Shrinking small

One day zebra was going for a walk when she saw some ants on the ground, and they were going into an ant hill. And zebra wondered what it would be like to look inside the ant hill. Then zebra kept walking and saw a big metal box with a sign outside it, which said it was a shrinking machine. 

The instructions said to stand in the box and press a button and the machine would shrink whoever was inside. And then when they want to become regular size again later, they just have to come back and press a smaller button near the ground. And they’ll change back to their regular size as how they were at the start. Zebra wanted to try it. 

Zebra stood in the machine and pressed the button. Then there was a bright flash of light, and zebra could feel herself vibrating and shaking, and then there was a pop sound and zebra was tiny, the same size of an ant. zebra laughed and stepped out of the shrinking machine. 

She walked over to the ant hill. The ants coming out of the ant hill said hello, and zebra asked if she could go inside for a tour and have a look. The ants said sure, and they brought zebra inside the ant hill. There were lots of tunnels and it was dark inside. 

But zebra had her backpack with her, and there was a flashlight in it, so she held her flashlight with her trunk and walked around inside the ant hill tunnels. There were lots of other ants walking back and forth. Most of the ants were bringing in crumbs of bread from outside.

And they were putting it inside the tunnels at the ends, in little corners of space. The ants gave zebra a crumb, and she put it in her pocket. Then zebra remembered that she was going to meet bunny next to the big rock, to go to the park together. Zebra said goodbye to the ants and walked back outside of the ant hill. 

When zebra reached the big rock, bunny was waiting there. Zebra said hello, and bunny heard her, but couldn’t see her, because bunny was looking up, not down. And zebra was still tiny, as small as the size of an ant. Then zebra climbed on top of the big rock, and told bunny to look close at the top of the rock. 

Bunny did that and finally saw tiny zebra. Bunny asked what happened that made her so small. And zebra described the shrinking machine. Bunny laughed and offered zebra to sit on his back to run over to the shrinking machine and change back to regular size. 

Tiny sized zebra said thanks and sat on bunny’s back. Bunny ran from the big rock to the shrinking machine. Then zebra got in the shrinking machine and pushed the button, and felt some vibrating and shaking. There was a bright flash of light, and she grew and became regular size again. 

Bunny smiled and said it was good to see zebra as her usual self again. Zebra smiled and said thank you. Then zebra remembered the bread crumb the ants gave her, and checked her pocket. The tiny crumb had also become bigger in the machine just now. And zebra broke the big crumb in half and shared it with bunny. Then the two of them ate the big breadcrumb, and walked to the park, slowly slowly slowly.