“Swell. Just swell.”
“Hey, if none of this works out, I can always teach you the ins and outs of being a girl, Edgar,” Gemma said, smiling. “You can learn to do your hair and put on makeup, and know how to spot a deal at a department store. I have trained eyes for that.”
“Not funny.”
“What? You don’t think you’ll find guys handsome from now on?”
Edgar shook his head. “Not in a million years. Just because I’m a girl doesn’t mean I like men suddenly. That’s not how it works.”
From somewhere nearby came a familiar sound—tires on gravel. The two of them peered outside and saw an old truck not far down the road. It was Mr. Kipper’s all right. Edgar curbed a smile as the vehicle slowed and came to a stop about fifty feet away. He didn’t know why the old man hadn’t come straight to the barn. Instead, he turned the engine off and stepped out, looking out towards the woods. He slammed the door shut and went into the trees.
He hadn’t seen either of them.
“Huh? Where’s he going?” Gemma asked.
“Into the woods apparently,” said Edgar.
“Yeah, but why? Why isn’t he coming towards the barn?”
“He’s not that far away. Just raise your voice.”
“I want to see what he’s up to first.”
As Mr. Kipper went down a gentle slope, Edgar and Gemma left the barn and snuck into the woods after him, jumping from tree to tree and being careful to not accidentally snap any twigs underfoot. Edgar didn’t know of anything out there, and neither did Gemma. He was seemingly walking further into the wilderness.
“We should shout for him,” Edgar whispered.
“Not yet. He knows where he’s going. Let’s see where this ends.”
Five minutes later and the destination became clear. Just up ahead was a slow-moving stream the width of a four-lane highway. Edgar heard the soft rush of the water before he ever saw the glimmering reflection of it. It was the same stream that snaked by Gemma’s house.
Mr. Kipper began taking his clothes off.
“Is he going for a dip?” Edgar asked, leaning out from behind a tree. “A strange old man.”
“You heard what happened in there,” said Gemma. “He’s losing everything. Maybe he just wants to get his mind off it.”
When the old man began to take off his underwear, Edgar had to look away. He had no interest in seeing Kipper without any clothes on, and whatever grotesque things might be revealed because of it. The guy was pushing seventy or more, and everything sagged at that age! He heard a splash and looked back. The water rippled outward from where he had jumped in.
“Damn,” he muttered. “I guess we have to wait until he’s had his leisurely swim. You know, he doesn’t look like someone that would go for the casual swim. I don’t know of anyone that age that still does. I guess he’s in better shape than he looks.”
“You might want to look again,” Gemma said.
“What? Why? I don’t want to see some old naked man.”
“Just trust me.”
Edgar turned his attention back to the crystal-clear water. A swim wasn’t a bad idea for how hot it was. It’d have to be skinny-dipping though; neither one of them had brought a bathing suit, and Edgar had a good feeling that Gemma didn’t want him to get her clothes wet. Even if they had, he wasn’t exactly eager to jump into a girl’s bathing suit. Those didn’t cover any more skin than underwear did.
Something broke the surface, and Edgar’s jaw dropped. The figure in the water certainly wasn’t old anymore. Hell, it wasn’t a man! The woman floating in the water was blonde and absolutely gorgeous. She pushed the wet hair from her face and looked around. Edgar and Gemma ducked behind the tree again. When they poked their heads back out, the woman had gone under and reappeared further upstream performing a slow backstroke. The tops of her breasts bobbed at the surface as her arms shimmered in the water.
Gemma was grinning. “I guess that answers the question.”
“He knows about the Snoogies,” Edgar added.
“Yep. Doesn’t appear to be his first time either. Bet he’s been using them for a while.”
It made sense. Gemma had made the comment about the candy still being fresh inside the package. There also weren’t many vanilla-flavored pieces left—the ones that guaranteed to turn you back to normal no matter how many changes you had undergone. Mr. Kipper had been using them by the look of it.
Gemma grabbed his arm. “Come on.”
“Where we going now?”
