A few weeks had past since the tree house incident but Alice was still feeling good about it. She knew for sure that Jen and Laurie were gaining weight just as fast, if not faster, than she was. Unfortunately, some knowledge can be dangerous and this was that sort of knowledge. Knowing that her two nemeses were packing on padding, Alice didn’t feel quite so pressured to stick to her diet regiment. If she’d been secretly snacking between meals before, she was doing it in public now.
Of course, her mother still disapproved. And she wasn’t going to let Alice forget it, especially now that they were on their way to Thanksgiving dinner at Alice’s grandmother’s house.
“Now, Alice,” said her mom, “You know how your grandmother likes to feed you, so you’d better be extra careful about what you eat or you’ll be a whale by the time we go home. Okay, honey?”
“Mom!” protested Alice, “I’m not gonna overeat! I’ve been sticking to the diet, really.”
Alice’s mother cast a withering glance at her daughter as they pulled into grandma’s driveway. Alice had tried to dress nicely for this event, since it was a family occasion. Her long blonde hair was pulled back to reveal a pretty face that, while always slightly chubby, had definitely grown chubbier in recent months. She wore a nice turtleneck sweater that had been the right size for her several weeks ago but was now pulled tight enough around her enhanced knockers that it was obvious she must have taken a few too many trips to the fridge lately. Her slacks were tight around her thighs and rear but not tastelessly so.
Alice felt herself getting red. Did her mom suspect that her daughter had actually gained weight? She’d told her mom that she had her eating under control, that she’d shed a few pounds, but the opposite was true. After the tree house incident, Alice was filled with a new confidence- enough that she actually pulled out the scale and took a look at her weight. Which, as it turned out, hadn’t gone down at all! Instead, it had skyrocketed. She had finally surpassed her old all-time high of 170 pounds. She was a whopping 175 pounds now! 175 pounds of pure blubber, she thought miserably. If she didn’t stop gaining, she’d soon look like a float in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade.
That image didn’t help to cheer her up at all. She couldn’t help it, she thought about food constantly and the constant reminders from Jen, Laurie, and her mom just reminded her that she was always hungry.
Alice heaved herself out of the car. Her mother, climbing out the other side, glanced meaningfully at her daughter again. She certainly didn’t like the way Alice had been blimping out ever since the school year began. She had hoped that getting back on the cheerleading squad would be enough to melt all that excess flesh right off her, but it just wasn’t happening.
She just couldn’t understand it. Alice had always been chunky, ever since she was little. Alice loved eating and there had been times when she had had to hide the cookie jar just to keep her daughter from stuffing her face between meals. It didn’t help that Alice never even seemed to be aware of how much she was eating. She could demolish an entire pack of oreos and still be convinced she was just eating a “light snack.” But why was Alice such a butterball when no one else in the family was? If she didn’t slim down soon, thought Alice’s mom, I’m going to have to take some drastic measures…
Her thoughts were interrupted as Alice’s grandmother came out of the house to greet them with open arms. Like Alice’s mother, her grandmother was a svelte woman. Even in her old age, she retained her naturally petite figure. Unlike Alice’s mother, however, her grandmother didn’t see this as a good thing necessarily. She was an immigrant from the old country (For our purposes, who cares which one?) and if there was anything that she thought was more important than eating it was feeding others. Alice always loved trips to her grandmother’s house because there was bound to be some tasty baked treats on hand.
“Alice!” shouted grandmother, grabbing her pudgy granddaughter and squeezing her into a hug. “It’ so good to see you again! Oh, you poor thing, you’re so thin! You need to go inside and help yourself to some pie right now!”
“Mother, don’t encourage her,” growled Alice’s mom. “She’s trying to lose weight.”
“Lose weight?” said Alice’s grandmother. “Really, she’s so young. That’s all baby fat. It doesn’t count at all.” Grandmother swept them inside, where relatives were already gathering. And snacks and food were already laid out. “Cookie?”
Alice felt obliged to accept, despite her mother’s dirty looks. Perhaps it was her imagination but it felt like her grandmother offered her more treats than she did to anyone else. Of course, Alice was her favorite granddaughter, so that might have been part of it. And Alice was also the most rotund guest at the gathering so maybe it her grandmother just assumed it made sense to use her to get rid of leftovers.
Unfortunately, most of her other relatives were full-blooded Americans who couldn’t appreciate the importance of curves on a growing girl. She caught several disapproving looks from some aunts and uncles.
“Oh, there’s Alice,” said someone, “Looks like she’s put on some weight.
“-she’s bigger than I remember-“
“-when did she get so fat?-”
Embarrassed by the whispered comments, Alice couldn’t help but grab a few extra snacks from the buffet table to make herself feel better. Nibbling on the end of a cookie, she plunked herself down on a couch and braced herself for the worst.
“Oh, hello there, Alice,” said Aunt Myrtle, flashing an empty smile. “It’s so good to see you again.” She winced openly as she took in Alice’s fuller figure. “My, you’ve grown since the last I saw you! Been hitting the fridge, have you?”
