Quarter One


I have always had big dreams. From an early age, I devoured books, learning all I could of English, Science, and Middle-Earth. When the opportunity presented itself, I attacked languages with the same vigour, mastering German within three years of study in high school. Immediately afterwards I charged headlong into Russian and, by the time I finished college, I had Masters in both, a working knowledge of Po[a]lish, and a boundless optimism that can only be matched by the most energetic of children. The world was open to me; at the time, I imagined that most companies wanted nothing better than to pass out hundred-thousand-per-year contracts to any multilingual they came across. I was ready. 


Suffice to say, it didn’t really work like that. Languages they wanted, yes, but Chinese and Arabic - languages of countries good for trade, not well-educated European lands. Finally, after searching at company after company and government agency after government agency, I set my sights a little lower - education. For a while, I imagined myself as the bastion of these languages - sparking interest in lackluster children, bringing German and Russian back into common usage. I would be revered throughout the school by teachers and students alike, and everybody would want to take my class. I would be a hero!


Here I was met with slightly more success - but only slightly. It was a warm April morning when I applied to my first choice, the local middle school which I had attended so many years before. I walked in somewhat confidently, sure that with my credentials I would be able to find something in my field. The secretary at the desk was different, but the principal was the same. Aside from a few new lines on his face, it looked like Principal Matherson hadn’t changed a bit in the fifteen years since I’d left. He greeted me warmly and thanked me for coming back, I thanked him for having me, and we launched into my interview. 


I thought I had done well. I presented my degrees, extolled the virtues of learning a language, and spoke at length about how beneficial it was to me - travelling abroad, meeting all sorts of new people, and just genuinely learning. Afterwards, I was sure I had done it. I plopped back into my chair, certainty exuding from me like an aura. 
“That was certainly something!” Principal Matherson said, a warm smile creasing his lined face still further. “But…” his smile faltered a bit, “I’m afraid we don’t have the resources or the budget to create an entire department… I’m sorry, really I am. I want the children to learn just as much as you do.”


I looked down, crestfallen. Matherson, however, went on. 


“However, we do have...something for you. It’ll pay exactly the same, but it’ll entail...different responsibilities…” He looked at me again, sighed, and asked, apologetically, “Have you ever heard of an Obesity Support Counselor?”


I had. My face fell even further. 


In the intervening years between when I graduated high school and my applying to this job, childhood obesity had skyrocketed, due partially to several improvements in medical science that all but eliminated diabetes and high blood pressure and partially to a great increase in fruit and vegetable prices related to a water shortage. I say the obesity itself skyrocketed, because the rate, while it did go up, didn’t go up too much - there were still plenty of conscientious parents who were well aware of the associated risks, even with the new advances in science. However, those children who were fat got much, much fatter. As such, the government had required schools to employ so-called Obesity Support Counselors to deal with the much-fattened children. They were put in separate classes, much like the special-ed children, where their particular needs - excess food, mostly - could be catered to. It wasn’t exactly a bad job, but it was not at all what I had wanted. But, strapped for cash and desperate for some sort of work, I said, “I’ll take it. When do I start?”


As it turned out, I wouldn’t have to start until mid-August, so I had a few months to settle in. I bought myself a smallish house, set it up well with IKEA furniture, and had produced myself a rather pleasant flowerbed by the time August rolled around. We teachers had to be present on the 25th, but students didn’t arrive until the 27th, which gave us two days to set up our classrooms and, for me, meet my new colleagues. First, though, I had to meet with the princip, so I collected my few items and headed for the office. 


“So what’ll I be dealing with this year, sir?”
“Well,” said Matherson, easing himself into his chair, “it looks like a pretty small class this year- about 8 or 10 kids, mostly Class IVs, few Class Vs, maybe a Class VI if you’re especially unlucky. All three grades, of course, and all girls, as it turns out - you know this community we live in.” Indeed I did- though I had remained mainly unaware of the obesity crisis, it made sense that it would be the girls getting larger. A combination of farming and tradition meant that the boys were always outside, for work and play alike, and the girls were often inside doing very little. In my day, of course, everyone was much thinner, but the majority of girls were at least somewhat pudgy. 


I suppose I should clarify something: after the great upward surge in weight, children had been categorized into a sort of class system based on mass. As far as I understand it, it works something as follows:


Class 0: 20 or more pounds underweight. Despite the changes to society, anorexic and bulimic children did exist, and it was just as tragic as it ever was. 


Class I: Normal weight- between 20 pounds under and 100 pounds over the average. These and the Class IIs still made up the majority even with the societal fattening. 


Class II: Overweight- 100-200 pounds over the average. These and the Class I children were tied for the majority. Most of these kids could function normally, if a little slower, and were perfectly fine for most things. 


Class III: Obese- 200-300 pounds over the average. These children had some difficulties with daily life, but were often capable alone. These children could be found in either normal or obese classes, depending on whether they were likely to stay their weight or gain more, and were often the fattest children most kids would see. 


Class IV: Morbidly obese- 300-400 pounds over the average. These children had many difficulties with daily life, and made up the majority of the people in obese classes. They often could not fit in standard desks or clothes, and required constant snacking to make it through the day and maintain some level of focus. 


Class V: Mobility impaired- 400-500 pounds over the average. These children were barely capable of any task, and certainly could not face daily life on their own. They required assistance with standing, walking, and, in many cases, eating. They, too, required snacking throughout the day, but at an even higher level than the Class IV students. 


Class VI: Immobile-500+ above the average. These children had achieved such a size that they could no longer move on their own, needing either wheelchairs or even mobile beds to attend school. Their size was such that human-assisted feeding was sometimes not enough for their appetites, and as such, they would often have feeding machines fitted to their mobility devices. 


I have heard rumors of children even heavier than that, a supposed Class VII of children who had grown too large to even leave their houses. I hoped, for society’s sake, that it wasn’t true. 


        In any case, I soon found myself in an empty classroom with no idea what to do or how to decorate it for the start of school. Should I go for the somewhat cheesy decorations some of my colleagues were putting up, or for a starker, cleaner feel? My students were rather out of the ordinary- perhaps making the room awkwardly cheesy and comfortable would please them somewhat. In the end, I decided to just follow my own style of decorating- a few things on the walls, a few items of interest on my desk, a load of books, and a beanbag chair in the corner. The girls would not be sitting in desks; instead, I was provided with three large, round tables, and some sturdy chairs to go with them. I surveyed my handiwork. For the first time, I felt confident. This year was sure to go well. 


        The rest of the short few days before the beginning of school was spent in staff meetings, training, and a number of sundry and boring things that I don’t feel the need to relate. I met my colleagues, which was something, but as the OSC I would rarely, if ever, be directly interacting with them, as my duties concerned my class and nothing else. I was, for all intents and purposes, alone, reporting directly to the principal. The kids I had charge of would attend no special classes: not Gym, of course, but not Art either, nor Computers, nor anything else with any other teacher. I was to be their sole educator, from the time they waddled in at 7:35 and waddled out at 2:08. I would be in charge of lunch, of recess, and of anything, and everything, else. Not an enviable position for a new teacher who had achieved only Cs in Math through his entire school career. 


        Finally, after interminable hours of meetings, the first day arrived, bringing with it the anxious feeling of newness for all concerned. I sat at my desk, staring out into my empty classroom, nervously twirling a pencil between my fingers. Nobody had shown up yet, not that I was expecting anybody to do so- it was only 7, after all. Nevertheless, I was still plagued by nervous thoughts. Will they like me? Will I be able to teach them anything? They’re all different grades, what could I possibly do? The clock ticked on; the minutes passed, slowly, inexorably. Still I sat, twirling my pencil. The empty chairs seemed to mock me, the blackboard to laugh at me. What if nobody comes to class? What if this was all some kind of practical joke? What if-


        A knock sounded at the door, startling me out of my anxious reverie. My pencil flew out of my fingers and dropped to the carpet beneath my desk. “Come in!” I yelped, scrabbling for the pencil I had dropped. 


     “Um…”


        “Oh, I - OW!” 


        In my eagerness to see who it was, I had smashed my head on the underside of my desk. 
        
        “Sorry, who are - OH! Do excuse me, I…”


        This was no student standing before me. This was the Superintendent of Schools, a tall, angular woman in her mid-forties who I had never met. I sheepishly extended my hand. She took it with the coldest hand I had ever felt and did not wait for my name.


        “Superintendent Chambers. I take it you’re the new OSC?”


        “Well, yes, I am, how can-”


        “Good. Just remember what you’re here to do.”


        With that cryptic pronouncement, she turned on one high heel and walked away, nearly colliding with somebody else waiting at the door. Rather miffed, I didn’t notice the collidee poking her round face through my classroom door. 


        “E - Excuse me, are you the OSC?”


        Still preoccupied with the superintendent, I snapped back “Who’s asking?”


        “O-Oh, alright, I-I’ll just go then…”


        I realized what I had done, and leapt out of my chair to correct it. “No, wait! I’m sorry, I just had a stressful morning, is all...ah.”


        Waiting in the hallway was a terrifically fat young girl, in fact one of the fattest I’ve ever seen. Her forehead and brown bangs were plastered with sweat - from the walk to my room, no doubt - and her clothes seemed absolutely stretched to bursting with what they contained. I goggled for a minute, unable to comprehend it, but eventually I remembered my manners and composed myself. 
        
        “I’m terribly sorry about that. To answer your question, yes, I am the new Obesity Support Counselor. What’s your name?”


        The little girl shifted her great weight slightly. “Oh, I’m Claire… I-I’m supposed to go to class here, I think.” 


        No surprise there, I thought to myself. Aloud, I said, “Yes, I’m sure. But why are you here so early? School doesn’t start until 7:35, and it’s only 7:17.”


        Claire nervously crossed one leg in front of the other- a task which seemed rather difficult, I noted- and said, “W-Well, my mom has to work, so she always drops me off early… plus, I usually have to go ahead and check things out for my friends.” 


        Confused, I asked, “Check things out? What do you mean?” 


        Claire blushed. “Oh, I-I’m only a Class III, so I get sent ahead to make sure other people will fit…”


        “Oh, that makes sense.” Then, as her words sunk in, I did a double-take. “Class III?”


        Claire giggled softly at my surprise. “Y-Yeah...I’m actually the lightest girl of all my friends!” A squeak from behind startled her somewhat, and with a glance at the clock, she hurriedly said, “I have to go, I think they’re here! I’ll be right back, alright?” 


        And she waddled off as quickly as one so large could waddle, leaving me to stand, shocked, in the doorway. If Claire was the lightest, I was in for one hell of a year. 


        _______________________________




        It turned out that I had not long to wait. I was writing my name and a few other things on the blackboard when I rather suddenly became aware of a veritable chorus of wheezing from behind me. I turned, very slowly, to observe my class for the first time.


        It was, to put it frankly, the most startling thing I had ever seen. 


        Standing - well, sort of - were eight girls carrying between them enough flesh for twenty-four. Claire was at the end of the line, looking rather triumphant, and from her the line proceeded onward in what seemed to be order of weight, ending with a girl so large she was seated in a wheelchair. The fabled Class VI, I thought grimly to myself. To the class, I forced a smile and said “Welcome, welcome! Have a seat, all of you.” 


        The girls looked at each other with some confusion. My smile faltered slightly, and I said, rather snidely, “Or two, if necessary.” 


        That seemed to be the ticket. With slow, jiggling motions, the class made their way to the tables, Claire seeming to do most of the work of finding them seats, helping them down, and pushing the extremely large girl to a position at one of the tables. Finally, after ten minutes, the process was complete- using, somehow, all fourteen chairs- and I clapped my hands for attention.


        “Good morning, class! My name is Mr. Roberts,” I started to write it out, realized I had already written it down, and hurriedly erased what I had done with my sleeve, “and I will be your OSC teacher for this year. Now, since I don’t know you, why don’t we go around the room and introduce ourselves! When I point to you, say your name, your favorite color, and what you like to do in your free time. I’ll start.” I pointed one finger at myself. “My name is Mr. Roberts, I’m 29, my favorite color is blue, and in my free time I like to study foreign languages.” 


A giggle broke out at this, and one large girl sitting at the center table said, rather rudely, “Wow, you like to study in your free time?”


To which a bookish-looking girl at the next table over replied, “Kimberly, don’t be rude! I for one am very interested,” and looked at me in a way that felt rather uncomfortable. 


I chuckled nervously. “Settle down, girls, we don’t need any fights!” To make my job a little easier, I pointed at Claire first. 


Claire, rather unexpectedly, stood up laboriously and nearly shouted, “I’m Claire, my favorite color is pink, and in my free time I like to play Barbie!” 


        The room laughed at this, which brought a very bad taste to my mouth. Unwilling to start anything, though, I pointed to the next girl, a blonde-haired girl wearing a horse-themed shirt straining to cover one of the largest bustlines I had ever seen. “And you?”


        “My name’s Felicia, I like brown, and in my free time I ride horses!” 


        I fear my face must have betrayed my surprise, for she followed that up with a rather annoyed “Horses are very strong!” before turning away from me to stare at the wall. I think I may have rolled my eyes as well, for the last one at that table, a rather jiggly African-American girl, took about two minutes to stop laughing. When she finally did, though, I pointed to her.


        “I’m Linda, I like purple, and when I grow up, I wanna be a famous actress!” she said, flipping her curly black hair as she did so. 


        “That wasn’t what I asked…” I said under my breath, but instead of correcting her I simply moved on to the center table. “You?” I said, pointing at the next girl, a very chubby Asian girl who was already busily engaged with a snack. 


        “My name’s Song, my favorite color is blue, and I like to play piano.” 


        “Your name fits well, then!” I said brightly. She fixed me with a glare that showed she had heard that well over enough times.


        “It means pine tree,” she said dryly, before returning to her snack. I moved on quickly, pointing next at the rude girl from earlier. 


        “I’m Kimberly, I like red, and I love playing video games!” 
        
        The bookish-looking girl snorted loudly. Kimberly shot her the deadliest look I had ever seen. “Guys, please…” I said, hoping to defuse the situation. “Next?” I said, pointing at a very pale girl encased in a large sweatshirt littered with Japanese writing. 


        “Konnichiwa! I’m Azusa, my favorite color is pink, and I like to watch anime, desu~!”


        Song hmphed loudly. Claire, very quietly, said “But my favorite color is pink…” I, internally cringing, asked “Azusa?”


        “She means Alice,” said Song, annoyance dripping from her voice like water. “She always does this.”


        “And she smells!” put in Kimberly, a cruel smile evident on her fat features.


        “Kimberly!” I said loudly. “We do not insult our classmates in here!”


        “Well, she does…”


        “Kimberly!” 


        “Fine…” Kimberly said, looking away. Alice looked sadly at the floor. 
        I wasn’t done. “Kimberly, what do we say?” 


        Kimberly sighed loudly. “Sorry, Alice.” 


        As I moved on to the next person, I heard Alice say, very, very quietly, “Azusa.”


        The final table contained only two people, the first of whom was the rather mousy-looking bookish girl. “How about you?” I asked. 


        “Well, I’m Mary, my favorite color is green, and I loove to read…don’t you?” she asked, fixing me again with that same, uncomfortable gaze. 


        “Yes, er, well...you?” I said, pointing quickly at the final girl, the one in the wheelchair. From up close I could see that not only was she in a wheelchair, she also, apparently, needed oxygen simply to breathe, as evidenced by the tube in her nose. Even so, or possibly as a result, it took her a while to gather the energy to speak. 


        “Jenny...hff...yellow…” she wheezed audibly “eating…” 


        What a surprise, I thought. “Well, now that that’s all settled, what say we get started! First on the schedule today is…” I looked at the schedule I was mandated to follow by the government, and my face fell. “Snacktime…”


        The girls cheered, and I, crestfallen, went to fetch the first box of snacks. According to my schedule, the class was supposed to have four more of these, not including lunch. I comforted myself with the knowledge that I could surely teach them something.


        ____________________________


        The arrival of lunch was nothing short of a blessing. For the entire morning I had been entirely unable to hold the class’s attention for even a single minute, no matter what I did to jazz up the lesson the government had handed down to me. Always, always, something else would come up, and I would have to spend minute upon minute bringing them back into focus, only to lose them immediately again. Even now, as the girls glutted themselves further on lunch, they were off on some tangent, eagerly discussing god-knows-what. I was despondent. But I had a job to do. And, by my life, that job would be done. 
        _____________________________


     The second half of the day was, if possible, worse than the first. Whereas before the girls would simply fail to pay attention, now, newly filled with even more calories than usual, they actively ignored me, and chattered aimlessly about anything but what I was doing at the front. At about 1 P.M, I simply gave up, and slumped despondently into my desk chair, defeated. I paid not the slightest bit of attention to the class for the rest of the day, not even as the bell rang and they waddled off. Tomorrow, I assured myself, tomorrow it will be better. 


This went on for three weeks. Three long, torturous weeks of suffering for me and carefree existence for the fat girls under my care. All morning, I would struggle to make them care about learning. Every afternoon, I would give up, slump into my desk, and ignore them entirely. I wondered if this was the fate of all OSCs - to be beaten down, forgotten, blown aside by the simple desire for food that these obese girls possessed. I had heard that this was no teaching position, and it was clear that those rumors were right. I considered, in my despondency, giving up on these girls, and just letting them have their food and little else. But I couldn’t bring myself to do that. I had two Masters! I couldn’t let eight girls beat me down, no matter how fat they were. So it was that things finally came to a head.


That Wednesday, midway through the fourth week of the year and nearly into October, the class had just finished with lunch and I, newly invigorated with a fresh cup of coffee, was ready to try to teach them properly. I approached the front of the room, an aura of manufactured cheerfulness emanating from me like a scent. “Alright, girls, please try to focus...Now, we’re going to review division, alright? Can anybody tell me how to set up a simple division problem- oh for GOODNESS’ SAKE! SONG! LINDA! That is ENOUGH!” 


     The two girls had turned from me to discuss something, and that small transgression had been the straw that broke the camel’s back. Everybody looked at me, shocked. I continued with my rant. “Why are all of you so incredibly disrespectful? For heaven’s sake, I never would have signed on to be an OSC if I knew this was what I was to deal with!” 