“Down to the stream. It’s about time we introduce ourselves.”
“Now? At least let the dude have a swim first.”
She cocked her head. “Don’t you want to be a guy again?”
“Of course.”
“Then, come on. He obviously has the candy.”
They went down to the water’s edge. The woman hadn’t noticed them yet. Edgar couldn’t believe the Snoogies could do such a thing, but the evidence was right there. A few minutes ago she had been a man burdened by the loss of his home, and now she looked so peaceful just floating in the water, as if she had no care in the world. It must’ve taken several grape-flavored pieces to get down to that age—as well as a pink one to change gender.
“Mr. Kipper would’ve been a supermodel had he been born a woman,” Gemma said. “Wow.”
“Jealous?”
“A little.”
Not long after, the woman came closer to the shore and waded through the stream. She noticed them both as she rose from the surface, water dripping from her golden hair and firm breasts. She didn’t bother to cover herself. With the sun high in the sky, her damp skin appeared to sparkle.
“You two again, huh?” she said. “I can see one of you’s found my candy.”
Edgar’s cheeks blushed. “Sorry.”
“Yeah, we sorta accidentally stumbled upon it,” Gemma said. “We take a shortcut through the woods every day and we happened to find the candy. We didn’t know it was … special.”
Ms. Kipper strolled to the shore, squeezed the water from her long, golden hair, and turned to sit on a towel that had been placed on the grass right next to her clothes. Edgar couldn’t stop staring at her. The old man was certainly braver than he was as a woman. It probably wasn’t his first time. Gemma had been right—she was a supermodel. Edgar imagined the woman on a magazine cover sporting some revealing two-piece string bikini for a summer sale. Her legs were tanned, long, and unbelievably shapely, leading up to a tight waist and slender torso. Even from the side her breasts looked magnificent.
She caught him ogling. “You wanted to try the girl thing out too, huh?”
Edgar found his voice. “I … I didn’t know … we didn’t know what the pink ones did. Or any of them.”
“Yeah, same,” she said. “My wife and I bought them on a trip to Brazil a long time ago. Has to be ten years or more. She thought they were the darndest things. Snoogies. It was the silliest name. We didn’t open the bag until we got home.”
“What happened?” Gemma asked.
“They ain’t illusions. I’m sure y’all have seen that. It’s real. It’s all real. Brenda went to church every weekend since she was little. Convinced me to start goin’ too.” She turned to them. “When something like this happens … it’s hard to understand. She had a tough time with it. Never wanted me to have any more of them. She’d have her reasons. It was the devil or some punishment, or this and that. Always somethin’ like that. Wouldn’t have them, and wouldn’t let me have them.
“You know the orange ones? She had those first. Turns out they make you grow older. And she ate a few of them before the changes kicked in. Imagine a fifty-seven-year-old woman gaining twenty-five years in just a matter of seconds, kid. I thought she was dying. All these wrinkles appeared and her hair went gray and started falling out. She lost her footing, broke her hip right there in front of me. Old women don’t recover all that well, not when they break bones.”
“Jesus,�
� Edgar murmured.
“And now I know the purple ones make you younger. They would’ve saved her.”
No one said anything for a while after that. Even as a young woman, Ms. Kipper suddenly looked ten years older then, staring off at the stream, watching the sun ripple on the surface. Edgar instantly felt sorry for the old man, for everything he had gone through. It reminded him of when Gemma had first tasted the candy. What luck it had been that she had chosen yellow—and only three of them. Perhaps the descriptions for each transformation weren’t listed on the package. What kind of company would produce such a candy?
“I dumped her ashes in the stream,” Ms. Kipper went on. “She wanted that. I like to swim. Can’t do it much no more, not when I’m old. I feel like everything’s being taken from me, but I can come out here and be young again, be a woman, someone completely different. I don’t have to worry any longer. But it’s not enough. My body changes, but not my mind. I can’t change that. The memories, they’re always there.”
Gemma spoke up. “We won’t take more of your candies. We promise on that. But we need one more pink one to change my friend back to normal.”
