Bridgette found herself sitting in the computer chair, back in the study. A kaleidoscope of color burst before her eyes before gradually calming down to a simple window on her computer screen: “Thank you for playing the Dream Chest! Your adventure has been saved. Please join us again soon!”
She reached forward to restart the game, but the sight of her hands gave her pause. There sat the fat, stubby digits at the ends of her plump hands. Reaching behind her, she felt her black, wiry hair, stiff as twigs. Her arms were thick with unwanted flab, her stomach—enough. Enough, enough, enough! She did her best to stop the ugly thoughts, but they were beating at the door of her mind, hard and loud. One minute she was the paragon of grace and beauty. Alain called her a beautiful maiden. What was she now? Now... now she was back in her real body, and Ashley’s words that she tried so hard to forget, came echoing back through her head… fat cow.
Leaning forward on her elbows, she covered her eyes with her palms. Tears flowed, unbidden, drenching her sleeves. It wasn’t fair! Alain had kissed her, she knew he had kissed her! It was beautiful. She had been happy. She didn’t ask to come back! She wanted her beauty back, her prince back. Here in the real world, in the body that she hated so much, with her impossible mother and that rotten school. Why did the Dream Chest make her leave?
She sniffed back some of her tears, making a grunt that reminded her of a snorting pig.
She was about to log in again and play some more, when her eyes caught a glimpse of the clock: 1:30 AM! On a school night! How could she stay up this late? She was usually dead asleep at 10. She’d stay up to 11 during summer break, but 1:30?
Going to the door, she saw the hallway was dark. Gently, she switched out the light in the study, and took in the rare sound of a quiet house. She could hear snoring from her parents’ room. Paul’s door was closed and silent. Carefully, Bridgette tip toed to her own room. Why hadn’t her parents made her go to bed? They knew she was upset. Perhaps they had decided it would be just as well to let her stay up than argue with her. But even so, there was a nagging doubt in the back of her mind. Perhaps she really had been gone. During her time in Shard, she had felt like she was really there, within the world of the Dream Chest, with Bickle Wa, and Alain. Had she just been playing a video game all that time? She doubted it, but she couldn’t conceive otherwise.
You don’t feel a warm breeze in your face from a computer screen. You don’t feel a prince kissing you on the lips, or the cold steel of a sword-hilt in your hand. You can see and hear a game, but to feel it?
“That was a good game,” she murmured.
Her own bedroom door was closed. Maybe her parents had assumed she was asleep, and didn’t check on her. Carefully,, she pushed the door open and stepped inside. She silently changed into her nightgown and crawled under the covers. When she closed her eyes, she imagined a warm breeze tickling her cheeks, a handsome prince who faced terrible odds against an evil Queen, and her dazzling skill with a decorative sword.
As sleep approached, and the memories of Shard faded away, a disturbing thought occurred to Bridgette: she hadn’t done her homework.
* * *
She had hoped that school would be better the next day. Unfortunately, word must have gotten around about Ashley’s put-down the day before. Before school even started, as Bridgette fumbled to get her locker open, someone hollered “Moo!” At her.
Blast you Ashley, thought Bridgette, as she turned to face the mocker. But as she turned, she saw a girl she didn’t know, smirking. A girl with long, blonde hair and skinny as a rail.
“What are you laughing at?”
“None of your business,” she was told. And the smirk grew even more wicked.
“Who told you to Moo at me?”
“None of your business!” the stranger snapped back, her lips spread in smug superiority.
“If you’re gossiping about me, it is my business,” said Bridgette.
“No it isn’t.”
“What’s your name?”
“I’m not telling you!” and with that, the girl strutted away.
Burning with anger, Bridgette went to class. Any hope she had that the jab would stay in English class was dashed. Word had spread through the whole school, and now she was being taunted by people she didn’t even know.
Mrs. White was back to teaching in English. She wasn’t sorry to see the snot-nosed substitute go. There was a chance that Mrs. White would keep the class on-task enough such that Ashley and Karen wouldn’t have the time to taunt her, but as she headed towards her desk, she saw an evil smirk spread across their faces.
“Read the definition of a gerund on the board,” said their grey-haired teacher in her robotic voice. “Rick?”
“A verb with -ing added that functions as a noun,” read Rick.
“Correct,” said Mrs. White. “Karen, read the example.”
“I enjoy walking,” read Karen.