        Claire, in an attempt to restore order, meekly said, “Um, M-Mr. Roberts, our last teacher didn’t have a problem with us talking…”


        Blinded with rage as I was, I blew up at her too. “But I’M not your last teacher, am I, Claire?”


        Claire, startled, started to cry. Kimberly sniggered. “Yeah, is he?” 
        
        I turned my fury towards her. “You’re no better, Kimberly! I’ve had it up to here” I demonstrated with my hand “with your rude comments! Cut it out!” 


        Kimberly subsided angrily, but I still wasn’t finished with my rage. “Would anyone care to elaborate as to why none of you choose to focus on my lessons?” I caught sight of the hated schedule again, and it just made me even madder. “Should I just let you girls eat all day? Is that what your last teacher did? IS THAT WHAT YOU WANT?” 


        I shouted the last part loudly enough that the teacher across the hallway slammed her door. All eight girls stared at me, too shocked to do anything but stare. I stared back, glaring angrily into each of their fat faces, silently blaming them for my predicament. Finally, the silence was broken by perhaps the most unexpected source. 


        “Distracted...because we...hff...all...learned this...ngh...stuff...already…” wheezed out Jenny, every word clearly an effort. Sweat poured down her face and disappeared among the folds of her third chin. Shocked and confused, I merely asked, “What?”


        Seeing as Jenny was in no state to continue speaking, Kimberly elaborated. “We’ve already learned all this stuff, Mr. Roberts- they teach us the same thing every year.” 


        “I think they forgot about us,” said Song. “Once we get big they don’t want to look at us anymore.” She slapped her round belly for emphasis, eliciting a pained squeak from her two chairs. 


        “Yeah...and nobody’s ever cared about whether we paid attention before, either,” said Felicia, crossing her arms anxiously underneath her enormous bust. “The last teacher just let us do whatever.”


        “We want to learn, Mr. Roberts, really we do,” said Mary, sounding genuine for the first time in three weeks, “but we can’t. They won’t teach us anything interesting.”


        I opened my mouth, closed it again. I looked at the teaching manual I had been given, then at my desk, then at the girls, then at the manual again. I stared at the lesson I had been teaching. Despite the fact that I had read it many times that morning, I had never realized how incredibly, fulsomely patronizing it was. I had been so blinded by my prejudice towards these girls of great size that I hadn’t noticed in the slightest how simple the lessons truly were, and how easy the girls must have found it. I closed the manual and stared at the cover. There, I saw something I should have noticed long before- Teaching the Obese, as it was rather prejudicially called, only had one edition. No grade level, no change in curriculum, nothing. I could not fathom how I had been so blind. But, I realized, I still had a class of girls to teach. And properly this time. 


“Well,” I said, fixing the class with a stare I hoped was friendly, “I suppose we’d better get cracking.” 
        
        And, with absolutely perfect form, I tossed Teaching the Obese - my state issued teaching manual, that said, in big block letters,”GOVERNMENT PROPERTY DO NOT DESTROY,” - into the trash. 


        The girls, after a moment’s shock, clapped. Claire stopped crying. I clapped my hands together. 


        “Well, I can’t figure out where exactly to start just yet- if you all really want to learn…” I fixed Linda and Song with a sideways glance. They both nodded enthusiastically. “...then I’m going to have to give you a test. No, not a big one!” I hastily added to quiet a groan from Kimberly. “Just a pre-test, so I know where to start teaching. But, since I have to make it first…” I looked out again, upon the eight enormous girls, and sighed.


        “...I suppose you will get your day of snacking.” 


        And, amidst cheers and the crinkling of chip bags, I settled myself at my desk and began to work.


__________________________________


        In contrast to the weeks before, the end of the day arrived rather quickly - I had just finished placing the last question on the test when the final bell rang to signal departure. Finally unencumbered by my earlier despondency, I looked up at the class, watching their going with interest. Claire immediately sprung into action, lifting the various flabby girls from their seats. From my position at the the back of the room, I was very able to ascertain the true size of the girls in my class, and, very nearly, guess the weight class they fell into. Claire was, as already established, a Class III, and Felicia, Linda, Song, and Kimberly were all Class IV, most certainly- and, from the fact that Alice and Mary were not being helped to their feet just yet, I gathered that they were both in Class V. Jenny, naturally, was in Class VI, and I hoped to never see anybody larger than her in my life. The Class IVs were, rather interestingly, the first out, and the least interested in bidding me goodbye- though, to my great astonishment, I realized, as Song and Linda waddled by me, that the topic of their earlier discussion was not inane prattle, but rather the Mars Rover. I instantly felt much worse about having blown up so readily. 


        Now that her easier job was done, Claire began helping the Class Vs. Almost instantly I realized the disconnect between IV and V - though IV couldn’t stand up alone, the Vs couldn’t stand alone at all! Claire had to help them with each and every step, and I instantly pitied the girl. However, I didn’t want to interfere with any established ritual or tradition, so I stayed at my seat. I rather soon regretted that decision. 


        I hate to be judgmental, but the smell that I smelled when Alice-Azusa waddled by my desk was, to put it simply, indescribably bad. Clearly, the big girl was too engrossed in her anime to do anything so distracting as bathe. It was rude of me, to be sure, but it was only with great difficulty that I managed to refrain from gagging. Something would have to be done about that. 


        When she was gone, I fanned my hand in front of my face in what I hoped was a clandestine manner and took a moment to study the final two occupants of my classroom. Claire would have to come back to help them move as well, so for the moment they were rather stuck. Strangely, though, neither seemed to mind- Jenny was most likely asleep, and Mary was, well…


        ...Mary was staring straight at me with a very odd smile on her face. 


        I dismissed it and looked at her again. I noticed, for the first time, that Mary was really impressively wide- so much that she needed three chairs to hold her bulk up. I wouldn’t be surprised if she and Jenny were actually very close in weight- I had noticed earlier that Jenny seemed to be mainly belly, as her wheelchair was barely wider than a regular chair but her stomach rolls hung down past her feet- at least, if what was sticking out from beneath her mumuu were stomach rolls…


        I blanched. Mary must have noticed, because she asked then, “Like what you see?”


        “W-What?” I asked nervously. I stammered because I was startled, but Mary clearly misinterpreted my meaning.
        
        “You know...this,” she said, placing one hand on one of her massive hips. “All this.” She pressed down on that hip, setting her entire body jiggling. 


        “Um... I don’t know what you’re talking about.” 


        “Oh, Mr. Roberts, I bet you do…” She made a valiant effort to stand up and failed miserably. “Darn. I guess I’ll have to wait for Claire.”


        Glad of the delay, I said, “Do that,” and busied myself with my desk drawer. 


        Unfortunately, the delay was only a few minutes. Claire returned a minute later, sticky with sweat and, unfortunately, bringing a bit of Alice-Azusa smell back into the room with her. “Finally,” Mary grunted ungraciously as the smaller girl hauled her to her feet. “Bring me over to Mr. Roberts.” Claire did as she was told, helping the much larger girl waddle. It was really impressive. With each step that Mary took, every inch of her moved, rippling, jiggling… I must admit, I was enthralled, which is probably why Mary was so confident when she arrived at my desk- which she was, amazingly, wider than. 


        “Now, Mr. Roberts, do you like me?”


        “Do I what?” I spluttered. 


        “You heard me, Mr. Roberts. Do you like me?” Mary leaned forward in what I think she thought was an alluring manner.


        “Mary, I - I’ve only just met you! Don’t be so ridiculous!” 


        “Oh, Mr. Roberts…haven’t you ever heard of - oh, come on!”


        I looked at her quizzically. 


        “It’s my stupid phone...Claire! Get it!”


        Claire looked at me helplessly, then, to my shock, reached into Mary’s sizeable cleavage to retrieve a rather sweaty iPhone. 


        “I-It’s your mom, Mary...she says she’s waiting…”


        Mary swore loudly, which surprised me still more. “Well, come on then, don’t stand around so! Let’s move!” To me, she said, in a rather different voice, “Bye, Mr. Roberts! I’ll see you tomorrow…” 


        I didn’t even wait for her to leave before I actually gagged. A wheezy laugh from across the classroom told me that Jenny agreed. 


        It took even longer for Claire to return this time, probably since Mary was quite a bit larger than Alice, but return she did, sweatier than before, to retrieve Jenny. This job seemed much easier, as Jenny was in a wheelchair, but still I marveled at Claire’s fortitude. As they passed, Claire managed to stammer out, “G-Goodbye, M-Mr. Roberts. S-See you tomorrow.”
        
        They went out the door, and then I remembered my conduct from earlier. I sprang from my chair and raced into the hallway, crying “Claire, wait a moment!”


        Lucky, they hadn’t gone very far. Claire was looking at me with a mixture of confusion and worry. 


        “Claire, do you have to leave right away?”


        “N-no,” said the smallest big girl, looking nervously around, “why?”


        “I’d like to see you in my classroom, if at all possible.” 


        Claire’s eyes widened to the size of dinner plates with fear. “Y-Y-Yes,” she squeaked out, then hurriedly began pushing Jenny away. I watched them for a bit, then went back to my desk and sent my test to the printer. It took a few minutes, but soon enough Claire was back at my door, looking inside with scared eyes.


        “Come in, Claire. Don’t worry, you’re not in trouble. Have a seat.” 


        Claire sat, still looking around nervously. I pushed a small tin of caramel creams at her. “Please, have something. You must be tired from helping everyone else.”


        Claire, after a moment, took a handful. “T-Thank you. Yes, I am a little tired.”


        I folded my hands. “Claire, I wanted to apologize to you for earlier. I took my frustrations out on you, and I’m very, very sorry.” 


Her eyes widened still further, something I hadn’t thought possible. “You - you weren’t really mad at me?” 


I waved one of my hands around. “No, I was mad at everybody else,” I leaned in conspiratorially, “Kimberly especially.”


Claire giggled. I continued. “I don’t know how you put up with everybody - they’re all so mean to you. It’s like they expect your help or something.”


Claire looked at the floor. “Well, they do kinda...I’ve been helping them since forever, and now they’ve all gotten used to it. I don’t really mind though.” 


I looked at her. I was getting more amazed at this girl’s fortitude with each second I knew her. “Well, if you’re certain...but if you ever need help, feel free to talk to me. I didn’t mean to sit idly by today, I just figured I shouldn’t interfere…”


Claire looked at me, a wide smile spreading across her face. “Thank you so much, Mr. Roberts!”


“Of course, Claire,” I said, smiling back at her. “You may go now, that was all.” 


She hopped off her chair, said goodbye, and waddled quickly away to whatever was to take her home. I leaned back in my chair briefly, pleased with my work, then got up to grab my new test. I sensed that the next day would be much better. 
        
_____________________________________________


Almost from the very minute I woke up, the day seemed to agree with me. I woke up by myself, one minute before my alarm went off, feeling refreshed and ready. My breakfast somehow tasted especially delicious, my car somehow ran especially well, and, as I walked into school, I, somehow, managed a smile. Today was going to be great.


        After everybody had been settled, I administered the test and their first snacktime, which I used to review the results. The hated teaching manual contained material at around third- or fourth-grade level, but the girls had taught themselves far more than what the manual contained- up to a seventh-grade level, on average, with a few even cresting into ninth- or tenth-grade territory. It was honestly quite impressive, and I felt rather bad about my outburst of yesterday. Clearly, these girls were far more intelligent than anybody I had met in the past few weeks gave them credit for, even those I considered “in the know”. My desires for heroism came flooding back. I would be the hero of the fatties! A bastion of support in a world predisposed to disliking them! I could bring them the recognition they deserved!


I may have said that last part out loud, as a few of the girls turned to look at me strangely. Embarrassed, I returned to my grading. For my own reference, I created a chart of the girl’s grades, so as to more accurately tailor my lesson plans. I’ll reproduce that here. 


The test was 100 questions, ranging from knowledge on the level of the book they’d been hearing from for years up to the tenth grade, with a few extra-credit questions going as high as freshman year of college. 


Rank
	Name
	Grade
	Extra Credit
	Comments
	1
	Mary
	94%
	3/5
	Slightly weak in science
	2
	Song
	91%
	1/5
	Slightly weak in English
	3
	Claire
	88%
	2/5
	Solid in all areas
	4
	Kimberly
	86%
	0/5
	Needs work in math
	5
	Felicia
	82%
	1/5
	Strongest in history
	6
	Jenny
	80%
	0/5
	Needed help writing towards end
	7
	Linda
	79%
	0/5
	High in math and low everywhere else
	8
	Alice-Azusa
	68%
	0/5
	Very weak in all areas
	



The results didn’t particularly surprise me, with the exception of Kimberly’s relatively high marks. Alice-Azusa’s low scores seemed easily fixable, provided somebody could stand her smell for long enough to tutor her. Thus armed with knowledge, I approached the front of the room with no small confidence. 


“Ladies, I have wonderful news. You have all passed the test with flying colors!” 


The girls cheered. I continued. 


“In fact, you have all done so well that we can move the curriculum up- get this- four grade levels! You’re going to be learning what the seventh-graders are now!” 


This pronouncement was met with wide eyes from all parties, particularly the highest scorers. Mary looked excited enough to fall out of her chairs. I grinned. 


“Let’s not waste any more time, girls- we’ve got lots of work to do!” 


And with that, I embarked on a curriculum unlike anything I’d ever expected. Over the next few weeks, we launched headlong into math, into science, even into the foreign languages I was so desperate to teach. And, to my great surprise, the class absolutely loved it. Finally, they were confronted with material that interested them, captivated them, and challenged them. And this carried over into their behavior.


It was a universal and wonderful change - now, every single girl paid attention to the lesson! Sure, there were some disturbances, but now it was easy to bring them back on track -  and even to incorporate the source of the disturbance into the lesson. If a particularly beautiful butterfly passed by the window, it made a perfect segue into entomology. If a pencil fell off a desk, I could explain gravity. If a girl needed help to stand up and use the restroom mid-lesson…


...well, I couldn’t do anything about that, but it happened nonetheless. 


I noticed, though, as Halloween loomed spookily on the horizon, that my class seemed to be...growing, to some extent. That was rather to be expected - I was teaching the most obese girls in a many-mile radius, after all - but it seemed, at least to my untrained eye, like a lot. I noticed that all of the girl’s clothes seemed to be fitting less well, leaving rather a lot of stretch-marked and flabby skin on display. If this was to keep up through the holidays, when even the skinniest of people pack on a pound or two, I feared it would prove worrisome in time. 


However, in the here and now, other troubles threatened the relative tranquility of my class. 


It really began two days before Halloween. A week before, we had finished To Kill A Mockingbird, and I had assigned a personal narrative - a writing assignment about themselves that related to the text- to be due then. During the lunch break, I read through them all, and though most of them were to be expected - Kimberly’s clearly expressed her disinterest with me, the assignment, and school, Felicia’s was entirely about her horse, Mary’s was very oddly worded and seemingly aimed at me - there were some surprises as well. Jenny had written an extremely well-written and touching essay in which she related to the main character Scout’s difficulties with being ahead in school to her difficulties with being ahead in weight. I was so impressed that I called her over to discuss it.


Then, after waiting a few minutes and wondering why she wasn’t coming, I got up and, apologizing profusely, wheeled her over to my desk. 


Once I had her situated properly in front of my desk and myself properly situated in my chair, I brought out the essay and launched into my little spiel. “Jenny, I have to say, your essay is simply brilliant. I thoroughly enjoyed reading it and equally enjoyed the points you made in it.”
In response she merely waved one fat hand slightly, sending waves throughout her vast expanse. “Eh,” she wheezed, “it was nothing.”
I continued. “You talked a lot about your struggles in here; like, in this paragraph, you say that you’re having a lot of trouble with the physical aspects of school. Could you give me some more details?”
        “Well,” replied Jenny after a few deep breaths from her oxygen system, “I’m having a lot...more trouble with...writing than I used to. And...of course I can’t....raise my hand very far…”
        She demonstrated. I realized she had been raising her hand a lot more than I had realized. 
        “Also…” she continued “...it’s hard to find...clothes that fit...especially since...I’ve been growing so much...”
        She looked away slightly, probably out of embarrassment, squishing her thick chin into her equally thick shoulder. I glanced quickly at her belly, seeing the problem in an instant- a good six inches of fat was hanging out of the bottom of her enormous dress, which also seemed to be pinching her in a number of other places. I thought about it for a moment, decided on a solution, and put a hopefully comforting hand on her enormous arm.
        “Jenny, you can wear whatever makes you comfortable. And, if the lesson ever becomes too strenuous, just ask me for help. I’m always available.”
        She smiled, and I wheeled her back to her seat. The rest of the day proceeded as normal, and I thought no more of our conversation.
        What I didn’t realize at the time, though, is that Mary had been listening. And she, naturally, interpreted what I had said to Jenny in rather a different light. And, of course, that would come to haunt me soon enough.
__________________________


        Halloween arrived that Friday, bringing with it its usual air of spookiness. I approached the school that day with a mixture of excitement and apprehension - not of real ghouls, naturally, but of the fake ones that were sure to haunt my classroom. The school not only allowed but encouraged costumes, the more elaborate the better, and I feared my large students would find themselves especially distracted by the festivities. Nevertheless, I steeled myself, put up a few chintzy Halloween decorations I had found at the dollar store, and hoped for the best. 


        The first girl to arrive that morning was, surprisingly, not Claire, as I was expecting. Rather, it was Linda, the one girl who, despite having quite a lot of personality, I hadn’t much spoken with. Her hourglass form was crammed into a far-too-tight yellow dress with matching yellow high heels, all crowned, quite literally, by a sparkly silver tiara perched atop her black curls. She waddled slowly in, wobbling a bit on top of her heels, and asked “How do I look?”


“Very nice!” I said appreciatively from behind my desk. “Any character in particular?” 


Linda’s brown face took on a look of complete confusion. “Um, duh? I’m Belle! You know, from Beauty and the Beast?”


