RE: Trailer Trash Part 1: Cleaning Up and Clearing Out (Patreon)

“You’re kidding me,” Ms. Tabitha Moore groaned, casting a wary look at the colossal old-fashioned MRI. There was something familiar about the giant thing. “This thing looks even older than I am.”

“Almost!” the young nurse laughed, distractedly wafting and drifting holographic menu screens projected into the air from the ring on her hand. Her fingers danced as she navigated through the clusters. “She’s about half a century old, now. Don’t knock her age, though—somehow or other, this old girl gives us more comprehensive scans than our brand new ones.”

“Somehow, that seems… unlikely,” Tabitha chuckled uneasily. She pointedly glanced around at the hypermodern fixtures and glossy white walls of the chamber deep within the University Hospital complex. It was the year 2045, and at sixty years old, she was petite and frail, with short gray hair and weathered skin lined with wrinkles. She’d lived a rather hard, unforgiving life, and futuristic medical breakthroughs in life expectancy had plateaued in the 2020s—life expectancy even slowly declining with each succeeding generation due to increasingly unhealthy modern lifestyles. Which she was as guilty of as anyone else.

Still, though… Looking at this huge old machine, Ms. Tabitha Moore was even more nervous to get her recurring headaches looked at for some reason.

“No, it’s true!” the RN insisted, patting the giant old machine. “She’s special. Reads extremely fine deep-tissue electrical activity, catches all the little individual neurons as they’re firing. There’s some big legal deal, with the patent-holder not releasing the rights to the technology, or... something like that. University of Louisville Hospital has some sorta loophole that lets us keep using this one for patients, though.”

“And... it’s absolutely safe?”

“Of course! It had some sort of issue, only like, once, forty-seven years ago, I think.” the bubbly nurse assured her. “Do you have your PC on you? It’ll have to come off before we put you in, sadly. Not because this machine’s old! Even with the new ones, you can’t wear your computer inside them.”

“That’s fine,” Tabitha said, sliding her bracelet-style PC off a wrinkled wrist and watching it go dark. She set it on the offered tray and then caressed the unfamiliar absence it left behind. “It’s just, I’ve had a bad experience in an MRI like this, before.”

“Oh, do you get claustrophobic?” the RN asked, flicking a finger through the display of light to summon Ms. Tabitha Moore’s chart back up. “I think we can give you a sedative, if that’ll make you feel more comfortable. It just makes the whole process take a lot longer.”

“...No,” Tabitha slowly sighed. “No, let’s just get this over with.”

“You’ll be fine,” the registered nurse smiled, helping the older woman up onto the examination table. “Take deep breaths and lie still, and this’ll all be over before you know it.”

With that, she slowly slid the exam table and its reluctant old passenger into the MRI. Leaning inside to check on her one last time, the young nurse crossed a safe distance away and opening the holograph for the device with a spread of her fingertips. Indicator lights blinked into existence as it began powering up.

“You still doing okay in there, Ms. Moore?”

“It smells like old lady in here.”

“Hah hah ha, we’ll have to see what we can do about that next time,” the nurse laughed, shaking her head. “Alright, here we go!”

Deep breath, Tabitha, deep breath, Ms. Tabitha Moore frowned, squeezing her eyes tightly closed. It’s fine, that was a long time ago. And this is proven technology, this time. This machine hasn’t had a mishap in… wait, forty-seven years? Forty-seven years… wasn’t that—

* * *

A terrible screeching resounded from the prototype MRI device in the Emsie St. Juarez Children’s hospital. A noise like impossibly loud scraping glass, rising then to a high-pitched nails-on-chalkboard crescendo, before finally fading away with the disconcerting pop of an electrical breaker blowing out. Everyone within a quarter-mile of the facility visibly flinched, a stinging pain blossoming in their eardrums, and then the power went out across all of Jefferson county.

Thirteen-year-old Tabitha Moore was still screaming within the device when the hospital backup generators restored power to the MRI room—an enclosed space which had sharply risen over thirty degrees in temperature, and was rapidly filling with smoke. The fire alarm triggered, and the twitching and shuddering teenage girl inside the prototype MRI felt raw panic swelling up inside her just as an intense pain began to subside.

“Jesus fucking Christ!” The door set in the copper-lined wall shielding the room and its sensitive device from radio interference burst open. Tabitha’s ears were still ringing from the unearthly din, but she still heard a familiar-sounding male voice shouting out. “Get her the fuck out of there!”

I’m never getting in one of these contraptions ever again, Tabitha resolved, quaking in fear and struggling with the hospital gown she found herself caught in. Where the hells did this thing come from? I don’t care what she says, or how bad the headaches get. These old things are goddamned deathtraps.

Several people pushed through the billowing smoke to yank the sliding examination table out of the hulking cylindrical aperture of the scanner. It was unbearably hot now, and to her horror, in the waning light of the smoke-filled room Tabitha discovered that her fingers now appeared bloated, looking like stumpy-looking sausage appendages.

In fact, she felt grotesquely swollen all over, her tissues... expanded, like a marshmallow microwaved for too long. Terror took over. Her breath hitched into tiny, useless gasps for air as she began to hyperventilate, and as the people were trying to help sit her up she realized her entire body was now shrunken, misshapen, her center of gravity agreeing that something was terribly wrong with her.

Eyes stinging with frightened tears, Tabitha looked up, saw the worried face of her father, Mr. Alan Moore—and promptly fainted.

* * *

“No, I’m not in any pain,” Tabitha insisted, scrutinizing the man who resembled her late father. Even her own voice sounded off, now, child-like somehow. “Mister…?”

“You sure don’t seem alright,” the man said, leaning in uncomfortably close and giving her a serious look. “Sweetie, you’ve never called me ‘Mister,’ before.”

Sweetie? Did she… know this young man? She seemed sure they had never met. A relative of hers? He was in his mid-thirties, and definitely from the paternal side of her family—a cousin, perhaps? The similarities to her long-dead father were simply uncanny.

“Did your goddamn piece of junk give her... what, amnesia, or somethin’?” the man turned to the doctor standing in the room again, his familiar-looking face filling with anger. “She’s sure as hell never called me ‘Mister’ before today.”

“Mr. Moore, there’s no, um, obvious indications of memory loss of any kind,” the doctor shook his head, “and no way of knowing for sure, without taking her to the University of Louisville for another reading, on their MRI.”

The first man snorted at that, clearly indicating that wasn’t an option for consideration.

“But, she’s been through some… trauma with this whole experience, so if she was experiencing short-term memory loss, it would be understan—”

All of the myriad clues seemed to fall into place, and the breath she’d been taking seemed to seize in her chest as Tabitha froze up. It can’t be. I’m not shrunken, or mishapen. I’m... YOUNGER. I’m a fat and useless trailer trash little girl, all over again. TUBBY fucking TABBY. You’ve got to be kidding me...

“Trauma? Dr. Powell, that goddamned piece of junk almost had my ears bleeding, and she was stuck in there right in the ground zero of it!” Mr. Alan Moore shouted. “If you think—”

“There’s no problem with my memory,” Tabitha interrupted with a sense of finality, staring across the room with a blank face. “Just... with my comprehension of this current situation. Mr. Moore, am I to understand this is not the University of Louisville Hospital?” Her powers of observation had apparently flagged in the midst of this ordeal. She was only now wryly noticing that the hospital walls here were terribly outdated—sterile plastic panels, rather than the glass-like enamel resin typical of hypermodern medical establishments.

“Sweetie… sweetie, no,” the man who seemed to be a younger version of her father blanched, looking at her with concern. “We drove to the children’s hospital, St. Juarez. Remember, it has the big, pretty sculptures in the fountain? Emsie St. Juarez?”

“...I see,” Tabitha nodded, struggling to keep disbelief from her expression. She turned to the doctor. “Then, may I ask what the current date is?”

“Thursday, May…” the doctor flipped the corner of a page on his clipboard and glanced at the date on her patient chart. “May seventh. Nineteen ninety-eight.”

Nineteen ninety-eight. Having her ridiculous suspicion confirmed stunned her into silence, and Tabitha stared down at her small hands and their now chubby little fingers in incredulity.

Forty-seven years. I knew that hulking goddamned piece of shit machine looked familiar. IT WAS ME. I was the one who was in their precious multi-million-dollar MRI when it went haywire, forty-seven years ago. So, in twenty forty-five, it sends my mind back to… the past one that went berserk? Back to ninety-eight, when that infernal machine was at the children’s hospital—when *I* was at the children’s hospital?

Time travel seems so impossibly… well, improbable. Nineteen ninety-eight. Dad’s still alive… this is really, actually him. He’s alive. Mom, too, probably. I’m in, what? Eighth grade? Ninth? I hope to God this isn’t real. That this is just some... electrical signals frying my brain into some death seizure in this MRI piece of shit. Please, ancient fucking machine spirit of the MRI, just let me die.

I don’t think I have the strength to do this all over again. Please, don’t make me go back to being this fat fucking useless trailer trash. I’m so tired of hating myself, I can’t do it all again. I really can’t. Letting out a choked sob, the overweight girl gripped the front of her hospital gown until her fists were shaking, and she rocked forward.

“Sweetie!” Mr. Moore leaned over her, alarmed. “Sweetie, what’s wrong?!”

“No,” Tabitha cried, shoving him back with flabby thirteen-year-old arms. “No, please, no!”

* * *

“I said I was sorry,” Tabitha repeated, once again breaking the awkward silence within the cab of her Dad’s truck. “I was upset. I didn’t mean to be… melodramatic.” They were headed on the long drive home, after an ineffectual round of tests on her and some additional angry indignation from her father, who was threatening the staff with a malpractice lawsuit.

“You don’t have to be sorry, Sweetie,” Mr. Moore said again. “I’m just concerned, ‘cause you’re still… talkin’ funny. You’ve every reason to be upset. I’m still upset. I’m not gonna feel better ‘bout any of it ‘till I hear back from that lawyer. That piece of doo-hickey they shoved you in could’ve cooked yer noggin for good. Buncha psychos, is what they are, puttin’ a little girl in a prototype, where anything and anywhat could go wrong. Buncha crooks.”

“Do I still have to go to school, then?” Tabitha probed, trying to sound petulant.

Having been living forty-seven years in the future as of... just earlier this morning, her grasp of exactly when that original MRI mishap had occurred in ‘98 was shaky. When as in, what had been going on in her life at that point. She’d remembered that she’d hit her head taking a bad tumble off a friend’s trampoline, way back then—the name of that friend had since then escaped her, but bruises on her head seemed to corroborate that memory.

Am I still in middle school, or am I already in high school? It being May would indicate that an academic term is concluding, and summer is starting. Right? Fortunate, because I’m rather unlikely to remember the names of any classmates. Or... even where my classes were.

“Well, I dunno, Sweetheart,” Mr. Moore said, uneasy. “You’ve got yer finals left to do yet… and you seem to be up and about okay, thinkin’ clearly. Tell you what, how ‘bout I call yer counselor and have you off for tomorrow, and we’ll see what kinda shape you’re in come Monday morning?”

“...Fine,” Tabitha grumbled, genuinely unenthused. Just finishing out middle school, then, I suppose. The thought of having to repeat high school all over again, from the beginning, was a nightmarish prospect—all of her absolute worst memories were from that period.

Sighing, she gazed out the window at all of the antiquated-seeming models of car that seemed to fill the roads. Nineteen ninety-eight. What happened back in nineteen ninety-eight? The only major event she recalled from those years was the big plane-hijacking, that terrorist attack on the twin towers. And, for the life of her, she couldn’t recall if it’d happened in the year two thousand, or the years just after that. It was, after all, a lifetime ago. The phrase nine-eleven stuck out in her head. Maybe September, of two-thousand and eleven? That’s further off than I expected.

Not like I’d know where to even begin preventing that, she sighed. Or if I even should. Let’s see. I never memorized lottery numbers, and I was always too poor to pay attention to stock market trading. So, I guess getting rich quick is out of the picture. I’m not AMAZING at anything in particular, just... mediocre at dozens of things. Why ME? What’s the use in sending ME, of all people, back to the past?

She dreaded the thought of being forced to live it again, to be thirteen years old and be the fat, unattractive girl without friends all over again. Trailer trash, from the Lower Park. The social pariah, who smelled kind of funny, who wore yellowed T-shirts that never quite looked clean, and never really figured out how to take care of herself until it was too late. The dumpy young woman who forced herself on dates with asshole guys of the worst sort, simply because she was terrified of winding up alone. The Tabitha who made one, single genuine close friend in her entire life, a woman fifteen years her junior—a brilliant, talented young woman who wound up committing suicide.

