Attack of the 50 Foot Wallflower

by Christian McKay Heidicker

  Marsh swallowed deeply and examined his folded hands. “Just because you do not bear your mother’s curse does not mean you cannot fall into the same traps. Tell me about the boy who walked you here last night.”

  My cheeks grew hot. So that was the kind of confession he was looking for. The dirty kind about sins that preachers claimed drew Shivers to a town like ants to a picnic. If only something had happened with Lear last night. It might’ve almost been worth blowing up to the size of a baby giraffe if I’d had the chance to roll around in sin a little first.

  I sighed and picked at my fingernails like confessing was going to be rough on me. “Me and Lear went out to the drive-in. He was real sweaty from running in track that day, but I didn’t mind so much. . . .”

  While Marsh remained as unflinching as a wax statue, I proceeded to “confess” every dirty thing I wanted to do to Lear. Ma told me all about the priests who liked to hear dirty stories in confessionals because it was the only thrill of their week. But that wasn’t Marsh by a mile. The man was as sexless as a cornhusk. While I talked about all the things I’d never done with Lear, Marsh grimaced like I was torturing his mother. I must’ve been the first girl in history who tried not to giggle throughout her confession.

  I was about to get to the really juicy bits when Marsh raised a trembling hand. “That’s . . . enough. Quite enough.”

  After he taught me how to perform Hail Marys, I knelt before the pulpit and performed all one hundred.

  “There,” Marsh said, straightening his lapels. “God will shrink you back to normal in no time.”

  He busied himself with polishing the organ keys and didn’t say another word to me that afternoon.

  • • •

  “Holy. Crap.”

  Beth stood in the church’s foyer, her jaw practically hanging to the floor. I was stretching my aching legs on the pulpit and froze, expecting Beth to run screaming out of the church.

  But instead she came sweeping toward me while Pan-Cake romped down the aisle to greet her.

  “Pan-Cake,” Beth said, “I can’t even look at you right now because I’ve only got eyes for your momma.” She held out her hands to me. “May I?”

  I set my giant hand in hers. Beth ran her thumbs along my long fingers and stared up at all seven feet of me.

  “You’re . . .”

  “Yeah.”

  “Just like something out of . . .”

  “Pretty much.”

  “And you’re still—?” Beth’s eyes drifted toward the ceiling.

  “I think so,” I said. “Isn’t it awful?”

  “Are you kidding?” She hadn’t so much as blinked. “This is the coolest thing I’ve ever seen! You could eat a stack of pancakes the length of your arm without worrying about gaining an ounce! And if you could poke a pervy police officer in the eye at your regular size, just imagine what you could do like this!”

  I snorted. There was something about being around Beth that made me feel as warm and cozy as a Betty Crocker commercial.

  “What happened?” Beth said, still wide-eyed. “You get too much sun when you took off into the desert?”

  “It’s a long story,” I said.

  “All right. I can’t say I’m not curious, but all right.” She gave my hand a squeeze. “I guess now I know.”

  “Know what?” I said.

  “Every time I watched one of those old movies, I always wondered if the monster wasn’t just misunderstood in some way.”

  “What old movies?” I said.

  “Sorry.” She shook her head. “I meant read the paper. About the attacks.” She ran her fingers through the ends of my long hair. “You don’t look like you’re about to go gobbling up innocents.”

  I remembered the assignments Liz had promised, and the locusts briefly swarmed among the rafters.

  “No innocents for me.” At my size, it was harder to gulp quietly now. “You won’t tell anyone, will you?”

  “And share you with this town? I wouldn’t dream of it!” Beth’s gaze fell to my knees. “Boy, you’re becoming a real bombshell.”

  “Really?”

  I felt my hips. Sure enough, my walls were narrowing to raise the ceiling.

  Beth pinched the hem of my dress, which was now almost up to my underwear. “This length is getting mighty dangerous.”

  “It’s only going to get worse.”

  “She requires a new gown immediately,” Marsh said, appearing in the back door. “She is not in church dress, and I cannot risk scandalizing my congregation . . . or myself.”