“Er,” said Alice self consciously, “Yeah, well, I’m on a diet.” She felt herself turning red as she realized that she still had half of an uneaten cookie in her hand.
“I’m sure you are,” said Aunt Myrtle dubiously. “Alice, you should really try to watch your weight. You know what they say, all a girl really has is her figure. And if she let’s that go to pieces…!” She shook her head, clucking sadly.
“I prefer to think a girl’s got more than just her figure to worry about,” muttered Alice under her breath but she didn’t want to say anything to a relative. Especially since her mother was in the same room. Aunt Myrtle turned to talk to some distant cousin and Alice quickly crammed the rest of the cookie into her mouth.
“Tifa,” said Myrtle pulling over an emancipated girl, “This is Florence’s girl, Alice.”
“Mmm,” mumbled Alice, her fleshy cheeks bulging with cookie. Tifa smiled nastily.
“Hello, Alice,” she said, her words dripping with disdain, “It’s been a while, eh? So what have you been up to? Not still cheerleading, are you?”
Alice gulped down the food in her mouth and briskly wiped her sleeve across her full lips. “Yeah, as a matter of fact, I am,” she said, just a tad defensively. She got enough of this guff from Jen and Laurie; she didn’t much feel like hearing it from relatives, too, especially not when they were all celebrating a holiday dedicated to eating. It wasn’t like she was the only person eating, thought Alice. It just so happened that she was the only person on whom those extra calories ever showed up.
Tifa’s eyes opened wide in disbelief. Quickly, she looked Alice up and down, taking in her chunky face, her copious bust (now filled out so far it seemed ready to split her sweater), her rotund belly, and ample, meaty thighs.
“You can’t be serious,” blurted Tifa without thinking. “You’re way too huge to be a cheer- I mean, that’s nice. Do you go to a lot of practices, then?”
“Of course,” said Alice hotly. “I go to all of them.” That wasn’t really a lie, thought Alice. She did attend every practice session, even if she did sit a lot of them out. But then even Jen and Laurie sat out a lot these days. If only she could get these stupid relatives of hers to come see a game, she thought miserably. Then they’d see that she wasn’t nearly the enormous cow that they seemed to think she was.
Alice had continued to bring goodies to school in hopes that Jen and Lauries’ greed would soon cause them to surpass her in size and it looked like it was starting to work. She’d seen the two head cheerleaders’ progress just before they all broke for Thanksgiving holiday.
At the last cheer meet, neither of them had done a single exercise, instead just standing at the front of the line and yelling at the rest of the squad for being too slow and lazy. Laurie’s gut was larger than ever, hanging out of her sweater and over the waist of her cheer skirt. She constantly tugged on it absently, seemingly unaware of its growth. Ever time she pulled on her sweater, it caused her melon-sized hooters to bunch together and bulge from her neckline like rising bread dough. Laurie’s whole body was becoming softer and flabbier, her cheering outfits no longer fitting her as loosely as they once had, and she had a definite double chin now. It wasn’t as defined as Alice’s admittedly, but it was there. Alice had even overheard some of the other cheerleaders in the locker room gossiping about Laurie’s expansion.
“Oh my Gawd,” whispered Kristine, a lanky brunette with short pigtails, “Can you believe Laurie? She’s always yelling at us that we can’t do anything right but she never does any of the exercises herself anymore! Who does she think she is?”
“And have you noticed how fat she’s getting?” said Lizzie, a tall black girl with long frizzy hair. “I don’t know if she’s gaining weight because she’s not doing the exercises or she’s not doing the exercises because she’s gaining weight.”
“She’ll look like a weather balloon pretty soon,” said Denise, a small scrawny girl with glasses.
“Hey, Alice, you hear that!” called Kristine, “The rate Laurie’s going, soon she’ll be bigger than you!”
“Ha ha,” said Alice sarcastically, although she couldn’t help but smile at the thought.
“Sorry, we’re just teasing,” said Kristine. “Laurie picks on everyone but you’ve probably got it worst. You know, I have to admire you, still coming in to cheer even when you’ve…um…put on some weight. I don’t think I’d have the courage to face the queen bitch that way.”
“Thanks,” said Alice dubiously. It was a backhanded compliment at best but she meant well.
“I tell you, I’ll be glad when Laurie can’t do the cheers anymore,” said Lizzie, “I’m sick of her yelling at us all the time. When she gets so big that we have to roll her onto the field, we’ll finally have an excuse to get her off the team! No offense, Alice.”
“What?” said Alice. “What’s that supposed to-“
“Hey, have you seen her lapdog Jen lately?” interrupted Denise. “You know how she does anything that Laurie does? Looks like that includes getting fat!”
Jen, too, had been steadily swelling up like a blimp as she constantly gorged herself on the high calorie snacks she stole from Alice’s lunch. She now had a noticeable gut that stretched her cheerleading sweater. It wasn’t nearly as large as Laurie’s paunch but that was mainly because Jen tended to accumulate adipose in other areas, such as her hips and derriere. Jen’s rump had reached monumental proportions. She still wore her old pants, now way too tight for her. They looked like they were painted on and the rear seam seemed to be on the verge of giving her a wedgie. Her massive behind shook and jiggled when she walked and, since Jen still walked with her usual sultry shimmy, it shook and jiggled a lot.