Went to college to teach, but it seemed too difficult. Tried to become a fantasy writer, instead, and published two books of a trilogy before they terminated my contract. Then, I just gave up on writing. Worked at the Safety plant to pay the bills ‘till I was out of debt from school, which took... most of my goddamned life. Julia killed herself. And then, I became a county clerk in Town Hall office for years… and that was it. Tabitha held a blank stare, feeling hollow and disappointed. Not much of a fucking life.

She shook her head, turning to watch the profile of her father’s face as he drove. Dad, you look so young. I have to watch you die, all over again. And Mom. I don’t know if I can do this.

“Almost home, Pumpkin,” he said, misreading her concern. He pulled past a familiar liquor store, and his pickup truck made a turn down the hill, passing the sign for the Lower Park. There had been an Upper Park, at one point, mobile homes filled with retirees and the elderly, but it had been bulldozed and replaced with convenience stores, a gas station, and parking lots. The already low property value of the Lower Park neighborhood plummeted even further as a result, more or less hitting rock bottom in their area. The truck lurched over the speedbumps ever-present throughout the narrow lanes of the park—a measure to keep reckless and impatient drivers from speeding through the confined spaces— and the familiar sight of their trailer came into view.

Her childhood home; a sun-baked and graying double-wide tucked into the rows of mobile homes. It actually looked less dirty and decrepit than she recalled. There were no gaps in the panelled skirting around their trailer right now, and the ugly hedge hadn’t grown in yet, either. The tree she’d remembered seeing last, back when she moved out in her late twenties, was still a scrawny little thing, not much more than a thin sapling. Uncle Danny’s car wasn’t there, either—in her past life it had been a permanent fixture of their yard for most of her time there, up on cinder blocks and wrapped in a faded brown tarp. Wonder when he’ll be dropping THAT little beauty off, so that he can go be in prison for the rest of his life.

“Are you okay?” Her father asked one again, as the truck finally rumbled to a stop in front of their trailer. He gave her another look, and she guiltily stopped peering around at everything as though seeing it for the first time.

“I—” She froze when she met his eyes. —Never appreciated how much I actually missed you. I don’t want to lie to you, Daddy, and I don’t think I can pretend to be a child. Wouldn’t even know where to start. “I’m fine.”

“Uh-huh,” he murmured doubtfully, reaching over to tousle her hair. He hadn’t done that in—well, it certainly felt like forty years. Tabitha fought to keep her eyes from watering again.

* * *

Her homecoming was appalling, as she’d expected. Her mother, Mrs. Shannon Moore, was still fat in a fresh, plump way, only just beginning to bulge at the seams. Nothing like the bloated and gigantic obese mass she would become in a few years. Tabitha pondered what the most tactful way to ask if she’d been diagnosed with diabetes yet was. Still, her mother’s knee problems didn’t appear to have surfaced yet, and she was getting around under her own power right now, at least. Even if she didn’t get out of her seat to welcome her daughter home from the hospital.

The trailer’s interior was cut off from outside sunlight by both curtains and blankets over the windows, dimly lit instead by the yellow light of incandescent bulbs. It was cluttered with mismatched, tacky, and worn out furniture, and it smelled. Body odor and greasy cooking. The carpet hadn’t met a vacuum cleaner in well over a year, black mold was accumulating in the corners of the ceiling, and dirty dishes were everywhere.

Tabitha begged off dinner on the fabricated excuse of a nausea that was becoming very real, but rigid family tradition dictated that she sit with them at the table while they ate all the same. Baked beans and toasted bread—why toasted bread?—was the fine meal that she passed up.

Nothing about the intermittent silence and small talk seemed real to her. Her stomach turned itself into knots as she warily eyed her surroundings in the trailer, because everything was half-familiar and half-horrifying. She could never determine which was specifically which, either.

“Hope you’ve learned yer lesson ‘bout those trampoline jumpers,” Mrs. Moore finally shook her head. “Yer lucky you didn’t break yer neck.”

“Yes, Mother,” Tabitha nodded politely.

“Yes, Mother?” the woman asked incredulously. She glared daggers at Tabitha, as if warning her daughter not to sass her.

“Yes,” Tabitha repeated dispassionately. What, did I normally say... ‘Yes, Momma?’ I may have never amounted to much, but I WAS an English major. I’m not going to be able to keep up some ignorant kid charade, anyways. I have too many other things to deal with, right now.

“I’ve learned my lesson. I wasn’t being sufficiently responsible at that time, and the consequences of my actions were unexpectedly severe. In the future, I will mindfully endeavor towards more appropriate courses of action.”

“No need for attitude, Tabitha Ann Moore,” Mrs. Moore warned with a laugh, forking more baked beans into her mouth.

Tabitha found that her mother smelled. Mrs. Moore was gross, disgustingly fat, and petty, and Tabitha was beginning to hate her, all over again. Mom, when you died, I came to terms with everything I could, and buried the rest. So that I could just focus on the GOOD memories, and leave it at that. Why am I being made to go through this again?

“Kids’re getting smarter every day,” Mr. Moore joked, not looking up from his own plate. “Sweetie’s so smart she broke their brain-scannin’ machine. Guess she was clean off the charts.” No one had actually suspected anything of that sort. From what Tabitha had overheard, everyone was blaming the MRI’s apparent failure on an electrical fault that came about from a surge during the power outage.

“Shame they never get any more respectful,” Mrs. Moore frowned, pursing her lips.

With the wisdom and grace sixty years had given her, Tabitha kept silent, neither agreeing nor disagreeing. She stared instead at the yellowing floral wallpaper, and patiently endured the sounds of her parents eating.

Afterwards, she found her cramped bedroom was stuffy and strange-smelling, and she could only resign herself to accepting that some of the body odor this trailer was rank with belonged to her previous self. There was a brief but potent mixture of nostalgia at seeing all of her long-lost childhood toys, and repulsion, in really realizing her past living conditions. Taking a deep breath and steeling her nerves, she finally turned to face the mirror sitting atop her dresser.

She’d studiously avoided her reflection on the doors out of St. Juarez, and the windows and mirrors of her father’s truck. She feared the impact this sight was going to have on her psyche, and most of all... she simply didn’t want to believe. Because she already knew what she would find. She’d spent most of her life detesting and struggling with this.

A hefty thirteen-year-old girl scowled back at her in the mirror. Pudgy enough, at that age, to already have a protruding stomach paunch. Despite having just started puberty and growing taller, her breasts looked like fat, not like boob. They were the unappealing fleshy contours a fat man would have, moobs, not feminine assets she could push together to form cleavage. Her neck was fat, her chin—fat, fat cheeks, her entire face was wreathed in it, swaddled in layers of fat. She clutched the edges of the counter and dry-heaved. She pressed her eyes shut and took a deep breath.

Okay. Okay. It’s not that bad. I knew I had a complex about my weight and my appearance, I just… well, nothing was ever going to make me ready for this all over again. Never thought I’d miss the OLD LADY physique.

It wasn’t until her late fifties that she would drop all of the weight, mostly because of stomach ulcers that turned into a cancer scare. Not being able to eat certain foods without a trip to the hospital had finally transformed her into a rather normal-looking, even scrawny, gray-haired old woman. Her diet drastically changed, and on the orders of the nutritionist on her insurance, she enrolled in the local Taekwondo program for basic daily exercise. And that was when I became a martial arts grandmaster…

...Hah, as if. Another prime example of her mediocrity. As the only elderly woman in that Taekwondo school, she’d been exempted from actual sparring, and never laid a finger on anyone. More often than not, she spent the classes corralling the younger ones, or resigning herself to practicing warm-ups, stretches, stances, and exercises with some of the girls who hated fighting. In the end, Tabitha felt about as qualified in Taekwondo as an amateur yoga instructor.

Although. I wonder, if… Out of a nascent whispering of curiosity, Tabitha carefully—carefully set her feet into a forward stance. Then, she shifted into a back stance. Dropping into a horse-riding stance, rising up into a tiger stance. Crossing her legs in a forward cross stance. Twisting into a backward cross stance. So, I CAN use future knowledge in my past body. At least that means those forty seven years weren’t some... absurd hallucination. Actually, these moves seem kind of… easy?

She let herself fall forwards in the scant space of her room, keeping her back rigid and catching herself with only her palms. It was a loud crash and an ugly struggle, but she just barely kept her nose from violently meeting the floor—and even managed to do a single proper pushup, before her protesting arms seemed turned to jelly and gave out on her.

Okay... doing that was dumb. But, also completely impossible, back when I was sixty. Guess it can be nice to be young. I could... actually get in shape. Not in my room, maybe. I could practice katas out in the yard?

I don’t… HAVE to be fat, this time. I’m already disgusted at the thought of eating fattening garbage like my parents always did, here. I... know how to cook, now. I can actually JOG now that I’m young again, basically whenever I want to! High school starts in, what, August? September? I can be in AMAZING shape by then! Everything can be different! All at once, the idea of changing her life began to brighten her perspective, illuminating all of the opportunities she’d been too distraught to see earlier. Her skillsets from the future may have seemed unimpressive then, but couldn’t she still apply them to the problems from her past? She’d had a lifetime to regret and dwell on all of them already, after all.

I can write my story all over again. GOBLINA, and GOBLIN PRINCESS. But, with all the feedback and techniques I’ve learned since about the story structure and pacing. AND, I can get it out there and published before the market’s oversaturated, this time. Tabitha thought, her mind racing. Julie… I can save Julie, I can fix things for her. Make everything right, so that she never even THINKS about taking her own life. I can save Mom and Dad from themselves, somehow! I can… I can do ANYTHING.

As night descended on the aging and worn mobile home lots of the Lower Park, the bright, beautiful laughter of a young girl resounded from one of the compact little rooms within.

“I’m never going to be trailer trash again.”

* * *

Tabitha woke up early and full of energy, despite having skipped eating dinner last night. Her father was gone already, having left for work at five-thirty, and her mother was unlikely to rouse for at least another hour, giving Tabitha free range to re-explore the place.

Last night she’d slept in her underwear, having tossed yesterday’s clothes in the bathroom’s communal laundry hamper. She began her day by opening her dresser drawers and sorting everything she found into neat stacks. Several dozen articles of clothing were immediately discarded into a trash pile; socks with holes, shirts too discolored to wear, pants that were ripped along the inseam—who had bothered to wash and fold those?—trashy T-shirts that had their sleeves haphazardly removed, and similar pajama pants that had been cut into shorts.

Diligently trying on all of her remaining clothes, Tabitha was dismayed to find that less than a third of them fit—she didn’t even have a full week’s worth of clothing to wear. Luckily, her bras and underwear were the newest of the lot, and all correctly-sized, likely purchased to keep up with puberty. She dressed herself in a pair of sweatpants and an oversized shirt, carefully folded and then returned the clothing she would keep into their drawers.

The Moore family weren’t packrats like some of their neighbors, but they did seem to hoard things like bags. After a quick trip to the kitchen pantry, frowning at nearly everything she saw, she returned with two grocery bags to pack the clothes too small for her into.

They’ll tell me to hang onto them JUST IN CASE, because of all the little cousins who could grow into them, Tabitha grumbled to herself. As if any of them ever needed any more hand-me-downs. Need to convince them to take me to a thrift store so I can fix my wardrobe. Yesterday’s pair of jeans, several pairs of sweatpants, and what appear to be a single value pack of cotton shorts is NOT enough attire for a teenage girl. Now I remember why I used to wear the same clothes so many days in a row.

In the meantime, the scrunched up wads of grocery bags were already spilling out the pantry door, so she collected them and made her way around the trailer, emptying out three small waste-cans into the grocery bags and then fitting one inside each as a liner. Why were we collecting these bags at all, if we weren’t going to use them…?

She managed to fill another entire bag with garbage she found simply strewn about the trailer, before it dawned on Tabitha that she was cleaning house. She paused, grimacing. Keeping a living area free of trash and clutter was second-nature, something she now did without thinking. Because, it needs done. And, being surrounded with filth stresses me out. Might be a bit out of character to attempt doing ALL of the long-neglected household chores at once...

But, what else can I do? She scowled, collecting dirty dishes and piling them in the sink. I can’t live like this.

Even after making a few trips to the bathroom hamper for the errant bits of clothing she found strewn in the corners of the living room, the place still looked… well, dirty. She pulled down all the blankets covering the windows, releasing clouds of dust to hang in the air just as dawn light was beginning to stream through the windows. All of those blankets smelled and they needed washed, so she folded them and arranged them in a giant pile next to the hamper.

Okay. Carpet. Now that the room was properly lit up, it looked terrible, and after a cursory search, she discovered why the floor hadn’t been cleaned in ages. Their vacuum cleaner was outside, in the shed, caked in moldy dust and cobwebs—and it was old. A rather bulky independent canister-style motor and collecting bag, connected to the upright cleaner by an umbilical of electrical cord and ridged flexible hose.