  He and I had had a close call that morning. When I’d woken up on the cot, I couldn’t breathe. My dress was strangling me. My eyes bulged as I hooked my finger in the collar to give me breathing room, rolled off the cot, and then tore the dress straight down the middle with my bare hands, coughing and gagging. I was about to tear off my too-tight bra, too, when I looked up and saw Marsh, hand over his eyes.

  “I can make you something to wear!” Beth said.

  “You can?”

  My heart lifted. I’d never had a dress tailor-made. Ma had dozens.

  “Sure!” Beth said. “I’ve got my badge in sewing and everything. I’m no master seamstress, but it beats having a naked giantess filling the church. Reverend, do you have measuring tape?”

  He fetched some while she reached into her handbag and pulled out a notebook and pencil.

  “Loosen up,” Beth said, giving my arm a shake. “I’m not taking pictures.”

  I relaxed my arms as she reached under my armpits with the measuring tape and made little notes.

  “Will you stand for me?”

  I did, and she measured more parts of me, including my legs, which were about as bristly as Brillo pads.

  “Could you bring me a razor and some Burma-Shave?” I said.

  “Why?” Beth asked, jotting measurements. “You got a date with the Jolly Green Giant?”

  “No . . .” My cheeks grew hot. “Lear Finley?”

  Beth’s eyes went wide. “Don’t tell Rhoda.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “She’s obsessed with Lear Finley, and she can be a bit—what’s the word—possessive.”

  A part of me clenched, wishing I was the only one who found Lear’s quiet brutishness attractive. “Well, can’t say I blame her.”

  “Uh-huh.” Beth was adjusting her glasses at my limbs, lost in measurements. “You’re lucky I have two little sisters who grew in opposite directions. One went straight up like a bamboo shoot, while the other went out like a turnip, shoulders wider than she was tall. You’re doing a whole lot of both.”

  I remembered Beth’s brother, weaselly Officer Graham, and the third pod in the motel room.

  “How’s your brother doing, Beth?” I said.

  “Brian? He’s fine. Only . . . he’s been colder lately. He just kind of stares and smiles. Like a fish at an aquarium. I can’t quite explain it.”

  She hefted my arm. What could I tell her? That her brother wasn’t really her brother and had vegetable juice coursing through his veins?

  Beth clicked her tongue. “And you say you aren’t finished growing?”

  I remembered Peak’s words: a fifty-foot broad . . .

  “Not by a long shot,” I said.

  “We’ll need stretchy material then,” Beth said. “I wonder if the carnival has some extra tents. . . .”

  I winced. “Could you make it flattering at all?” I said, still thinking of Lear.

  Beth jotted down one last thing and then flipped the notebook shut. “I’m not promising Ralph Lauren—er, um, Christian Dior, but we’ll make you look hot enough.”

  “Could you make it cool instead?” I said, wiping sweat from my throat. “It’s sweltering in this church.”

  “Right. Of course. That’s what I meant.”

  “And respectable in the eyes of the lord,” Marsh said.

  “Sure,” Beth said. “That too.”

  She gave me a wink, and I felt more saved
than I had all morning.

  • • •

  At dusk, a knock came at the door, quiet as a mouse.

  I crept down the aisle, the floorboards groaning under my feet, and cracked the door open, hunching to hide my height. Lear looked so dreamy in his flannel shirt and Levi’s that my heart just about fluttered out the top of my head. He took a step back and blinked as if his eyes had been playing tricks on him the first few times we met.

  I stood up straight. Sheesh.

  It was about time I caught his attention.

  Lear caught himself staring and he held up two grocery bags full of food. “I, um, borrowed some stuff from my mom’s fallout shelter. You just gotta promise me the world isn’t gonna end before you pay me back.”

  “Uh . . . I promise,” I said.

  He was just in time. I’d polished off every loaf of bread in the church and was still hungry enough to eat a horse. I’d told Beth that before, but I honestly wouldn’t have trusted myself at a stable right then.