“O-Oh!” I saw it quite clearly now. “Yes, of course! I’m sorry, it’s been a while since I saw the movie and I-”


“It’s because I’m black, isn’t it?”


“Wh-What?”


Linda was all fired up now. “You think that just because I’m black I can’t be Belle?”


Stymied, I struggled valiantly for an eloquent answer. “Uh-N-No! No, of course not!” To tell the truth, I hadn’t recognized her as Belle not because she was black but because she, like everyone else in my class, was monstrously fat. “I promise you I see everything quite clearly now.”


Clearly, she was not impressed. With a “Hmph!”, she wobbled off to her seats and plumped down, nose held high in the air. I quietly shook my head and resumed grading a few things. 
        
Soon enough, the rest of the class began to file in. Song was next, enormous spandex-coated belly filling out a costume I was informed to be of D.Va from Overwatch, followed closely behind by Felicia, worriedly attempting to find her footing over a bosom that stretched her suitably blood-spattered Walking Dead T-Shirt almost beyond recognition. Next came Kimberly, her usual angry glare made all the angrier by the oversized Yankees uniform she was wearing. She, in turn, was none too happily supporting Alice-Azusa, who was absolutely stuffed into a sweat-soaked anime-style schoolgirl costume. For a very, very brief moment, I felt rather sorry for Kimberly. Very brief. 


        Yet, as Alice-Azusa flopped stickily into her chairs and Kimberly sank angrily into hers, my disgust and pity quickly changed to worry. Claire was, against all odds, still not present, and neither were the two largest members of my class. I glanced nervously at the clock, steeled myself, and, with a last, forlorn look outside the door, was about to begin the lesson when, with a loud whirr, Jenny tackled me. 


        Tackled is, in retrospect, probably not the best word for what happened- more like careened into at five or so miles per hour- but trust me, when seven hundred pounds of seventh grader wearing a Hulk shirt sitting on sixty pounds of metal chair collides with you, it feels a hell of a lot like a tackle. Whatever you call it, it sent me flying to the floor with my right leg stuck beneath her chair. 


“Jenny!” I gasped, clutching my leg, “what in the world are you doing?”


Jenny wheezed, sweat coating her enormous body despite having done absolutely nothing. “Sorry...rolled down...hff...ramp...couldn’t...hahh...stop…”


“Well, that’s fine, but why were you-”


I broke off. Something seemed different, but I couldn’t at first put my finger on it. But, as I looked, it became clear that something absolutely impossible had just happened.
        
Jenny had moved.


Just slightly, really- not enough to make much of a difference, and clearly not done under her own power. But, as I looked longer, staring in shock at her folds of fat that were, even now, still jiggling, something even more surprising made itself known. 


She was still moving. Sliding forward, actually. 


Right onto me.


It happened extremely slowly, but it was beyond either of our power to stop her inexorable forward movement- neither of us were capable of moving her vast body, her even less so than me. So, to the soundtrack of her panicked wheezing, Jenny, belly-first, slid off her chair and, with a great thump, landed on my chest. 


It felt, if I’m being completely honest, pretty nice; a lot like I would imagine melting Jell-O would feel like. Nevertheless, it wasn’t really very pleasant, as Jenny was incredibly sweaty and very, very heavy. But, try as I might, I could not struggle out from underneath her, so I was forced to wait for outside help- none of the other students were able to stand up alone, after all, much less help. So there we lay, her apologizing through her intense wheezing, I silently regretting my life choices. Luckily, help arrived fairly soon after that. 


Unfortunately, it was accompanied by an extremely jealous and very excitable “little” girl. 


“WHAT” Mary shrieked, gasping for breath, “IS GOING ON HERE?” 


I raised my head as much as I could, only to see something that, at the time, struck me as even worse than Jenny’s fall, something I had neither expected or hoped to ever see. 


Mary was dressed - oh, this is terrible - in a sexy devil costume. 


A sexy devil costume. 
        
I very nearly threw up, but out of consideration for Jenny, who I was still wearing like a blanket, I resisted the urge. All of Mary’s fat - which is to say, just all of Mary - was on full, flagrant display. Her massive, formless, incredibly pale hips, wider than three or probably even four chairs, wobbled furiously in the cool classroom air, enjoying their freedom from her usual attire of oversized stretch pants. Above them, her flabby swell of belly hung, sagging well over her crotch and reaching the rolls one once could have called knees. It didn’t quite look like it, but, upon squinting, one could discern the infinitesimally tiny red strings which belied the presence of a thong. The rest of her outfit was equally nonexistent- a tiny, tiny string bikini that left nearly all of her shapeless breasts in full view, and, atop her greasy brown hair, a set of chintzy plastic devil horns, not quite red as blood but certainly as red as her angry, exhausted face. 


“HOW COULD YOU DO THIS?” she screamed, filled with rage about...something. “HOW COULD YOU POSSIBLY DO THIS TO ME?”


“Mary, please,” I said, attempting to remedy the situation as best I could from underneath Jenny, “what’s going on? Why are you yelling at me?”


“I’M NOT YELLING AT YOU!” she yelled at me. “I’M YELLING AT HER!” She pointed one flabby finger at Jenny, the motion sending her unrestrained flab into an entire new paroxysm of spasms. “YOU’RE CRUSHING MY CRUSH!


And, as gasps and whispers spread throughout my enormous class, everything fell into place. The odd looks. The importune giggling. Now this ridiculous costume. Mary was in love with me.


I shuddered at the thought. Jenny’s soft mass shuddered with me.


The more I looked at Mary’s massive bulk heaving and jiggling, the more I wanted to leave the classroom and everyone in it well and far behind. Unfortunately, I saw no way out of my current situation, either the literal or the metaphorical- that is, until I saw Claire, huddling nervously beneath Mary’s titanic arm. 


God bless for small miracles, I thought ruefully, and called out “Claire!”


The smaller girl jumped in surprise, sending both her own fat- packed fairly tightly into a dog-shaped onesie- and Mary’s jiggling. “W-w-w-” 


I didn’t have time to let her finish stammering, so I pressed on. “Claire, could you please put Mary down and give me and Jenny a hand here?” 


Claire, even more flustered now than before, managed to stammer out a “Y-Y-Yes” before hurrying Mary into her three groaning chairs and coming to me. “Wh-What’s w-wrong?”


The stress of the morning was beginning to set in. “If you’d use your eyes, Claire, you’d see that Jenny and I are a bit stuck!” I spat rudely. 


Claire looked sadly at the floor. “O-Of course, Mr. Roberts, s-sorry,” she said sadly, and I was instantly struck with remorse. Unfortunately for her, I wasn’t feeling quite remorseful enough to apologize, so I just said “Push on Jenny’s side there.” After a bit of work, we were able to roll Jenny onto her flabby back and extricate my stuck leg. I, glad of my freedom, immediately stood up, nearly knocking Claire over in the process, and turned towards the next target of my wrath- the skimpily clad, still-sweating Mary.


“What in the world are you thinking, Mary?” I seethed loudly, pointing angrily at her enormous body. “How could you possibly think it was okay?”


“What?” the pear-shaped blob responded, confusion written all over her jiggly face. “What did I do?”


“You know what you did!” I was really annoyed now, shaking with rage. “Why would you ever think your outfit was appropriate?” 


The confusion on her face was replaced by a look of practiced innocence. “Well, I heard you tell Jenny that she could wear whatever made her comfortable, and this is what makes me the most comfortable!” 


I placed a hand on my forehead to steady myself. “I said that, Mary, because Jenny has mobility issues! She can’t just wear anything! You, on the other hand, are perfectly capable of moving, and thus you still have to follow dress code! Am I understood?”


Mary pouted. “But-”


“But nothing!” I shouted back, completely finished with the conversation. “Your outfit is completely inappropriate and there will be consequences, is that clear?” 


Mary leaned back, shocked. The rest of the class stared at me, mouths open with surprise. I glared back, resolute with rage, until I felt a light tug on my shirt. 


“M-Mr. Roberts,” Claire squeaked, “Jenny needs help.” 


I looked down, rage momentarily forgotten, to see Jenny gasping desperately for breath. “Air…” she wheezed, kicking her feet uselessly and sending a wave throughout her already tired body. “Air…” 


I looked further, monumentally confused, until I realized that her oxygen tube had fallen out of her nose and landed in the middle of her vast blanket of stomach. I at once felt a mixture of disgust and pity- pity that she was so helpless, and disgusted that she was so incredibly fat that she could not even reach something sitting on top of her. Nevertheless, I didn’t want her to die, so I leaned down, placing a hand on her belly to steady myself, and picked it up, intending to replace it where it belonged. 


That was an enormous mistake- and, concurrently, it was when I learned why her wheelchair was so heavy despite not having power. 


It was her restroom. 


In retrospect, I should have realized that a girl so incredibly enormous would have minimal to no control over her bowels, but at the time I wasn’t thinking the at all clearly. The slight pressure I had exerted on her stomach had, unfortunately, stimulated things that should not have been stimulated, and, to my utter revulsion, Jenny voided herself onto the floor. 


That act of sheer helplessness broke something in me. All my anger, all my rage, all of it instantly compressed into an utterly focused calm. I replaced Jenny’s oxygen, faced the class, and said, with the utmost levelness and clarity, 


“That’s it. No more. ” 


And I left, leaving my classroom behind for what, at the time, I thought would be forever. If you had told me, at that moment, that I would grow to love these kids, I would have probably spat on you. Right then, I wished wholeheartedly to never see anything like them again.










Quarter Two


I made great headway to the principal’s office, angry as I was, but something stopped me before I reached the door. It was nothing as noble as guilt or as base as money, though. No, it was the very thing that had gotten my class to its ridiculous weight - hunger. I had left an excellent lunch in the teacher’s lounge and had no desire to waste it. 


As I rummaged in the staff fridge, searching for my sandwich, I heard someone come in. I didn’t think much of it, but as I continued searching a thin voice asked me, “Excuse me, I hate to be a bother, but would you mind grabbing the brown bag labeled MacIntyre? My back isn’t what it used to be…” 


I grunted noncommittally and, not wishing to be too rude, grabbed the bag and handed it to the owner of the voice, a wizened old man who I recognized as the seventh-and-eighth grade science teacher. “Thank you very much, Mr.- Say, you’re the OSC, aren’t you?” 


“Was the OSC,” I glowered at him. “Now, if you don’t mind, I have to tender my resignation.” I turned to leave, but he called out, “Wait a moment! There’s no sense in being rash, young man. Stay a while and tell me about it, at least, Mr….?”


I glared, but answered with a curt “Roberts. Melvin Roberts.” 


He beamed. “Owen MacIntyre.” 


We shook hands. 


“Now, Melvin, what’s troubling you?”


He motioned me to sit, and I acquiesced somewhat reluctantly. After a moment, and a large bite of sandwich, I began telling my story. Slowly at first, haltingly, cautiously, but as I got deeper and deeper into the many misadventures of my class I got more and more animated, waving my hands wildly, and concluding my wild tale with a final, anguished, “...and then, she shat on the floor! It’s unbelievable!” I lowered my arms, panting slightly, and took another bite of sandwich.


Mr. MacIntyre chuckled lightly, laying his fork down on the table. “Oh my, that’s quite a tale. Quite a tale indeed.” He wiped his eye, chuckling a bit more, and asked, “Now how do you feel?”


I paused mid-chew. The question surprised me somewhat, so sure was I that he would agree with me, but, as I looked around the lounge, I realized that I now felt quite a bit better. My anger had subsided, and my desire to resign had faded somewhat with it. I swallowed with some difficulty and said “Better.” 


“See?” Mr. MacIntyre answered, a knowing twinkle in his eye. “You just needed to get it all out. Now get back in there and show them what’s what.” 


My old fears came flooding back. “But I can’t teach them! They don’t listen, they won’t learn! They’re just...just impossible!”


Mr. MacIntyre clucked his tongue. “No, no, it’s not their fault. It’s you, my lad.” 


I cocked my eyebrow. “Me?”


“I’m afraid so,” he sighed. “You see, even though you threw out the manual- for which I commend you- you’re still thinking of them as children, as- as you say-big, useless blobs. You must,” and here the mood turned to total seriousness, “think of them as students. Let me tell you a story.”


I groaned internally. 


“Before I got this job, oh, some fifty years ago- god, was ‘87 really fifty years ago?- I was briefly employed as a special ed teacher in a big high school. Now, back in those days, we were stuck in the basement- no fancy stuff for us, not at all- and given no other task than ‘control’, and that by any means necessary. I went into that classroom with nothing but revulsion, nothing but plain, searing hatred for these children.”


He clenched his wizened fists. I looked at him in shock. 


“But, as time went on, I started to realize that they could be taught, and was in much the same position as you were. One day, though, I was trying to get one boy with terrible behavioral problems- he would hit teachers and bang his head on his desk when things were confusing- to understand the concept of “please.” And he was just not cooperating. He shouted, screamed, writhed, swung at me- anything but say that word. Finally, in a rage, I pointed my finger at him and shouted ‘YOU WILL DO AS I SAY!’ And you know what he did?”


He looked at me sidelong. I stared, rapt, my sandwich forgotten. 


“That little fucker bit me! Clear down to the bone, actually. Have a look.” 


He turned his hand towards me, and I could clearly see the scar tissue on his hand. 


“And as I screamed and shook my hand around to get it out of his mouth, I realized something extremely important, something that has changed my teaching career for the better ever since.” He leaned forward as if to share a great secret. 


“It is not possible to teach children.”


I stared. This was not even close to the revelation I had been expecting. In fact, it struck me as moderately insulting. “What?”


He smiled. “I know it must sound ridiculous, but it’s perfectly true. You, yourself, cannot teach children anything. You can lecture for hours on end, have them write notes, papers, quizzes, tests, whatever you want, but unless they want to, they will not learn. So, instead of teaching to children, you must teach, rather, for children.”


This struck me as even more offensive - of course I already knew that! That’s rule number one of teaching! He folded his hands and went on. 


“It took me quite a while, but I was eventually able to get my finger out of that boy’s mouth. And once I did, and got it wrapped up and everything, I sat down with him, put a piece of paper in front of him, and said ‘Show me what you can do.’”


He looked away from me, wistfully, staring off into some far corner of the ceiling. 


“He drew, Melvin. He drew the most beautiful picture I have ever seen in my entire life. It was a rose, a perfectly proportioned, perfectly detailed rose that seemed red even in pencil. It almost floated off the page, so perfect was it. A perfect, unblemished piece of art, produced in a basement by a boy with no future and no prospects. I still don’t understand how I could have been so blind.”


He shook his head, slowly, carefully, lost in this past world. Finally, to break the silence, I asked, raspily, “What happened next?”


Mr. MacIntyre shook his head, the return to the present clearly less than ideal. “Well, I learned then that that boy’s medium was clearly the paper, so from that day on I wrote, rather than spoke, the lessons to him. By the end of the year he had gone up five grade levels.”


My jaw dropped. Mr. MacIntyre grinned. 


“Do you see it now? Your problem, as mine was, is in your approach, not your methods. I’m sure- in fact, I know- that you are a fantastic teacher. But what you need to understand, young man, is that your students are equally fantastic. And if you allow them to be as they are, rather than imagining them as you think they should be, they will, without a doubt, surprise you.”


I motioned to speak, but Mr. MacIntyre waved his hand. 


“No time now, lunch is almost over. I imagine your class could use you again.”


And, with that moderately ominous pronouncement, he was gone, tweed jacket flapping behind him as he hobbled to class. Entranced by his words, I sat still for a few minutes more, then, slowly, got up and wandered to my own classroom, thoughts of resignation entirely forgotten. 


As I approached my classroom’s door, though, I became less and less sure of my semi-voluntary decision to stay on. The classroom was sure to be in disarray- something must have happened, even with the limited mobility of my students. And, of course, there was the matter of the mess on the floor, and Mary’s stupid costume…


Far sooner than I would have liked, I had arrived at my door. There was no help for it- I was the teacher still, for better or for worse. I grit my teeth, took a deep breath, and turned the handle. 


The sight I saw before me was more shocking than anything I had imagined.


It was normal.


I looked around, absolutely stunned. Jenny was back in her chair, in position in her normal spot. The mess had been completely cleaned. Mary was even wearing actual clothes! A white T-Shirt that looked about to burst, but clothes nonetheless. The entire class was sitting in their seats, looking back at me with a mixture of mild surprise and self-satisfaction. 


“I told you he’d come back,” Song grinned, exuding confidence. “Pay up.”


Kimberly, grumbling, grabbed a wrinkled $5 bill out of her pocket and tossed it lightly at her belly-heavy neighbor.


Against my better judgement, I smiled.


___


The days marched on fairly boringly after that. Through my much-improved teaching, enhanced by regular lunches with Mr. MacIntyre, who had become rather a close friend, we ascended through units and grade levels far faster than anyone had thought possible. However, mostly as a result of the particular season, something else ascended rather rapidly as well.


The class’s weight. 


I should have seen it coming, of course - Halloween candy had been a staple crop of my students since the end of September - but, still, the pace at which the pounds flew on astounded me to no end. Not unsurprisingly, this in turn led to some pretty major problems, most of which were related to the class’s declining mobility, but some were not - and, oddly enough, these were the worst of all. 


It was a chill November day, the Wednesday before Thanksgiving break, before anything else threatened our classroom. For the past three weeks, we had been making steady, rapid progress in both education and food consumption, and it was showing in the girl’s test scores and waistlines alike. On that day in particular, everything was going particularly well. I had given the girls packets of seasonally interesting math problems to work through in groups, and to foster the cooperative spirit I had put on a bit of light music in the background and set out some further snacks to augment the preexisting ones. Their incessant chatter and careful work gave me some time to wander around and read a few pages further in The Da Vinci Code, which at the time I still had not read. Outside, the wind blew violently at the windows, scattering the leaves to hell and back. Inside, though, it was warm, comfortable, and idyllic.


That is, until the superintendent arrived. 


