"The Day I Shrunk!!"

Yesterday I was going through a scrapbook that my mom put together of memorabilia of my childhood. Good ol' Mom!

And there, on the 17th page of the scrapbook, I beheld what might very well have been my first real fiction story. Science fiction, no less.

Page 1 of "The Day I Shrunk!!"

It is entitled "The Day I Shrunk!!" I wrote it at age 9.

Written in pencil and cursive (really??), it spans three pages, and each page is labeled as a different chapter.

This sci fi tale of daring relates the exploits of a "science produkter" (a scientist?) named John "looking at science products" in a lab with other scientists. Then one day, when he "put some kind of pink stuff in a glass of hot water," a pink cloud suddenly formed over his head and started "raining some kind of crestal". The crystals made him shrink until he was only an inch high.

For some reason a hungry cat named Nibbles was in the lab and chased poor John into a tin can, which was apparently open and on the floor of the lab. After the cat fell asleep, John sneaked out, then ate some food crumbs, then hitched a ride in someone's pocket. But he got stuck in the pocket strings, was carried out of the lab, and had to cut himself free with his trusty pocketknife.

John managed to find his way back to the lab and found a "potion" on the floor. "Since he was a scientist he drank it and grew back to his own size." The End (I wrote with a fluorish).

The really remarkable thing about this story is that I DID eventually grow up to be a scientist making products in a lab (I've made a career as a cell biologist and microscopist and have worked for 20 years in biotech inventing and developing reagents used by scientists all over the world and helping them use them). Sadly, I've never invented a shrinking formula. Based on this story, I'd say that's probably a good thing!

Writers: what's the first story you remember writing? Please leave a comment!

Cheers and happy reading!