Chapter 36: Fat Woman and Little Girl

Chapter 36: Fat Woman and Little Girl

Lizzie didn’t run down the hill so much as she rolled down, landing on the curb next to Main Street. She tried to push herself into a standing position, but couldn’t get any traction with her feet. She couldn’t lean forward enough to reach her shoes and so had to shake her feet around until the sneakers came loose. She clapped a hand over her mouth in time to prevent a scream. “No,” she wailed.

Instead of feet she now had hooves. Pig legs to go with her pig snout. Before much longer she imagined herself scurrying around on all fours, able only to oink and wheeze like an animal. This isn’t real, she told herself for the hundredth time since falling off the pyramid. It’s a nightmare. She must have hit her head on the gym floor and right now she was lying in a hospital bed with Mom, the other cheerleaders, and even bratty Wendell sitting at her side, waiting for her to wake up. She tried to imagine herself emerging from a long tunnel of darkness, into the light of the hospital room.

Nothing happened. “Have you given up already, little piggy,” Samantha said. She descended the hill slowly, as though floating along the surface of the street. The cleaver gleamed in her hand, the blade poised to strike. “I think I’ll start with some bacon, then a nice ham steak, and finally sausage.”

“I’m not a—” An oink escaped her lips. “Pig.”

“Not yet, but soon.” With this, a hole tore open in Lizzie’s pants. A curly tail corkscrewed out from the opening.

“Stop this! I’ll give you anything. Change me back.”

“I want you to suffer. I want you to die,” Samantha hissed. Lizzie tried again to get up, this time her hooves biting into the ground so she managed to push herself upright. She waddled along Main Street, shouting for help, but no one answered. She didn’t see a single person on Main Street or in the store windows. Where is everyone?

She pounded one door after another, hoping someone would emerge to help, but no one did. “Help—” Another oink interrupted her. “Help me!”

In the reflection of the display window for Designs By Suzie, she gasped. She reached up to finger the floppy ears on the top of her head—a pig’s ears. She didn’t have much time to find help before the transformation was complete. Her stomach pushed outward another inch, the remains of her T-shirt and jeans replaced by a turquoise maternity dress.

There has to be someone who can help me, she thought. But how could anyone undo this and make her human again? She needed a miracle. She looked down Main Street to the white steeple of the church rising over everything else. The church seemed like a long shot, but at this point she didn’t see any better alternatives. She couldn’t stand here and wait to turn into a sow and then have Samantha kill her. She started down the road, hoping she made it in time.

#

Wendell stopped at the window for Designs by Suzie. As he watched the girl’s reflection in the glass, her wavy hair reformed into bouncy curls. A sailor suit—complete with white hat—replaced Samantha’s pink dress.

He reached up to touch his head and grimaced as the girl performed the exact same movement. I’m not a girl, he thought. This is all a horrible nightmare. I fainted in the auditorium before I went on. Too much stress and too little sleep knocked me out. Any moment he would wake up in a hospital room with Mom, Samantha, and even Prudence by his bedside. He would tell them about this terrible dream and everyone would laugh.

He closed his eyes and willed himself to wake up. Now, he thought. Wake up, now. He opened his eyes and saw the adorable little girl still looking back at him. She started to cry at the precise moment he did, her freckled cheeks turning red and her dimples fading.

“What’s wrong, Wendy?” Samantha asked. She coasted down the road towards him, the vial of poison still in her hand. “Don’t you like it? You look like Shirley Temple, ready to dance and sing. Makes me want to grab one of those sweet little cheeks and pinch it.”

“Leave me alone! I’m not a girl. This is a trick.”

“Why don’t you come with me? We’ll go home and play dress-up. I’ll let you use my makeup.”

“Stop this! Change me back right now.”

“I like you better this way. You’re so much cuter. In time you’ll come to like being a girl.”

“No. I’ll never be a girl. Never!” In the display window, the girl’s reflection shrank another inch. Wendell turned away from the window. He shouted for help, but no one responded. He didn’t see anyone except for Samantha, as though the entire town had suddenly vanished. No one can help me anyway, he thought. No one can change me back. I need a miracle. He spotted the church steeple rising over the trees. It was his only hope. He scampered down the road as fast as he could, the tap shoes on his feet clicking against the pavement with every step.

Then, as he neared the pet shop, he heard a second set of tap shoes on the street. At first he thought it was Samantha mocking him, but then he saw a figure up ahead. There was someone else still here. He raced towards the figure, calling for it to stop. It turned around and a very girlish scream came from his lips.

What turned to face him was not human, but some kind of half-woman, half-pig creature. The pig girl snorted in surprise, her beady eyes narrowing to the point where they disappeared behind her chubby cheeks. “Wendell?” she asked, punctuating the question with an oink.

“Prudence? My God, what’s happened to you?”

“Samantha did this to me. I had just landed on the top of the pyramid and then all the sudden I started getting fat and I ran to the bathroom—” Another oink followed by a period of wheezing interrupted her. Wendell saw her entire body grow fatter, pushing the maternity dress to the breaking point. “And then I started turning into a pig. She’s trying to kill me. She wants to cut me up into bacon and ham and sausage.”

“Samantha? She’s after me too. I was just starting to give my lecture when my voice changed and I started getting breasts and then I was in this all girls school and Samantha tried to kill me and now I keep getting littler. I was on my way to the church to pray for a miracle when I ran into you.”

“I was going to the church too. We can go together.”

They heard footsteps behind them that could only belong to Samantha. Lizzie took Wendell’s hand and then slung him onto her back. She galloped off on her hooves towards the church.

By the time they reached the Seabrooke Episcopalian Church, Lizzie barely had the strength to stand. A toddler in a white straw hat and powder blue dress slipped off her shoulders to land on the church steps. “Come on,” Wendell said. He had to stand on his tiptoes to reach the door handles and even then couldn’t open the doors until Lizzie knocked them open with her stomach. “What do we do now?” Wendell asked.

“I don’t know. Pray, I guess.”

Wendell skipped down the row of pews to the altar and knelt down. Prudence collapsed next to him, wheezing so hard he thought she might die on the spot. “God, please help us,” Wendell said. “Please remove this curse from us and we’ll do whatever you ask of us. You’re our only hope.”

“My children, I have been waiting for you,” a man said. Wendell opened his eyes to find a sandy-haired reverend standing behind the pulpit. “You have both strayed from The Way and this is the result of your sins.”

The reverend stepped out from behind the pulpit carrying a silver cup in his hand. “Drink from this my children and your sins will be washed away. You will be born anew.”

Lizzie accepted the cup in her chubby hands. As she raised the cup to her lips, she saw a reflection in the water. Not herself as a cheerleader or the piggish thing she’d become, but a baby like Wendell. She looked up at the reverend, recognizing the cruel anticipation in his eyes. She poured the contents of the cup onto the floor.

“You fools!” the reverend shouted. “Now your souls will never know salvation. You will be consumed by the fires of Hell! Begone foul, cursed beasts!”

Prudence scrambled up onto her hooves and snatched little Wendell in her arms. “What did you do that for?” Wendell asked.

“I know where we have to go,” she said. She galloped through the church doors and the turned back towards town. She only hoped they could make it in time.