“Good,” said their teacher. “‘Enjoy’ is the verb, ‘walking’ is the direct object of ‘enjoy.’ So it acts as a noun in this sentence, which makes it a gerund. In your worksheet, you will read through twenty sentences and underline the gerund. Then you will write twenty sentences of your own, each with a Gerund.”
She passed out the worksheets, and the class dutifully worked on the assignment.
“Bridgette,” whispered Ashley.
Bridgette ignored her.
“Bridge,” said Karen. “C’mon, talk to us.”
Keeping her gaze tight on the worksheet in front of her, Bridgette fought to tune out her two “friends.” But she couldn’t keep her heart hard forever, as Ashley probed for a weakness.
“Did you have a good cry yesterday, Bridgette?” asked Ashley.
Bridgette bit her lip, and said nothing. Don’t respond. Don’t answer.
“We’re sorry you’re upset,” said Karen.
Finally, her resistance broke. “That’s not how you say sorry,” Bridgette said.
“We’re your friends,” said Ashley. “I only said it to help you.”
“Help me?” said Bridgette, her voice edged with ire.
“Of course,” said Ashley. “I mean, if you asked Rick out to the Sadie Hawkins dance and he told you ‘No,’ then you would have been all upset and broken hearted. I was just trying to save you from that pain.”
Bridgette glared at her. Ashley was smiling her little innocent grin. “Calling someone a fat cow isn’t a way to help someone.”
“I had to say something to get your attention.”
“And that way you can fix yourself,” said Karen.
“Fix myself?”
“Yes. Because if you know you’re a fat cow, you can do something about it. You can get some exercise.”
“Or liposuction,” added Ashley. And the two of them started their horrible laughter again. And about half the class started snickering as well.
Bridgette felt her cheeks flare red. “Forget it!” she said sharply. “I found a better guy than Rick and YOU are not taking him away from me.”
“Oh?” said Ashley. “And who is he?”
She felt out on a limb. But she had to go all the way. “Alain,” she said. He did kiss her. He would love her, she had no doubt. She felt his lips. Wasn’t that enough?
The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.
“Who’s that?” asked Karen. “Some homeless guy you found by the freeway?”
Bridgette looked away. “You just wish you had a guy like him.”
“Enough talking. More working,” said Mrs. White in her tight voice.
A few minutes of enforced quiet fell upon the classroom. As conversation slowly rose back in its aftermath, Ashley and Karen prodded her with questions, but Bridgette was tight lipped. She didn’t owe them any answers. The more they wondered about Alain, the better she felt. Even if Alain wasn’t real. How do I know he’s not real? I felt his lips. He held my hand. Of course he’s real. He’s just – just not an Earthling like me. But that doesn’t mean he’s not real.
Finally Mrs. White went back to the front of the classroom. She collected the work on gerunds and passed out the new vocabulary lists, reading the definition of each word in that sleep-inducing, monotone voice of hers. Bridgette folded her arms. She would see Alain again tonight. That kept her going through her classes, in spite of the stares, sneers, jeers, and admitting to her teachers that she hadn’t done her homework.
As for Gym….
It was after Geology class. Bridgette was walking towards the gym when she felt someone’s hand squeeze the fat in her stomach. “Moo!” Shouted a voice. Turning, she saw the backside of a boy she didn’t know running down the hallway. What a coward; she couldn’t even see his face. Her heart was a mix of rage and humiliation as she headed into the locker room.
She tried desperately not to think about it as she went to her locker. To her right was slim and pretty Jenny. To her left was Anne, an athletic tomboy with firm limbs. And in between was Bridgette, the fat cow with barbed wire for hair.
Jenny’s hair fluttered as she pulled off her shiny, pink shirt. Her proportion was perfect, and even in gym clothes she looked like a china doll. Anne, on the other hand, could run a marathon. Bridgette pulled her gym clothes out, but she just couldn’t bear to disrobe in front of the other girls.
“Are you okay, Bridgette?” asked Anne.
“I-” Bridgette hesitated. Next to fitness and beauty, the last thing she wanted was for either girl to see her excess fat. “I need to pee.”
She carried her clothes to the bathroom. Every “Moo!” she heard and every smirk she saw made her feel like she had added another ten pounds. By the time she reached the bathroom she felt like such a blob that she feared she wouldn’t fit inside the stall. She did, and changed where no one could see her.
