Such a Small Issue

Today began like any other day for Anna. She crawled out of her short bed. Then she dropped to the floor without making a sound. She walked the small distance from her bed to her bathroom door: a squat little thing with plenty of height to accommodate her. She picked up her tiny toothbrush, then she turned the small handles and the little faucet sprayed water. As she brushed her little teeth, she grew frustrated. It was the only type of growing she had been doing lately and this fact of irony did not escape her. She knew she was surrounded by diminutive versions of things because if they were the size her mother or her friends used, they would be out of her reach. But being constantly surrounded by small objects didn't make it any easier to forget how small you were yourself.

She returned to her room and stared out the window. Magnificent apple trees grew everywhere within her view. She took it as an insult that when they were planted they were smaller than she was and now, six years later, they are much, much bigger. It only made matters worse that the animals ate all the low-hanging apples, so there were none left within her reach. She shut the window and stormed out of her room.

Her mother was the unfortunate recipient of this morning's anger. She was most mornings. She had laid out a lovely breakfast that, as Anna was quick to inform her, included milk from the cows that were taller than she was, cereal from the grain that was taller than she was, and apples from those stupid trees. This morning, instead of enduring another one of her mother's talks, Anna decided to leave early for school. She apologized for leaving so quickly, then said thank you for breakfast and that she would be home later. She honestly did enjoy her mother's breakfasts but she had bigger issues on her mind.

Anna walked slowly along the dirt road. Leaving so early, she had plenty of time to get to school before it started. On her way she passed the houses of other families in her village; sprawling things with no business being so large. She also passed the forest that separated the houses from the rest of village. She stopped, as she always did, to sit beside a tree near the road. This tree was special to her. It was the smallest one in the forest. It grew too close to the road, and any time it grew too big, one of the passing caravans might snap its new growth or one of the farmer's would trim it back. She often asked the tree what had she done that was so terrible, that she deserved to be trimmed back as well. Ten years Anna had been going to school now, and the tree had not answered her questions, not even once. However, she couldn't hold a grudge against something that shared her fate. She wished that the two of them would eventually grow big together. She gave the tree a hug before she got back on her way.

The next area before the school was the village's farmlands. It was almost summer, and the harvests were bountiful; the hay stalks rose well over Anna's head. To keep from letting this bother her as well, she pointed her head down and picked up her pace. Walking like that, it was no surprise that she walked straight into Sam. Three years her senior, Sam had finished school the previous year and now worked full time on his family's farm. Already a tall, handsome man, the extra farm work helped to build out his frame and he was now considered the most eligible bachelor in their whole village. And for some reason, he always had his eye on Anna.
"Ah, sorry Sam." Anna eeked out.
"No worries, Anna. A little thing like you couldn't hurt me." He said jokingly. He smiled at her, the smile that drove other girls wild.
"That's not a very nice thing to say..." she drifted off. She liked Sam, really liked him, but  even that didn't excuse him from being polite. It was common knowledge that Anna's height was a sore issue for her. Anna made it her business to let people know; someone, someday must have a solution for her.
"You know I didn't mean it like that, I was just teasing you. What does it even matter if you're small? You just need someone bigger to complement, and compliment, you." The twinkle in Sam's eye would have been pretty obvious to anyone but preoccupied Anna.
"Well, I still didn't like it, however you might've meant it. I have to get going, I'll be late for school." Anna walked past a very confused Sam, who looked like a puppy who had just been kicked.

The old school building was just ahead of her. One of the biggest in town, it had been created out of red clay bricks before Anna had been born. She forgave it its size, since it was meant to house a hundred children and therefore had a purpose for being so big, instead of solely existing to stick out its tongue at Anna, as so many other things in life did. As she approached the door, she found a chalkboard propped up against it. In very neat writing someone had written that school was cancelled for the day, that the children should go out and enjoy all the wonderful possibilities of summer instead of being inside. The one thing Anna was looking forward to today was cancelled. She turned herself around and began the long walk back home.

She didn't run into Sam on her way back. It was just as well, since all she wanted to do was sleep and hope that tomorrow she would be taller. Sleep was one of her favourite activities. She had read in a book that lying down for so long would make her taller. If it didn't, she could at least dream and pretend she was taller. She got to her house and opened the door, but no one was home. She had been gone long enough that her mother had probably already gone to work. That didn't bother Anna as it made it very easy for her to go back to bed fully dressed, without any interruption.

When she woke up, it was evening. She had thankfully slept the day away but was now too awake to sleep again. She laid in bed, restless, until a scratching noise came from her window. She went to the window but saw nothing in the darkness of the night until two bright yellow eyes appeared in front of her face. She fell backwards onto her floor in surprise while the fluffy black cat walked its way casually along the window ledge. When she stood up, it had disappeared. She opened her window and found it a few feet away, rolling in the grass. The cat wasn't one she recognized. She had no other plans that night besides staying awake and waiting for dawn, so she jumped out her window and took after it.