She, who I had only met once before and the children never at all, barged in entirely unannounced, slamming the door against the wall and startling the girls into fits of jiggles. “You,” she barked, pointing a scrawny finger at me, “come with me. We need to talk about-” She stopped short. Her eyes roved over the girls, confusion written all over her gaunt face. 


“What in the world are they doing?”


I opened my mouth to answer, but a smaller voice chimed in before I could. “Math packets, ma’am,” said Linda proudly, holding out her completed first page. “Wanna see?” 


The superintendent looked about ready to change color. I quickly found my voice. “I can assure you, ma’am, I was paying close attention. I understand that it’s a bit unorthodox-”


“That’s not the point, you idiot!” she cried at me, and viciously snatched the math packet from Linda’s chubby hand. “What sort of math is this?”


“Algebra,” said Song dryly. “Haven’t you seen it before?”


The superintendent’s eyes looked ready to pop out of her head. “ALGEBRA? Are you mad? These children can’t learn this stuff!” 


I bristled. “And why not? They’re willing and more than capable of handling the material.”


“WHO CARES?!” she shouted at me. “They’re not going to need the material! Look at them!” she cried, sweeping one angular arm across the room. “They’re not going to leave their houses before too long! We can’t waste our time or resources teaching them things they’ll never use!”


A shocked silence greeted her words. Claire, way on the end, was trembling, her round figure shaking with fear. Mary, on the other, was shaking with rage, her flabby hands curled into soft fists, looking for all the world that, had she the power to stand, she would have cleaned the superintendent’s clock. I felt about the same, and I had no weighty restraint keeping me from doing so- only force of will, and that rapidly degrading. She stared back, beady eyes unblinking, sallow lips curled into what almost could be considered a smile, as if daring me, goading me into violence. The situation was, to say the least, tense. 


But, in the most unexpected and possibly most unpleasant way possible, Alice-Azusa saved the day. 


Quite suddenly, the sweaty girl clutched at her stomach, and, with a low moan that harmonized quite well with the grumbles from her middle, let loose with an incredibly impressive and very loud bout of flatulence. 


God, I remember that scene perfectly. Her face was scrunched up, half out of discomfort, half out of pleasure. The sound and smell rippled through the classroom, flowing unbidden into our ears, wrinkling every nose it touched- even Jenny, with her onboard oxygen, smelled it. I almost wish I didn’t remember- it was foul, rancid, a mixture of old eggs and spoiled chocolate, a smell that would have driven even rats away.


It was the most perfectly timed maneuver to ever occur.


With a cry of abject horror, Superintendent Chambers clapped her hands to her face and ran off, retching, not bothering to say goodbye or even threaten us in the slightest. The absurdity of the situation reached me then - certain disaster averted by a fart- and, despite or perhaps because of the absurdity of the situation, I laughed, full-on laughed, not even caring that with each breath I was taking in lungfuls of Alice-Azusa’s foul musk. The students, after a bit of mild confusion, laughed too. Our hilarity echoed through the hallways.


Of course, as with all things, the absurd moment couldn’t last forever, so, when the laughter died down, I flung open the windows, and they resumed their work, the previous work-happy atmosphere restored to normal. Even so, a shadow had made its presence known in our classroom - the knowledge that, somewhere far above our heads, there were forces working against us. Forces that, if they did truly decide to crack down on us, there was nothing we could do against them. 


Despite that, I was determined that nothing should come between me and a long weekend of vacation, so it was with genuine feeling that I wished each and every one of the girls a very happy Thanksgiving. The dinners they were discussing on their way out made me worry ever so slightly, but I brushed it off as nothing. Surely, I thought, nothing too ridiculous will happen. 


I promised myself that as soon as I left the building I wouldn’t think about school until absolutely necessary. Thus, I enjoyed my break immensely. I drove several states away to visit my family for the actual holiday, which, despite the presence of lots of alcohol and lots of differing opinions on both politics and my new job, was wonderful, and spent the remaining two days back at home sleeping off the combination of Thanksgiving dinner and the loads of stress that the first third of the year had foisted upon me. It was in these two days that I finally realized that, despite all the peculiarities, nuances, and overall unpleasantness of the position of OSC, I actually was starting to enjoy it. My class, for all their oddities, was really beginning to grow on me, even as they grew themselves. As I went to sleep that Sunday night, I was certain that nothing could possibly spoil our perfect class.


Not for the first, nor for the last time, I was very, very wrong.


The day we came back began well enough. We spent the first few minutes of class swapping stories of our weekends, which, as expected from a holiday containing so much food, were universally good. For that matter, even though they didn’t specify in words how much they ate, it was clearly evident in their stomachs- not one of them was wearing clothes that fit, and every one of them looked significantly bigger. Even Jenny, who was already significantly big, seemed to have packed on more than a few pounds. I cast one worried eye at her belly, which seemed to be reaching closer and closer to the floor with each passing day. She, noticing my gaze, waved laboriously at me. Mary, who also looked significantly bigger, shot her a venomous glare, then, switching to an enormous grin, waved at me herself, setting herself jiggling.


I shuddered and started teaching. 


The first subject to teach that day was math. I spent the first half of the hour introducing the formula y=mx+b and its resulting graph, that of a straight line. That went over relatively well, and then, as the snack half-hour began, we settled comfortably into some review. This system I had devised- half-hour of new stuff while they’re somewhat sated, a half-hour of review while they replenish their energy- worked quite well, giving the girls both the knowledge and the food they needed without sacrificing study. 


“Right, then, who can solve y=1/2x+26 for x?”


I let them have a few minutes, then the jiggling arms went up, some still with food bags in their hands. I sighed internally, then called on one.


“Felicia?”


The busty horse-lover took a minute to readjust, then asked “13?”


I shook my head. “You’ve got the right idea, but that’s not quite right.” I pointed to her neighbor next. “Linda?”


Linda fluffed her curls, then said, very confidently, “52!” 


I shook my head again. “Oh, you’re so close! Look it over again.” I scanned the room again, and was pleased to see that Alice-Azusa was raising her hand as well. “Azusa?”


“Can I use the restroom?”


D’oh. “Yeah, sure…” I nodded at Claire, who nodded back and started shifting her sizable weight in preparation for standing and helping her out. I pointed next at Mary, who was waving her fat arm so much I was sure she was going to fall out of her now four chairs. 


“It’s negative 52!”


“Correct!” I said, nodding somewhat appreciatively. She beamed back. I, feeling rather uncomfortable, turned around to put up the next problem. 


“Okay, how about… y=(17x-31)-82?”


A few minutes more of pencil scratching and frantic chewing, and the fat hands were back up. This time I called on Song first. 


“Is it 3.71?”


I cocked my head quizzically. “Um...no, but that’s pretty close. Anybody else?” 


A faint jiggle from Jenny. “Yes?”


“Negative...hff...3.71?”


I chuckled. “Not this time, unfortunately.” Another jiggle from somewhere else. “Yes, Azusa?”


“Can I please go to the bathroom?” she whined. Her pale, greasy face was screwed up with concentration, clearly trying to hold herself together. 


“What- Yes, I already said yes! What’s going on over there, Claire?” I cried, turning sharply towards the small girl. She looked back at me, face flushed with effort and worry. 


“I…can’t…”


“You can’t? What do you mean you-oh-”


And, with perfect clarity, my world broke before my eyes. 


Claire, my noble and loyal assistant in dealing with my enormous class, had herself become too fat for her job. Now, not only did I have to teach, I also had to move them, clean them, whatever else it was that Claire, that stalwart bulwark of niceties, had previously done for me. My face collapsed into a thousand-yard stare of pure despair. 


“Please,” whined Alice-Azusa, squirming in her seat. Still I did not move, despondent as I was. Only a trumpeting frrt from the elephantine otaku was enough to bring me back. 


“Fine!” I shouted, far too loudly. The girls stared at me, shocked. I dialed back. “Fine. The rest of you, work on...something, I don’t know. Azusa, let’s go.”


I hauled her roughly- too roughly, judging by the release of several more farts from her jiggly rear- and, attempting to ignore the sweat soaking my clothes, waddled her quickly to the restroom. 


        Now, I truly began to realize the extent of what Claire had accomplished behind the scenes.


        For an eye-watering fifteen minutes-some of the longest fifteen minutes of my life- I was forced to stand outside Alice-Azusa’s stall and withstand a barrage of smells and sounds most foul as she did her business. The filth permeated the air and, I am sure, my clothes, and the realization hit me that I would have to do something like this every day, perhaps multiple times a day, for the rest of the year and possibly even my career. 


        I sighed deeply, leaned back on the tile wall, and daydreamed of a better job. 


        Far later than I would have liked, the latch on the door rattled. Alice was finished, finally, and I could now perform the very dubious honor of helping her up and getting her back to class. Luckily for me, for the moment at least, she was capable of cleaning up after herself- however, as I waddled her back to class, I realized, with mounting horror, that Jenny and, even worse, Mary, were most certainly not. 


        And, by the evil grin plastered across Mary’s enormous face, I sensed she knew it too. 


        ____________
        
        That day sapped all the energy I had. The lessons were nigh-constantly being interrupted by girls needing help up, help down, help here, help there. A constant parade of shifting fat, all shifted by me and me alone. On that day alone I had to assist Alice a further two times and Mary an absolutely ridiculous four, although at least two of those were just, in her own words, “to get me alone.” The other two were as disgusting as you can imagine. By the time of the final bell, I just wanted, more than anything else, to rest. I flopped down at my desk, sighed heavily, and waited for the girls to leave so I could take a nap.


        Then, a throat cleared, and I remembered that I had to get them all out of my room, too.


        I sighed again and pulled myself to my feet, heading for the lighter end of the classroom first. I heaved all the Class IVs to their feet- Claire, Felicia, Linda, Song, and Kimberly, in that order- bid them all a rather curt goodbye, and, amidst profuse apologies from Claire, watched them waddle off to parts unknown. That left me with the heaviest three for last. 


        Helping Alice-Azusa was fairly decent- I had, over the course of the day, become used to having sweat soak me. I waddled her out, up the ramp leading to my classroom, and out the front door to a waiting gray Mazda. With a bit of pushing, one third of my job was done. 


        Now for Mary. 


        The grin she gave me as I walked back in was proportionally almost as wide as her rear. I sighed deeply and, rather roughly, heaved her to her fat feet, setting her into a paroxysm of jiggles that only increased when I started to move her. Her fat body wobbled with every step, rubbing up against me and causing her overstretched leggings and her undersized shirt - already little more than a crop top despite its XXXL sizing - to ride down and up, respectively, revealing partway through the trek that she was wearing no underwear on either part. I grunted involuntarily at the realization; she, as usual misinterpreting my meaning, grinned coquettishly and, turning slightly around, started rubbing her fat against me even more than she already was. Luckily for me, the blue van waiting for her was equipped with a ramp, so I was able to shove her vast body through the door- even though it brushed both sides- and return to my classroom for my final student. 


     Luckily for me, moving Jenny was, by comparison, a fairly easy job. All I had to do for her was wheel her away, which, even though she was probably somewhat close to eight hundred pounds all told, was reasonably doable with wheels- her chair, though not entirely powered, contained some kind of dynamo which made the job of pushing it significantly simpler. All I had to do was push the wheezy girl outside, where a very large brown van was waiting to retrieve her with a lift. With that, my day at school was done.


     Then, to go home, have an unfulfilling dinner, and wake up to do it all again…


     The weeks that remained of December were some of the worst of my life. Until then it had never crossed my mind as to the sheer amount eight girls would need the restroom. It seemed like every few minutes I was either lifting someone up, placing someone down, or, worse, taking one of the “Big Three” on a sick parody of a field trip. It would almost make me sad that the girl’s bathroom was one of the few places they went in the school if it wasn’t for the terrible sounds, smells, and, yes, sights I was forced to witness. Alice was alright, though she smelled the worst, but Mary was an entirely different story. Every opportunity she had she would find some way to show herself off to me, either by wedging herself in the stall so that I would be forced to extract her, or, worse yet, intentionally exposing herself to me more than was necessary for the task of cleaning. Jenny, by comparison, did none of these things, yet the task of cleaning her was equally as gross if not more so. At least once, sometimes twice a day, I was forced to empty the holding tank attached to her chair of the foul-smelling results of her complete lack of control. I had hoped, at the beginning of this horrific process, that my nose would become somewhat used to the job, but no such luck. If anything, I only became more aware of the smells of that little world, from the scent of stale sweat that came with the challenge of existence at my class’ size to the faint stench of incomplete cleanliness that came from all the girls. Even the smallest ones were large enough to have the task impeded. 


     The other duties that were appended to the already stressful task of being a teacher were not much better. The constant lifting and shifting I had to do for a group of girls that were all well over 300 pounds was taking a major toll on my not-so-impressive musculature, meaning that every day I left tired and sore. Normally, after strenuous exercise, one could take some rest; not so for me. My only rest was on the weekends, which, though a blessing, were still not enough time to recuperate from the job. Despite the fact that I was, supposedly, a mature adult, every night I wore my pajamas inside out, stuck a spoon under my pillow, and dreamed of a snow day. 


     But, despite the fact that the snow fell hard and fast, there were no cancellations, not even so much as a delay. So, every day, I dragged myself out of bed, fortified myself with coffee, and unwillingly faced another day of interrupted lessons, endless snacking, and the cold, horrific realization that it would only get worse from there. 


     Ironically, though, it meant I now had something in common with the girls. They longed for Christmas for the presents and food it would bring; I, on the other hand, longed to get away from them. Really in the spirit of the season, isn’t it?


    Though it seemed at the time to take forever, December 23rd did eventually lumber into our little classroom. That year, the day fell on a Wednesday, which would ensure an especially long Christmas break- twelve days- making both the class and I very excited. In fact, my excitement that I would soon be away from them somewhat overcame my desire to be away, meaning that, despite myself, I was actually having a good time. I’d broken my personal bank to get them some Christmas-y snacks and treats to augment their admittedly rather bland standard fare and, in a move of questionable legality, sourced several Bunsen burners from Mr. MacIntyre and used them in the production of a large pot of hot cocoa. In lieu of work, I allowed the girls a few choices of movie to watch and board games to play, and they, after a bit of readjusting by yours truly, were busily engaged in doing so. Claire, Felicia, Alice-Azusa and Jenny were clustered around a spirited game of Candy Land- a game which seemed oddly appropriate, considering that the girls seemed far more likely to eat the board than play with it. Mary and Song, meanwhile, were engaged in an incredibly tense match of chess, their focus on the board matched only by the intense rate of chips they were shoving into their mouths. By contrast, Kimberly and Linda were happily gossiping over a few coloring books- a rather odd occurrence, since Kimberly rarely seemed to be happy about anything. Perhaps she just needed a little space. 


       Though the snow swirled angrily and beat upon the windows, the scene inside was truly pleasant, a cozy nest of friendliness and fun within what seemed to be a cold and unpleasant world. Though I was still anxious to be gone, I could begin to understand the sad plight of the girls under my care. They were marginalized, cast off, left in a classroom by themselves to do no more than expand and, eventually, be shunted out of the school to live a lonely life at home for the rest of their days. I realized, more than ever, the significance of the teaching manual I had thrown away so long ago. One single volume called Teaching the Obese, as if they were a different species! I frowned dispassionately at my coffee cup. Though it was probably true that it would be difficult for these girls and others like them to find work, especially if they were, like Jenny, too fat to move under their own power, that doesn’t mean that they couldn’t or wouldn’t. I had two fantastic minds in my classroom- Song and Mary- who were, for all their faults, more than capable of having at the very least an online job if not more. It struck me then that these girls would very likely not go to college, and that only a few of them would even make it on to high school. After they graduated middle school, they would simply exist, growing fatter and fatter until they couldn’t do anything anymore, and then growing fatter after that until such time as they died. 


    And, at that moment of wrathful pity that gripped me, who should walk in but that awful arbiter of the girl’s woeful situation, Superintendent Chambers. 


    Again without a knock or word of acknowledgement, she stormed in, beady eyes somehow both scanning the room for signs of trouble and fixating on her target for the moment- me. 


     “You,” she spat. “Obesity Support Counselor.” The girls, noticing the commotion, turned away from the movie to watch. Mary reached over and, with some effort, turned Jenny’s chair for her. 


     I, still riding on the wave of anger I had been feeling a moment before, stood firm. “I have a name, you know.” 


     The scowl on her face grew uglier. “So? I’m not here to play nice. I don’t approve of the way you’re teaching this class.”


      “Is that because I’m actually teaching it?” 


       The class oohed. She smirked a little, the slight curl on the corner of her angry frown only making it worse. “Watch it, kid. You’re on thin ice here.” 


     I lost my head momentarily and, waving my arms for effect, shouted “Nothing in here is thin!”


     This statement had the complete opposite effect I had feared. The class burst into laughter, quaking in place from the force of their chuckling, while the administrator’s frown deepened still further. 


      “Did you forget who I am? I am this close,” she demonstrated with her fingers, “to throwing you out on your ass. I suggest you listen.”


     I listened. She, after eyeing me for a minute, went on. 


     “You are not teaching this class the way it should be taught! You are wasting the schools money on frivolous things. That’s money that could be spent on children with an actual future!” 


      The class gasped. I drew myself up to my full height and, with a scowl of my own, spat back “I am sorry, ma’am, but I cannot, in good conscience, deny these children an education.”


      Another smile crept its way onto her scowl again, this one bigger and more twisted than the last. “Then I can’t have you in this school. Get out, I’m firing you.” 


      It took a moment for the words to sink in, even though I had been expecting them for the entire conversation. I looked down, abashed, trying to process the turn of events, wondering what I could possibly do to keep afloat with no job. Across the room, my class rose up in anger, flabby bodies jiggling with the force of their shouting. Song swore violently in Chinese, while Mary protested violently until her face was red and sweaty with the effort of it. Claire burst into tears, sobbing noisily into her fluffy arms. Felicia and Linda looked at each other nervously, unsure of how to respond. Even Jenny let out a sad gurgle. 


     And, from the doorway, a soft, yet commanding voice, stated “No you won’t.” 