“Didn’t bring any with me,” Kipper said. “Ate the one pink I had and brought a handful of purples. Wanted to go back younger than I’d ever been. Feels right. Maybe if I go back far enough I can forget it all.”
Okay, he’s a tad creepy, Edgar thought to himself. Everyone grieved differently, and clearly Mr. Kipper had been through a lot since the candy had brought his wife closer to death. Maybe he felt the need to take the blame, but it wasn’t his fault. He had no idea what the candy would do. No one did. There was no one to blame for it except whoever had made the Snoogies in the first place.
Ms. Kipper looked at him and said the oddest thing. “Kid, you want to be a mother? Since you’re a girl and all.”
Edgar looked at the woman, then at Gemma, and finally out towards the water. “A mother? No, not really. You know, I’ve never thought about it, but probably not. Why?”
Ms. Kipper reached for her clothes, her hand slipping into a pocket. “If I go far enough back, I’ll need someone to take care of me. I can’t survive on my own.”
Edgar snorted. “Well, you might want to ask—”
He didn’t have a chance to finish. Ms. Kipper rolled on top of him, pinning him down. In her hand were a half-dozen purple candies, the ones that each sent you back about four or five years in age. She shoved them into her mouth and swallowed them right away.
“Jesus Christ!” Gemma shrieked, getting up and trying to shove her off, but the naked woman wouldn’t budge. “What the hell’s wrong with you? Get off him!”
Ms. Kipper closed her eyes. “Goodbye to this world. I’ve been tired of it for so long. Today was the last straw. I can’t take it! I accept it now.”
Edgar tried to wiggle himself free, but the woman was stronger than him, and a lot more determined. Even with Gemma trying to push her off she barely moved.
Ms. Kipper looked down at him. “Don’t you see? I killed her. I killed my own wife! I can’t move on yet, kid. This is what I des—”
All the purple Snoogies activated at once. The weight of Ms. Kipper was on top of him one second, and then gone the next. Edgar could see the sun again, and felt himself take a deep breath. He looked left and right, but the woman wasn’t anywhere to be found.
Gemma fell to her knees, a look of horror all over her face. She was pointing at something, trying to form words, shaking all over. Edgar didn’t understand it.
He tried to prop himself up, but there was a great weight on his stomach, and it hurt to bend his spine so sharply. He looked down, seeing where the shirt had risen up, seeing how his lower body was now obstructed from view. The realization set in instantly, though he didn’t want to believe it. Unconsciously his hands shot out to feel it, to touch this great bulge protruding from his midsection. It was warm and firm all over, and very much his.
“Oh my God!” Gemma shrieked.
“Edgar! Edgar! Are you okay?”
The woman had been right there, right on top of him. He had witnessed the magic of the candy probably a dozen times by now—the shrinking, the growing, the gender reversals, getting older or younger. He thought he understood it. The belly was so massive between his hands, a mountain that placed his small breasts in shadow. A thought came to him of pushing it back in, forcing it down, erasing it from existence. But the belly was firm and barely yielded to pressure. It was his, there was no doubt about that. It pinned him down, it labored his breathing. There was no seam around where it attached to his abdomen.
“Gemma?” he asked, suddenly feeling dizzy. The world appeared to spin as if it wanted to throw him right off. He silently wished it would.
“I’m right here.” She went down to her knees right beside him. Her eyes never wavered from his swollen stomach.
“I’m … I’m—”
“I know, Edgar. Don’t say it. I see it too.”
He lay his head back on the grass. Everything in his midsection was sore. It felt like someone was standing on his gut, so he rolled to his side. The great weight on his belly shifted off his internal organs, allowing him to breathe a sigh of relief.
There was only one question on his mind. “How did this happen?”
Gemma rubbed her temples. “He had several of those purple ones. They make you younger, remember?”
Edgar nodded. He had taken one just the other day.
“Well, my only guess is that he went too far back. He lost so many years. It reversed him all the way back to being a fetus, and … well he needed a host body. A mother. Maybe you were the closest candidate?”