Mrs. MacTurner was waiting for them in the gym. “All right ladies!” she said. “You all ready for more Fencing practice?”
They shouted an affirmative. This was one class where yelling was encouraged.
They dove into warm-ups, with pushups, sit-ups, stretches, jumping jacks and jump rope. And then they brought out the Fencing equipment: mesh covered fencing masks, sturdy, padded jackets, and slender foils.
In spite of her horrible day, Bridgette smiled inwardly: now she had a chance to shine. In the Dream Chest, she had fended off Fricklan in a duel, and won handsomely. The tips of her mouth curled up into a smile when she replayed the scene in her mind: the decorative sword in her hand, with a hilt that practically molded into her grip. The speed and skill with which she swung the sword, cutting her foe’s belt loose, and disarming him with a swift rap on the knuckles with the flat of the blade. She had tapped him just hard enough to make him drop his sword, yet away from the edge so she wouldn’t hurt him permanently. That was talent. She couldn’t wait to see how well it worked in fencing practice.
For the next twenty minutes, they practiced their footwork and drilled basic foil techniques. Finally, Mrs. MacTurner paired them up for bouts, and Bridgette found herself facing Anne. Good. Bridgette wanted a challenge. Beating Anne in Fencing would give her peers something to gossip about besides her weight.
They were the third pair to go onto the strip. Bridgette felt more than a little frumpy in her Fencing getup: with a jacket, lame, breastplate and her gym shirt, she counted four layers of padding. Even Anne looked top-heavy. They hooked into the machine, tested the connection, saluted, and took position. Now she could test her swordfighting skills in the real world.
Anne dropped into her fencing stance, her feet at a 90 degree angle, her front arm relaxed, her feet agile. Anne was one of the most athletic girls in school, with natural talent in every sport she tried. Bridgette, not so much. But she had the feeling that this time it would be different.
Anne advanced. Bridgette took a step back. She calculated the distance, and determined that from here a lunge would be easily parried. As Anne advanced again, Bridgette retreated only half the distance, luring her foe into striking range. Anne accepted, flipping her sword to keep Bridgette on guard.
Bridgette attacked! She reached forward with her foil to jab Anne, twirling her sword like she did against Fricklan the guardsman. Anne gracefully stepped to the side, parried and…
BUZZ!
There was one light on the machine. Anne’s light. She scored. Bridgette didn’t connect.
“Score is one zero!” announced Mrs. MacTurner, as the two of them returned to their starting line. “Fencers ready?”
“Ready,” Anne said.
“Yes,” said Bridgette, a little nervous.
“Fence!”
Maybe it wasn’t the footwork. She remembered she didn’t gauge distance much with Fricklan. She used her hands, not her feet. Maybe that was where her talent was.
Now Bridgette advanced. Anne met her. Bridgette beat Anne’s foil to knock it out of alignment and advanced with a flashy attack.
Anne parried, and riposted. Bridgette retreated against the sudden shift in attack. She reached, retreated, and wobbled off balance. Anne’s attack was relentless, her foil to the left, then to the right, and finally touched Bridgette’s chest.
“Point!” shouted Mrs. MacTurner. “Two zero. Bridgette, you need to work on your parries. Ready? Fence!”
“It was a game,” thought Bridgette, bitterly. “It was just a game.” And winning a swordfight in the game was not sufficient to improve your Fencing in gym class. Winning baseball on the Playstation wouldn’t help you hit the ball in the batting cages either.
She stopped thinking of Fricklan, and just tried to remember all the lessons Mrs. MacTurner had given them. She stiffened up, trying to get it all straight, and Anne scored against her easily.
Bridgette managed to score two points, mostly by forgetting everything and just trying to react. But it wasn’t long before Anne scored the final point. The girl jock pulled off her mask; she had a toothy smile that was friendly, not arrogant. “Good match, Bridgette,” she said.
“Thanks,” said Bridgette, nonplussed At least Anne never taunted her over her weight.
She tried two more bouts and lost them both just as badly. Even Diane, one of the heaviest and least athletic girls in the school, beat her 5-3. Beaming, Diane pulled off her fencing mask with the smug smile of someone elated not to be at the bottom.
Bridgette felt more confused than angry. She sat down heavily, replaying her fight against Fricklan. How could she beat a medieval guard in swordsmanship, but she couldn’t win against Diane?
“Bridgette,” it was Mrs. MacTurner. “I watched your bouts.”
