To gain some courage, I grabbed a pudding cup, the size of a thimble in my fingers, peeled off the tin lid, and squeezed the tapioca in a single drip onto my tongue.
“I think I like you, Lear,” I said. “I’ve never really liked someone before, and it scares me something fierce just saying this out loud, especially because I’m so big now and not that great to look at, but there you have it.”
Lear’s forehead unwrinkled a bit. My heart sped up. Now that I’d finished talking, all that was left was a dusty silence. Lear stared at his feet.
“Anyway,” I said, “I wouldn’t blame you if you ran right out of this church and never looked back. But I also wouldn’t blame you if you decided to kiss me before my lips are much too big for kissing.”
Lear wavered. My heart leapt. And then he was gone. Down the aisle, out the door, and into the night.
The church creaked in his absence. “When I said I wouldn’t blame you for running, I didn’t think you’d take it so seriously,” I said to nobody. Then I sighed. “Guess I’d run too.”
The church door fell shut, and fear overtook my body. I tried to drown it with a bucket of rehydrated milk.
• • •
That night, I paced up and down the aisle in the fading light of the stained glass. My footsteps thundered, making Pan-Cake tremble in the corner. It was hard to breathe. My skin was covered in sweat. My insides felt hollow, like my body could collapse in on itself if I didn’t eat in the next five minutes.
I considered venturing out to the grocery store, breaking the doors down, and stuffing myself silly. But people didn’t take kindly to things my size. What if I was caught? What if the people of Pennybrooke tied me down and locked me up? What if they shot me?
My feet traversed the length of the church in three strides and back again as my thoughts alternated between food and Lear. Locusts swarmed around Jesus’s eyes. I wasn’t like one of those silly girls on TV who got all loosey-goosey about love. But maybe now that my heart was five times its size, it was easier for romance to slip inside. I could sure go for a dozen Salisbury steak TV dinners right about then. I’d finally admitted to someone that I liked him, truly liked him, and he couldn’t get away from me fast enough. Then again, what did I expect when I could eat twice his body weight in food? If those stained-glass lambs were real, I’d cut open their throats and eat them raw.
Spinning to head back down the aisle, I banged my ankle against a pew. I collapsed to the floor and sucked through my teeth so hard it made a couple of choral books fly open, pages fluttering.
“ARG!” I said in a voice I barely recognized as my own.
Outside, dogs barked. I clamped my hands over my giant mouth.
Pain throbbed through my leg. I closed my eyes. Instead of screaming loud enough to shatter the stained glass, instead of leaping up and putting my fist through the ceiling, instead of eating Pan-Cake, I calmly plugged in the ham radio and held the speaker, as tiny as a quail’s egg between my trembling thumb and finger.
“Um . . . Palm Tree to . . . Ant Lion.” My voice shook. “This is Palm Tree to Ant Lion.”
There were a few moments of static before Liz’s voice came over the speaker. “Phoebe? Oh, thank goodness. I thought we’d lost you.”
“I need food.”
“Of course you do, darling,” Liz said. “You must be as skinny as a telephone pole by now. Where are you?”
I glanced around the church, my sanctuary, the place that had kept me hidden and protected from the world these last two weeks while I grew. Could I trust that Liz really was just trying to help? My stomach turned over like an avalanche and I clamped my trembling lips shut.
“Phoebe,” Liz said in her delicate voice, “Hal can deliver more food than you could possibly eat. He’ll drive fast and be there in thirty minutes. You just have to complete an assignment for us and tell us where you are.”
The thought of food made the locusts break up a bit.
“What do I need to do?”
“We need you to cause a scene. Something big enough to make it in tomorrow’s paper and raise Daddy’s eyebrows a bit.”
My stomach thundered, and I leaned forward, trying to quiet it.
“Like what?”
“You could . . . destroy something. A public building—the school perhaps. Or the police station. It’s your choice.”
My nails dug into my palms. I had enough rage built up inside me that I was confident I could flatten both. I unclenched my hands. I’d never much cared for suburban towns like Pennybrooke, but I never wanted to be the terror in one either. Not for girls like Katie. Or the boy with his arm in a sling. Not for anybody.
“Have you ever been in a Shiver?” I asked Liz.
“Of course I have. Probably more than anyone other than you.”
“Then you know what they’re like. You know the fear that freezes up your bone marrow, making you believe the whole world’s coming to a close.” I breathed in then out. “How can you ask me to do that to people?”
“Because, Phoebe, it’s all we have right now. We have to keep Daddy entertained until we find a better solution. You know this.”
“Yeah,” I said in a voice so quiet I didn’t know if Liz heard me. “I guess I do.”
Mr. Peak spoke up in the background. “Tell her she needs to act now.”
“Phoebe?” Liz said. “Daddy’s eyes are dulling a bit. He hasn’t picked up the remote again, but we’re growing concerned.”
