The Giantess of Shelbyville High
Inside the Book
Chapter 8
Sandy Allen closed the bathroom door and pulled the string attached to the ceiling light. The bare bulb brightened the room, which had no windows, and Sandy ducked to avoid hitting her head on the fixture.
With her stomach heaving, she sat on the edge of the bathtub and opened the lid of the toilet in case she threw up. She picked up a roll of toilet paper from the floor and tore off several sections, making sure she didn’t use too much. Vi, she thought sarcastically, wouldn’t want her to waste it. Sandy clutched her stomach with one hand and wiped the sweat from her brow with the other.
I just can’t go to school today, she thought miserably. Sandy thought that maybe this year would be different; that circumstances at home would improve and the teasing about her size would die down. Instead, both had gotten worse. Anxiety plagued her constantly, and along with the anxiety came the morning heaves, which always sent her to the bathroom, sometimes for as long as half an hour. She started setting the alarm clock earlier in case she had to take care of her sickness before leaving for school.
Sandy sat on the edge of the tub for several minutes, and eventually the nausea subsided. She was glad she didn’t throw up: It hurt too much. Her forehead was still dripping with sweat. Sandy looked behind her at all of the clothes piled up in the bathtub, which was not hooked up to the plumbing. The tub had become a big laundry hamper, full of dirty clothes as well as clothes her family didn’t wear anymore. Washing clothes meant a trip to the Laundromat for her and her granny.
She pulled an old pair of shorts out of the pile and held it to her head, soaking up the sweat. The shorts didn’t fit her anymore: All of her clothes were getting shorter and tighter, she noticed. Her hands, nearly three times the size of a normal-sized person’s hands, also seemed bigger to her, and her feet were getting more and more cramped from stuffing them into size 16EEE men’s shoes – the only kind that fit her.
Sandy held out her right hand, palm up, then turned it over. Someone once told her that her fingers looked like hotdogs, and it had badly hurt her feelings. Then her family had hot dogs for dinner one night and she discovered that her fingers were even larger than the wieners they were eating. She couldn’t finish her dinner.
She stared at her hand for a long time. She thought that by the time she was 16, she wouldn’t get any bigger, but her body wasn’t listening. I must still be growing, she thought with alarm. Pretty soon I won’t even fit in this stupid, rundown little house!
She stood up and leaned way over to look in the bathroom mirror. Even her face was changing, she observed, as she ran her hand over her forehead just above her eyes. Her protruding forehead seemed to be more pronounced than a few months ago, her temples sunken in at the sides. Sandy hated her broad nose and thought her lips were too full. Looking inside her mouth, she noticed that her teeth were starting to get spaces between them. Her bones seemed to be outgrowing her features.
God, I’m ugly, Sandy thought, regarding her image through the smudged glass. Ugly and big, and getting uglier and bigger by the minute. I don’t know if I can go through another day feeling like the freak of Shelbyville.
The tall girl covered her face with her hands and stood there for a minute, pulling herself together. I can’t do this, she thought as her mind wrestled with her feelings. She ended up saying a prayer, asking God to make things better. Her religious upbringing was about all she had left to depend on, and even that was getting shaky.
Sandy wiped her face and brushed her thick, dark hair, which hung past her shoulders. She knew that going to school was important that day: She had a chance to join the Sunshine Society, a social service organization, which met Mondays after classes. Her English teacher, Mrs. Jeffries, was the group’s advisor. The teacher had been very supportive and encouraging about Sandy’s participation in their humanitarian projects. She couldn’t let Mrs. Jeffries down. Most of all, she couldn’t let herself down.
She’d just have to figure out a way to not worry so much about Joey.