  “I’ve been cooped up in this church all day,” I said. “You wanna go for a walk?”

  We crossed a bumpy field to the water tower standing behind the screen at the drive-in and climbed the ladder toward a chalky, fading sky. Daddy stared at me, a smile tugging on the corner of his lips, threatening to develop into a God’s honest grin.

  From way up there, Lear and I could see all of Main Street and the Levitt ranches, but more important, we could see Mitzi Gaynor, larger than life and dressed as a sailor in South Pacific. We didn’t have a speaker like the cars below, but Ma and I had seen the picture so many times I had it memorized.

  Lear and I quietly emptied the grocery bags along the water tower’s metal walkway and then tore the seams of the bags to make a poor excuse for a picnic blanket. He helped himself to an apple while I ate six cans of tuna fish, five cans of fruit cocktail, four bars of Hershey’s chocolate, and then washed it all down with a mixture of sweetened condensed milk and rehydrated Tang.

  Normally I’d feel gross about eating that much food, but my body felt like it had run six marathons that day.

  My stomach made a sound that would put a diesel truck to shame.

  “Sorry,” I said. “It has a mind all its own these days.”

  “No problem.” Lear craned his neck, daring a glance at my face. “Um, how are you doing it? By eating?”

  I snorted and opened my second can of pork and beans, which felt small in my hand. “Other way around. I eat because I’m growing.”

  “Oh. Right. Yeah. Of course. But . . .” Lear leaned in so he could get a better look at me in the moonlight. My skin prickled with attention. “How?”

  I stopped stuffing my mouth and watched a fly circle the empty can of fruit cocktail. Where could I even begin?

  “Will you tell me what happened with your dad?” I said.

  Lear sat back and picked at some rust on the guardrail. I guessed neither of us were getting questions answered that night.

  The sounds of the field came alive in our silence. Crickets sang away the sunset. The wind flattened the grass. Bats made little screeks. The taillights of a Chrysler flashed over us as a couple pulled into the drive-in. A minute later the car started to rock back and forth. Lear stared at his hands. At least somebody was seeing some action that night.

  How did girls get boys to kiss them in moments like this? Now that I had eaten, I felt capable of almost anything—climbing the Chrysler Building would be a cinch so long as the top floor was made of cake—and yet romantic stuff still made me watery in the knees. I wanted Lear to kiss me so I could feel normal, just for tonight. But he just kept picking at rust.

  “Phoebe?” Marsh’s pinched voice shouted from the bottom of the ladder. “You must return to the church now. You are in my care.”

  Lear looked at me. We smiled at each other, silently agreeing to pretend like we weren’t there. He handed me the rest of his apple, and then watched while I ate it, seeds and all. I wiped my mouth on the torn grocery bags and resisted the temptation to belch.

  “Phoebe!” Marsh called. “You must not undo your Hail Marys!”

  Lear and I leaned back on our elbows and watched Rossano Brazzi’s “Some Enchanted Evening” number. I set my hand close to his, and our pinkies touched. I tried not to focus on the fact that my hand was bigger than his now.

  If I was going to keep growing at this rate—a foot a day—then this might be my last chance to have contact like this. Once I grew to ten feet, or twelve, or fifty, I couldn’t imagine the physics of being with another person. Just like I never could figure out how Ma and Daddy did their business. Liz may have said she had a way to change me back, but my heart didn’t quite believe it.

  The pinkie contact didn’t last long. I bent my elbow to brush his side, and Lear’s hand shrank away like a slug touched with salt. His eyes closed before he could see the disappointed expression on my face.

  “Phoebe!” Marsh said. “I do not want to have to come up there. I am afraid of heights.”

  I crossed my hands over my stomach and watched Daddy doze off as the sun set on the last simple day of my life.

  8 FEET

  “He rocks in the tree tops all day long

  Hoppin’ and a-boppin’ and singing his song

  All the little birdies on Jaybird Street

  Love to hear the robin go tweet tweet tweet

  “Rockin’ robin

  Rock rock, rockin’ robin,

  Blow rockin’ robin

  ’Cause we’re really gonna rock tonight”

  My days started to get a rhythm to them.

