"Who's Wheeler?" Toffee asked.
"A client. He's about sixty-eight and as...."
"I'll leave," Toffee said. "When they get past sixty I begin to lose interest ... and patience."
Marc took her by the arm and started her across the room. "You can take the rear door," he said. "It leads to the hallway and.... Stop twitching your hips like that. When you get outside...."
He stopped and made a small whining noise.
It was as though the ceiling had suddenly come crashing down around his head. For a moment he was numb all over. Then he could feel himself sinking toward the floor, but he wasn't falling. The sensation was alarmingly strange and disagreeable.
"What the devil's...!"
He stopped again; his voice was echoing back to him in an unfamiliar falsetto. The words were his but the voice definitely was not. He started back in alarm, tripped over something and sat down heavily on the floor. It was then that he glanced up and saw Toffee. For a moment he was certain he was losing his mind.
Instead of the well-curved, half-clad redhead he had last seen, he was now confronted by a chunky little moppet of about eight. Her heretofore inadequate tunic now covered her completely, part of it even trailing on the floor. He opened his mouth to speak but gave it up as Toffee expressed his emotions for him with a shrill scream of dismay. Apparently unmindful of her sudden transformation, however, she was staring at him with horror.
"You've shrunk!" she cried. "You've ... you've shriveled!"