteen months old.”
Rodney calculated aloud: “Wayne and I are around eighteen months old. Yesterday
Wayne and I were thirteen years old and two months. That means that we have
had a little over eleven-and-ahalf years chopped off our physical ages.”
“Oh don’t say ‘chopped,’ dear. Say ‘trimmed.’ It’s a much nicer word.” Aunt
Mildred could not help herself: she giggled. “And what an even more pleasant
surprise for me ! I’m not just ten years younger! I’m eleven-and-a-half
years younger! Let me see. Oh goodness! I was sixty-five and now I’m fifty-three.
And what’s more, I don’t look a day over forty-nine. Please note how soft and
supple my skin looks now!”
Aunt Mildred pinched her cheeks so hard that they turned red.
Wayne’s face now took on a pout. He looked like a baby who had just done a little
business in his diapers. “Don’t you even care that Rodney and I are now helpless
infants?”
“Of course I care, dear. I care very much. But I’m not sure how helpless you
are. Let’s see if you can walk so I won’t have to carry you around. But first,
let’s get you out of these giant-sized pajamas so you won’t