Compliments of Miguel, Part 1

Miguel was polite. That’s all I could say about him before he revealed his secret to me. On my first day of school he introduced himself.

“What town are you from?”

“Wickersville,” I said after a moment. I wasn’t used to the answer, and I wasn’t actually sure that Wickersville was a town.

“I’ve heard it’s nice there.” It was a very polite thing to say, but I felt that Miguel meant it: that he actually heard someone say that one-horse Wickersville was a nice place, and Miguel had found just the person who needed to hear it. He asked me about my homeroom and my favorite subject, and while I wasn’t in a talking mood I didn’t mind Miguel. He followed me through the hallways, pointing out the important things and trying ever so hard to say something and finally get to the point.

The bell rang and he fell silent. I turned and looked at him, waiting for him to make his point, but his lips were closed. “I’ll see you later.”

“I have lunch at fifth period.”

He nodded. After he left I was sorry I hadn’t said more. When I arrived at my new home I looked at the infinite woods behind my house and despaired, but once I got to know Miguel I despaired no longer.



He handed me the second cupcake in his lunch box. I had the feeling that he always brought two cupcakes for just such an occasion, and if the occasion didn’t present itself he wrapped up the extra and brought it home, but the next morning always picked out a fresh pack. It was stuffed with vanilla cream: a beautiful gift.

We ate lunch in silence. He offered me a napkin. I never considered wiping my face, but I took it and did it anyway. I wondered why no one else ate lunch with Miguel, but perhaps it was that Miguel never ate with anyone else. Everyone else was stuffing their face and chattering, and it didn’t seem to fit with his style. It was the first time being laconic had ever helped me out.

He packed up his trash cleared his throat, and for the first time all day was direct with me. “I think it would be better to go somewhere quiet.”

“Yes.” Whatever he had to say was too important to say here. We left the cafeteria din and walked to the library. In the hall he said, “I can change people by complimenting them.”

I hadn’t expected him to say this specifically, but I had hoped for something just as monumental. I was not disappointed. “What do you mean?”

“It means that, well…” he giggled nervously like he was in front of an audience, searching for the words. He stammered and looked uneasy, but he quickly re-gathered his wits. “You know how sometimes a girl will ask you, ‘Does this make my butt look big?’ and you’d say, ‘No, of course not,’? If I said that to her, then her butt would get smaller.”

“Wouldn’t that depend on the pants?”

“No, of course not,” Miguel sighed. “Every time a girl asks that question she knows that her butt really looks big no matter what pants she’s wearing. She just wants somebody to reassure her so she can get the courage to go outside.”

“So that’s why they do that.”

“Can’t say I blame them: lots of people need to be reassured, but I’m getting off track.”

“Sorry.”

“It’s alright,” Miguel said graciously. “So imagine that a girl comes up to me and asks, ‘does this make my butt look big? I’d of course say no.”

“Of course.”

“Then her butt actually gets smaller,” he smiled. “I wasn’t sure if it was true the first time it happened, so I tried again. When I told this girl again that her butt wasn’t big at all, it got even smaller. I said it over and over again, and by the time I was done she had the flattest ass in the whole school!”

Miguel clapped his hand over his mouth. I automatically did the same until the echo died away. Miguel blushed and slowly continued. “It was like she’d been born without…without a butt.”

“What did she think?” I said.

“Nothing: I thought she didn’t notice, but then people started making fun of her and she acted like it was normal. Even her friends taunted her and they said she had the same butt ever since third grade. I knew that girl for seven years and believe me: her butt was anything but small. Pardon me for saying so.”

“Who was it?” I asked.

“This is all hypothetical, remember?”

I knew that was a lie, but I let it pass. “So you can make girl’s asses—I mean, butts smaller.”

“Well, not just butts.”

“Can you make them bigger?”

Miguel smiled, and smiled, and smiled until he began shaking, like he was resisting the urge to hop up and down. “I knew I could trust you! You want to see it now?”

“Yes!”

We ran through the school: utterly determined and utterly childish, until we reached a part of the humongous school where students were still walking through the halls.

I was shaking with happiness as I peered around the corner. “Who do we do it to?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well then, just pick someone.”

“I can’t. You can’t just do it to anyone.”

“You just said you could do it,” I snapped. It was like having an ice cream sandwich slapped out of your hand. “Don’t be an asshole. That's right I said ass!”

Miguel was too excited to acknowledge the profanity. “You have to wait for the right opening. You can't just say 'Nice huge butt.' That won't get you anywhere. I’ll have to do something else. Here, watch."

Suddenly a little girl walked by who Miguel recognized. "Hey Jessie!” he said, squinting. “Wow, look at how big you got!"

Jessie was a full head smaller than both of us. She had short brown hair and wore a blue gingham skirt, and her oversized socks piled up just above her pink sneakers. She rolled her eyes at Miguel, she had heard that before, but she was grinning too. “Hey Miguel,” she giggled. Suddenly, she grew an inch.

Miguel continued. "I mean it, you've really grown. Soon you're going to be as tall as me."

"Yeah, and then I'll be the one lifting you on my shoulder." Jessie giggled, not seeming to notice that her legs stretching. Her entire body, in fact, was growing. Her child body had grown a foot. Her impish grin stretched wide like an umbrella and her pink sneakers were the size of hiking boots.

"Honestly," Miguel said, "You're one of the tallest kids I've ever seen. I mean, you're not even ten and you're almost up to my eyes."

Jessie at this point was a little girl, who some unseen god had clicked his cursor on and blown up to man size. She saw us eye-to-eye, smiling and growing as Miguel flattered and wheedled her, driving her height to even greater...well, heights.

"Look at you, all grown up like that. Soon I won't even be able to stand up to your chin!" Jessie shot another foot higher, blinking down at us with her wide, childish eyes. "I think you're even taller than your Mommy now. You aren't, aren't you?"

"Well," Jessie said bashfully, fidgeting with her platter-sized hands. "I can reach a lot of places she can't." Her head seemed to block out the lights above. Still she grew.

"Don't tell me you can reach the tree house!" Miguel gasped.

Jessie was so tall she could slam dunk without even standing on her tippy-toes, holding the basketball like an apple. Her body stretched still larger. With great humility she replied, "I did get my brother's football off the roof." Her head struck the high ceiling and broke some tiles.

"Jeez, Jessie!" Miguel started. "If you get any taller you're going to be too big for this school!"

The ground rumbled and the building shook as Jessie bent her head, her shoulders striking the ceiling and her back craning over top of us. On her hands and knees she hunched as her entire body filled the hallway. Students cleared out of the way automatically. A crawling giantess crouched in the middle of the hallway, her short brown hair longer than telephone poles. Her head was larger than a minivan and three times as smiley.

"I'm glad you noticed how big I got," Jessie boomed.

"Don't mention it."

"See you later!" We ducked into a nearby room and waved as she crawled through the hall, like a train chugging through a tunnel. She reached the double doors of the gym, and with a little panting and groaning, squeezed through before anyone could see her bunny panties under her tent-sized skirt.

I could only stare blankly and wave. "See what I mean?” Miguel nodded. “No one even noticed. They all cleared out of the way and went on as if nothing had happened.”

"That girl must be four stories tall!"

"As I said, it's about finding the right kind of person."

"Who can you do next?"

Miguel said nothing. He just watched the students, teachers, and custodians streaming through the halls with his well-trained eye.

"Aha, there!" Miguel grabbed my hand whisking me to his next target, and I for dear life held on, afraid of what I’d miss if I let go.