  In the morning, I listened to Marsh practice his sermons for the Sunday following while I ate the replenished communion bread and chased Pan-Cake around the church, feeling my limbs groan and stretch like bamboo shoots.

  In the afternoon, Beth would haul in materials of all types and try to stretch and contort them in such a way to fit my expanding body.

  And in the evening, Lear brought all the food he could carry and watched me devour it while I tried to hold a normal conversation with him.

  After Marsh left for the night, I tuned the radio to the “evil” rock-’n’-roll station and danced the aches out of my limbs while Pan-Cake ran circles around me.

  The DJ had a soft spot for Bobby Day.

  9 FEET

  “Every little swallow, every chick-a-dee

  Every little bird in the tall oak tree

  The wise old owl, the big black crow

  Flappin’ their wings singing go bird go”

  “This morning I would like to remind the congregation that your salvation is not contingent on the occasional church visit after you hear about a terrible attack on the radio. Rather it is based on weekly attendance and daily dedication to the Lord.”

  • • •

  “How does that feel?”

  “Like I’m being strangled by an anaconda.”

  “Back to the drawing board, I guess.”

  • • •

  “Want some onion soup dip? I don’t want to be the only one with dragon breath.”

  “Nah, I’m okay.”

  “You sure? It’s delicious.”

  “Yeah, I’m okay.”

  10 FEET

  “Rockin’ robin

  Rock rock, rockin’ robin

  Blow rockin’ robin

  ’Cause we’re really gonna rock tonight”

  “In these times of trial, we must ask ourselves what’s really wrong with today’s society that God should choose for a moon robot to tear apart New York City? For a towering mantis to attack Washington, DC? For our neighbors in Santa Mira to be carpet-bombed by our own military to stop those . . . frothing seed pods?”

  • • •

  “How do your boobs feel?”

  “Heavy.”

  “I sympathize. Really. I’ll see what I can do.”

  • • •

  “Are there any foods you hate?”

  “Not really.”

  �
��I can’t stand canned pineapple. Makes my tongue feel like it’s bleeding.”

  “Huh.”

  11 FEET

  “Pretty little raven at the bird-band stand

  Told them how to do the bob and it was grand

  They started going steady and bless my soul

  He out-bopped the buzzard and the oriole”

  “I’m talking about sin, ladies and gentlemen. Not just on an individual level, but as a society.”

  • • •

  “The material’s too thick. I’m sweating buckets! Honest-to-goodness buckets!”

  “You look refreshed, like you just walked out of the ocean!”

  “Really?”

  “Well, maybe I can cut some sections out. . . .”

  • • •

  “You have a good time at school today?”

  “It was all right, I guess.”

  “Excited for summer vacation?”

  “I guess.”

  12 FEET

  “He rocks in the tree tops all day long

  Hoppin’ and a-boppin’ and singing his song

  All the little birdies on Jaybird Street

  Love to hear the robin go tweet tweet tweet”

  “If one woman lies with a man outside of wedlock, we all take responsibility. If we allow one child to fall prey to the allure of alcohol, we all take responsibility. If we see a pentagram glowing on the palm of our neighbor and we don’t report it, then God Himself will repay us, all of us, one hundredfold.”

  • • •

  “I finally found an elastic big enough for your waist!”

  “Good, because the airplane dress didn’t survive the night. My chest burst right through it. A button hit the ceiling. No joke.”

  “Shut up! And I thought I had a problem. Hmm. We’ll need to find a temporary solution. . . .”

  • • •

  “How’s your ma doing? Good?”

  “Yeah, she’s good.”

  “Good.”

  13 FEET

  “Rockin’ robin,

  Rock rock, rockin’ robin

  Blow rockin’ robin

  ’Cause we’re really gonna rock tonight”

  “God has shown that it isn’t enough for us to find Him in ourselves, in our families, in our friends. He is showing us that every last soul counts—from the president of the United States to the soda jerk on the corner to the lady of the night.”