    All noise ceased. Superintendent Chambers whirled around, bristling at this newest threat. The voice spoke again, revealing itself to belong to Principal Matherson. 


      “Have you forgotten the rules, Martha? You have authority over the school, but you must have my approval to fire any of my staff. And in this case,” he crossed to me, taking up a defensive stance on my left side, “I most certainly do not give it. Mr, Roberts has been a fine employee, and I, the principal, see no reason to dismiss him.”


      For a moment, it seemed the entire world held its breath. The tension in the room was so thick you could have taken a bite out of it- I’m fairly sure Jenny tried. Finally, Superintendent Chambers broke the silence. 


     “Fine,” she spat, “you win. You can keep the flabby fucks.” And, with that final, offensive parting shot, she turned on her heel and left the room.


     The world drew breath again. I slumped, triumphantly, into the nearest seat, laughing quietly to myself from pent-up nervousness. Principal Matherson smiled at me. 


     “Carry on, lad,” he said warmly, “you’re doing just fine.” 


       “Thank you, sir,” I gasped, “that helps-”


       BUZZ


        Odd. My phone was ringing.  A quick glance at the screen revealed the caller to be my brother. I looked at Matherson for approval to answer, and he nodded. 


       “Hello?”


        I won’t go into detail with that phone call- suffice to say it was one of the most heart-wrenching experiences of my entire life. By the time I hung up, I was barely maintaining my composure. The class and principal looked at me with concern. I took a deep breath and shakily eked out,


       “My mother’s dead.”


        The class didn’t come to me- they couldn’t- but their outpourings of grief and sympathy made me shed a tear or two all the same. I sat in place, staring at the ground, for a few minutes more, then after a deep sigh, stood up and took my place at the front of the class.


          “Girls, I’m sorry about that, both with the superintendent and now...this.” I took another deep, shuddering breath. “The funeral is in a few weeks, but my family wants me to be there now to help prepare. Do I…” I took another deep breath, desperate to remain composed, “...do I have your permission to take a month or so off?” 


          The girls, as one, nodded assent, their chins squishing together with the motion. Matherson, in the back, nodded as well. “Take all the time you need, boy,” 


         “Thanks, guys,” I said apologetically, a sad smile playing across my face. “I really am sorry, you know. I just… I just…”


           The bell rang then, mercifully eliminating the rest of my sentence. I shook my head and moved to Claire, pulling her out of her seat, and did the same for the other Class IVs, expecting nothing special. But, as I was busying myself with Alice, I heard some shuffling from behind me, and all of a sudden I was enveloped in an extremely squishy hug. 


        “Feel better, Mr. Roberts,” Claire said, sniffling into my armpit. “Feel better.” 


          And, as I turned to comfort her, I was surrounded by the rest of the lighter girls, wrapped in a sea of malleable, sweaty comfort. Felicia’s bust melded with Song’s massive belly mixed with Linda’s hips and Kimberly’s legs such that I wasn’t entirely sure who was who. Alice, unable to stand, hugged my leg, and Mary, scoffing that she couldn’t join in the hug proper, reached over with no small effort and contributed her flabby hand. Jenny merely flopped and jiggled limply in place, but I knew she was making an effort. 


       I cried then, happy tears of pure sadness that my class loved me even at this, my lowest point. We held this position for a few moments, then the phones began angrily buzzing, demanding the return of their daughters. I broke the embrace reluctantly, and, with eyes still shining and face still smiling, I bid the smaller girls a Merry Christmas, waving as they trudged heavily away. The larger girls were equally wonderful. As I was putting Alice/Azusa into her car, she turned to me, sweat dripping from her brow with the effort of moving, and gravely said “Keizoku wa chikari nara, Roberts-san. Continuance is strength. Be brave.” 


        I beamed, and bowed to her. “Arigatō gozaimashita, Azusa-chan. You as well. Merry Christmas.” 


        As her mom drove away, I couldn’t help thinking that I’d gravely underestimated the girl. 


        I had a pleasant walk with Mary as well, surprisingly. She managed to make it all the way up to her car and even through a hug without pressing herself against me in any way but what was necessary to walk at her size. I pushed her into her car too, with some effort- she really was too large for it- and was about to return for Jenny when she burst out “Mr. Roberts, I love you.”


         I had been expecting her to say something like that for weeks, but not at all like this. This pronouncement was not lewd, not laced with anything even resembling innuendo. This was genuine, and at any other time it would have made me very nervous. Now, though, it was wonderful to hear. I smiled at her and said “You too, Mary. Merry Christmas.” 


       Her mom drove away as well, and it was back to my classroom for Jenny. I wasn’t expecting her to do very much, as she seemed less and less capable of things with each passing day, but, as we reached her car, she beckoned me in for a hug as well. I reached my arms around her, trying not to grimace as my hands slid behind her sweaty back fat and my knees sunk into her belly, and she lifted her arms slightly- not much, but enough- and placed them on mine. After a few seconds preparing, she gasped out “Good...luck.” 


       I smiled at her and extricated myself from the “embrace”. “You too, Jenny. Have a very Merry Christmas.”


      My sad smile dropped when her van drove away. Now, I was alone with my sorrow, and the tears returned. I didn’t bother locking my classroom, instead just heading to my car and driving home. Then, after throwing a few items of clothing in a suitcase and texting a few family members that I was on my way, I drove off, heading for my parent’s house in Michigan. I was to be gone for about two weeks, or so I told Matherson in an email. At the very least I’d miss the end of the second quarter. 


      Even so, as my car made the turn onto the interstate, my class was the last thing on my mind. Perhaps, if I knew what was in store for them, I never would have left. 
    


































































     Quarter Three


     My mother’s death had been entirely unexpected. She displayed no outward signs of weakness, no obvious symptoms of any disease, yet one day she stood up from her favorite chair, took two steps, keeled over and died. An autopsy revealed an enormous aneurysm had stolen her from us at just 61. 


      I read the eulogy, extolling her virtues, her kindness, her love of reading, her willingness to always have guests, her cooking. I poured my heart and soul into that eulogy, and by the end a lot of the room was weeping, aunts and uncles alike devolving into a mess of sobbing. Dad in particular was inconsolable. Even at such an awful moment, I couldn’t help feel a twinge of pride. 


       For whatever reason, that bit of pride brought my fat class suddenly to mind. What exactly triggered it I’m not certain, but I realized, now that I was really far away, that I was indeed proud of them. What they lacked in mobility and the ability to help themselves they made up for in spirit. I smiled sadly. Mom really would have loved them. I imagined her cooking huge meals for them, reading to Mary, caring for Jenny in that expert way she had with people, charming the irascible Kimberly, bolstering Claire’s nonexistent confidence. 


      All things I’d never done.


      The funeral was mercifully brief. After Mom was laid to rest, we all said our goodbyes, got into our cars, and drove off, nobody really wanting to stay any longer. Mom’s loss was too great.


      Then, on the way back from the cemetery, Dad’s car was hit by a UPS truck. 


       The relatives were not happy to be called back for a second funeral, just as the lawyers were unhappy to have to redo all the work they had just finished. Still, though, they had a duty, as did I. Another funeral planned, another eulogy written and read, another few weeks of tear-stained tissues and an empty, memory-laden house. After more than a month of grief and sorrow, Dad was laid to rest next to Mom, and I was on my way back to the class I’d neglected for far too long. Back, I reluctantly admitted, home. 


______________


       I should have seen it coming. I should have known something would go terribly wrong. But, in my defense, I had been under a <i>lot</i> of duress. So it was that I walked into school under the firm impression that everything was and would be fine. 


       Suffice to say it was very far from it. I entered my classroom to find a scene I had only before seen in my wildest nightmares, and then again even worse than that. 


     The first thing I noticed, before I even got close to my classroom, was the smell. At the front door, as I was saying hello to Principal Matherson, it was merely unpleasant; at the top of the ramp that led to my classroom, it became gross; and, with every step closer, it grew more and more pungent, more and more awful, that, by the time my hand was on the door handle, it was so powerful I could barely stand upright.  


       Then I turned the knob and actually stepped inside. Never before or since have I felt so close to death itself.


       The smell I smelled was so singularly awful I was sure that something, or perhaps everything, had died some time ago and was now rotting slowly in my classroom. My eyes watered uncontrollably; I was momentarily convinced that they were melting. My stomach churned, and had I eaten anything on the way up-luckily, I had abstained- it would have gone right out and joined the mess already extant on the floor. 


        For that was what it was. A mess. A horrible, awful, filthy mess, all of it produced from the rears and leftover scraps of the eight girls I taught. 


         My hands balled into fists. Whoever had let this happen- whoever had let my class degrade to such an extent, whoever had abandoned them to their lack of mobility- was going to pay.


          And, of course, it was just about the one person who I couldn’t force to pay.


          “Ah, OSC!” cried Superintendent Chambers, voice muffled by a gas mask clamped firmly over her face, “<i>so</i> good to have you back.”


          _____________


         She had been right a month ago. I did and would continue to regret leaving the classroom.


         “I do so hope you had a pleasant journey,” Superintendent Chambers simpered, stepping deftly around mounds of crap- figurative and literal- and the bloated, half-naked bodies of my class. “The girls and I had <i>such</i> fun!” 


          I doubted that quite a lot. Looking around at the class, not one of the girls looked the slightest bit comfortable. Their clothes, ill-fitting when I left, looked barely attached to their bodies-some of them were even wearing nothing at all. Their various rolls and crevices were slick with sweat, glistening slimily in the dim light of the room. At least one of their chairs had been replaced with some sort of sturdy portable toilet, none of which looked at all clean. All of them looked to be in pain- from what, I don’t know- and all of them were doing their very best to fill their faces with all the food they could lay their hands on. 


           “What...what did you <i>do</i>?” I choked out. Every breath in that room was a risk. 


          “Me? Nothing!” Superintendent Chambers answered brightly. “Just a few small administrative changes, really. I had to take over for you, you see-no available subs- and I very quickly noticed that the girls would <i>much</i> rather spend all their time here. Cuts down on all that pesky moving!” 


          I shook my head, flabbergasted. Behind her, Song, grimacing in discomfort, let loose her bowels with a wet, disgusting <i>slap</i>. “You...keep them <i>here?</i>”


         “But of course!” Superintendent Chambers replied. I imagined that she was smiling devilishly behind the rubber of her mask. “That way the poor dears could get even more food! They can’t get enough of the stuff! Especially after I added my...secret sauce…” 


         To my left, Claire, obviously painfully stuffed already, lurched forward- a difficult task, no doubt- and grabbed for another cold hamburger, murmuring to herself. “So...hungry…” 


          <i>“Appetite supplements?”</i> I shrieked. 


          Superintendent Chambers narrowed her eyes in another devilish grin. “Call it what you like, but it keeps the chickies happy! In fact, I bet they’re so happy here you couldn’t get them out if you wanted to!”


            This kept getting worse and worse. “Can they move at <i>all?”</i> 


             “Bye now!” the Superintendent said, ignoring my question. “And clean up this mess!”


             And, with that, she sprinted out the door, leaving her gas mask on the floor outside and me at the helm of a rapidly sinking-and incredibly stinking-ship. 


        But, even with destruction imminent, a captain has a job to do, and, for better or for worse, I had it. I stepped forward, slowly, purposefully, until I was at the front of my room, whereupon I flicked on the light above the board and took a full stock of my crew. 


        It was even worse than I had supposed.


        Exactly none of the girls were wearing a full set of clothes; in fact, only about three of them were wearing a shirt, if they could even be called that in the poor state they were in. Their fat bulged out around them, pressing up against chairs, tables, itself, and the filthy, filthy floor. The girls sat vapidly in place, staring directly at the food that was doing this to them, stuffing it even now down their ever-hungry throats. Claire, in the far corner, was still going at the pile of cold hamburgers in front of her, frantically unwrapping each one with the haste of one starving to death. Onions and ketchup splattered out and fell on her ripped T-Shirt and greasy belly, joining many other unidentifiable stains that had clearly been there for some time. Next to her, Felicia drained a bag of chips, looked around desperately, and, finding no food within arm’s length, reached down, shuffled underneath one of her absolutely ridiculous breasts- at this point they were hanging past her chair and were probably halfway to the floor- found something unidentifiable and ate it. As if on cue, across the room, Alice-Azusa let go, and the stench of that somehow was noticeable amongst the rest of the room’s filth.


        I actually did throw up then, retching and heaving enough that a small quantity of water and stomach acid found its way out of my mouth and onto the floor. That did have a benefit, though- the class stopped eating and looked at me. 


        I stood up straight, tottering weakly on my feet, and waved. “Hi, guys. Sorry about...everything.”


        Eight pairs of glassy, dull eyes gazed at me, uncomprehending, then returned to their eating. Linda burped loudly. I dropped my hand, dismayed. Somehow, I needed to reach them. I needed to fix this. 


        And then the superintendent’s plan made sense. 


        She had no emotional attachment to these children at all. A quick scrub down in the shower and she would be as good as new. So, in my absence, she had undone everything I had worked for and more besides. She had transformed my brilliant, wonderful students into human shells that lived only to consume food and air and excrete things worse than that. She had, in just one month, destroyed me. Then, naturally, she’d have the parents, or the police - or why not both, make it a party - around to see “my” handiwork. She’d pin the blame of this horrendous room on me, watch me get thrown in jail for child abuse, and walk off whistling Dixie.


        And I could not, in good conscience, let that happen. Out of concern for me, of course, but for the girls too. They deserved better than this. The superintendent had treated them like dirt - no, worse than dirt. She had pulverized their humanity, ripped their souls away, simply to get to me. Eight children ruined, one man imprisoned; to the superintendent, that was a fair way to get revenge for a minor slight. 


        But I would show her. I would make her see what amazing children she was up against. 


        First, though, I had to reach them. And I figured I knew exactly how.


        Slowly enough, I approached Mary, the girl who I was fairly certain loved me in some manner. She was busy with a box or six of cheap supermarket muffins, but I had hopes that I could distract her long enough to bring her back to reality. I kneeled down before her at the perfect height for her to see me through the clear box and flashed my most winning smile. 


        “Mary,” I beamed, “I’m back.”


        At first, she just stared, uncomprehending. Then, she smiled back, a wide, happy grin of pure joy. My grin grew even wider. She knew me! It was working! 


        “Yes, Mary, yes! Keep going!”


        She started rocking in place, sending her six chairs creaking and her astronomical rear wobbling. Her belly, spreading over her thighs, wobbled too. I was ecstatic. It seemed that my idea was a success. 


        Until, to my great despair, I realized that she was pointing. She hadn’t recognized me at all- only the box of muffins behind me. With a great sigh, I caved, and tossed it over to her. She caught it- well, her belly did, anyway- and, with a satisfied grunt, soiled herself mightily.


        I leaned back against the board, defeated, and stared up at the fluorescent light above. What chance did I possibly have? If Mary, who was infatuated with me before I left, had no idea who I was, what chance did I have with the others?


        Then, to my great surprise, a childish voice rang out, with great clarity, “For <i>fuck’s sake,</i> Mr. Roberts!”


        I sprang forward, shocked beyond belief. <i>“Kimberly?”</i>


        It was, indeed, the stocky semi-athlete, glowering at me from dead-center, meaty arms folded angrily across her sizeable chest. “I’ve been here the whole time! You were just so obsessed with Big-Butt over there you didn’t even <i>notice.</i>” 


        “Sorry…” I admitted sheepishly. “But cut me a little slack! This is a... bit of a shock.”


        Kimberly snorted derisively. “No <i>shit</i> it’s a big shock. I imagine it must not be every day you come back to find your classroom turned to shit.” She sniffed. “Literally.” 
        
        I thought about telling her off for rude language but decided against it. “What happened?”


        Her mood turned reflective. “For the first few days it was alright, then she started giving us more food and teaching us less. A few of us tried to resist, but at this size it’s hard to, y’now, resist anything.” She reached sheepishly for a nearby cookie. “Then, one day, she just didn’t help us up. Sent a letter home and just...left us in here. She yelled at Song one day for asking to get up for the restroom, and since then we’ve been forced to go where we are.” She grimaced.  “I’m gonna kill her.” 


        “You and me both,” I agreed, “but first we’ve gotta clean up. I’m pretty sure she concocted all this to discredit me and ruin you guys, and to prevent that we’ve gotta set this classroom right. Starting with the rest of them.” I waved my hand over the rest of the girls. “You in?”


        Kimberly grunted. “<i>Hell</i> yes.” Then, to my astonishment, she stood up under her own power. All 480+ pounds of her. 


        I raised an eyebrow. She noticed and turned to me, face flushed with the effort. “Don’t get used to it. I save my strength for special occasions only.” She turned away, gathering strength for the upcoming ordeal, then, rather suddenly, stopped and looked back at me with a small smile. “Would you believe I’m one of the small ones now?”


        I gaped, uncomprehending. “Sm…<i>small?</i>”


        She grinned. “Yeah, only Claire’s still smaller than me, and only just barely. But I think we’ve got bigger things to worry about than size comparisons, right?”


        I nodded grimly. There was most definitely a lot of work to do. Unfortunately, seeing as the room stunk to high heaven and the only person who could help me was a nearly 500-pound three-quarters-naked twelve-year-old, we were forced to wait to do most of it until after school hours. We tried to use our time wisely- tried snapping the girls out of it, tried tidying a little, tried getting them to eat less- but everything failed. If food was taken away from them they would panic and start soiling themselves worse than ever, massively overtaxing their already overtaxed commodes. Even Kimberley, who was still in her right mind, wasn’t immune to the food- or, even more unfortunately, to the disgusting side effects. Suffice to say that, even though I had arrived halfway through the school day, my shoes, and probably my whole outfit, were well beyond ruined. Eventually, the final bell rang, and before too long the rest of the school was gone. We were alone.


        Which meant that, luckily for us, we could get started. 


        It was obvious that the girls had to be restored to normal first, as only if they were snapped out of it could they assist with the cleaning process. 


        “The only question,” I mused aloud, “is how to do it.”


        Kimberly, who had been attempting, in vain, to snap Linda back to reality with a book on fashion, looked back at me. “What?” 