Making three trips to carry the contraption and its attachments in and onto the kitchen tile, she then grabbed a bucket of water and one of the ripped socks she’d just thrown out and sat down to wipe the cleaner clean. The amount of time and effort she had to put into simple tasks like tidying up a room was beginning to seem absurd to her, but Tabitha grit her teeth and fantasized about soon having a carpet clean enough to sprawl out upon.

The entire vacuum cleaner was a filthy mess, and the bag had never been changed whenever the thing was stored, so the contents inside had begun to rot. After a thorough scrubbing that turned the water in her bucket an unsettling shade of brown, she reassembled the thing and was ready to begin cleaning. Unfortunately, it was as loud as a leaf-blower, and Tabitha had only pushed and pulled the thing over three square feet of carpet when her mother stormed out of their bedroom, furious.

* * *

“Don’t know what you thought y’were tryin’ to butter us up for, doin’ all of this, but whatever it is—you ain’t gettin’ it,” Mrs. Shannon Moore frowned, blinking at the dishes all over the countertop. The drying rack had long since been filled, and the rest were being set to dry on a towel Tabitha had spread out. “How am I s’posed to eat breakfast?”

“With clean dishes,” Tabitha answered with a deadpan expression, and she drained the sink water. She’d been doing dishes for forty-five minutes. As absurd a concept as it was, all of the dishes had been dirty. It was apparently custom for dishes to only be cleaned directly before use, oftentimes only rinsed, and then set down wherever afterwards, dirty and forgotten until they were needed again.

There wasn’t even a place for the bowls, plates, and cups in the kitchen cabinet, a fact that managed to stun Tabitha. The cabinets were jam-packed with everything else under the sun, it seemed—flashlights without batteries, forgotten tools, empty tins, metal brackets, cheap Christmas decorations, and a dozen old plastic margarine containers, each filled with a mysterious assortment of rusting nails and screws.

“I’m going for a walk,” Tabitha sighed, wiping her hands dry on her shirt. Last night’s charged enthusiasm for tackling all of her problems in this new life head-on... was rapidly draining away as she realized that she’d be forced to fight for every inch to complete even what should have been basic tasks.

“A walk?” her mother inspected one of the bowls. “Outside? And, where do you think you’re going?”

“I’m just going in circles,” Tabitha said, wishing there was a way to explain the truth of her circumstances. “...Around the neighborhood. I just need to walk for a while, get some fresh air. After what happened yesterday, I really can’t handle being cooped up, right now.”

She failed to put emotion into her voice like she’d intended, but her excuse seemed to hold up, and she was given permission to go outside. Which honestly surprised Tabitha, because it was still technically a school day—her mother would have had a fair argument to keep her from wandering about. If she even knows what day it is.

But, regardless, my plan’s holding out so far. Tabitha thought as put her worn little sneakers on and stepped out into the neighborhood. If I seem unusual, it’s because I was traumatized by what happened at the hospital. I have to keep all the windows uncovered all the time, too, because I’m selectively claustrophobic, now. I need sunlight, fresh air, and clean, open environments that don’t have clutter. Or, I’ll flip out.

Exhaling slowly, Tabitha started walking along the rows of trailers at a brisk pace. She couldn’t wait until her body was ready for running.

* * *

She returned from the hour-long jaunt outdoors equally exhilarated and disappointed with her young body. The extra weight sitting on her was something she hadn’t become accustomed to yet, a constant and obnoxious reminder of her unappealing image. On the other hand, joint pain didn’t seem to exist at all for her at thirteen, and though individual muscles began to ache, she didn’t actually feel tired. Youthful energy coursed and thrummed through her, ready for everything coming her way. Which was, of course, a miserable onslaught of problems throughout the trailer that required her immediate attention.

Their refrigerator, one of the few constants in Tabitha’s life, was still the exact same one she would own for years in the future, all the way until she’d moved into her second apartment. When she saw her parents had crammed the freezer tight, she even felt indignant at what they were doing to her appliance. The fan circulating air throughout the compartment was completely blocked, so TV dinner boxes were frozen to the back of the freezer, while some of the bagged veggies in the front were practically thawed out. They’d turned the freezer knob to ten for some reason as well, so after adjusting the contents properly within she set it back to where it should be, at seven.

Nothing within the fridge seemed remotely appetizing. An artery-clogging array of leftovers from various meals filled unlabeled tupperware, one of the shelves seemed dedicated exclusively to various styrofoam take-out boxes, and the rest of the interior was a smorgasbord of mystery jars, condiment bottles, and cans of beer.

Going to need to beg, lie, and cheat my way into convincing them to get us to a farmer’s market for some actual decent produce, some fresh fruits and vegetables, Tabitha made a face. Haven’t had a meal since 2045, and I’m famished. Withdrawing a half-empty carton of eggs dangerously nearing their expiration, she put a pot of water on the stove so that she could hard-boil all of them. These would need to be set aside and rationed out over her first week, for whenever she couldn’t stave off her hunger anymore and absolutely needed to eat something.

Need to dig out the hamper and see if I have any more useable clothes in there. Maybe sneak away a cup of detergent, and wash my clothes in the tub. There were just too many things to do at once, and Tabitha was feeling overwhelmed. Out of habit, her hand kept creeping back to her left wrist where she’d worn her bracelet-PC for years—she would kill for web access. It was dismaying to realize she was trapped all the way back in the dial-up era of internet. Sighing, she pulled her legs up in stretches while waiting for her water to boil.

I’ll need a word processor over the summer if I want to get a head start on my novels. The library’s over a half-hour walk from here, from what I remember. Decent for some extra exercise. I’ll need a library card, and a… what, a flash drive, to keep the work on? Did they have flash drives back in ninety-eight? A CD? Maybe a floppy diskette?

She’d leafed through some of the miscellaneous worksheets and papers scattered around her room, and didn’t think she’d have a problem breezing through middle-school finals without seriously reviewing them. High school calculus or physics would have been a different story, but she was eminently confident in passing coursework intended for children. Also need to keep using ‘big words’ around my parents, even when diminutive ones would suffice. ESPECIALLY when diminutive ones would suffice. That way, they’ll imagine my new vocabulary is some emerging teenage phase… and hopefully never stop to question how or why I know certain words that I likely shouldn’t.

“What the—” Her mother did a double-take as she stepped away from the living room TV for a moment to refill her sweet tea—a murky concoction Tabitha had long since concluded was more sugar than tea and water. “What, you’re cooking, now? Tabby, you’ve never cooked a day in your life. You’re liable to burn down the whole trailer park.”

Tabitha simply crossed her arms, looking unamused, and Mrs. Moore’s expression faltered.

* * *

Having just arrived home from work, Mr. Alan Moore was first stepping inside the door when he was immediately waylaid by his wife.

“What in the—”

“Honey,” Mrs. Moore said in a furtive whisper, “Somethin’s wrong with Tabitha. She went on this—this rampage today, and she’s speaking all strange. She’s not actin’ her normal self at all.”

“Rampage, what… ?” He stepped past her into the trailer, marvelling in disbelief at the incredible transformation their home had gone through. “Ho—ly hells. I come home to the right house? Tabby did all this?”

“She’s gone weird, weird in the head, Honey,” Mrs. Moore insisted, gesturing towards the kitchen. “She went and pulled out everything in all the cabinets, and moved everything around. Everything. When I told her she wasn’t allowed to throw out any of those newspapers, she sat down with them and was... shuffling them around, looking all serious. I ask her what on God’s green earth she thinks she’s doing, and she says shes organizing them by date.

“She’s not acting right, Alan. She’s telling me she’s claustrophobic now, that we have to keep all the curtains open. So that we’re living in a goddamn fishbowl, and all the neighbors can gawk in and see whatever they please? I don’t think so! She went out and about for hours, and wouldn’t tell me where she went, says she was going in circles. She even tried to take half of all our canned goods outside, said they were expired. I tell her canned goods keep well on for years and years after their date, and she looks at me like I’m speaking Swahili! It’s canned food, for cryin’ out loud! She’s always been such a good girl, I don’t know what’s gotten into her!”

Mr. Moore frowned. If a cleaning spree hadn’t been strange enough, the thought of Tabitha opposing her mother was downright abnormal. His wife wasn’t one to be crossed, and yet, right now she seemed... downright spooked.

“I’ll... talk to her,” he assured her, still looking around the pristine trailer in dazed astonishment. It was his home, and yet he was wondering where it was okay to put his shoes, now. The well-trodden gray of the living room carpet was now a light blue that seemed positively vibrant by comparison, and with all of the windows open and the curtains tied back, this cozy space he thought he was familiar with seemed to have opened up into something else entirely.

“Sweetie?” He paused, rapping his knuckle on Tabitha’s door. Yet another strange thing—Tabby had never been in the habit of closing her door. Hell, yesterday she’d of had to shove aside a big ol’ pile of stuff to even close the dang thing in the first place. “Can I come in?”

“Please do,” her voice called out.

“Uh… yeah,” he said uneasily, opening the door. Her room was even more changed than the rest of the trailer—it was as if she’d just moved in. Her panelboard walls, which had been littered with taped drawings and posters, were bare. The dresser was clear of everything, and she’d even cleaned the mirror, removing all of those Sunday School stickers she’d decorated the edges with. Her bed was made, sheets pulled taut with military precision.

“I’d like to have a discussion with you about our living arrangements,” Tabitha said, cooly appraising him. “But, it doesn’t have to be right now. You’ve just gotten off work, so you can relax and have dinner, first. After that, we can speak at your convenience.”

“That’s very... considerate of you, Honey,” He managed. There was a strange stillness to her mannerisms that he couldn’t quite put his finger on. She wasn’t fidgeting, or slumping, or even breaking eye-contact with him.

“You cleaned the whole house,” he grunted.

“Yes, thank you for noticing.”

“Any reason in particular... why? There something you want?”

“A clean home,” Tabitha answered curtly. It didn’t look like she had anything else to say.

“Okay, then,” Mr. Moore sighed. “Were you being smart with your mother?”

“We had a rather... animated discussion, on the semantic difference between a best by date and an expiry date.” Tabitha explained, choosing her words carefully. “Though I’m unable to concede my... apparently unique and challenging views on that matter, I’ve already taken the liberty to apologize to her for any offense I may have inadvertently caused.”

“Sweetie—why are you talking like that?”

She paused, seeming to ponder for a moment, before answering. “Because I’ve had the time today, to consider the things I want to express. Thank you, for allowing me to stay home from school today. It’s been very useful.”

“Okay,” he shook his head helplessly. “Fine. Get ready for dinner, then, I guess.”

Plodding back out to the living room and removing his wallet and keys, he noticed that on the once-cluttered ledge where he normally left them—now cleared, a small tray had been placed for them.

“Well, what did she say?” Mrs. Moore asked impatiently. “What does she want?”

“I don’t know,” Mr. Moore replied, thoughtfully picking up the tray, a decorative metal stamped with the engraving of an amish carriage pulling towards a covered bridge. She really DID go through all the cabinets. “Hell, she explained, and I still don’t know what she said.”

He placed his wallet and keys in the tray and carefully placed it back on the ledge.

“That’s what I’m been talking about!” Mrs. Moore exclaimed, looking uncomfortable. “You can’t understand a word comin’ out of her mouth, anymore! What did they say at the hospital? Did getting knocked upside her head make her—I don’t know, autistic, or something?”

“I dunno,” he said, frowning. They’d given him a packet of papers to take home with them, and he’d set them down on the armrest of his chair yesterday. He didn’t know where on Earth they were, now. “But, she did clean.”

His wife shot him a dirty look, glancing around her as though she only found it unsettling and unnatural.

“What?” Mr. Moore shrugged. “You were the one home with her all day. She said she wanted to talk to me about something after dinner.”

* * *

“Thought you hated green beans,” Her father grunted, forks clinking against plates as they all ate together.

“I do,” Tabitha lied, looking down at her plate. They actually weren’t bad, for frozen food. She’d drained, rinsed, and then steamed them just like she had when she was back in college. The flavor was weak, but they were the healthiest option she had to work with at the moment.

Her parents were eating yesterday’s baked beans with today’s jumbo hot dogs, the kind that ran eighty-nine cents for a large pack. The mere memory of that meat—bland, tasting like bologna, processed to the point of having no texture, and swollen with preservatives, was enough to make her stomach turn. No one had commented yet on why the parents and daughter were eating separate meals, so hopefully they were already prepared to let some of her new eccentricities slide.

“And, you’re eating them because…?” Mrs. Moore asked, already sounding annoyed.