The three cheerleaders broke into giggles, thinking about Jen and Laurie. Alice didn’t much care for the cheerleaders – even though they weren’t trying to be mean, she still felt like they regarded her as different just because she was plumper.
“So,” said Tifa suddenly, snapping Alice out of her thoughts, “Every practice, huh? Well, I guess stranger things have happened. You’ve got more bounce to the ounce, as they say. At least that’s going for you.”
“Yeah, unlike you,” grumbled Alice as Tifa walked away. “I’d rather be a little hefty than a skeleton like you.” Disgusted, Alice tried to think of something else to take her mind of her snotty cousin. Food came to mind. No, no, she scolded herself. She’d promised her mother that she wouldn’t eat. Especially not after the way her scrawny ass relatives were treating her, like she was some sort of insane eating machine unable to control herself. She’d show them.
But she didn’t.
There was too much good stuff and too many people offering it to her. She couldn’t resist grabbing treats – cookies, nuts, chips – from finger bowls around the room, telling herself each time that she could afford to snack just this once. By the time dinnertime rolled around, she already felt slightly bloated.
“Supper!” called Alice’s grandmother. Alice looked up to see a gigantic turkey had been placed at the center of the dining room table. Not only that, it was surrounded by plates and plates of mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, stuffing, casseroles, and pies. The relatives all gathered around the loaded table. Alice found it was rather cramped and her rounded gut prevented her from pushing her chair in as far as she would have liked. She blushed slightly, hoping that no one would notice what a tight squeeze it was for her. Alice’s mother glared at Alice quickly, silently warning her to go easy on dinner. Alice felt ready to say something nasty but she bit her tongue. Her mother was really getting on her nerves.
She took a little turkey but nothing else. Poultry isn’t too fattening, she thought to herself as she cut into the giant bird.
“Some stuffing, Alice?” asked her grandmother, pushing a steaming dish toward her.
“No thanks, Grandma,” said Alice, “I think I’ve got enough on my plate for now.”
“Ridiculous,” said Grandma, scooping some stuffing out and plunking it in front of Alice without waiting for reply. “You can’t have Thanksgiving without stuffing. And that turkey’s so dry. Put some gravy on it, will you, dear?”
“Mother,” said Alice’s mom, “Don’t feed her like that!”
“Nonsense, she’s got the rest of the year to diet as much as she wants. Let the girl enjoy a good meal one day in the year.” That shut her mom up. Alice smiled slightly, silently thanking her Grandmother. As exasperating as her constant force feeding was, it was gratifying to her put Alice’s mom in her place. Even though Alice was rather full – and stuffing herself wasn’t going to help her shed any pounds – she felt she had to finish this plateful. It was a small victory over her domineering mother, at least.
No wonder they call this stuffing, thought Alice after cleaning her plate. I’m absolutely stuffed! Her belly was swollen and the pleats of her cable-knit sweater were flattened out across her bulk. But now Grandma was piling mashed potatoes and greens on her plate (“You need your vegetables before you can have dessert, dearie”) and she didn’t have the strength to protest. Slowly, she ate her way through the food, each bite going down slower and harder than the last. She hoped that by eating slowly she could discourage her grandmother from giving her too much more food- but no such luck. Even before she was done, some yams and ambrosia appeared in front of her. And cranberry sauce. Who can resist cranberry sauce? Alice didn’t have any trouble with that since it was soft and squishy and went down easily. And, finally, after that, there was pie – three kinds. Apple, peach, and pumpkin. Grandma gave her small slices of each, although small to Grandma wasn’t small to Alice.
And after dinner, Alice felt like she was going to burst.
A cousin was offering her some finger sandwiches and it had come to the point that, even though she felt rude for doing it, she had to decline. There was no way that she could force down another morsel, she thought groggily. Her stomach bulged so far in front of her that she could barely see past it. She gingerly sat on the couch, wincing at the pain of an overfull belly. She felt like she had swallowed a beachball. Her slacks were desperately tight but Alice didn’t feel comfortable with unsnapping them in front of all the assembled relatives. Her pants were so tight that she felt as if they would cut her in two. She surreptitiously put one hand on the side of her bulging gut to feel its size; it hung over the waist of her pants, ready to fall out of her sweater if she moved too quickly. If she just stayed still for the rest of the day, though, she should be fine…
Driving home, Alice’s mother wasn’t happy at all. She was going on and on about Alice’s weight, telling her how she was never going to get any thinner if he kept eating like a pig blah blah blah. Alice barely heard her. She was so gorged she could barely stay awake. Her clothes felt like they were on the verge of bursting off her. She stroked her enormous, tight stomach, which bubbled and gurgled quietly as the moving car jostled it. For once, she felt like she’d had a decent meal, a big, tasty, filling meal. By the third plate, she’d given up worrying about dieting. Why worry? Just enjoy the moment.
And for once, she had.