        I paced a small line in one of the few clean spots on the floor. “What is keeping the girls in this trance? And, for that matter, how did you avoid it? What were you doing that the others weren’t?”
    
        Kimberly smirked dryly. “More like what <i>wasn’t</i> I doing- eating that damned sauce, that’s what. I couldn’t totally escape it, but when I could I would scrape it off. <i>Blech!</i>” 


        I snapped my fingers. “That must be it! The supplement must be what’s keeping them suppressed!”


        “<i>WOW!</i>” Kimberly cried sarcastically, feigning admiration. “Did you figure that one out <i>all</i> by yourself?”


        “Can it,” I shot back. “Have you ever seen where the supplement came from?” 


        “Uhh...not for a while. She used to mix it up front until Jenny tried to eat it, then she made it somewhere else. It was lard, heavy cream, and some kind of weird powder in a box.” Kimberly pondered ponderously. 


        “Right. Powder, box, got it.” I stopped; there was something I hadn’t gotten. “Where is Jenny, anyway?”


        “I dunno,” Kimberly answered laconically. “With the sauce, probably.”


        “And where’s that?”
        
        “With Jenny.”


        I rolled my eyes. “Seriously, Kimberly, where is she?”


        She huffed disapprovingly. “Honestly, I have no idea. The bitch took her somewhere else a month ago and nobody’s seen her since.” 
        
        A shudder flew up my spine. Who knows what terrible things could be happening to her? What possible motive could the superintendent have? <i>What if-</i> I pushed it out of my head. I didn’t have time for what ifs, not with seven other girls on the line. Jenny would have to wait. 


        “How about a box of that stuff?” I asked rhetorically. Kimberly considered this, belly jiggling with each breath, then her eyes lit up. “I know! One day when she wasn’t looking I swiped some to look at later. Unfortunately, my hiding spot got a bit more...awkward to reach, but I bet you anything it’s still there. Hang on.”


        I was expecting her to go for a cabinet or maybe the bookshelf, but instead she, with immense effort, bent down near her seats and reached cautiously over to Song’s belly, which I noticed was now firmly grounded on the floor, and with a few careful tugs pulled a piece of damp cardboard from beneath its sweaty swell. “Gotcha!” Kimberly exclaimed with pride. 


        Cautiously, I took the box by one corner and held it up to the light. Despite its extended stay in a very sweaty spot, the words were still legible. 


        <b>CRANSTON AND SONS BOVINE APPETITE SUPPLEMENT,</b> it proclaimed in large, bold letters. Below that, in slightly smaller letters, it cried “For cows that just won’t eat!”


        I clenched my fist - the one that wasn’t holding the cardboard - and kept reading. The sides bore no useful information - we were a bit beyond nutrition facts at this point - but the back corner had, thankfully for us, a small section entitled “Weaning Instructions.” In tiny, smeared lettering, it read “If your cows grow dependent on the product, or exhibit any symptoms of overuse - sluggish behavior, loss of motor functions, or similar…”


        I broke off, startled, as a series of plopping noises distracted me from my reading. Kimberly looked at me sheepishly. I grunted unhappily and continued onward. 


        “...slowly decrease the portion size of supplement used. For a temporary symptom solution, a cold shower will also usually do the trick.”


        Slowly, a smile spread across my weary face. Finally, we had an answer! Unfortunately, as the girls were still under the influence of the drug, there was no way to get them to a shower. And, with temperatures outside still well below freezing, there was no way to employ a garden hose either. Once again, we were met with a roadblock. I threw up my hands, exasperated, and shouted “What the hell are we supposed to do now?”


        Unfortunately, there was nothing. All that remained for Kimberly and I to do was restock the rest of the class for dinner and hunker down for the night. With a bit of rummaging, I managed to find a few clean, if dusty, blankets in the back of one of my cabinets, and Kimberly, taking advantage of the school’s emptiness, retrieved two mats for us to sleep on. Once she got back, I got to work spreading them out somewhere relatively clean, while she busied herself setting up one of the Bunsen burners left-over from the holiday party to make some hot chocolate as a nightcap. Despite everything, the night looked, at the very least, mildly palatable. 


        But something struck me then.


        At first I couldn’t put my finger on it. Nothing looked amiss, nothing sounded off, hell, everything even <i>smelled</i> right. Even though the scene was, as a whole, abnormal, in relation to itself everything seemed perfectly fine. 


        Then, I remembered what my nose had so conveniently forgotten.


        The <i>smell</i>.


        As quickly as I could I whirled around, lunging for Kimberly with an impassioned “NO! DON’T LIGHT THAT-”


        But I was too late. The flame from the lighter ignited the gas of the burner and, with it, the months-worth of methane floating around in the air. 


At first there was a brilliant flash of light, seemingly consuming all of the back corner. Then, a deep, impressive <i>whoomf</i> of pressure, spreading out from the source of the explosion and knocking me off my weary feet into a pile of unidentifiable filth. 


Then, my classroom was on fire. Smoke filled my vision, sending me into a fit of hacks and coughs. I whirled my head around, searching for Kimberly, but she was nowhere to be seen. 


“Kimberly!” I cried nervously. For a long moment - too long - I heard nothing. “Kimberly!” I called again. 


Then, to my great joy, I was greeted with a series of answering coughs. “I’m fine! <i>Koff</i> Just pull the- <i>koff-</i> alarm!” 


Energized with adrenaline, I stood up to do so, only to realize that the alarm was in the hallway - and the door was blocked by flaming debris. Luckily, though, my room had once been a science classroom - hence gas hookups for the Bunsen burner - and, therefore, was on its own sprinkler circuit. That switch I could pull, and did, bathing the room and the blaze within in freezing cold water. In a few minutes, everything was soaked clean through, and the fire, as a result, petered out and died. For a moment, I considered cheering, but I had more important things to attend to. 


“Kimberly, are you alright?” I asked through chattering teeth, kneeling at the bigger girl’s side. 


She grimaced. “Yeah, mostly...I think I just singed my belly a little.” She moved her hands unhappily near the spot, a large, bright pink blotch on her otherwise pale anterior. 


I frowned in sympathy. “Jeez, that must hurt a lot, I’m sorry. Here, let me get my first aid kit - stay right here.”


“Yeah? Where else am I gonna go, huh?” she fired back, but I was already moving, rifling through drawers and damp papers for the case of medical supplies. After a frantic search, I had it, and, with a slight smile, made my way back across the muddy floor with it in my hands. 


“Kimberly, I’ve got it!” I cried triumphantly, setting it down at her side. “Alright, let’s see...antiseptic spray, antibacterial soap, bacitracin, bandages....<i>more</i> bandages...aha! Burn salve! Neat, huh?” 


No answer came from the patient. I frowned. “Kimberly?” 


Still no answer. I looked back at her, concerned. “Kimberly, what’s wrong?”


She wasn’t looking at me. Her mouth was open with shock, one chubby finger pointed past me towards the front of the room. “<i>Look,</i>” she whispered. 


I looked, but, at first blush, saw nothing. The rest of the corpulent class was sitting just as they were before, firmly planted in their filthy seats. I looked back, confused. 


She looked back at me, eyes wide, and whispered <i>“They’re not eating!”</i> 


I whirled my head back around and saw, to my great surprise, that she was right. Instead, they were rubbing their eyes, groaning with confusion, and blinking confusedly at the light above. 


“God, what stinks?” Song muttered, waving one flabby hand in front of her nose. “Alice, did you make a mess again?” 


“It’s <i>Azusa,”</i> the geeky girl shot back, “and no. I don’t think so, anyway. <i>Baka.</i>”


From the other side of the room, Linda let out a little shriek. “Oh, god, I’m soaking wet! My blouse will be ruined!” 


Mary, shifting uncomfortably in her seats, asked “So what? It’s just a shirt, right?”


“You don’t understand!” Linda cried hysterically. “I got this at <i>Hermes!</i> You can’t just get this <i>wet</i>!”


“Uh, guys?” Felicia interjected, unrestrained breasts wobbling as she turned around. “I think we have a bigger problem…” 


For a moment, the room was deadly silent, as the girls took in the grossness of their surroundings for the first time in a month. Then, a series of shrill gasps and hurried conversation, a hubbub of noise only broken when another, shriller voice rose above it all. 


“Guys, <i>look!</i>” Claire cried, fat arm waving excitedly. <i>“Mr. Roberts is back!”</i> 


The rest of the class turned, wobbling, to look at me as well. Feeling the pressure of 14 eyes upon me, I waved and said, quite sheepishly, “Hi, girls. And...I’m sorry.”


Another long pause, during which I considered and rejected numerous more eloquent forms of apology. I felt almost like I was at a performance review- one in which I was clearly at fault. Eventually, though, the silence was broken, and by a rather unexpected source.


“Don’t be <i>sorry,</i>” Kimberly spat from her seat on the floor. “If anybody should be sorry, it’s Queen Bitch Superintendent.”


“Queen who?” Claire asked, looking around nervously. 


And so it was that I took my old place back at the front of the classroom. I spent a good twenty or thirty minutes just explaining the situation to the girls - what the superintendent did, what their appetites were so strong, and, most importantly, why the room was a mess - and then set about discussing a plan of action with them. This was significantly more difficult, as the girls were very hungry and very disinclined to doing anything, but I was eventually able to impress upon them the importance of getting things done. So, at about 5:40 PM, we got to work. Kimberly, as the only mobile girl, was to stay in the classroom and supervise the cleaning up of the room, while I was to take each girl, one by one, and help them clean up.


Needless to say, I was less than enthused with the process, especially since I could foresee it becoming, much to my chagrin, a regular task. 


For a brief moment, I considered finding some other clothes to change into before showering the girls, but realized that my clothes were already completely ruined- in fact, water would probably help them out more than anything. With a small sigh, I crossed the classroom towards my first move, Claire, who, despite everything, was going for another cold hamburger. At my approach, though, she pulled it away from her mouth and attempted to hide it, flabby cheeks blushing red with embarrassment. “S-sorry,” she squeaked, “I-I just can-can-can’t help myself.” 


I knelt next to her and lay one hand comfortingly upon her flabby back. “I understand, Claire, it’s not your fault. Now, come on, let’s go get cleaned up, ok?”


I stood up and grabbed her hands, preparing to pull her up, but she blushed even harder and shook her head. “No-not yet- not-” she gasped frantically. “Can you- can- can you turn around please?”


I did so, confusedly at first, then less so when a chorus of flatulence and even less pleasant noises sounded behind me. I waited a few minutes for the noises to cease, then turned back, only to see an even more embarrassed (and smelly) Claire staring at the table in shame. 


        “Are you ready now?” I asked, attempting to pretend like I didn’t know. She nodded once, so I grabbed her hands again and, with a prodigious effort, lifted her out of her chair. 


        They say the first step is always the hardest. Unfortunately, though, when one has to move an extremely embarrassed, horrifically unfit, mostly incontinent and extremely obese young girl through the hallways of a middle school, that’s very far from true. Claire could walk on her own - I made sure of that at one point - but only a few, faltering steps, and she had to rest on the wall for a few minutes before going onward. Even with my help, it was slow going, as Claire was, even as the lightest girl, very, very fat. Finally, though, after nearly twenty minutes of slow, ponderous waddling, we arrived at our intended destination - the girl’s locker room. 


        Now for the hard part. 


        I let Claire have a few minutes of well-deserved rest on the bench as I turned on the shower, gathered a sponge, soap, shampoo, a brush, a towel, and a few other important items from a storage closet, and mentally prepared myself for the task at hand. After many deep breaths, the water was hot and I could delay no longer; so, swallowing my dignity, I asked Claire to come into the showers. 


        Then I remembered that she couldn’t stand up alone and, with a sigh, went and did it for her. I heaved her to her feet, removed, with some trepidation, her filthy shirt, and waddled her under the water. 


        She really was a sight to behold.


        Claire had always had a very round, apple-y shape; even now, with her size vastly increased, she was no different. Her round, just-barely-rolled belly hung low enough to cover things - luckily for me - and swelled out a very significant number of inches. Above it, her breasts, small due to age but large despite that due to fat consumption, hung over the sides, mere nubs of flab lacking any definition. Higher still, her chins - two, plus the beginning of a third - squished together under the hot water, forming a stairwell to her face above that. Her extremely embarrassed, flushed-red face, which was currently staring extremely pointedly into a corner. 


        “Are you...a-are you going t-to...uh...g-get st-st-started, Mr. Roberts?”


        “Uh,” I answered eloquently, looking in confusion at the cleaning implements in my hands and at the girl before me, “y-yeah, of course. Right.” 


        So I did. I soaped up the washcloth and sponge and scrubbed everywhere I needed to, starting with her shoulders. I soaped between back folds, under breasts, around her belly, up and down thick thighs and calves, between toes, and, returning upwards, carefully scrubbed her face with a washcloth and finished off with an unfortunately somewhat ungentle shampoo of her hair. 
        That left just two things more to wash, both of which I had been dreading for the duration. Her, shall we say, nethers. 


        For this, I needed the brush. 


        First, I turned her around, such that she could still lean on the wall frontwards and the water would still be where I needed it. Then, after letting the water run for a bit, I summoned my courage, swallowed my pride, and began scrubbing. 


        Despite the fact that my classroom was infinitely grosser, it was here, in such close proximity, that I really lost any appetite I had for the color brown. It was everywhere - on the floor, on the brush, on, unfortunately, my shoes - and even the soap and water couldn’t get rid of the smell at first. Finally, though, the whole farcical scene was finished, and I shut off the water. 


        “Alright, Claire, you’re all squeaky-clean! Let’s head back to class, alright?”


        Claire made a noise somewhere between an “Okay” and a low moan of embarrassment. I turned her back around and, forgoing the shirt, waddled her back up to class. 


        Luckily for us both, we managed to make it all the way back up without any more bathroom-related accidents, and it was with no small relief that I deposited Claire’s bulky form back in her seat. It was also a very large relief to see that the room was looking much better. Not perfect - people with limited mobility won’t usually do things perfectly - but a significant portion of the tainted food had been cleared away, with fresh, unspoiled snacks sourced from the kitchen replacing them. I could see that Kimberly was working very efficiently - she had each girl clean up around their own area, and to facilitate that she had stolen a number of small trash cans from other classrooms up the hallway. She had also clearly been working hard on dealing with the commodes, although, with the ridiculous amount everyone was producing, that was less effective than it sounded. It was a slow system, but effective. I smiled, then got back to work.


        “Felicia, are you ready?” I asked, approaching the busty girl carefully from the side. She looked back at me ruefully, then, with a heavy sigh that shifted her enormous bosom up and down, said “Yeah, alright. Let’s do this.”


Moving Felicia was an entirely different process. To move Claire, whose legs were too weak for the job, I had to stand behind her and move her as one would move a ladder- one leg at a time, basically waddling for her. Felicia, on the other hand, had just one barrier to motion- or, really, two.         
Her colossal breasts. 
They really were enormous, two pumpkin-sized sacks of flesh that hung down nearly two her knees when she was standing. Felicia was a unique case - she could still walk alone, theoretically speaking, but there was no way she could stand up by herself. That, in its turn, meant that I would have to stand in front of her and support her - unclothed, might I add - breasts as she walked. 
That trip was, in its own way, an experience. I had to walk backwards all the way, attempting to keep my balance and not trip down the stairs while simultaneously supporting about fifteen pounds of sweaty flesh per hand. I did learn something, though - Felicia, surprisingly, had a belly in addition to her ridiculous bustline. It was small, to be sure - the smallest one in the class, no doubt - but it was there all the same. It was nice to know she had something in common with the rest of them. 
Felicia spent the entire walk acting extremely bored, folding her arms as best she could and staring icily off into the distance. I attempted to engage her in conversation, asking her about her horses and the like, but at each question she simply turned her nose up higher. Relations did not improve when we reached the shower - she faced the wall immediately and refused to let me assist, even though there was no way she could reach most of her body. Finally, I gave up, and helped her back up to the room in stoic silence. However, I couldn’t shirk my duties as a teacher, so before I let her down and moved on to Linda, I asked “Felicia, what’s bothering you?” 
She stayed silent for a moment, ponytail and bustline moving somewhat with her breathing, then she quietly asked “Remember how you asked me about my horses?”
        “Yeah?” I responded.
        She turned away further. “I haven’t seen them in months.”
        I turned away, unsure of what to do, as she burst into tears. The rest of the room looked up, but, equally unsure, got back to work. I sighed and moved on to Linda. 


        Before this point, I had been regretting not talking to Linda very much. Now, I was sort of glad I hadn’t. 
        Linda was an absolutely enormous - in both senses - primadonna. 
        She must have been getting spoiled for long before she reached my classroom. She remained convinced that her figure was lithe and attractive, despite the fact that she outweighed most standard refrigerators. She insisted, after I pulled her up, that she could walk by herself; after taking one step, she wiped her brow and whined that she was too tired to go on. 
        “Come on, Linda!” I cried, waving my hands in exasperation. “You have to take a shower just like everyone else!” 
       “Are you implying…” wheezed Linda, dark skin still sweaty from the effort of trying to move, “...are you implying that I smell bad?” 
        “No, of course not!” I chuckled nervously. “You smell just fine…”
        Linda folded her arms with an air of triumph. “Well, if I smell fine,” she asked, chins wobbling, “why do I have to take a shower?”
        
        I gritted my teeth in anger, clenching and unclenching my fists. I regret to say that I felt in that moment like throttling the poor girl. Luckily, before I could do anything rash, help arrived from a very unlikely source. 


        “Linda, honey,” Mary crooned from her spot on the other side of the room. “You of <i>course</i> smell like a flower in May! It’s <i>us</i> who smell bad.”


        Linda’s chubby nose wrinkled in distaste. “<i>I’ll</i> say!” Felicia, safely positioned out of her field of view, rolled her eyes. Mary pressed onward.


        “So, Linda dearest, if you take a quick little shower you’ll be getting all of our stink off of you <i>and</i> make the room smell nicer! It’s a win-win!” 