“I want to be healthy.”

“You’re plenty healthy, Honey,” Mr. Moore said, wiping his mouth with a napkin. “You’re fine just the way you are. Did one of those Taylor girls say something to you?”

“Oh?” Tabitha looked up at him in surprise. “You didn’t know? Everyone calls me tubby Tabby. They always have. I’ve been made fun of for being fat and smelling bad my whole life.”

“What?!” her mother threw her fork down into her plate with a loud clink. “Who said that?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Tabitha said, taking another bite of her green beans. “It’s common knowledge, and they’re right, anyways. No one’s quite as honest and cruel as other children.”

“You’re not fat,” her father insisted.

“Who called you fat?” Mrs. Moore demanded. “I want their names, right now.”

“I am fat,” Tabitha said, an edge appearing in her voice. “And that’s not something that scolding children or forcing apologies is going to change.”

“You’re not fat, Tabitha, don’t you dare call yourself that,” Mrs. Moore insisted, sending a pointed look towards your husband. “Well? Tell her, Alan.”

“How much more weight would you have let me put on?” Tabitha interrupted with a glare she turned towards each of them in turn. Something dark was growing in her eyes, and Mr. Moore found his response was caught in his throat. “How far would I have gone before you addressed the issue? Are you fine with me being unhealthy? Are you fine with tubby Tabby?”

“Tabitha Anne Moore. Who taught you to talk like that?!” The table was gripped with a long, tense silence.

“...I’m sorry,” Tabitha finally said, pushing aside her unfinished plate and leaving the dinner table. “I’ve lost my composure—please, excuse me.”

“Alan,” Mrs. Moore hissed in a low voice as Tabitha retreated to her room. “Did you know about any of this?!”

* * *

“Tabitha?” Mr. Moore knocked on the door again. “You okay in there? You didn’t finish your greens… and your mother said you didn’t have anything else to eat, today.”

“Hunger is just the sensation of my fat reserves beginning to deplete,” her strange words called out through the door. “I have sufficient energy to finish my exercises tonight.”

“Sweetie…” He shook his head in exasperation. Exercises, now, too? Looks like she’s finally getting into that difficult teenager age. “Can I come in?”

“Please do.”

Please do? What happened to ‘yeah,’ or ‘okay?’ He slowly opened the door, to discover she was in the midst of stretches, legs spread out in a V on the floor and attempting to reach as far forward towards them with her hands held flat.

“Honey, we don’t think you’re fat,” he said.

“Do you know exactly how much I weigh, or how tall I am?” she retorted. “Because the BMI I calculated indicates that I’m very overweight, well on my way towards obese, by medical standards.”

“That’s, not—”

“I know you’re trying to comfort me, and I appreciate that,” she cut him off, “but, what I need now is encouragement, not comfort. I’m sorry for my outburst earlier, at dinner. I understand that all of this must seem very... emotional, and perhaps overly theatric to you, but I assure you, I am very, very serious about this.”

“Okay, okay,” he held up his hands. “Just… well, you know how it seems.” Wait, does she? She actually does seem very… aware. Not to say she was stupid before, or anything, but this…

“I’m thirteen years old, so I can’t be considered a child, anymore,” Tabitha shrugged. “I’m a young woman, now. That’s what I wanted to discuss with you.”

“Well, go on.”

“I want you to teach me how to balance a budget,” she began, sitting up and relaxing her legs. “How to plan and prepare meals, and how to manage my time and money.”

“Uhh, well—that’s…”

“I recognize that we don’t have much financial leeway, but I’d like for all of us to agree on a fair monthly allowance for me. In exchange, I’ll pull my weight by cooking for us every night, and regularly keeping the house clean.

“As you’re both parent and provider, if you don’t feel that is acceptable, I’m prepared to negotiate on your terms. I think that learning responsibility is an important aspect of my personal development, and that hard work should be rewarded with equal compensation. Do you agree?”

“Well, I… you want allowance money, huh?”

“Yes.”

“Money’s tight, Sweetie.”

“I understand that.”

“I’ll talk about it with your mother.”

“Thank you. When do you think I can expect your decision?”

“We’ll see, Sweetie,” he shrugged, raising his hands. “You’ve been acting… different, and your mother’s in a mood.”

“...I understand. Thank you, again. I’m going to finish up, now, and then get some rest. Goodnight, Daddy.”

“Sweetie?” He paused for a moment as he turned to leave, slowly reevaluating his daughter. “Don’t you try and grow up too fast, now, alright?” He didn’t know what else to say to her.

“...Of course, Daddy,” Tabitha promised, but she was wearing a bitter smile that had no place on his thirteen-year old girl. “I won’t.”

* * *

Soaked with sweat and panting from exertion, Tabitha stepped forward in the patchy plot of grass between trailers and punched out as hard as she could. Parts of her jiggled in a fleshy, unflattering way, but she could only grit her teeth and bare with that. For now. Planting her left foot heavily amid the weeds, she adjusted her stance and lifted her right knee up in the air. She pivoted her leg and round-kicked—clumsily, before dropping down, shifting her weight into another careful stance and raising her arms up into a crisp block.

It was hot out today. The sun overhead was relentlessly beating down across the tiny yard beside her mobile home where the young girl was toiling away through a series of memorized movements and positions. To her dismay, Tabitha had been forced to recover several of those redneck-style sleeveless tops from the trash simply to have work-out clothes to wear.

Working through the familiar Taekwondo forms and katas... was hell. Normally, each series of stances and movements flowed with natural momentum from one into the next with grace and ease... but her thirteen-year-old body was useless. She felt awkward and rotund, all of the extra weight she was carrying constantly throwing her off balance and forcing her to consciously compensate for it, all the time. It was like trying to type a document while wearing heavy winter gloves, only that aggravation was joined with an ever-present aching burn throughout all of her muscle groups as they shrieked at her in protest.

Well, if nothing else, at least I know how to do proper stretches, Tabitha thought to herself bitterly, throwing a knife-hand strike and then lunging into a forward stance to awkwardly jab an elbow out into the air. Despite several years of regular Taekwondo, she’d only advanced as far as a yellow-belt. Stretches, warm-ups, a few drill forms, and the first thirteen katas made up the entirety of her knowledge. Most of the practical application, like sparring and actual martial arts would have come later, after a certain foundation of basics had been built up.

But, it’s not as if I have to fend anyone off. If a burglar breaks into the trailer looking for money and valuables, I’ll help them look. Hopefully we’ll turn up something. Tabitha snorted. If someone tries to abduct me, I’ll sigh with relief. She snapped out a side-kick, and then held her extended leg in the air until it began to tremble.

My grasp of the fundamentals could be considered excellent... but basics will only get me so far. The Taekwondo school she’d attended in the future existed here in the past, as well—but enrolling wasn’t cheap, no matter which time she was in. From what she recalled, in these years, the Taekwondo place in town was run by Mr. Lee Senior, while many years from now he would pass it on to her instructor, Mr. Lee Junior. She did still intend to at least visit the place sometime in the next few years, if only to show off her mastery of the katas.

Gwwwwrrrwww.

Wincing at hearing her stomach growl, Tabitha lowered her arms and allowed her shoulders to slump down. She was hungry. It was Sunday, her third full day in the past, and all of the frozen vegetables were long gone. She’d had the last hard-boiled egg for breakfast, and although she was intent on starving her body of carbohydrates, options were running out fast. There was a single can of chopped spinach still, and then she might be able to cannibalize each of the frozen TV dinners for their small portions of assorted vegetables… but that was it. Her family didn’t grocery shop until they were just about out of everything, and that was still days away, from the look of the fridge.

Tabitha frankly wasn’t used to being without any form of agency. She had no money or resources of her own, little say in how her life was led, and required her parent’s permission for virtually everything. Being a minor again was more stifling than she could have imagined.

Her parents had sat down with her yesterday to discuss the matter of arranging her an allowance... and rejected the idea outright. They simply didn’t have the money to spare. She’d nodded, thanked them for the consideration, and retreated to her room without any further argument. There were plenty of areas where their spending could be reduced, but Tabitha was smart enough not to bring that up in this first confrontation.

Still, this lack of capital is going to grind all my other efforts to a halt, Tabitha exhaled slowly, readying herself into another combat stance again so that she could resume her practice. A healthy diet may be fairly cheap, but it isn’t free. I need clothes for school. A pack of floppy disks to store my work on, when I start heading to the library. Maybe laundry detergent, too. The cheap stuff they use isn’t great in the first place, and on top of that they’re diluting it to make it last longer. I’m going to start high school, I need some basic things. Better deodorant. Conditioner. Foundation, and concealer. The make-up kit she’d found in her room was intended for children, gaudy cheap eyeliner and several horrific shades of lipstick.

Unfortunately, she didn’t own anything of value to sell for cash. Apart from her room’s worn furniture, the only thing worth more than ten dollars was her dilapidated old stereo, and she doubted she’d be able to sell the thing. It wasn’t like she could just find a job, either.

She couldn’t remember anyone who had kids she could babysit—looking after her cousins was a familial obligation and wouldn’t be paid. She wasn’t allowed to handle her father’s small weed-eater to mow lawns for money. No one in this area seemed to maintain their landscaping, so prospects like watering plants or weeding for neighbors seemed... unlikely. Everyone seemed to have either tiny inside dogs they’d only let out into tiny fenced enclosures, or large, filthy dogs chained outside in the yards of their trailers, so even walking pets wasn’t a viable option. Everyone living here’s as broke as we are, anyways.

What she did have was all the basic ingredients to bake cookies, which was… a start, she supposed. There were no chocolate chips or even raisins, but she estimated she could make several hundred plain sugar cookies with the materials on hand. If she could find a venue to run a bake sale.

I could beg for money along a busy street downtown, if only I wasn’t fat, Tabitha rolled her eyes. Nothing quite screams IMPOVERISHED CHILD like an obese kid, right?

Front kick. Step forward and punch. Jump kick, barely getting off the ground and landing rather unsteadily. She kept bracing herself for sudden joint pain, but at thirteen, her body just didn’t have any. Her overall stamina and recovery seemed to be several orders of magnitude greater now than they had been when she was sixty, the only limiting factor to her youthful energy seemed to be her skipping so many meals. In fact, Tabitha’s body was struggling on pretty well, considering the thorough punishment she was putting it through.

I need a REAL plan, something more than just... scraping by slightly better than I did last time, Tabitha decided after long deliberation. Breathing heavily again, she pushed herself to thrust out her strikes faster, to snap her kicks up higher.

There’s at least two years before Julia’s even born. I definitely need to save her from everything that’s about to happen to her. Maybe get custody of her, if I’m able. I’ll turn twenty-one in… what, eight years? So, she’ll be six already by then. Clenching her teeth, Tabitha attempted the jump and twist of a butterfly kick, but achieved neither the height nor spin necessary to complete it yet. Need to get Goblina, at least, on the market as quickly as possible, she decided. My writing may not have ever been much, and maybe Julie was my only real fan. But, if my story helped her through rough times like she said it did, it needs to better than ever. It needs to be PERFECT for her.

Then, there’s the shooting this October. Few other future events stood out to Tabitha. Later this year, a police officer would be fatally shot, down on the other end of the trailer park. That had been what really gave the Lower Park its horrible reputation, more than anything else. She’d always seen it in the way people in the area looked at her when they learned where she was from. The subtle, slightly different way they treated her, as if she was raised in a den of criminals. Ironically, the shooter wasn’t even a resident—the officer had simply pulled that driver over to ticket them for something, and happened to do so from the road that went alongside that lower end of the park.

I know that he was shot, and that the officer bled out on the way to the hospital, she pressed her lips into a thin line. But, I don’t remember his name, or the exact day, and I’ve no idea how I’d prevent it. Call 911 right before-hand? Shout out a warning, just before it happens? That’d be tough to explain afterwards. ‘Hey, be careful! That crack-head has a gun, and I don’t want the office lady at the Safety plant giving me constant dirty looks when I work there in the future!’

Tabitha sighed. She really hoped circumstances would never force her back to work at the Safety plant.

In the meantime, she needed to secure a source of food. Grandma Laurie—her grandmother on her father’s side of the family, had an apartment across town. Perhaps she could be convinced to lend some aid, she should be only a half-hours bike ride away. Unfortunately, they’d never had much of a close relationship, as her cousins—Uncle Danny’s kids—seemed to have claimed that grandmotherly resource for their own exclusive use. They were even territorial about it, from what she remembered. Little hellions. But, well… I am starving. Mike’s around, and I can borrow his bike.

“Hey, Mike!” She called down the street, finding a barefoot eleven-year old clutching a basketball and staring off into space.

“What?” he yelled back, indignant. Mike had always been a character, and she found herself wondering whatever happened to him in the future.