“No good?” squeaked Bridgette, in a quiet voice.
“You’re posing,” said Mrs. MacTurner. “It’s like you’re trying to be Errol Flynn.”
“Who?” asked Bridgette.
Some teachers would laugh when a student missed their old, cultural references. Mrs. MacTurner didn’t laugh. “An actor who was famous for playing swashbucklers. This isn’t acting, Bridgette. This is Fencing.”
“I know it’s Fencing,” Bridgette said, irritated. “It’s not Football!”
“You’re not on a movie set,” said Mrs. MacTurner, ignoring Bridgette’s sarcasm. “Actors make big motions so the audience can follow along.” Mrs. MacTurner swung her arm wide to demonstrate. “And that’s the opposite of what you want to do. You want to make the smallest, most efficient movements you can,” she jabbed her arm fast and forward, like her elbow was a piston popping out and in, with scarcely any sideways motion. “You see?”
“No,” said Bridgette.
“And that’s the point,” said her teacher. “Small and effective beats big and dramatic. The machine doesn’t care about who looks good. It cares about who scores the touch. And Bridgette, you’re getting pricked more than a pincushion.”
Without waiting for an answer, Mrs. MacTurner turned to give feedback to another student. “Nice job Anne. I’ll still let you in the squad if you don’t mind doing another sport.”
“Maybe,” said Anne. “I don’t want to give up Basketball.”
Bridgette tossed away her foil and went to the restroom. No one noticed she was gone. She took her time until the 10 minute bell rang, and hit the showers with everyone else.
Bridgette ate her lunch on the sly, hiding deep in the Library stacks. She pulled food straight out of her backpack to her mouth, so as not to draw the ire of the librarian. This way, she could avoid the taunts from strange kids she didn’t even know.
The one class where she had any peace of mind was Art. It was a free sketch day, and Mrs. Johnson was more of an art coach than a teacher. Bridgette found herself illustrating a large canvas of her adventure, so far, in Shard. She drew her beautiful self -- her real self -- kissing the handsome prince-in-exile, Alain Trueheart. Bickle Wa stood in the foreground, smiling cheerfully at the pair of kissing young lovers, while the sun set over the distant mountains in crimson. Far in the background, Bridgette even sketched the Ruby Castle where Alain grew up. And peering out from the darkness of night, she drew the face of the evil Queen, the Scarlet Tempest, scowling from a face both as beautiful as night and cold as ice.
“That’s very good,” Mrs. Johnson said. “I didn’t know you illustrated Fantasy, Bridgette.”
Bridgette looked up with a smile. “Thank you.” That was the one good thing to happen all day. And it only made her want to revisit Shard even more. When the day ended, she couldn’t get home fast enough.
Her father was set on the family computer. Leaning over the keyboard, he was leafing through the screen, a half finished bottle of cider resting nearby on the desk.
“Dad?” she asked, inching her way into the study.
“Yes honey?”
“Can I use the computer?”
Her father glanced at the clock. “I need it just a little longer. There’s some work I didn’t have the chance to finish at the office. But it will only be a half hour, then it’s yours. Okay sweetheart?”
She didn’t want to wait a half hour. She didn’t want to wait another minute before spending more time with Alain. But she didn’t want to push with a tantrum and make her father think anything was wrong. He’d put everything aside for her if he even suspected she had a problem, and getting him to stop once he picked up the scent would take forever. It was easier to wait.
Going into her room, she turned from one corner to another. She pulled a book down from her shelf, flipped it open, and read only three words before putting it back. She thought to organize her dolls or her clothes, but gave up on each task within seconds. She was imagining Alain’s soft eyes looking down on her, one arm supporting her while the other caressed her hair. Her Dream Chest hair- flowing and blonde and beautiful. Where she had clear skin that glowed, a limber build that flowed like a dancer. Where she’d be free from her clumsy real body with its unwanted weight, and her face that still showed acne scars.
Finally, forty five minutes after she spoke to him, her father’s work was finished. “Okay honey. It’s all yours,” he called out as he headed downstairs. Bridgette raced from her room to the computer, her hands shaking with anticipation as she clumsily typed in the web address for the Dream Chest. The familiar screen popped up, and she wasted no time logging herself in.
Welcome Back said the screen, in flying letters that dispersed into a storm of colors. The colors spun not just on the screen, but soon around her own head as well, in an ecstatic moment of vertigo.
Bridgette opened her eyes….