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so ridiculous. The outcome of an office party for the gang, Merry Christmas.
    Then I was down under that massive breast again. I laid the hat pin down and listened again. I listened for the exact sound of the heart. I determined it to be at a spot exactly below a small brown birthmark. Then I stood up. I picked up the hat pin with its purple glass end, beautiful in the lamplight. And I thought, will it work? I was 6 inches tall and I judged the hat pin to be half again longer than I.9 inches. The heart seemed closer than that.
    I lifted the pin and plunged it in. Just below the birthmark.
    Sarah rolled and convulsed. I held to the hat pin. She almost threw me to the floor — which by comparative size seemed a thousand feet or more and would have killed me. I hung on. Her lips formed an odd sound.
    Then she seemed to quiver all over like a woman freezing.
    I reached up and jammed the remaining 3 inches of the pin down into her chest until the beautiful purple glass head of the pin was up against her skin.
    Then Sarah was still. I listened.
    I heard the heart, one two, one two, one two, one two, one two, one …
    It stopped.
    And then with my little killer’s hands, I clutched and gripped the bedsheet and made my way to the floor. I was 6 inches tall and real and frightened and hungry. I found a hole in one of the bedroom screens which faced east and ran from ceiling to floor. I grabbed at the branch of a bush, climbed on, clambered along the branch to the inside of the bush. Nobody knew that Sarah was dead but I. But that had no realistic good. If I were to go on, I would have to have something to eat. But I couldn’t help wondering how my case would be evolved in a court of law? Was I guilty? I ripped off a leaf and tried to eat it. No good. Hardly. Then I saw the lady in the court to the south set out a plate of catfood for her cat. I crawled out of the bush and worked my way toward the catfood, watching for animals and movements. It tasted worse than anything I had ever eaten but I had no choice. I ate all the catfood I could — death tasted worse. Then I walked over to the bush and climbed back into it.
    There I was, 6 inches tall, the answer to The Population Explosion, hanging in a bush with a bellyful of catfood.
    There are details I don’t want to bore you with. Escapes from cats and dogs and rats. Feeling myself growing bit by bit. Watching them carry Sarah’s body out of there. Going in there and finding myself too small, still, to open the refrigerator door.
    The day the cat almost caught me as I ate at his bowl. I had to break away.
    I was then 8 or ten inches tall. I was growing. I even scared pigeons. When you scare pigeons you know that you are getting there. I simply ran down the street one day, hiding along the shadows of buildings and down beneath hedges and the like. I kept running and hiding until I got outside a supermarket and I hid under a newspaper stand just outside the entrance to the store. Then, as a big woman walked up and the electric door opened, I walked in behind her. One of the clerks at a checkstand looked up as I walked in behind the woman:
    â€œHey, what the hell’s that?”
    â€œWhat?” a customer asked him.
    â€œI thought I saw something,” said the clerk, “maybe not. I hope not.”
    I somehow sneaked back to the storeroom without being seen. I hid behind some cartons of baked beans. That night I came out and had a fine feed. Potato salad, pickles, ham on rye, potato chips and beer, plenty of beer. It became about the same routine. Each day, all day, I hid in the storeroom and at night I’d come out and have a party. But I was growing and hiding was becoming more difficult. I got to watching the manager put the money in the safe each night. He was the last to leave. I counted the pauses as he put the money away each night. It seemed to be — 7 right, 6 left, 4 right, 6 left, 3 right, open. I went over to the safe each night