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"Oh-oh, wait!"
"What are you doing?" Jay continued protesting in vain as he was lifted away from the freedom of his piano, and into view of the whiteboard. "Matt."
“Sit here a minute, man.”
He barely had a moment to register what was happening before being rolled like a die out of Matt’s grip, landing roughly on the middle wall shelf. The more-than-a-little exaggerated whine of pain he gave went unnoticed.
Catching sight of the immense drop beneath him, Jay scrambled as deep in as he could and reached for the nearest surface. The GoldenEye cartridge that’d been placed there by his own hand the other day now loomed overhead like a skyscraper. Resting against it, he wondered if he was small enough to go explore the inside like a big city.
"This is amazing," he heard Matt exclaim, twisting the cap off a marker. "Bird, this one is foolproof. Imagine: we get up there, and you're playing the piano, but no-one can see you. Everyone in the audience" — Matt threw out his arms, glancing frantically around — “‘where is that beautiful music coming from! The piano’s alive? Is it haunted?’”
Jay frowned. "No-one can see me?"
Matt turned to him. Or tried to, after taking a few seconds to find where he’d been tossed. "Well. Yeah, at first. But here’s the big part. We...” he trailed off, resuming his frenzied scribbling of notes and loose diagrams “… finish with the song that makes you back to normal… and then... you appear, out of nowhere.” He punctuated the final step with a stab of the marker. “They'll love it!"
Craning up at the whiteboard, something clicked in Jay's head. "Wait, we’re already in The Rivoli for this?"
"What’s that?"
"You said no-one would know I'm playing the piano," he made sure to repeat. "How do we have an audience when we don’t have a show?”
He watched Matt look vacantly from the board, to the marker, then back to the board again, as if it had written his dumbass idea by itself. “Fuck.” He sniffed, twirling it between his fingers. “Yeah.” Sweeping the eraser every direction, he started again from the top. "Alright, so it's actually two plans. Two plans, we need— "
"Thought it was foolproof.” Jay figured he’d been enough out of earshot to mutter aside, until his head whipped back around. Their eyes met, Matt fixing him with an inscrutable expression. Jay backed up instinctively against the cartridge as he approached the shelf and crouched. “… I’m just saying it’s— ”
“Dude, I could just” — he quickly snapped his teeth together — “like right now? And you’re gone. If you’re going to be a bad listener."
Jay busied himself inspecting the game’s label. "You wouldn't do that,” he said, the words not quite coming out as confidently as intended. He knew Matt was all talk, but there was something about the size of his mouth from this angle. The same mouth that he'd been trying to forget had been pressed against his entire body a few moments ago. It was making him uneasy.
"You think?” he challenged, raising his eyebrows. “Because it would not be hard."
"No, you wouldn't, because then I would die, Matt."
"You’d be fine," scoffed Matt, as if it were obvious. "It'd be like some Innerspace shit- or, uh, no!”
He pointed the marker at him, eyes lighting up. “Magic School Bus. Remember? Shrinking down and going on an adventure. Which, she- if that was real? The Frizz? How long do you think it would be before the kids squealed and blew up her whole operation? Right?"
Jay nodded half-heartedly, having more important priorities on his mind than this.
'Mom, Dad! We took a trip and experienced life from the point of view of bacterium today!' And one kid saying that, that's nothing, that's a weirdo — or, there's a serious drug problem to address," Matt went on, shrugging to the room, "but then enough of them corroborate it, you get the school board coming in. Checking out the bus: 'OK, you are demonstrably dangerous to be around as a- uh, as an authority figure. It's nothing short of a miracle that none of these kids have died.' But the thing is, they learned so many lessons that school doesn't teach. Like, how to be a patient friend?" he finished, pointedly.
"I've learned my lesson for today, actually."
"Oh?"
"Yeah. I can't trust you to put together a good plan."
"Hm.” Matt cocked his head, slowly running his tongue across his lips and pressing it to his cheek.
Jay held onto his frustration to push down the indescribable sensation rising in his chest. He swore the air around him was heating up. Probably Matt’s breath steaming up the place. It was only when he tried to swallow that he realised how dry his throat had become.
“Uh, OK. I was thinking, uh, ‘don't play songs from malevolent as fuck lookin’ books,’ he continued, “it's typical stranger danger stuff, but, if that's where you wanna go with this—"
"What do you mean!” shrieked Jay, gesturing along his body. "How was I s'posed to know this would happen! How would- how the hell would you think this was even possible? I just wanted to play a nice song! I didn’t think it looked malef — you know what, forget it.”