“I’ll trade you all of my toys if you’ll let me borrow your bike today.” Aside from a few hand-picked sentimental keepsakes, she’d already collected all of the rest of her toys into a square plastic basket she’d found.

“Nah,” he said after a moment’s consideration. “I don’t want stupid girl toys.”

“I mean it, Mike,” she pleaded, stepping closer and sending him a serious look. “Just this once. You can give them all to your sister.”

“I hate my sister, and you smell. Why’re you all sweaty?”

“Mike. Please.”

“Fine!” he cried in mock exasperation, rolling his basketball with a crash into a pile of junk in front of his trailer. “But, only my old bike.”

* * *

“Grandma! Tabby’s here! Tabby’s here!”

“Tabby’s here!”

As Tabitha feared, four of her cousins were running amuck throughout her grandmother’s apartment. She knew them to be Sam, Aiden, Nick, and Joshua, and remembered that they were all only a year apart. They sported identical buzz-cuts, and she had no idea who was who right now.

One of them was carrying a driveway marker, while the others each wielded sticks like a small mob. She hoped they were only hitting each other with them, and not chasing cats or looking for squirrels to hunt. Grandma Laurie was watching them from the chair on her porch, at least... so in theory, they were all behaving. She looked even more spritely than Tabitha remembered, probably only somewhere in her mid-fifties now. Younger than me. What a trip.

“Good afternoon, Tabitha,” Grandma Laurie said, rising out of her seat. She had a very slight, almost frail stature, not unlike what Tabitha had in the future, with shortly cropped brown hair and crows feet wrinkling the corners of her eyes. “This is a surprise. When did you learn to ride a bicycle?”

Oh. Whoops.

“You can’t even ride a bicycle?” the youngest of her cousins asked, disdain in his voice.

“Uh, duh, she’s riding one right now, retard,” another cut in.

“Yeah, you’re retarded,” another agreed, swatting the youngest one with his stick. “Duh.”

“Ow! You can’t hit me here, I’m out of bounds!”

“Hi, Grandma Laurie,” Tabitha greeted, stepping off the borrowed bicycle. Realizing it didn’t have a kick-stand at all, she gingerly laid it down beside the sidewalk and skirted around the stick-fight her cousins were suddenly engaging in. To her dismay, the young boys all too quickly lost interest and started following alongside her, instead.

“Tabby smells.”

“Hey, I heard you hit your head so hard you had to go to the hospital,” one of the cousins taunted. “Did you get brain damage?”

“Yeah, are you retarded now?” Another asked.

“She was already retarded.”

“But is she brain damaged?”

“She was already brain damaged. That’s how you get retarded, duh.”

“On the contrary,” Tabitha replied with a serious face, sending the small group of boys into a rare silence, “acute trauma seems to have unlocked the higher portions of my brain, making me extremely intelligent.”

“A cute drama?” One of the boys turned to look up at their grandmother. “What’s a cute drama?”

“You’re a cute drama, Aiden,” Grandma Laurie stepped off the porch and bent down to pinch at his cheeks. “She means that she’s real smart now, from hitting her head. Like a superhero.”

“Oh yeah?” a cousin challenged, yanking at Tabitha’s arm. “What’s a thousand times a million, then?”

“One thousand multiplied by one million,” she shrugged him off, “is exactly one billion.”

“What’s… uh, what’s the capital of Albuquerque?”

“Albuquerque is a very large city in the state of New Mexico. Santa Fe is the capital city of New Mexico.”

“Uhhh… how much does a T-rex weigh?”

“I would expect more than several tons, though the exact weight of any individual Tyrannosaurus Rex would vary greatly based on its age, size, and diet.”

“Uhhhhh,” the little boy stared up at canopy of branches spread out above the yard, tapping his lip as he struggled to stump her.

“You go on now and leave her be,” Grandma Laurie shooed the brats away. “Well, Tabitha, what brings you here, today? How’s your head?”

“It’s fine. Barely even notice it. I… came to ask for your help,” Tabitha said, flashing her a guilty look. “I’ll do anything I can for you in exchange.”

“What do you need, Honey?”

“I’m… fat,” Tabitha said bluntly. “I want to change, before I go to high school. I need to change, both my lifestyle, and my eating habits. I need to eat healthy. I need to be healthy.”

“Well, that’s good, Honey, good for you,” Grandma Laurie praised, placing her hand on Tabitha’s shoulders.

“Pfft, she said she’s fat,” one of her cousins erupted into laughter. “That’s priceless!”

“Go on, get out of here,” Grandma Laurie waved him off the porch. “Let us ladies talk.”

“But…” Tabitha paused, “I’ve eaten all the vegetables and eggs at the house, all that’s left is… food that’s bad for you. They’re not going to go shopping until all of that runs out.”

“Ah,” the older woman said, frowning. “Well, I’d love to help you, Honey, but there’s not much here, unless you eat cucumbers.”

“I can eat cucumbers,” Tabitha said, perking up. “I’m not picky at all, so long as it’s healthy. Please.”

“Of course, let’s see what we have!” Grandma Laurie said, leading her around the house towards the garden in the back. “I haven’t checked on them in a few days, but I know there’s a lot of cucumbers this year.”

In no time at all, her wild cousins were tasked with enthusiastically pillaging all of the cucumbers and tomatoes in the kind old woman’s normally off-limits garden. The tomatoes were still shades of yellow and orange, but Tabitha knew from experience that they’d continue to ripen if she kept them in a dry, somewhat enclosed space. She was also given a half-bag of lettuce from the fridge, and several cans of sweet peas her grandmother was more than happy to part with. I should look into starting a garden at the trailer for next year.

“Have you talked with your parents about being healthy?” Grandma Laurie asked, reinserting one of the driveway markers she’d sectioned off her garden with.

“...No, not really,” Tabitha admitted. “Mom got angry when I called myself fat. Like, she doesn’t want to accept… certain things. I don’t think I can change their comfort food diet right away, but I am very, very desperate for change myself. I was the fat girl in middle school, Grandma. I don’t think I can make it as the fat girl in high school.”

Not again, at least. There’s no way I could endure.

“I’ll talk to your father, the next time I see him. Let’s get you a paper bag for all of these.”

“Geez, no wonder she’s so fat—she’s takin’ all our food!” a cousin remarked.

“Oh?” Grandma Laurie raised an eyebrow. “Are you going to eat cucumbers, then?”

“Ew, no way,” the boy backed away, holding his hands up defensively. “I thought they were pickles.”

“You thought those were pickles?” another cousin guffawed at him. “They’re two completely different plants, you retard.”

“...Thank you so much, Grandma,” Tabitha said, trying to keep her face from twitching. “It’s been… it’s been so hard. But, I’m going to keep at it, and I’m not going to stop until I’m thin. I’m going to make you proud of me.”

“Don’t push yourself too hard, dear,” she said, pulling Tabitha into a hug. “Stop by and visit whenever you can.”

It was touching that Grandma Laurie loved her just fine the way she was... but also disconcerting when she realized how indulgent she was with Uncle Danny’s kids, and how low her standard was for their quality of character. Well… they ARE family... Tabitha resolved to visit her every weekend over the summer anyways, because Grandma Laurie had always been good to her, and deserved the best company.

At Grandma Laurie’s insistence, Tabitha was sent off with a startling amount of food to struggle home with, all heaped in a double-bagged paper grocery bag. She hadn’t even remembered when shopping centers even still used paper bags, and found herself idly wondering when they’d gone obsolete. With a little bit of a struggle, she hugged the food against her body with one hand and pedaled home on sore legs.

* * *

After discreetly tucking her treasured vegetables in the fridge, hidden behind the take-out containers, Tabitha readied half a can of sweet peas for her dinner. She would still be hungry afterwards, sure, but she wouldn’t die. True to the promise she’d made them, she set her parents places at the table and pulled out leftovers for them; hamloaf, baked beans, and scalloped potatoes. She wanted rid of the last of these leftovers, because she wasn’t sure how much longer they would be edible. Also, she was actively working to empty the fridge in preparation for a new and healthy spread of groceries. She had just finished preparing for dinner and was tiptoeing to take a quick shower... when her mother rose from her position at the television and gave her a look.

“Let me guess. You’re gonna take another shower? Tabitha Anne Moore, you just showered yesterday,” Mrs. Moore griped. “I hope you don’t think you’re taking one every day after school. Do you have any idea what our water bill is?”

“A little over forty-seven dollars, not counting the sewage charges,” Tabitha answered, keeping her composure as she continued down the trailer hallway and stepped into the small bathroom. “I organized all of our utilities. They’re in the letter-holder, on the counter.”

“Yeah, well are you gonna pay that, Missy?”

“I would love to meaningfully contribute,” Tabitha nodded, closing the bathroom door between them. “Please reconsider giving me that opportunity to do so.”

“I’ve had it up to here with all of this attitude, young lady,” her mother’s voice barked. “I don’t know what’s gotten into you! Alan, did you hear the lip she just gave me?”

Releasing a deep breath, Tabitha turned away from the door and took a moment to regard herself in the dingy light of the bathroom mirror.

Yep. Still a fattie. She knew looking for any sign of weight loss after just these few days was unreasonable, but despite knowing that her hazel eyes seemed to search all the same. I just look… tired.

Reddish-brown hair hung just past her shoulders, looking limp, stringy, frayed and without volume. She’d started carefully brushing her hair out the past several days, but damage from neglect had run its course, and she’d need to get her loose ends trimmed. Using shampoo that wasn’t dollar-store brand, and acquiring appropriate conditioner would probably be a great help, as well.

Her forehead, nose and neck were beginning to turn red from spending each day out in the sun, despite the expired sunblock she’d applied. Otherwise, her face just looked so fat, her full, pudgy cheeks, deep frown and—

Tabitha purposefully turned away from the mirror to undress. Once she started criticizing her current appearance, there really was no end to it. Dwelling on the issue wasn’t productive, and there were too many other things to do. From what she gleaned from one of the packets that had been strewn about in her room, her middle school finals were approaching in the coming school week. They consisted of a basic examination for the overall middle-school coursework for her various classes, as well as two high school placement tests, one for literature, and another for mathematics.

As a college graduate, Tabitha didn’t imagine she’d fare poorly on any of them... but college was also a long, long time ago. She remembered the classes leading up to exams being non-stop review sessions to prepare them all, but it wouldn’t hurt to read through all of the worksheets and papers in her room. The difference in score of even a few percent on her tests would affect whether she was placed in normal classes or honors classes in September. Her first time through, she hadn’t been transferred to honors courses until after her sophomore year. From her recollection, she much preferred the more focused, quiet group of honors students as peers.

Still… school tomorrow. School, all over again, Tabitha shook her head as she started the water running. What a joke. I’ll do it again if I have to, if only for Julie. Even if it’s just as bad as last time, because I’m still just trailer trash right now. But, I can change—I’m GOING to change! I’m going to always get top marks, and I’m going to have both Goblina and Goblin Princess sent to a publisher before I’m out of high school. Using a pen name, if I have to. Somehow or other, I’m going to make all of this right, Julie...

* * *

Laurel Middle School was a sprawling relic primarily made up of old-fashioned portables; small rooms hauled into place and assembled into what should have been temporary classrooms. All of the older, outdated structures, aside from the cafeteria, auditorium, and administrative buildings had been razed to make way for new middle school facilities, which were tied up in state funding and never seemed to appear.

All Tabitha had on hand for today’s adventure, besides her backpack and some scavenged school supplies, was a handwritten note. She’d managed to prepare the names of her teachers and the class period for each, information gleaned from headings scribbled at the top of various old assignments she’d collected her room. Although the middle school seemed vaguely familiar, she only remembered the actual location of her last two classes with any certainty, so her first stop was the administrative office.

“Hello. My name’s Tabitha Moore,” she said, sliding her note forward across the counter there. “I suffered a severe head injury last Thursday. I was told to have someone write down the locations of each of my classes.”

“You... don’t remember where your classes are?” the administrative assistant behind the desk frowned, looking over the list with a doubtful expression. The lady was a spry woman in her mid-forties, quite a bit younger than Tabitha used to be, and Tabitha found herself wondering how similar working at a school was to working as a clerk in town hall. “Should you be here attending class at all then, if you hit your head that badly?”

“I don’t know?” Tabitha shrugged, giving the woman a helpless expression. “Maybe not, but—my Dad said, with it being this late in the school year, I might as well try to finish the year anyways?”

Just like that, her hastily-planned excuse was rewarded with a simple printed map that had her classes circled in highlighter, and she started her school day without a hiccup.

