Giant Girl Games -

The giant girl’s head swiveled. A slow smile spread across her face. “You’re fast.”

She didn’t grab him. Instead, she lowered her open palm, flat against the ground, creating a wall of flesh and bone. The baker skidded to a halt, trapped. Then, with one enormous index finger, she gently booped him. He tumbled backwards, unharmed, into the sandbox of the playground.

A siren wailed somewhere near the river. Leo saw a tiny police cruiser, lights flashing, trying to rally on the overpass. The giant girl’s eyes, each one the size of a swimming pool, tracked the sound.

“You’re not hiding,” she said.

Easy for them to say. His apartment was three blocks from her left foot.

It dawned on Leo. Base. The playground was base. The water tower tea party was her “house.” The football goalpost was a jail. She had, in the span of an hour, re-terraformed their entire town into the rules of her childhood.

“You’re ‘It’ now, little guy,” she said, and with a flick of her wrist, sent the car tumbling gently— gently —into the net of the high school’s football goalpost. giant girl games

Leo’s phone buzzed. A mass text from the emergency broadcast system: DO NOT RUN. DO NOT AGGITATE. SHE SEEMS TO THINK THIS IS A GAME. AVOID HER LINE OF SIGHT.

The first thing Leo noticed was the sound. Not a crash or a roar, but a soft, rhythmic thump-thump-thump that made the salt and pepper shakers dance across his kitchen table. Then the light through the window dimmed, replaced by the pale blue of a denim sky.

“You’re safe now,” she cooed. “Base.” The giant girl’s head swiveled

One man, a baker from the corner of 5th, ran. He broke cover, sprinting across the open concrete of the high school parking lot. A terrible mistake.

“Okay,” she said, her voice suddenly quiet, almost a whisper that rumbled the foundations. She lifted her hand, palm open, and placed it before him like a landing pad.

A girl, maybe seventeen, was kneeling on the next block over. Her jean-clad knee alone crushed the old fire station. She was peering down at the town, her face a mask of delighted concentration. She held a pair of silver tweezers the size of a telephone pole. Instead, she lowered her open palm, flat against

He looked up.