The cat seemed to know it was being followed. Every time Anna came close it, it bounded off again down the road. It stopped when it had reached a very familiar spot to Anna: the littlest tree in the forest. The cat mewed as it waited for Anna to catch up then dashed into the forest. She dashed after it. She followed it around trees and through bushes, occasionally losing it, before catching sight of its eyes again. It was hard to be sure in the darkness but it seemed his eyes were bigger every time she saw them. The next time the cat stopped, it perched in the middle of a clearing. Anna's jaw dropped. It was a beautiful clearing, but what really surprised her was the size of the cat. Over their journey it had grown and was now twice as big as a cow. It turned around on the spot, then jumped over a tree into the forest again. Anna knew she had to keep following it; if this cat could somehow grow bigger, then she could as well! She tried her best to keep up but the cat's leaps outpaced her easily. She had almost given up when the cat sauntered back to her, looking proud of itself. "Stupid, snarky cat." she whispered under her breath. She took it back as the cat laid on the ground and motioned for her to get on his back. She climbed on and quickly fell asleep from exhaustion.

This time when she woke, she found herself facing the biggest wall she had ever seen. It blocked out the sky, the moon, and all the stars. There was a giant hole in the wall, big enough for the cat to slink through, and slink it did. When it emerged on the other side, Anna realized she was in a gigantic house. The cat scurried up a set of stairs, into a bedroom, then jumped onto a bed where a girl was crying. The girl's fingers stroked the cat, and they brushed by Anna like massive trees. A woman entered the room and sat down beside the girl. Anna crouched down into the cat's fur but she was so relatively small that neither of them would've been able to see her anyways.
"What's wrong honey?" her mother asked.
"I just want to be bigger, I hate being so small!" the girl replied. Anna couldn't believe what she was hearing; this girl beside her, who held a cat as big as a house, thought she was small! What did that make Anna?
"You're plenty big," her mother said. "You're bigger than the bed, bigger than the cat, you're nearly as big as me. You have a loving mother, wonderful friends, and a nice life. Why does your size bother you?" Anna listened intently. The mother had a point. While the girl thought, Anna reflected on her own life. Her mother certainly loved her, to make her breakfast each morning and put up with her incessant desire to be bigger. She had some good friends, and if she really thought about it, quite a wonderful possible-boyfriend in Sam. And she enjoyed going to school. Overall, a fairly nice life. The words that hung in Anna's head popped out of the girl's mouth.
"Thanks Mom. You always know what to say to make me feel better. I guess I should be happy with what I have, huh?"
"That's the ticket dear." she said and bent down to kiss her daughter. "And now that you're feeling so good, you can come downstairs and help me make dinner!" She gave her daughter a comforting smile and left the room. The girl reached down and pet her cat again.
"Hey Mister Whiskers! You think I'm pretty silly for caring so much about my height too, don't you!" the girl said, as well as a number of other cutesy things that the proud Mister Whiskers ignored due to his love of being pet. A soft, constant purr emanated from his body, until he slept so peacefully that Anna joined him.

Once more, Anna woke up. She jumped out of her bed and landed on the floor. She skipped to her bathroom and hummed a little song as she brushed her teeth. She looked at everything around her and decided it was the exact right size it needed to be. She left her room to go for breakfast and cheerily said good morning to her mother. She kissed her on the cheek and grabbed a plate of the most delicious looking breakfast she'd seen in years.
"You sure look happy this morning. What's come over you?"
"I figured out, my problems aren't so big after all." Anna looked at her mother until neither of them could stand it any longer. Anna cracked first and smiled, sending them both into a fit of laughter. They were interrupted by a knock on the door. Anna's mother opened it and let Sam inside. This time he looked like a puppy who hasn't been kicked yet, but likely will be.
"Hello ma'am. Hi Anna. I'd like to apologize for the things I said to you, Anna, and I was hoping I could walk you to school." Sam's fingers interlocked nervously while he spoke. Anna seized the opportunity to play the same trick she had just used on her mother. She stood up quickly and walked over to Sam with her face all scrunched up. He flinched as she jumped at him. She kissed him once on the cheek before she came back down.
"Don't look so worried about it, I won't bite." Anna grabbed his hand and started to walk out the door.
"Wait! I need to check one thing before I go." She raced off, leaving Sam and her mother to share an awkward look. Anna knew she had closed the window before going to bed, but in her dream she opened it to follow the cat. She opened her bedroom door and there was the window, closed. Was it really just a dream? She put her hand on the window to make sure it was real. She was satisfied that the night had happened; it didn't matter if it only happened in her mind. She closed the door just before a black cat pawed at her window.