Okay. Here we go. Although Tabitha would be bullied severely later on in high school, here in eighth grade she felt almost like a non-entity—she lacked any sort of presence at all. Not a single one of her fellow middle-schoolers tried to engage her in conversation on the way to her portable, even after waiting outside the boxy structure with several other classmates.

When their language arts teacher, Mrs. Hodge, arrived to unlock the door, Tabitha cautiously followed them all inside, pretending she didn’t feel terribly out of place. She loitered awkwardly around the back of the room as the other students showed up and gravitated one by one towards their desks, eventually exposing a lone empty seat. Tabitha carefully sat down, trying not to seem as self-conscious as she felt. The bell rang, a series of tones over the loudspeakers, and class began.

That… worked?

“Tabitha—you missed a practice test on Friday,” Mrs. Hodge smiled, and strode forward wetting her fingertip with her tongue so she could separate the stack of papers she was preparing to pass out. “Here’s the packet for this week. I understand you had to visit the hospital?”

You almost gave me a heart attack, Tabitha thought wryly, and she looked up from her own tightly clenched hands to take another look at the young woman who was her teacher—seemingly in her thirties, surely no older than thirty-five. But, I must seem like a child to her... I guess I’ll see how far I can push the SLOW act.

Tabitha had decided to keep answers to her teachers’ questions short and perfunctory, so that she wouldn’t give away that she was now a drastically different Tabitha. Since she wasn’t sure she could portray a convincing normal Tabitha, she was going to be attending instead as severe head injury Tabitha. So, she gave Mrs. Hodge a muddled look and forced herself to slowly count to three in her head before finally responding.

“...I hit my head,” Tabitha answered after that long pause. “I hit my head really bad. Had to get an MRI.”

“Er... are you okay?” Mrs. Hodge asked, appearing surprised.

“...I don’t know,” Tabitha said, looking back down at her desktop and then back up to Mrs. Hodge. “They said it wasn’t good.”

“Are you... feeling alright for class now?” Mrs. Hodge asked, her smile faltering. The young woman looked like she regretted bringing the topic up, and Tabitha felt a pang of guilt. “Do you think you’re okay to work on review material, today?”

“...Yeah. Yeah,” Tabitha nodded weakly, furrowing her brow. “I just feel kind of... dizzy… I guess?”

“Well,” Mrs. Hodge stared, apparently hesitant to hand Tabitha one of the review packets. Finally, she let out a slight sigh and offered one. “If you have any trouble with the packet, then you can come see me, alright? This isn’t due until the end of the week.”

“...Okay,” Tabitha tried to look confused as she accepted the small stack of stapled-together worksheets from her teacher. Mrs. Hodge lingered over her for a moment before moving on down the row to pass out the rest of the packets.

That was some of my best acting yet, Tabitha decided, slightly pleased with herself. Didn’t get nervous after all... except at the beginning. I think it helps really realizing how young Mrs. Hodge seems to me now.

The thoroughly concussed charade would hopefully establish a believable change in her behavior, with any luck precluding unwelcome curiosity or questions from students. Tabitha really had no idea how she’d acted as a thirteen-year-old girl back then in middle school, and being among so many of her peers, someone would have been bound to notice discrepancies.

In some ways, it was convenient for Tabitha to not have any school friends—she wouldn’t have known how to interact with them, how to maintain that appropriate thirteen-year-old facade. At the same time, however, it would have also been nice to be able to share a textbook with someone. All of her books were probably in her locker... which she didn’t know the combination for. Or even where the blasted thing was located.

Turning her attention now to the first page of her work packet, she blinked in surprise at the coursework laid out before her.

8th Grade Language Arts Section 9, Vocabulary Terms

Match the following vocabulary words to their definitions:

1) Symbolism? 2) Forshadowing 3) Suspense 4) Theme 5) Setting

You can’t be serious.

There were thirty vocab words, and definitions for each were printed out below, each with a blank space for filling in a word. Tabitha was forced to cover her mouth to stifle her laughter.

As an English Major, I could write a dissertation expounding and elaborating on any one of these terms. As a former aspiring author, I have personally worried each of those ideas down to the bone to comprehend every last nuance of profundity from the marrow therein! Look unto my knowledge and despair, Eighth Grade Language Arts Section 9 Vocabulary Terms, for you are not my equal!

Tabitha then hastily scrawled in all thirty correct answers—having read and solved all of the questions at a glance—and flipped to the next page. It wasn’t an exaggeration to say that the work was far too easy to pose any sort of challenge to her, and she breezed on through the packet oblivious to the fact that someone was watching her.

* * *

“Oh my God—she’s even more stupider than she was,” Carrie whispered, letting out an amused giggle. “Elena, quick, look!”

“Who?” Elena asked, arching an eyebrow at her friend.

“Tubby Tabby,” Carrie whispered, pointing out the chubby red-headed girl across the room with her pencil. “She was staring at the first page forever, shaking like she was about to cry, and then she just gave up and scribbled in whatever. Look, she’s doing it again!”

“Wow. Wooow,” Elena laughed, watching as Tabitha moved down the next page, pencilling in answers without more than a cursory look at the questions. “Least now we know somebody’s not making it to 9th grade with us.”

“Right?” Carrie snorted. “I heard she hit her head bad last week, and lost like, half the brain cells she had left. Like, look at her—can she even read anymore? I bet she’s turned illiterate.”

Many of the girls in their grade had long since decided that Tubby Tabby was, to anyone familiar with the cruelties of adolescence, an unfortunate existence. One that few would ever willingly associate with. She was fat, unattractive, looked like she rarely showered, wore gross clothes, and even often smelled distinctly unwashed. Now, apparently, the tubby girl was also mentally damaged in addition to all of that.

“Yeah, like you’re any better,” Elena rolled her eyes. “I’m getting into AP English at Springton High.”

“Fuck AP,” Carrie rolled her eyes. “I’m not doing summer reading.”

“See? See?” Elena goaded her friend, prodding her with the eraser-end of her pencil. “You can’t read any better than Tubby Tabby.”

“Uh, I can read, I’m just not ever gonna read books if I don’t have to, thanks?” Carrie scoffed, turning to a guy several seats behind them. “Ethan. Ethan! Did you see what Tubby Tabby’s doing?”

* * *

When Tabitha returned home from middle school, rather than relief, she felt strangely... unsatisfied. None of the middle school curriculum seemed specialized enough that she struggled with anything, and with sixty-years of knowledge somehow or other burned into her young brain, she’d been finishing everything well before anyone else in each of her classes. They were all simple review sessions leading into their finals, but, everything seemed so terribly unorganized and inefficient.

With fifteen minutes between classes, and about that long again for each of the teachers to get any traction with what they were trying to teach, too much of middle school seemed like a blatant waste of time. Thankfully, each school day was short—actual class time in middle school only amounted to some five hours or so—time didn’t seem to drag on and on endlessly like her work shifts at the Safety plant had so many years ago.

Well, any more than that, and it’d interfere with my training schedule, Tabitha decided, hanging her backpack on the peg behind her door and pulling out the slightly musty clothes she was using for work-outs.

“I don’t want you doin’ any of that runnin’ around outside today, ‘till your homework’s done,” Mrs. Moore yelled. The large and fat woman had enthroned herself upon their battered and beaten sofa, and was nursing a pitcher of iced tea—idly drinking from it directly rather than pouring it into a glass—as commercials flickered by across their boxy old tube TV. “What homework have you got?”

“I was assigned a set of thirty Algebra review questions, a worksheet in Social Studies, and I was given the final weekly study packet for Language Arts,” Tabitha reported, already changing into one of those cut-off T-shirts so she could head out for her daily circuits around the trailer park.

“Did you hear a word I just said?” Mrs. Moore demanded in annoyance. “You sit your butt down at that table and get to work on all of that. You’re not steppin’ foot outside this house ‘til then.”

“My Language Arts class was on the way to the bus loop from my Social Studies class,” Tabitha shrugged, pausing as she opened the front door. “All of my homework has been completed, Mother. I thought it expedient to turn in all of the outstanding assignments before boarding the bus and returning home. Now that I have your permission, I’m proceeding with my daily run.”

“What a bunch of bologna!” Mrs. Moore scowled, twisting around to shoot a look after Tabitha. “Don’t you think for one instant that I won’t—Tabitha! Tabitha!”

Her daughter was already gone.

“Unbelievable!” Mrs. Moore swore, shaking her head in indignation. “That girl. I’m liable to call up her teachers right this instant. If she’s so much as a little behind in her lessons, her sorry behind’s getting tanned.” But then, her sitcom came back on. The pale glow of the television illuminated her bloated and frowning face as one liners were followed up one after another by the prerecorded laugh track, and her outrage and anger were gradually forgotten.

* * *

“Why’re you always runnin’ around, goin’ nowhere?” Mike asked. The scrawny eleven-year-old boy was idly riding his bike alongside her as she jogged her familiar route around the circumference of the Lower Park.

“I’m... running away from something,” She huffed between breaths. “Or... chasing something. I’m not sure, yet.”

“Weird,” he said. “My Mom said you’re tryin’ to lose weight.”

“That’s another way... of putting it,” Tabitha gasped, “yeah.”

“Oh. So, how much have you lost so far?”

“Not enough.”

“Okay, what’s your like—you know, your goal?”

“What... do you care?”

“I’m bored,” Mike shrugged, lazily pedaling along with his bare feet. “You’re at least, like, trying to do something. So, that’s cool.”

“My goal... is to lose fifty pounds. Before high school starts.”

“Jesus, lady,” Mike goggled at her. “Fifty pounds? That’s impossible. That’s like, almost as much as I weigh. I’m seventy-six pounds.”

“It’s not impossible,” Tabitha struggled out, her breathing still ragged. “It’s... the upper limit... of how much my body can endure. I was overweight... to begin with. Hundred and forty-eight pounds. I can safely lose... four pounds, every week. I can do this.”

“Yeah—if you don’t die,” Mike laughed. “That’s not healthy. You’re crazy.”

“High school’s... a cruel place, Mike,” Tabitha panted, tilting her head as she ran to give him a look. “I think… I’d be crazy... not... to do this.”

“Okay, okay. If you say so,” Mike said, letting his bike coast to a stop in front of the turn-off for his trailer. He watched the chubby girl plod along ahead of him with no sign of slowing down or stopping.

“Well, good luck.”

* * *

Her dreaded last week of middle school passed by without major incident. Tabitha immediately and impeccably dispatched any homework sent her way—her playing dumb act seemed sufficient for students to continue ignoring her. The most trouble her sudden academic ability aroused was Mrs. Hodge remarking on how focused she’d become. The exams for her classes ended up almost all being laughably easy multiple-choice sections, and she simply filled in all of the correct bubbles at alarming speed, racing through everything except for the essay on her Language Arts final. That, she worked and reworked until moments before time was called.

She’s certainly going to be surprised when she tries to grade THAT one, Tabitha thought, smiling to herself with satisfaction. I believe they’ll all find my thoughts on how the growing advancement and availability of computer technology might affect the nature of all social interaction in the future… rather prophetic. They’ll also realize that not setting a limit on essay length may be biting off more than they can chew.

School was never my real opponent, though, now was it? Grimacing, Tabitha, stretching from where she stood on top of the living room chair to reach the mildew on the ceiling with her wet rag.

“Are you even listening to me?” Mrs. Moore demanded, slapping the remote control onto the armrest of the sofa she occupied.

Tabitha paused for a moment, took a deep breath to calm herself, and resumed scrubbing away at the ceiling. Back when she was growing up, her mother possessed a commanding, authoritative presence. Mrs. Moore was one to be feared and respected—and never disobeyed. Now, however, the woman seemed to irrationally be in direct opposition to every single task Tabitha set her mind on, without any logic or reason. Was she always this way? Did I repress all of this?

“I said, I really don’t like all that karate you’re trying to do,” Mrs. Moore called over to her. “You’re just askin’ to hurt yourself, like you did on that trampoline jumper. And I don’t want to ever see you trying to fight with people, either!”

“It’s not karate,” Tabitha said, wringing brackish water out of the washcloth and into the waiting bucket perched on the window ledge.

“Karate, kung-fu, whatever it is you think you’re doing,” her mother shook her head in apparent distaste. “It’s disgraceful seeing you standing out there with your leg up in the air, where everyone can see you.”

“I’m a practitioner of Taekwondo, a Korean martial art known for its emphasis on kicking techniques,” Tabitha explained in a dull voice, wiping absentmindedly at the dirty water trying to trickle down her wrist before returning to scrub the paneling.

“Martial arts, Korea, listen to you. You’re thirteen. You don’t know a damn thing about Korea.”

“I may know more about Korea right now than anyone else alive,” Tabitha muttered under her breath.