        The thought bounced around in Linda’s vapid head for a few minutes, then, with a huge sigh, she wheezed out “<i>Fine,</i> but keep in mind that I’m <i>really</i> tired…”


        She wasn’t kidding. Even though she hadn’t done much of anything before starting her wobbly waddle to the shower, she was still panting and wheezing, drenched in sweat, within mere moments of leaving. It must have taken us forty minutes to cover the distance the other two before had covered in twenty. Every few steps Linda would need to rest on the wall to, in her words, “not overtax herself.” I was beginning to understand, with some rue, that Linda had been lazy well before this point in her life. 


        Nevertheless, with no small effort, we eventually reached the locker room. I let her plop her overly-plush rear down on a bench to rest for a minute while I readied the shower, then, after taking a few moment’s breather myself, returned to re-heave her onto her fat feet. 


         “Alright, Linda, if you could just take your shirt off we’ll have this over with...real soon…” I sighed. 
          Instead of doing so, however, she drew her shirt tighter around her vast brown curves. “Why do you need my shirt off?” 
          I rolled my eyes. “Linda, you’re about to take a <i>shower</i>. You can’t exactly wear clothes into the water, can you? Plus, I really doubt you can reach everywhere without my help, so that’s why I’m here. Okay?” 
          She looked at me, stung. I realized too late that I should not have voiced the latter half of my sentence aloud. But, after a minute and no small effort, she unbuttoned her vast blouse and passed it to me, saying “Careful, it’s from Hermes.” 
           I almost rolled my eyes again. Regardless of the blouse’s ritzy origin, it was now so frayed, worn, and stained with sweat and grease that it would be lucky to serve as a dishrag. Nevertheless, I hung it carefully on a hook and waddled Linda into the shower. 
           I was very quickly able to ascertain that I had been correct in my assessment of her reach. She was so lazy and spoiled that she could not or chose not to even assist me with the simplest of tasks, so I was forced to clean her entire body myself. This was not as embarrassing for me as at had been with Claire, as we both seemed somewhat used to it. I began to think that Linda must not have done anything for herself in a very long while. 
            Luckily, though, the whole process was over before too long had passed, and I was ready, though far less than willing, to wobble her enormous frame - safely reclad in her filthy shirt - back up to my classroom. We made it as far as the exit to the locker room before she leaned on the wall once more, panting and sweating, all but undoing the good of the shower. “Can’t...go on…<i>hff</i> gotta rest....” she wheezed, dark skin wobbling. Exasperated to the point of no return, I held back no longer.
        “Linda, get over yourself! I have four more girls to take to the shower after you, and all you’re doing is wasting my time! Can’t you <i>please</i> try to keep moving?”
        The large brown girl fixed me with a baleful eye. “Maybe…<i>hff</i> if you had <i>been</i> here...I wouldn’t <i>hff</i> have to.”
        


        A lot of thoughts ran through my head then - rage, sadness, guilt, rage again - but what eventually won out was a frayed, tight-lipped diligence. I grabbed hold of some of Linda’s thick rolls - none too gently, I might add - and waddled her away, not pausing for a single break. We waddled up the stairs, down the hall, and back to the room, where I deposited her drenched, wheezing frame into her chairs without so much a care in the world. Even then I did not speak, simply motioning curtly for Kimberly to follow me. I did not say another word until, at the top of the stairs, Kimberly too asked me for a break.


        Then, I blew up. 


        “Not you too! Linda was all breaks, and now <i>you</i> want one too? This is ridiculous! I shouldn’t have to put up with this at all! Fucking unbelievable!” 


        I punctuated my outburst with a useless punch to the wall that did little more than bruise my knuckles. “Come on!” I shouted, but when I heard no shuffling, I turned back to find Kimberly glowering at me with the fury of a thousand suns. 


        “You done?”
        
        I nodded. 


        “Good. Let me remind you, Mr. Roberts, that I weigh 495 pounds. I am <i>not</i> mobile like you. I can just barely waddle around and you have had me do that all evening. I have cleaned up the room entirely, done everything you asked… and when I want a rest, because - mind you - I have been overtaxing myself for <i>two hours</i>-this is how you treat me?”


        I looked at the ground, ashamed. She glared daggers into my soul.


        “Need I go on?”


        I shook my head no. She scowled.


        “Alright, fine. I’m rested, let’s go.” 


        And off we went, down the stairs again. She insisted on taking them by herself, but ended up needing another rest and then some help to get through the gym, which I gave gladly. Even with that, when it eventually came time to give her the shower, it went much better than usual, mainly because she was so mad that she actually did much of the work herself. I just had to reposition the showerhead a few times and make a few quick passes with a brush, and it was all over before anything too awkward could transpire. 


        It was, as I would soon realize, a very welcome respite. 


        Kimberly needed some more help coming back, as she really was tired, but this turned out to be a godsend in disguise. She had to take a quick rest before heading back up the stairs, which afforded me the opportunity to take a breather as well. My eyes scanned the area, looking for anything interesting at all do distract me from my increasing tiredness, when I saw it. 


       Underneath a large pile of bags of road salt sat a large industrial cart, perfect for moving large objects-or even better, large humans. 


      “Kimberly, look at this!” I whooped for joy, startling her into sluggish action. “I can get everything done by ten!” Frantically, with tired energy, I began tossing bags of salt left and right. Kimberly looked on, amused. Soon enough, the bags were gone, and I had a grimy, extremely sturdy cart to load my class onto. 


      However, as per usual, another problem presented itself. 


      “Ugh!” I cried, clapping a hand to my head. “How am I supposed to get this thing back upstairs?” 


       Kimberly brought one pudgy hand sarcastically towards her chins. “Hmm, I don’t know? Maybe try...the elevator?”


        <i>Duh</i>. I smacked myself in the head again. The school, being fairly modern, was equipped with a decently rated elevator for movement of school equipment and handicapped people. And the remaining three girls were just as handicapped as anyone. 


        I sighed loudly, shook my head, and pointed to the cart, asking “Want a lift?” 


        Kimberly looked at me, then it, then nodded yes, flopping her large form down on the cart with a grateful sigh. I pushed her over to the elevator and we headed back up, me with a newfound giddiness in my step. 


        My mood only improved further when I arrived back at my classroom. Everything was reasonably clean, the girls had been eating less - hell, even the messes they made were less disgusting than before. I let Kimberly off near her chairs, apologizing gratefully, then maneuvered the cart over to Song. 


        Once I took stock of the situation, I looked up, gazed at the ceiling, and thanked whatever was up there for showing me to this cart.


        Out of all the girls, it was Song who had perhaps changed the most physically. From what I had heard and seen in the background, Song had once dared to question the superintendent; this simple act of mild defiance appeared to have been repaid in spades. Song’s belly, though large when I left, paled in comparison to the enormous, tannish orb that now sat heavily upon the floor in front of her, pinning her inexorably to her spot. Unfortunately for her, it was so large that, despite the assistance of the cart, she was going to have to walk.
        Song looked up ruefully at my approach. “<i>Ta made</i>… I’m next?” 


        “<i>Shi,</i> Song, it’s your turn,” I replied, positioning the cart next to her large form. “You ready?” 


        Song glowered up at me. “Hmm...I’m the size of the bus and am about to get showered by my teacher...how ready do you think I am?”


        I rolled my eyes and grinned a little. “Just come on, Song - I don’t have all night for this.” 


        Song sighed again, then allowed me to take her sweaty hands and heave her to her feet. Or try to, anyway - her belly was actually too large to be shifted forward like that. I scratched my head for a moment, mystified, then, with a glimmer of realization, pulled her up with one hand while moving her chairs backwards with the other. That did the trick - now that she had room, she was on her feet, panting slightly with the effort. 


        Now, the hard part. 


        I pushed the table away - earning some ire from Kimberly, who was mid-snack- and, after a bit more repositioning, heaved my whole 170 pounds at the wad of belly sitting before me. 


        As one might expect, that did exactly nothing. All that I had to show for my efforts was more sweat on my filthy clothes, both from Song and myself. I sighed, frowned slightly, and stepped back for another view of the situation. 


        This view didn’t really offer me anything at first- just a different angle on Song’s large posterior- but, as I looked more, a solution slowly but surely trickled its way into my head. With a deft combination of some textbooks and a wall-mounted map holder, I could very easily <i>lever</i> Song’s belly onto the cart!


        Surprisingly, in this case, theory matched with reality. It only took me four tries with my impromptu lever to force Song’s great swell of flab onto the cart and get underway. 


        Even more surprisingly, despite her extremely impaired mobility - even with her belly out of the way, the size of her legs precluded her from taking anything more than small, shuffling steps - we were able to make it up the hallway, into the elevator, and down to the shower in a record-breaking nine minutes. The shower, on the other hand, presented a different problem - I could not very well shower beneath her belly - but, all told and despite the usual grossness, everything was perfectly fine. 


        I could not say the same for my final two students. 


        It had been clear to me that, despite being freed from the influence of the drug, Alice-Azusa was not at all free from the bowel-control negating effects of it. She had already been fairly disgusting before this adventure; she was most definitely much worse, and, combined with her assured advancement to Class VI, meant that both the trip down to the shower in the present and the foreseeable future were going to get quite a bit more disgusting for me. 


        I was not disappointed - which meant I was most definitely disgusted - in this regard.


        All seemed to be well when I arrived back upstairs at the reasonable-ish hour of 10:30, a heavily panting Song in tow. Many of the girls had nodded off or were in the process of doing so, and the mess had, to my knowledge, largely disappeared. I was in fairly high spirits as I moved on to Alice, who appeared to be lightly dozing. 


        “Azusa-<i>chan</i>, wake up! We have to...oh…” 


        I stepped back, but the damage was already done. I had startled the weeaboo awake; in so doing, I had also startled her very fragile digestive system, and was “rewarded” with a large quantity of crap for my trouble. I frowned, and repeated my question.


        “Azusa-<i>chan</i>, are you awake? We have to go take a shower now...” 


        For a long moment, nothing happened. Then, in lieu of an answer, the enormous otaku let loose with a series of absolutely disgusting noises and sights, not to mention smells. I sighed loudly, grimaced, and just went for it. 


        I was so ready to take her to the shower that I forewent proper procedures; instead, I simply lined up the cart next to her and, utilizing my map-case-lever from earlier, tipped one chair sufficiently that Azusa simply slid off her greasy seat onto the cart. Of course, this ended up simply releasing more digestive materials into the mostly-clean room, but at this point it was too late for me to care. In a streak of luck for me, Alice fit on the cart almost perfectly; so encouraged, I rushed off into the hallway, determined to reach the shower without having her make a mess on the way down.


        As you may imagine, I was far from successful; nevertheless, we reached the shower room with a tally of only five mishaps on the way. Sighing yet again, I prepared the tools of my trade, and, starting small, pushed Alice under the water and began to scrub vigorously.


        As I worked, though, I noticed something rather unusual. Although all the girls had some level of grossness to deal with, Alice-Azusa was unusually grimy- in fact, it was to such a degree that I was beginning to worry I was showering her with no purpose. However, after a very large quantity of soap and several minutes of vigorous scrubbing, the large girl before me was finally getting clean.


        Unfortunately, that only applied to her topside. Her lower half, which was still firmly planted on the cart, was still disgusting- and, even worse, sputtering intermittently with yet more digestive distress. 


        I could only see one way forward. Setting my jaw, I leaned forward and, using all my strength and what remained of hers, got her into a standing position, knee-length belly propped up against the tiled wall. I kicked the cart out of the way and readied my brush, but was assaulted yet again by a rain of shit. It had come to the point I dreaded most. 
        
        Stepping forward, I stood behind her, wrapped my arms and the brush around her soft form, shut my eyes and, ignoring her gasp of surprise, squeezed as hard as I could.


        The plops went on for almost two minutes. When they finally subsided, the floor around me (though luckily, thanks to my superior height, not my pants) was coated in another layer of brown filth, Alice was gasping in surprise, and I could finally employ the brush. After a few more moments of brown water, it was finally, mercifully over. I lowered Alice back onto the cart and, leaving the water on, pushed her away.


        While on the elevator, though, something really unprecedented happened. Alice-Azusa turned towards me (with some difficulty- I was standing directly behind her) and wheezed out “<i>Domo Arigato gozaimashita, Roberts-senpai.</i>” 


        “<i>Leie,</i> Azusa-<i>san</i>,” I replied, confused. “Why the-” Then, though, the layers of grime I saw before clicked into place. “Azusa-<i>san</i>, how long has it been since you’ve showered?” 


        The girl before me looked sheepishly away, then, very quietly, answered “A year…”


        “What! Why?” I asked, before I could stop myself. Alice looked even more sheepish, sinking her head slightly into her fat, before answering “I got…<i>hff</i>... too large for the bathtub…” 


        I frowned in solidarity. “<i>Gomen nasai,</i> Azusa-<i>chan</i>. I wish you had said something sooner, I could have helped out!” 


        Azusa looked away again. “Roberts-<i>senpai</i>, that was a little creepy...but I understand. <i>Arigato.</i>.” 


        Feeling awkward, I avoided saying anything more until I arrived back in the classroom. Luckily, though, Alice-Azusa didn’t seem offended, and was more than happy to be levered back up into standing position and then back down onto her chairs. That left me at 11:40 with one last girl to clean up.


        Unfortunately for me, that girl was Mary.


        The hip-heavy girl had only grown exponentially more so in my absence- her bulk now flopped mightily across a complicated setup of six chairs, two stools, and an extra-wide version of the toilets the others were sitting on, set up like so -


■●⭘●■
  ■■■■
- and even then still managing to hang over in several spots. I could clearly see that this was going to be one of my hardest tasks of the night, personal feelings of the participants notwithstanding. 


        Unfortunately, though Mary herself was assuredly not standing, her feelings for me most definitely were. 


        Barely a minute had passed before she was making advances on me- which, at her size, was merely wiggling in place, rippling waves springing up throughout her butt and lap-filling belly. This effort, though, was quite difficult for the large girl, so barely a minute more had passed before she gave up the enterprise and sat, panting, in place. I rolled my eyes and carried on.


        For this move, I elected for an even less orthodox style than before. I simply moved the table out of the way and, working on the reverse of the principle where, if one pulls out a tablecloth from underneath a dinner table, the dinner on top will stay, I moved the commode, charged the cart at her middle supports and, with a resounding crash, sent them flying out from beneath her bloated butt. 


        This plan was even less thought-out, but, astonishingly, it too worked, although Mary shrieked and woke up half the class in the process. In the end, though, the center section of Mary’s tremendous form was resting comfortably on the cart, even while the ends of her ass sat limply on chairs a foot above. From there, it was a simple matter to remove the chairs; what was less simple, however, was the amount of butt fat resting on the ground. It would be impossible to push her like that, and I had no other immediately evident wheels. Nevertheless, as the second Class VI in the room, it was very evident to me that Mary had to be cleaned up; so, once again, I was stuck at an impasse. 


        Until I remembered my textbooks. 


        Textbooks, their covers being cardboard, slide very easily on carpet; as such, they would function extremely well as an impromptu platform for Mary’s enormous rear. After emptying the closets, I had twelve beneath each portion of cheek and was beyond ready to leave. 


        Unfortunately, the way I had gotten Mary onto the cart meant that I had to stare directly into her face the entire time. As such, the entire trip was spent with her doing some kind of flirting in short bursts and then wheezing for several minutes to regain her breath. That, combined with her immense weight and textbooks often slipping out from under her, meant that it took me half an hour just to reach the elevator, where she, inevitably, got stuck in the door. That took another ten minutes to deal with; another ten brought us to the shower, where, after some very perfunctory examination, I determined that it would be absolutely impossible to shower any part of her but her uppers, and that I could not do without moving the textbooks keeping her off the ground. So, to my great chagrin, I was only able to wipe her off with a washcloth- which she took as extremely sensual- and push her away.


        After another, even longer-seeming 50 minutes, wherein she, too, soiled herself- which was made even worse as I only had a washcloth to contend with a butt so large that the soilage never actually left her crack- I made it back, and, extremely unwilling to put her back up on her chairs, parked her in her usual spot and headed back down to clean the hallways and shower. 


        ________________


        Finally, at 1:26 AM the next morning, everything was done. The shower was spotless, the hallways were cleaned, even the final soilage of my classroom had been dealt with. I flopped gratefully onto the mat Kimberly had brought and, clutching the blanket to my chest, looked around the room one final time.


All was well. The girls were all snugly asleep, some snoring, some not. Despite all the hardship they had dealt to me that day, I could not resist a smile. 


When I soon after fell into that dreamless sleep that accompanies exhaustion, the smile, broad and beaming, was still plastered onto my face. 










































































Quarter 3 Part II


        “...should somebody go and wake him up?”


        “I don’t know, Claire, can any of us actually ‘go’ anywhere?”


        “S-Sorry, Song, it was just a suURRPggestion…excuse me...”
        
        “Snarf Well I gulp for my part ngh think that somebody should do something, urrp.”


        “Gross, Linda! Don’t chew with your mouth full!”


        “Oh, come off it, Alice! You go to the bathroom constantly, you can’t tell us what’s gross and what isn’t!”


        “It’s Azusa, and I do not go splat constantly!”


        From my state of half-sleep, I sighed.


        “Guys, he’s awake~!”


        I rolled my half-open eyes. “Thank you, Mary,” I groaned, voice groggy from poor sleep, “I couldn’t possibly have figured that out on my own.”


The class laughed. I sat up wearily and rubbed my bleary eyes. “How’s everyone doing this morning?”


“Good!” said Claire cheerfully. 


“Not great…” muttered Song sullenly. 


“Hungry…” whimpered Alice, clutching at her great swell of belly. 


“Yeah, I agree,” said Linda, looking pointedly at the wall clock. “It’s 6:45 and we haven’t had breakfast yet!”
        
        I, too, looked at the clock, barely comprehending its numbers. “6:45?”


        “Yeah,” agreed Kimberly, crossing her meaty arms. “Queen Bitch always gave us first breakfast at 6:30.” 


