My sister is the smallest girl who ever lived. She slides between iron gates, slips through cracked doors, disappears in pictures. Because her hair is so straight, she says, and her torso so narrow. Look at your hands, she tells me. We are sitting on our porch swing, as we do each night, waiting for the moon. Are you looking? she asks. Hold your hands in front of your face. Really look. Now look at mine. See the difference? See how yours are monstrous in comparison? I see, I tell her. I see, too, how filthy she is, how covered in dirt. How easily I could fit the whole of her body in mine, twice over. Worrisome. She’s shrinking, she might be dust by dawn. That isn’t the case, my sister assures me. She assures me it’s the world that’s getting bigger, while she stays the same. She kicks her legs, trying to get our swing moving. Am I bigger? I ask, putting my thumb in my mouth and sucking. Mom says don’t, but I see no mom in sight. Look! My sister points. That white ball has bounced into the sky, full as an eye socket. Do you know what a full moon means? my sister asks. Means transformation, she says, like mermaids becoming girls and girls becoming mermaids. I don’t want transformation, I tell her. She leans on my shoulder, but I don’t feel a thing. Can you stay longer this time? I ask. Till the sun goes up? My sister shakes her pea-sized head. Please! I climb onto her lap like I used to, and she pretends I’m not crushing her. Please don’t go, I beg. I cry into her chest, soaking her nightgown. I cry until I’m dehydrated, until I’m asleep. When I wake, the moon is gone and so is she. Honey? Mom pokes her head out the door, hair wild with sleep. My sister wanted to see the moon, I sniffle. She wanted me to see the moon with her. Mom takes me by the shoulders, brings me into the house. That’s very sweet, Mom says. She’s in the ground, isn’t she? I sob. In the dirt? Mom wipes my tears. The sun is rising, light beaming through our windows. You’re shivering. Mom rubs my skin, trying to create friction. The air’s too cold, I mumble, I need to be in the ground. I need to be in the ground, I tell Mom, as she leads me up the stairs, into the bathroom, the bathtub. The water takes me, and I feel myself beginning to turn, my tail taking its shape.