“Don’t get smart with me,” Mrs. Moore warned. “I mean it, I don’t want you out there doing who knows what anymore. The neighbors are asking what on God’s green earth you’re up to, and I don’t know what in the world I’m supposed to tell them, anymore. So, no more. I don’t want you leaving this house unless—”

“Okay,” Tabitha threw the filthy rag down into her bucket hard enough to splash water out across the clean living room. She stepped off of the chair and dropped heavily to the floor, turned, and finally glared at her mother.

“Fine. Okay. How do you plan on stopping me?”

“Excuse me?” Mrs. Moore heaved herself up from her indentation in the sofa.

“How do you plan on stopping me?” Tabitha repeated, her voice going cold as the last of her patience today ran out. “What consequences are in store for me, should I refuse to obey? What are you going to do?”

“Tabitha Anne Moore, if you ever speak to me like that again, I’ll tan your sorry—”

“Go ahead,” Tabitha said, and the heavyset thirteen-year-old girl stepped forward. “Try it. Violence might just be the only leverage you have left. Let’s just see if my will breaks before your hands do.”

Stunned by her daughter’s cold indifference, Mrs. Moore was flabbergasted, still deciding how to threaten Tabitha next when her daughter simply stormed out the front door of the trailer, leaving it hang open behind her.

“Tabitha!” The fat woman exclaimed, stomping to stand in the doorway. “Where do you think you’re going?”

“Grandma Laurie’s. Again,” Tabitha answered with a shout, not turning back. “Before either I do something stupid… or you do.”

“You’re thirteen years old, you’re not walking the whole way ‘cross town!” her mother bellowed. “Come back here, right this instant!” Your father’s going to hear about this!”

* * *

Summer sun filtered through the trees overhead as Tabitha jogged along the city sidewalk towards Grandma Laurie’s. Since receiving a talk from Grandma Laurie, Mr. Moore had provisionally agreed to allow Tabitha free reign in both planning their groceries and cooking meals for the family. As a result of that first batch of real food, Tabitha’s energy levels had skyrocketed. Gone were the days of teetering on the brink of exhaustion from failing to scrounge up healthy food—now the fridge was fully stocked with a variety of produce.

All she’d had to do was keep the cost well under their normal budget, and promise they would get more meals out of the purchases, both of which were easy to achieve. The quality of some of the grocery store vegetables was debatable, but Tabitha planned to use even that as a point in favor of at least visiting one of the farmers markets nearby.

The only problem was… once again, Tabitha’s mother. The sudden and alarming change in their foodstuffs threw the woman into fits for more reasons than one, and she was perpetually on edge and irritable. As if being robbed of everything she enjoyed eating wasn’t enough, the entire situation came about because Tabitha used Grandma Laurie to pressure Mr. Moore, which totally circumvented Mrs. Moore’s household authority.

I never wanted to take sides in these stupid family squabbles, Tabitha fumed, gritting her teeth. I just want to eat right. Is that so much to ask?!

She knew that her impatience to reshape her life was at fault here, but as she rounded the corner into Grandma Laurie’s familiar neighborhood, she just couldn’t see any other feasible route to take. I can’t live that same life again. I CAN’T. Even if it earns me all of her ire, even if it turns Mom completely against me. I’m sorry, but that’s how it is. Things were going to get bad between us once that blue album comes out, anyways.

Tabitha felt her shoulders start to reflexively hunch up at even the thought of that.

“I know I said I’d like to see you more often,” Grandma Laurie called over. “But, you’ve been coming by every other day, now. Is everything all right?”

“No,” Tabitha admitted honestly, trudging the last few steps of her journey across town and collapsing on her grandmother’s porch step. “Had another argument with that woman.”

“...Ah.” Grandma Laurie sighed, easing out of her chair so that she could sit down on the steps next to Tabitha. “What was it this time?”

“It’s always the same thing, I guess,” Tabby said, staring across the yard. “I’m growing up, and growing up fast. I think I can manage to deal with all of the changes I’m going through. But, I don’t think that she can.”

“It’s hard watching your children grow up,” Grandma Laurie nodded, stroking a hand through Tabitha’s hair.

“Do you think I’ll ever have kids?” Tabitha wondered out loud, leaning into her grandmother.

“Well, of course you will, Sweetie,” Grandma Laurie laughed, shaking her head as if it was a silly question.

...Huh? Tabitha blinked. What? I know I’m still young now, but... did my relatives actually assume I’d ever find someone? Tabitha had already long since stopped considering it as an option, years and years ago. Well, it still isn’t anything to think about now. Maybe if the right guy appears in my life this time. Then, I’ll think about it. After Julie’s older.

“I think I’m going to adopt,” Tabitha said. “When the time’s right. I want things to be perfect. I want to be able to give her everything.”

“Adoption?” It was Grandma Laurie’s turn to be surprised. “That’s always an option too, I suppose.”

“Are the boys home?” Tabitha asked, standing up and brushing leaves off the seat of her sweatpants.

“I’m sure they’re still playing their video games,” Grandma Laurie smiled. “I was just about to take them to the playground, so they could burn off all of that energy before I send ‘em on back to their parents.”

“Can I take them?”

“You want to take them to the playground?”

“School’s out for summer really soon,” Tabitha nodded. “I can look after them every other day, so that you can get some peace and quiet.”

“Uh… that’s very thoughtful of you, Sweetie,” Grandma Laurie said, surprised again. “But, you don’t have to do that. They can be a bit of a handful.”

“You’ve helped me out, a lot,” Tabitha said, looking at her grandmother with a serious face. “I meant it when I said I’d find some way to return the favor. Can I do this for you?”

“If that’s what you want,” the older woman chuckled. “You can take them today. I’m not going to pass up a chance for some peace and quiet—why do you think I’m out here on this porch?”

“Thank you,” Tabitha said, enveloping Grandma Laurie in a hug. “I’ll have them back by dark.”

“Oh, trust me—you’re very welcome.”

“Booooys!” Tabitha crossed over to the screen door and called inside, a grin spreading across her features. “Who wants to go play tag at the playground?”

* * *

“Huh,” Tabitha’s History teacher, Mr. Mann, grunted to himself as he graded the exams he’d given his classes. After going out of his way to make the thing obnoxiously difficult—and even throwing in several trick questions—someone had still managed to get a full score. He’d purposefully made his test a nightmare to give those damned lazy eighth-graders of his a real kick in the pants.

“Well, s’only one out of all the classes, anyhow. Let’s see, who’s our little prodigy… Tabitha Moore? Tabitha… Moore? Wait, isn’t that... that chubby head injury girl, from second period? SHE got full marks?”

“That... can’t be right…?” He flipped the paper back over with a frown, intent on double-checking all of her written answers again, more closely this time.

* * *

As the pounds steadily disappeared, Tabitha found that everything was becoming easier. What began in her first days as a walk became a slow jog, and then a run. By now, her daily run was laced with sprints to get her heart rate up, and even that didn’t feel like enough. Holes had worn into the crease of her sneakers where they bent with her step, and she had to superglue the soles several times as they were starting to peel off.

Over the course of her summer before high school, she spent a large fraction of time visiting Grandma Laurie, wishing only that she’d appreciated the woman more in her past lifetime. They had so much in common! Although she’d initially planned on making long treks to the city library to start writing her novels, Goblina and Goblin Princess, she found herself too distracted with stopping over every other day to chat, and then dutifully taking her four cousins to the playground.

There, they played the most ubiquitous game in existence across playgrounds everywhere; tag. Despite her initial overweight appearance, Tabitha had an uncanny ability to predict the timing of their lunges, and was able to outmaneuver her opponents into being cornered when she was ‘it.’ As time went on and her weight steadily fell, her increasing speed and stamina made her almost unbeatable. When they started playing team tag, she took only the youngest cousin, Joshua onto her side to even the odds.

Eventually, the teams seemed set at all four boys against her; any one of the boys could tag her for a win, but then she had to tag out all four in succession. She never thought herself above playing with the children; the boys loved having someone to play with. Besides, scampering around in an energetic young body—one that became a little better-looking and more able with each passing day—was simply intoxicating.

What affected Tabitha’s increasingly positive mentality the most, however, was seeing that new face in her mirror every day, trying out hesitant smiles. Over the weeks as the fat began to recede from her face, a surprisingly lovely young woman was emerging somehow from within. A girl with features she could vainly admire for hours, if she didn’t stop herself.

Whatever asinine genetic trait it was that had stored so much fat in her face had gradually been overcome by Tabitha’s zealous weight loss regimen. Her neck had gone from being a bulbous distraction to a slender thing, and her chin and the line of her jaw looked more defined and appealing to her every single day.

The incessant burning of every stored calorie her nonstop efforts could reach seemed to have a direct impact on every aspect of her body. Rather than her old toad-like blob of a nose, the center of her face was now adorned instead by a cute button nose. Her figure—not slim yet by any means, but definitely slimmer. Tabitha’s eyes looked bright now, large and expressive now that her cheeks had slimmed down and the very proportions of her face were changed.

Unfortunately, Tabitha wasn’t sure exactly what her current weight was at. Weighing herself twice a mere ten minutes apart had revealed a fourteen-pound difference! Which was, obviously, impossible.

To her dismay, she realized that accidentally shifting or nudging their beaten old bathroom scale at all would yield a drastically different result when next stood upon. None of the flooring in the trailer was level, the patchwork plywood and particleboard beneath their linoleum and carpets all uneven in different ways and angles. Which meant now she was no longer confident in what her initial weight had actually been, or how it would be best to calibrate the scale without something of exactly predetermined weight.

As much as the visual results of her tireless effort put a smile on her face, however, it wasn’t all good news. She was constantly aching all over, and it was evident that the rapid weight loss was dangerous, because it was wreaking havoc on her young body. The first menstrual cycle of her new life had come and gone, and it was very irregular from what she’d ever remembered having.

Enough to send her into a mild panic. If she were to classify the periods throughout her past life, they would rank into simple light, or heavy. This one was a weird thanks for trying, or maybe a reply hazy, try again later.

Well, deal with it, body, Tabitha scoffed to herself. I know what I’m doing isn’t very healthy—but what about my mental health? I NEED to change. So what if it throws off my cycle? I don’t have time for your bullshit anymore anyways, uterus. AT BEST, you were nothing but dead weight to me; an obnoxious monthly inconvenience that I lugged around for no reason for almost sixty years! Don’t go thinking that I won’t just go get those tubes tied this time through. I totally will. I’ll do it, just try me!

* * *

“Sweetie… I know you’re going through a lot of changes right now,” Mr. Moore began awkwardly, frowning. “But, you don’t have to try to do everything all at once, okay?”

“...Are you trying to discourage me from improving my life?” Tabitha asked, pausing mid-pushup. She held herself there, waiting for his answer. An uncomfortable distance had formed between her and her parents. She didn’t know how to act when she was around them, and in turn they seemed to have no idea how to treat her. Mrs. Moore was caught up in following the explosive Monica Lewinsky/Clinton scandal that was dominating the news, and her father was… well, he was trying.

“Of course not, I—it’s just—well,” he sighed. “Can you sit up, so we can talk properly?”

She completed her pushup, then rose to meet his eyes. She knew she was drastically thinner than he was used to seeing, as though she’d shrunken a size, all over, and it was obvious that it was worrying him.

“We... don’t think it’s healthy, you losing weight this fast,” he said. “You’ve been at this for weeks, now. You’re working out, what, five? Six hours a day? You’ll kill yourself, Sweetie.”

“Six hours a day,” she admitted, sliding a notebook out from beneath her bed. “Which is another way of saying that I’m also resting the other eighteen hours every day. My exercises rotate through different muscle groups throughout the week to prevent excessive damage. I wrote myself up a schedule, if you’d like to take a look. It may ease your concerns.” She passed the notebook up to him.

“I, uh... still don’t think that—holy cow,” he mumbled, looking at the fitness routines, reptitions, hours and numbers she’d crammed the pages with. “This is… well, Sweetie, what are you—where are you going with all of this? Are you aimin’ to become an athlete?”

“No,” Tabitha said, looking away. “I want to be pretty, for just once in my life. I know all of this must seem… impatient, to you, but I’m done waiting for some fantasy dream world where I’m beautiful and things work out and I matter. Dad, I’m going to make it all happen.”

“I believe you can, too, Sweetie,” he said said after a long moment of silence. “You know we love you just the way you are though, right? No matter how you look.”

“I know what you think. And... I tried that. It didn’t work out,” she said, in more of a brisk tone than she’d intended. Feeling a little ashamed of herself, she dropped back down and positioned herself to resume the push-ups. “I’m… sorry. I love you too, Daddy.”

“How about I take you out this weekend, get you some new clothes,” He offered. “Since you seem hell bent on changin’ yer whole figure before high school.”