Realising he wasn’t getting anywhere reasoning with Matt, Jay scanned the shelf. All their junk was, what, twice his size now? There had to be something around here he could use. The cartridge, a VHS tape, the lamp wire – trailing down to the floor. He laced his fingers together; oh, an ingenious little escape plan.
"What?" He heard Matt shuffle forward. "Where are you going? Jay."
Eyes tight shut, Jay took a few experimental steps, then leaped at the wire and sailed down, swinging out until his toes touched the edge of the shelf below. He stopped to steady his legs, and through gritted teeth in a way he hoped sounded determined, replied, "I'm going to the piano myself."
He’d barely made it a centimetre across when a hand shot down in front of him. Turning on his heel, Jay found himself greeted by the same slab of flesh on the other side.
"Matt, knock it off!" he yelled, then in a smaller voice, added: “you know I don’t like this. Come on.”
“Yeah.” There was a boyish glee in Matt’s tone. A barely perceptible grunt in his throat, like he was holding back a laugh.
The situation made him feel a pang of guilt for all the bugs he'd spent many Summer days playing with in the yard. He should’ve guessed that showing it was getting under his skin would only encourage him. Maybe this was some kind of karmic punishment.
“God, you’re cute.” Matt was leering in close enough for Jay to see the slightest twitch in his pale eyelashes. Weird enough to see that he even had eyelashes. “Look at you!”
If he weren’t so preoccupied with getting back to normal, part of him had to admit that he was tempted to peer up from under his own, and ask exactly how cute. “I’m not—”
“Imagine when you wanna get something to eat, and you’re just working on the same human chip for the whole week. You could live on the crumbs from peanut butter on toast.”
Jay let his arms drop to his sides, exasperated.
“That’s what the house hippos do, in that - commercial— ”
“Yeah, yeah, I know,” he waved, cutting him off. His eyes darted between the hands surrounding him; Matt hadn’t moved them from their spot once. “Can I- Can...” Jay sighed, shifting the weight on his feet, calculating how to end this without enticing Matt into one of his stupid games. “Can you let me out, now.”
“Why?” A grin broke along his face. “You nervous?”
He hesitated. Then shrugged. “No. Just—”
“You’re nervous.” Jesus. Matt was teasing him. Jay noticed that the taunting squeal he’d been speaking in had dropped to a murmur, same bright smile still in place. “What’re you nervous for? What do you think I’m gonna do?”
“Nothing,” he insisted, thrusting his hands in his pockets. “I’m not thinking anything.”
“You’re being a scared little Birdie, eh.”
Jay buried his head, almost wanting to laugh. There was no way any of this could be happening right now. He felt like a cartoon character getting caught in the kitchen. Like he could whack Matt in the nose when he’s not paying attention and make a break for it as he hollers. At the same time, he couldn’t seem to unstick his feet from the ground. They really did need to clean more often in here.
He glanced back, and squinted up at what he saw above him.
“You’re drooling,” complained Jay.
Matt opened his mouth, then closed it again and blinked, eyebrows creasing together. “M’not.”
“Yeah, you are, I can see!” He directed his finger up in warning. “F-cking freak. Stop that.”
“Hey- OK, well.” Matt scrubbed at his face with the back of his wrist. “No, I’m thinking about- it’s only ‘cause trick or treating was kind of a bust, barely got any candy. So. Yeah. OK. I- You know what, I’m sorry. I... let myself lose sight of the Halloween spirit. I’m putting the kibosh on the plan for now. We’re wasting a beautiful night here. We got all these snacks, movies. It’s not a plan night. C’mon.” Matt pulled back one of his hands, turning the other to face palm up. “We’re gonna get you back to normal.”
Jay eyed him apprehensively. “You’re gonna take me to the piano?”
“I’m gonna take you to the piano,” he agreed. “Like I would ever eat you. You probably taste like – a capsule of coffee crisp.”
“There’s nothing wrong with that," mumbled Jay, clambering back into his cupped hand in relief.
“Nobody likes that shit.” Shaking his head, Matt shuddered out a quiet laugh and lowered him in front of the keys. “We’ve gotta keep that book, man. This is fucking crazy.”