Edgar closed his eyes. It disturbed him to even think of the process itself, of Ms. Kipper getting younger up until the point where she could no longer survive without being inside a womb. He had felt almost nothing of the rearrangement inside his body. She was on top of him, and then she wasn’t. In the blink of an eye she had gone from being a naked adult woman to living inside of his belly. And, from the look of it, she wasn’t too far away from popping out again, from being reborn. Edgar wasn’t an expert on pregnancy, but surely the belly didn’t get too much bigger before a baby slid out. It felt like he was about to pop right now.
Gemma combed his hair with her fingertips. He was sweating profusely. “Don’t worry, Edgar. I know he still has the candy. We’ll find the right ones and get you back.”
He nodded his head to the left. “Check his clothes. He might’ve been lying about not having some.”
“On it.”
Edgar turned his head and followed her with his eyes. After turning into a woman, Mr. Kipper had left behind a shirt, pants, and underwear. She checked through them all, searching every pocket. She pulled out a wallet and keys, as well as some folded paperwork stamped with big bold letters saying FORECLOSURE.
However, there were no Snoogies to be found.
“Nothing here,” she said, crouching and scouting the horizon back towards the woods. “Maybe in his truck. Can you walk?”
Edgar exhaled. “I can try.”
“Let me help.”
The trip back to the dirt road seemed three times longer than before. Edgar had thought his balance was askew after turning into a girl, but now it felt like the ground itself was trying to pull him down with an invisible rope. Keeping himself upright took considerable concentration—and constantly bending backward to offset the great weight sitting on his abdomen. He was huffing and puffing by the time the old truck came into view.
“Go,” he panted, finding a fat tree and easing himself down onto one of the wide roots, using it as a makeshift seat. “I need to rest.”
As Edgar caught his breath, Gemma used the keys to unlock the truck. She crawled inside and searched under the seats and in every small compartment she could find. The bag of Snoogies wasn’t found. She searched through every nook and cranny—below the dash, in the bed, even under the hood. Whatever place she looked, the Snoogies weren
’t there.
“Damn! Where the hell did this old man hide them? Did he throw them away?”
Edgar gazed down at his pregnant belly. Mr. Kipper didn’t want them to reverse this. He wanted to leave this life behind, to escape for good, to start again. That was his punishment, or so the old man had figured in his stressed mind. His wife and home were both gone. That wasn’t enough. He had to go all the way back, to a simpler time and place where his mind could forget. Inside the womb he surely knew nothing of Brenda or the foreclosure, or even the candy. He was just a tiny ball of life again, nothing more, untouched by the misery of the last ten years or so.
Gemma went around the truck one more time, but found nothing. She returned to Edgar with a bottle of water. “You need it more than me,” she said, offering him the cool refreshment. The hot sun wouldn’t relent, even in whatever little shade they could find. “At least I can make sure you don’t dehydrate. How are you feeling?”
“Exhausted. You know when you stay up for two days straight? I feel like that. And someone’s squeezing every organ in my abdomen. I feel like I’m about to barf one moment, and the next I feel like I need to find a toilet.”
Gemma glanced at his belly. “I’m not going to lie to you. You’ve gotta be pretty far along. The baby could come soon, and I mean real soon.”
Edgar slowly shook his head. “Please don’t let that happen. I don’t want it to.”
“If we can find that candy, I’m not going to,” she said. “Edgar, we need to find out where he lives. I bet that’s where they are. He didn’t want us to undo all this, but I can’t imagine he came up with some elaborate plan. This is an old guy we’re talking about.”
“Yeah,” Edgar agreed, reaching for his pocket. “I’ll text my mother. She knows him. I bet she knows the address.”
“Good. That’s a start.”
Edgar finished the message and sent it. His mother was probably going to wonder why the hell he was asking for such a thing. No one in town really liked Mr. Kipper, and he mostly kept to himself. Edgar couldn’t imagine revealing all this to her, showing up at the doorstep and convincing her that he was, in fact, her one and only son. She’d have a heart attack.
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