“I’d… I’d love that, thank you,” Tabitha heaved herself back up and rocked back to sit on her heels. “Thank you, thank you, thank you!”

* * *

As Tabitha leapt up into the air and snapped out a neat and precise jump-kick, the most she felt now was a slight, almost imperceptible wobble, rather than that unpleasant jiggle from several weeks ago. Landing steadily, she twisted positions and performed a low crosshand block with both arms. Though she’d lost a significant amount of weight and was finally seeing it in the mirror, the pounds weren’t exactly melting away. Rather, they were being wrung out of her, exhausted out of her through the rigors of her exercise and diet plan.

I feel like I need to be doing even MORE, though, Tabitha thought, unable to shake the anxious feeling that’d been plaguing her. She was working through her exercise rotation, she was practicing her katas, and running to Grandma Laurie’s and then playing with the cousins made for good cardio in between. What else can I do?

Glancing up and down the street of nearby mobile homes to see no cars were coming and that no one was in sight, she took a couple careful steps and—attempted a handstand. Her palms planted on the concrete of the sidewalk, her legs kicked up into the air... and flailed. After a short, fleeting moment with all of her blood rushing to her head, she lost her balance and fell forewards, her shoes slapping onto the sidewalk.

Ow. That… wasn’t as bad as I thought it’d be, Tabitha thought, lurching back up to her feet and looking around with an embarrassed expression. Maybe I don’t need to try it out here on the sidewalk, but… I can probably do flips. Cartwheels. Actual gymnastic stuff, now. Looking thoughtful now, Tabitha brushed herself off and resumed her Taekwondo forms.

Lately, her thoughts had begun to stray while in the midst of doing her katas, and even moreso as she ran the loop around the lower park neighborhood. She couldn’t stop thinking about parkour. Somewhere between a movement technique and a training discipline, parkour was a rather eye-catching method of traversing various obstacles along a course. Although here in 1998 it was more or less completely unknown, several decades in the future it would feature prominently in almost every single action movie. Tabitha hadn’t even actually learned parkour was the name for it, until she was already in her fifties. During belt promotions one fall at the Taekwondo school, a few of the youngsters had set up a demonstration for everyone.

Damn my old bones. Should’ve at least tried their little obstacle course, Tabitha thought to herself in dismay. Now that the Taekwondo and running felt virtually effortless to her—a race against boredom more than an effort of exertion, her mind kept wandering. If they could do it, I can figure it out. The cousins are going to get tired of tag, sooner or later.

* * *

A week later, Tabitha pursed her lips as she pushed hangars of clothing down the rack one by one, carefully working her way through the aisles. Even though she’d coerced her father into taking her to the thrift store rather than anywhere else for her clothes shopping... on the stated limit of ten dollars, there wasn’t a whole lot she could afford to buy. Either one new pair of jeans and a shirt to go with it, or maybe several shirts. She needed much more than that, however. After asking the sales clerk for clearance items, she was told that items with certain colored tags were further discounted to half-off.

Which led her to her next dilemma: she didn’t even know what size she would be by the time her freshman year started. Her waistline was steadily shrinking, but she didn’t know what size it would stop at. As if the issue weren’t already complicated enough, she was also still growing in other ways—the ravages of puberty wouldn’t complete her adolescence for another two years, at least. There were only three pairs of jeans that fell into her projected size range that were also half-off, so she picked the best looking two and threw them over an arm to try on. She would likely just barely squeeze into them now, but by the end of the summer she might have to pull them apart along the outer seam and re-tailor them to a smaller frame.

All of the preparation and planning for high school is finally starting to pay off, though, Tabitha thought to herself, absent-mindedly stroking at her red hair. Some of the ingredients she’d budgeted into their grocery list had nothing to do with the meals she was cooking for them. It had taken some experimenting, as she hadn’t perfectly remembered the instructions, but sifting a tablespoon of light rye flour through a tea strainer, and then adding it to a tablespoon of warm water made a hair wash that was supremely effective as a substitute for shampoo. She was now diligently scrubbing the oils out of her hair, every three days. After a few more weeks of care and treatment, her hair would be looking better than it ever had before.

I wonder if Grandma Laurie has a sewing machine, Tabitha paused, pulling a rather cute dress off a nearby rack. The upper part of this is a lot like a modern-day blouse. Er, modern like they’ll be in the future, I guess I should say. Hey, it’s half-off.

* * *

“Girls are all dumb and have big fat butts!”

“Sam, that’s a rude and hurtful thing to say,” Tabitha scolded. “Please behave yourself until we’re at the playground.”

“What’re you gonna do about it, sissy?” Sam taunted. “Hit me like a girl?”

“I don’t think you’d like that,” Tabitha warned.

“Yeah right, like I’d even feel it,” Sam scoffed, stomping towards her with his hands raised in a provoking way. “Betcha can’t hit me! Betcha can’t hit me!”

It was the middle of summer, when Sam, the eldest of her cousins, made that mistake of slapping a sharp spank on Tabitha’s undefended bottom. All of his brothers watching were just about to shriek with laughter and join in on teasing and messing with Tabby...

But, unfortunately for Sam—Tabby didn’t hit like a girl, anymore. She hit like someone trained in the correct way to punch, like someone who spent time each day practicing throwing that exact strike over and over and over again in studious repetition. So, the boys watched in surprise as their angry redhead cousin pulled back her fist like an action movie star—and threw a punch into Sam with a twist of her entire body that put every ounce of weight in her body behind it.

She put Sam down in the grass beside the road, hard. Clenching and unclenching her hand, she then scowled and left for the day, without saying another word to any of them.

“Jesus,” Nick mouthed.

“Is… is he dead?!” Joshua prodded his eldest brother with the toe of his sneaker.

When the boys saw Tabitha again days later, she wasn’t angry. She smiled sweetly at them, and pulled Sam aside, apologizing for losing her temper. She then warned him to never, ever do that again. To her, or any other girl, ever.

“If I hear that you have, I’m going to hit you again, just as hard,” Tabitha promised, examining him with deadly seriousness shining in her eyes. “But, you’re not a child anymore, so you’re going to have to take it right in the face, next time. Got it?”

She ignored the way Sam subconsciously flinched back, and then brought them to the playground and played tag with everyone like nothing had ever happened... but the social dynamic between her and the boys would never be the same again. Aiden sided with Tabitha—it felt to him like she was in the right, like she’d had a good enough reason, and to his surprise, both Nick and Joshua quickly agreed with him. Sam sneered and called them all wussies, but he never tempted fate with Tabitha again.

After all, over the course of the summer, the tubby Tabby they were used to making fun of was transforming into an angel of death. What seemed like a third of her body weight simply melted away, sloughed off beneath a relentless onslaught of physical activity that would have seemed olympian to them, if they’d understood the concept. The girl wasn’t just fast anymore— she was jumping, she was kicking off of the sides of playground equipment, she performed dive-rolls to avoid their tags, and they’d even seen her do a hand-spring to get away, once. Tabitha was working out and improving every day, and the hours of playtime she spent with the cousins that left all four of them completely exhausted.

She wasn’t an ugly duckling anymore, either, but despite how pretty she was becoming, they never thought to compare her to a swan. A hawk, or an eagle, maybe. Some fierce bird of prey that had beautiful wings but also sported powerful talons, the kind that could rend flesh with ease. The cousins might have not grasped the finer nuances of concepts like respect just yet, but the fear and awe they felt when they looked towards Tabitha was becoming profound.

The bruise on Sam’s chest was a deep purple for weeks before fading away in sickening yellows and faint greens, and they told their father, Tabitha’s Uncle Danny, that Sam got hit with a softball. Everyone was warned to pay more goddamn attention, and watch what they were fucking doing.

This time, they did.

* * *

Tabitha had already set the table and was putting the finishing touches on their dinner when the phone call came. Turning the heat off the stove but continuing to whisk the noodles, chicken, and the pesto sauce in the skillet, she couldn’t help but glance up with interest as her father received the call.

“Moore residence,” he said, frowning.

She looked back down, giving the noodles and chicken one last stir—they were done enough. Telemarketer, perhaps? We don’t get a lot of calls.

“She what?” Mr. Moore said, turning and looking directly at Tabitha.

She paused for a moment, but he was still listening to someone on the other end of the line talk. She scooped a portion of chicken pesto into bowls for each of them, gently dipped the skillet into waiting soapy sink water, and brought dinner to the table.

“I thought we were having noodles and chicken,” Mrs. Moore complained, glaring at the bowl placed before them. “Noodles aren’t supposed to be green, Tabitha. What is this, green pepper?”

“Honey—I’m on the phone,” Mr. Moore said, throwing his wife a look.

“They’re zucchini noodles,” Tabitha whispered in a low voice. “I spent almost an hour with the peeler preparing enough for us.” I wish you could understand how precious every hour of my time is.

“Zucchini?” Mrs. Moore sighed, picking a slender piece of green out of her bowl with her fingers—which Tabitha found exceptionally rude—and examining it. “Tabby, you can’t just replace noodles with zucchini in a recipe out of nowhere. How are we supposed to eat this?”

“I’d appreciate it if you tried, at least,” Tabitha whispered, trying not to scowl.

“Well, of course you have Tabitha’s permission,” her father told someone on the phone, causing Tabitha’s head to snap around. Narrowing her eyes, she took her seat at the table and waited for him to finish.

“Alright,” her father continued, nodding to the person he couldn’t see. “Uh-huh. Well, thank you. I’ll let her know. Goodbye.”

“Alan, Tabitha didn’t make any noodles,” Mrs. Moore pointed out in an accusing tone. “All she made was zucchini.”

“Dinner is chicken pesto, served with zucchini noodles,” Tabitha calmly explained. “I worked very hard on it, and I’d like you to please try it.”

“And what about those of us who don’t eat zucchini?” her mother exclaimed. “What are we supposed to eat?”

“We still have steamed broccoli from—”

“Enough, Tabitha. I’m sure you think this is real funny.”

“It looks good, Sweetie,” Mr. Moore sat down, clearing his throat. “We’re very proud of you for making dinner every night. No matter how it turns out.”

Unsure whether to thank him or object to the backhanded compliment, Tabitha bowed her head and led them in saying a simple grace. Both of her parents had been rather incensed the time she launched into a lengthy grace, insisting she was being disrespectful, so she kept her thanks short and sweet.

“That was someone from the school board, calling about one of your essays,” Alan said, turning the zucchini over thoughtfully with his fork.

“It’s very thoughtful of them to call,” Tabitha said, trying not to smile.

“They’re going to send it to The Tribune and publish it,” he said, looking up at her. “And they want to put you in AP English when you start at Springton High. They’re recommending you. Do you know what all this is about?”

“Aye-Pee English, what th—”

“It stands for advanced placement,” Tabitha elaborated, interrupting her mother. “I put a lot of thought into the essay on my exam.”

“They said it was seven pages,” Mr. Moore said, popping a fork full of zucchini noodles into his mouth. He looked like he was going to continue his thought, but instead chewed distractedly. “You know... this isn’t half bad.”

“Thank you.”

“They made you write a seven page essay for your exam?” Mrs. Moore asked, still reluctant to taste her noodles.

“Oh, no,” Tabitha said, relishing another bite of the pesto chicken she’d worked hard on. “It’s a middle school Language Arts examination. They asked for a minimum of three paragraphs. Like I said... I just had a lot of thought to put into that essay.”

* * *

“Hope you’re all actually ready, this time,” Tabitha said, looking from cousin to nervous cousin standing in the playground with her. Sam, Aiden, Nick and Joshua eyed her warily but didn’t speak—they were prepared to burst into motion the moment she made her move.

“Okay… and, go!” Smirking, she turned and broke into a sprint across the playground, and her four cousins dashed after her, chasing the now-familiar bob and sway of her bouncing red ponytail. She seemed to run on effortlessly, however, and the slim girl widened the distance between her and her pursuers in an instant.

The three-foot tall chainlink fence at the edge of the park looked like it would be an obstacle for the five-foot four girl, but she planted both feet heavily in front of that fence and leapt, launching herself up to land on the fence’s top rail with both of her worn shoes. Her arms flashed out momentarily for balance, and then she flipped, twisting sideways through the air to land on the other side of the fence with what seemed like the natural ease of a born acrobat.

She called it parkour, and promised to teach them all how to do all of it—when they could keep up with her. As Aiden led the others in struggling to clamber over the park’s fence, he knew that it wouldn’t be soon—he knew from experience now that if she’d kept running, she wouldn’t even be in sight by the time they all cleared the fence. She was waiting for them now on the other side, taunting them with her proximity—because none of her cousins had been able to tag her in days.

(2: Surviving Springton High)