        I looked at the class, then at the clock again, then sighed deeply- a sound which I assumed would become more and more common in the upcoming days. “Alright, I’ll get you something to eat. Stay here.”


        “Right, as if we could do anything else,” Song wheezed disdainfully. 


        I rolled my eyes and, rubbing my head, headed down to the kitchen to make the girls some breakfast. 


______________________


        “Uh...hello?” I called cautiously, pushing open the double doors. I had come down in rather a bluster, expecting everything to be dark, only to be startled by several lights blazing in the school kitchen. “Is...is anyone here?”


        Nothing answered but a clatter of metal on metal. I crept further. “Um...I hope I’m not intruding...I just need to, uh, um…” 


        Another clatter. Mildly fed up, I called out- much louder- “Who’s there?”


        “I’s here!” answered a male voice, clearly weathered with years of smoking. “Who the hell’s asking?”


        “Um, I am,” I replied, rounding a shelf. “That is, me. I’m Mr. Roberts, the OSC, and I need to make my students some breakfast- would that be okay?” I asked, addressing the speaker, a short, squat man busily washing a pot. 


        “Sure, that’s’ll be fines. Just don’t make no noises, don’t take no foods, and don’t do nothings in this here kitchens, you unnerstan’?”


        I narrowed my eyes, thoroughly confused. “What? But how am I supposed to-”


        “Oh, don’t mind Virgil. He loves his little jokes- everybody thinks he’s the cook!” rang out another voice, stridently Irish and distinctly female. 


        “Sorry, Missus Danielson,” the squat man- evidently Virgil- answered, before sheepishly turning back to the sink.


        “Yes, well, don’t worry about it,” the speaker replied, shuffling about just out of view. “I don’t exactly have a lot of worries running a school kitchen, now do I? And who might you be?”


        And into my vision stepped one of the most singularly beautiful women I had ever seen. 


        The first thing I noticed was her hair- strikingly red, flowing from her head down to her waist, curly and scraggly yet clearly well cared-for. Below that, two wide green eyes, followed closely by freckled cheeks and a blazingly brilliant smile. I barely even noticed the rest of her body, so captivated was I by her face- which made it very hard to answer the question.


        “Well, I’m Mr.- well, that is to say, I’m the OC- the OSC- the, uh, Obesity Support Counselor- you know.” I blurted. 


        “Oh, you’re the one with all the fatties!” she answered, green eyes ablaze with curiosity. “What’s that like, then?”


        “Disgusting,” I answered a bit too honestly. “I mean, I don’t think they’re disgusting- although they really are, but then again I don’t-”


        She laughed with a sound as loud and as clear as a mountain stream. “Relax, this isn’t a performance review! You’re talking like you haven’t slept in a week!”


        “A day, more like,” I grumbled, looking at the wall. “I just got back yesterday and it’s been all downhill from there.”


        “Oh, what happened?” she asked, eyes filled with concern.


        “Well, the superintendent’s a huge bitch, first of all, so she absolutely ruined my students and had them shit all over the -” I broke off, suddenly aware that my words were not exactly acceptable in polite company. She looked at me with an expression I could not read. “Uh, I need to get them some breakfast...can I just...where’s the cereal?” 


        Wordlessly, she pointed at a door to her left. I thanked her quickly and, even more quickly, stole a binful of cereal and rushed out. It was only at the top of the stairs that I realized I had not gotten my name- or given her mine. 


        After that, so much the better, I thought to myself, before grimly heading on to serve breakfast. 


_____________________________


      My mood did not much improve with breakfast. Although I had brought plenty of cereal, I had brought no milk; the girls were not shy of voicing their displeasure about this, which only made me more annoyed. Seeing the futility of the situation, though, I retreated to my desk to take a few deep breaths and compose myself. 


      The girls, however, were not so discerning.


       “Man, this sucks,” Linda (of course it was Linda) groused, unhappily swiping a spoon through her bowl of dry Lucky Charms. “Who eats cereal without milk?” 


         “Mm,” grunted Song through a mouthful of Frosted Flakes. “I usually do, at least at home.”


          At that, Claire, with a sigh, put her bowl down on her belly. “I miss going home.”


         Linda snorted contemptuously. “Why? Going home is such a drag. You have to do all that moving to get there, and then you have to listen to your parents…”


         Claire, upon hearing that, burst into tears. Felicia, heretofore silent, looked at Linda with fire in her eyes.


          “All that moving, huh? Some of us miss being able to walk alone!”


           “Or at all!” chimed in Mary from across the room. 


         Linda snorted again. “You’re all idiots, then. Life had gotten better since the Superintendent took over.” 


          That had crossed a line. I slammed my hands on my desk and burst out of my chair, filled with rage. 
        
          “Really, Linda? Should I just let you get back to wallowing in your own filth, then? Do you like being used as a pawn, being treated like a child, Linda? Do you?” 


           Linda eyed me suspiciously and downed another spoonful of cereal. “All I’m saying is that I haven’t had to do any work until yesterday…” 


           I slapped a hand to my face in utter dismay. “You know what? Fine, Linda. That’s just fine. I’ll just let you be. I won’t clean you, I won’t make you get up, I won’t feed you…”


           That last remark prompted a surprised brrmph from Linda’s mouth. “Wh-What? Not feed me?” 


            “That’s right,” I retorted, a pleased grin on my face. “I have seven other girls who are motivated to get better and keep learning. They deserve the food far more than a useless lump.” 


             “Use- Usehrmmphfless?” Linda cried, her belches of surprise getting worse. “That’s-aaurrp-ridiculous! I’m useful, right?”


              For support, she looked to her classmates, who were straining the limits of their mobility to look away as pointedly as possible. Alice-Azusa had even managed to turn slightly in place. Linda, embarrassed, dove back into her cereal and said not a word more. 


              “Okay, class,” I resumed, walking up to the front of the room. “I know the last few months have been...different...but, despite all of that, I’m still a teacher, and you are still in my class. I don’t want to push you too hard, especially knowing what too much effort will do to you…” 


             Almost on cue, Mary let out a loud and obnoxious frrrrrt. I rolled my eyes and finished my speech through a plugged nose. 


             “...so I’ll start us off with a bit of a pre-test, just to see how much you remember. Alright?”


             Seven heads with about fifteen chins attached wobbled out a yes. Thus satisfied, I distributed the tests, along with a few snacks, and returned to my desk. 


             Unfortunately, tranquility was not to last. Barely three minutes had passed before we were disturbed by a horrendously loud knocking on the door. 


             An angry frown crossed my face, and I sprung from my chair, intent on ripping the interruption an extra rear end. I crossed to the door, lashed it open, and hissed “Just who the fuck do you think you are? My students are testing!”


             “Christ alive, you sure woke up on the wrong side of the bed today! I just came up to bring you lot some proper breakfast, but if you’d rather not…”


              Only then did I realize that the person I had just chewed out was the pretty red-haired head chef. I reeled back, utterly shocked. “Oh, no, that’s not- I mean, please come in, I just-”


               “Don’t worry, I understand!” she said, breezily cutting me off before striding past me. “Now, where should I put this down?”


          “Um...my desk is fine, I think, but-”


           I didn’t have a chance to finish my sentence, as I was very suddenly cut off by an impressively loud gasp of excitement. “Oh, they are so CUTE!” 


           Leaving her tray behind, she dashed over to my students, utterly disturbing the environment of quiet study I had created. From my post at the door, I was only able to finish my earlier sentence in greatest dismay.


          “...they’re taking a test…”
____________


          Cara - for that was the chef’s name, Cara Danielson, originally of County Derry - quickly became a more-than-regular presence in my classroom. She flitted between the kitchen and the class to bring meals, at least officially, but in general acted as little more than a glorified distraction. Not that I very much minded her presence - she was incredibly beautiful, after all, and her devotion to my kids meant that she eagerly helped with cleanup when necessary. Even so, though, I couldn’t teach at all when she was around, and even when she wasn’t I could barely muster any attention from my oversized bunch. Something would have to be done.


        And, knowing her attachment to children of the larger persuasion, I knew just the way to do it.


        “Cara,” I called to her one day, just as she finished serving the day’s lunch of hot dogs and beans, “can you come here for a second?”


         “Sure’n I can, Melvin,” she answered with some confusion. “What’s the trouble?”


         “Well,” I said, lowering my voice significantly, “I’ve told you about what happened before I got back, right?” 


          “Aye,” she frowned, nodding sadly. “Terrible business.” 


          I cut straight to the point.  “I used to have eight students.” 


She looked away, counting with her eyes. When she reached seven, she turned back, eyes wide. “What happened?”


“I’m not sure,” I confided with a shrug of my shoulders. “It was Jenny, the biggest girl. I suspect the superintendent’s hidden her someplace in the school, but I have no idea where.”


“That’s terrible!” she cried, hands clenched in anger. “What do we do?”


“For that,” I answered, “I need your help. I can’t get away from the girls for very long, you see, so I was hoping you might be able to find Jenny for me. The girls and I are rather-” 


I didn’t have a chance to finish, because she wrapped me almost instantly in a strong hug. “You’re such a kind man! Don’t you worry, I’ll find her before you can say is breá liom tú!”


And with that, she was off. I looked after her with a strange mixture of loss and triumph. When I turned back, Mary was glaring, though I didn’t know why.


Another week passed in relative tranquility. Cara still came at mealtimes, but spent much less time in my room, busy as she was with the quest for Jenny. Each time she came, she would give me updates in that wonderful Irish accent of hers - “Checked the attic today - no sign of her there, though!” - and I would smile more, just a little bit. 


____________________


Although I was not as active as Cara - searching buildings was not my forte - that was not to say that I wasn’t busy. The classroom had been cleaned of most of its most egregious debris, but there was still much to be done - there was still a significant stench, not to mention that the girls were still nude and by and large helpless. After school was over - that is to say, mid-to-late afternoons - I busied myself with cleaning, tidying, and adding to the décor. The girls and I basically lived here full time, so I might as well make it seem more like home for all of us. I brought in air fresheners, small pictures, more books, some games; all pilfered from my house, a place I suspected I’d not be living in for some time. The girls were very receptive to these changes, especially when I brought in some of my old video games. I can say with certainty that you haven’t seen true comedy until you’ve seen girls with little to no leg movement capabilities attempting to use a Wii Fit. Things were looking up.


That is, until I brought the cot. 


Even though I wasn’t exactly old, per se, my back still disagreed violently with sleeping on a gym mat. Therefore, to save myself undue pain and suffering, I brought in my old camping cot and a thin mattress. I was moderately excited for a good Thursday night’s sleep; I was thus totally unprepared for the frosty reception I received. All throughout the setting-up process I was met with no sounds, only stares. At first, I thought they may have been eating; then, I realized that the chewing had also, if not stopped, at the very least subsided mightily. I turned, fixed the girls with a look of confusion, and asked “What?” 


“Did you ever think,” Felicia asked, months of pent-up ire behind her words, “that we might like a mattress too?”


I was so flabbergasted by the question that I could only numbly repeat “What?”


“Three months we’ve sat here!” she shouted, gesturing angrily to the two chairs beneath her and setting her enormous busom wobbling. “Three months we have been sitting straight up, eating, sleeping...pooping…”


Linda giggled. Felicia looked about ready to stab her. I waved my arms effusively to demonstrate No and, with a sigh, she continued.


“We need clothes, Mr. Roberts. Clothes and beds and something new. Please.” 


Six heads, thirteen chins, and various other bits of fat bobbed in agreement. 


After a moment of thought, I spread my arms, fixed a broad smile on my face and asked “Field trip?”


___________________


It was a bad thing to think, to be sure, but that Friday I couldn’t have been gladder that my parents kicked the bucket when they did. If they hadn’t, there’d have been no way for this day to succeed.


I’d gotten the bus easily. An effusive lie to the secretary regarding the school’s golf team got me a set of keys and carte blanche to take it for the day. Getting the girls on was a little harder - when a double door is dicey and a single door is an exercise in squishing, a bus door might as well be a fence slat - but, with a five o'clock wake up call, liberal pushing, a handily placed handicapped door and some strategic application of bacon grease (which, in addition to getting them on board, also served as an excellent breakfast supplement), we were on the move at 7:15 - just before the rest of the school arrived. Seven girls weighing as much as an adult football team and one not terribly confident teacher were off on an overtaxed bus ride towards a mall in parts unknown. Anywhere else, this might have been a recipe for disaster. 


Here, though, it seemed like just a better than usual Friday.
_________


Arriving at the mall had been the thing I was most worried about; luckily for me, all of the girls, exhausted from moving all the way to the bus, were still asleep. This gave me time for the first stage of shopping. Carefully, so as not to wake them and startle a fragile digestive system, I wrote a short note and crept out the door. 


        My first stop, after consulting a directory, was the medical supply store; here, thanks to low demand and a mildly suspicious bulk discount, I was able to purchase several extra-extra-extra large hospital gowns and an absolutely insane quantity of similarly sized adult diapers - perfectly suited to dealing with my class, or at least enough to get them inside the mall. Thus armed, I trundled out to the bus once more and, after rousing them quietly, dressed them in their new finery. There were a few hiccups - Mary, for one, only barely fit into the gown and not at all into the diaper - but I was able to get the girls at least moderately dressed before moving on to Step Two. 
        
        For this to succeed, the girls needed to move; hence I had to procure some sort of mobility device. To that end I went back into the mall and, after a bit of scouring, managed to find seven Rascal scooters. I got some strange looks - I passed the woman in the pretzel stand no less than fourteen times - but soon enough it was done, the girls were sat, and we were rolling out.


        The woman in the pretzel stand looked even more shocked when I led them inside - in fact, she spilled cheese sauce absolutely everywhere - but that was at the moment not my main concern. Our objective today was the local branch of Big Top Clothing Supply, a clothing offshoot of a circus-tent company that had sprung into existence soon after the obesity crisis and since exploded into wealth and prominence. There I was sure I could find something to fit my class; unfortunately, since the store was located at the exact opposite end of the mall, it would take some time to get there, especially since the mall was filled with distractions. More than once I would turn around to find them trundling off to look at things they really shouldn’t be. This took a toll on my tired psyche and I regret to say that by the time we reached the clothing store I was really rather snippy. Suffice to say that I was the victim of quite a few glares when I left them idling outside and went into the store. 


        “Good morning!” cried the clerk in a cheery voice that pierced my tired brain like crossbow bolts. “Welcome to Big Top Clothing Supply! How can I help you today?”


        “Yeah, uh,” I replied, trying to muster a smile and managing a grimace, “I need clothes for four Class Vs and three Class VIs. What have you got in stock?”


        “Well, quite a few things, actually! What are your children’s measurements?”


        I blinked. “My children? I’m their OSC.”
        
        The clerk blinked back. “Oh my, this is highly irregular. How would a teacher know their student’s measurements?”


        “I don’t, you see,” I sighed, “but-”


        “Sir, I cannot sell you clothes without measurements!”


        I pinched the bridge of my nose. “They’re here! You can just measure them now.”


        The clerk’s eyebrows nearly shot off his head. “You brought four Class Vs and three Class VIs to a mall? That’s very unsafe! I’m not sure if I can do this, this is all very out of the ordinary - ”


        I had had enough. “For God’s sakes, man! I’ve got seven blobs sitting out there on scooters in medical scrubs! They’ve been abandoned by the school and their parents and they’re probably starving to death. Just get them something to wear!”


        With extremely pronounced disdain the clerk reached under his desk, grabbed a tape measure, and sneered “Very well.”


        “Thank you,” I snipped back. “We really appreciate it.” Then I leaned out the door and beckoned everyone inside. As they rolled in, though, the clerk turned whiter and whiter, and by the time they were all in I could see why. 


        Compared to how they used to be, the girls looked brilliant; however, compared to healthy people and the bright colors around them, they looked utterly repellent. Their skin was so pale it was nearly translucent; their hair, washed inexpertly by my hands and very cheap shampoo, was matted and tangled; and, of course, they didn’t smell very good at all. 


The clerk looked at me disdainfully and reached for the phone. “Sir, this is absolutely terrible. I am afraid I will be forced to report this - this utter neglect.”


I hadn’t even considered this as a possibility, but now it was here, staring me directly in the face. ][[][][


Then, though, Linda saved the day - in the most utterly unexpected way possible. 


“Listen, if you don’t want our business we’d be glad to go someplace else. Do you have any idea how much this sale is going to make you?”


She jiggled sassily for emphasis. The clerk somehow blanched even whiter. “Y-yes, of course. Right this way.”


I grinned, then winced when I realized what that meant for my wallet. Nevertheless, this was a victory, and I had to thank her. “Thank you so much, Linda. You’ve saved me - and all of us.”


“Don’t mention it,” she said, turning away a bit out of embarrassment. “It’s the least I could do.”




][][][][]


I am now testing weg


        
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Then, though, she found her.


It was a Tuesday, a warm enough Tuesday that I could actually open the windows and allow fresh air to circulate. The girls were busy reading The Outsiders; I was reading Game of Thrones. All was well. 


That is, until Cara banged through the door, red hair flying, with an exuberant shout of “I FOUND ‘ER!”


Nothing moved for a second except for the much-weakened bowels of the more easily startled girls. I snapped my book shut, stared at her with a peeved expression, and asked “What?”


 “Jenny! The huge one! I found ‘er!” Cara panted, a proud smile on her face. 


The peeved expression fell away. “What? Where?” I asked, breathily. The girls - at least, the girls light enough to turn themselves - turned and looked. 


“You’re not going to believe this, she was- you know what, just come on!” 


And, with lightning speed, she grabbed my hand and pulled me along, leaving the class behind. Not that I minded all that much. 


[And here too]


        The trial loomed. 


        Well, by “trial”, I mean “school board disciplinary hearing” and by “loomed” I mean “was shoddily set up in the school gymnasium,” but for me it was about the same. If Superintendent Chambers had her way, I would be thrown out at once, barred from teaching - and pretty much every other field - forever. I would be destitute, forced to wander the streets and beg for change in various languages. 
[a]https://bbw-chan.nl/elite/res/5536.html#q7523


Sup, a last archive of yer stories, pheraps? that'd be cool