It had been a relief not seeing Daddy’s eyes these past weeks. I’d even taken my hose baths on the far side of the church so I wouldn’t have to see him.
“Phoebe?”
“St. Maria’s Church.”
“Excellent,” Liz said. “And you’re going to . . .”
“Yes.”
“Hal is standing by with food,” she said.
I clicked off the speaker and regretted not requesting a cigarette the size of a fence post.
(((( BONG ))))
As the clock tower began to strike midnight, I stood before the church doorway, holding the Creation against my body. A little voice told me that if I didn’t make it outside before the final strike, then I would chicken out and starve to death in the church while drowning in the shadows of my thoughts.
(((( BONG ))))
I did have a slight problem, but Ma had it solved for me when I was little.
“Phoebe, honey, I’m gonna teach you how to wrap a towel around your body so it won’t fall off, not even if a fleet of fighter jets passes overhead. I’ve seen too many women exposed in all their glory before God and country, and I won’t have that happen to my daughter. Ready?”
“Ready!”
Ready.
(((( BONG ))))
Ma faced away from me, holding the towel out so it stretched along her back. “First, you’re going to fold the right side over your body, and tuck it under your armpit like this. You use your strong hand to make sure the bottom layer is tighter.”
I did as she’d instructed with my Frankenstein comforter.
(((( BONG BONG BONG ))))
Ma turned around. “Then you’re going to fold the other half over that bottom layer. Now pay attention—this is where women get it wrong and lose their towel and their dignity the moment they bend over to get the morning paper. Instead of just tucking, you’re going to tuck and roll. Like so.”
I tucked Frank’s opposite corner to the side of my cleavage and then rolled the tops of the two halves together, creating a lump of towel above my breasts.
(((( BONG BONG BONG ))))
“Then you can do whatever you want, see?” Ma did a twirl around the room, made a couple of jumps, knocked a book off the nightstand, and bent over to pick it up without even holding the towel to her body. “Try to avoid cartwheels.”
I gave Frank a wiggle to make sure it was secure—
(((( BONG ))))
—I turned the church’s door handle, the size of a shooter marble between my fi
ngers—
(((( BONG ))))
—and I peeked outside at the empty street.
(((( BONG ))))
Crouching, I stepped through the door just as the bell struck its final note.
(((( BONG ))))
I wavered on the church lawn. Inside, I always had a wall boxing me in and lending support while I did my laps. Out here, my feet felt unnervingly far from my head, giving me vertigo. Everything felt wide open and tiny. I could peek down the chimneys of the houses, like Santa’s Elf Village at the mall, with their miniature cellophane windows and plastic gingerbread walls.
Daddy grinned down at me as if we’d been playing hide-and-seek and he’d finally found me.
“Wish me luck,” I said to him even though I may as well have been talking to the sky.
• • •
After the thing was done, I lay back in the church, doubled over with hunger pangs, eyes so full of locusts, I thought I might go blind.
A firm knock came at the door. I crawled on my belly to open it and almost slammed it again when I saw Officers Shelley and Graham. But then I noticed the grocery bags in their arms and started devouring the food like it was oxygen.
As Officer Shelley closed the door, I caught a glimpse of Officer Graham’s dead-fish eyes. I tried to see past them to that heart of gold beneath, but it was nowhere to be found.
The door clicked shut, and I heard a whimpering in the corner.
“Here, Pan-Cake,” I said, holding out my hand. “It’s okay. Momma’s nice again.”
She leapt into my palm. I lay down so she could curl up in the hollow of my throat.
And that was how Marsh found me the next morning, lying in a sea of food wrappers and snoring loud as the bugle on Judgment Day, making the stained glass of Jesus and his lambs tremble in its frame.
“You are forbidden from having any more visitors,” Marsh said in the faint dawn light. “Not until you start living by God’s commandments.”
“Beth is supposed to bring my dress any day now!” I looked at Frank. “You want me to stay naked under this thing?”
Marsh flinched like I’d struck him across the face. “I shall collect the garment for you.”
I had no argument for that. But who would ease my nerves in my moments of rage? Not Marsh, that was for sure.
“Is it any surprise that you’re still growing?” Marsh said, gesturing to the empty food wrappers. “Stealing food? Eating yourself into a stupor? And this!”
He flipped on the radio and “Maybe” by the Chantels filled the church.
Marsh switched it off in disgust. I’d forgotten to tune the radio back.
“I didn’t steal this food,” I said.
He crossed his arms. “Then where did you get it?”
I sighed. It was odd being talked down to by a man whose head barely reached my hip. From up here, I could gaze down his perfect, shining part, as neat and deliberate as Moses’s own parting sea.
Marsh crossed his arms. “I also know that you have been . . . fornicating with that boy.”
“I have not,” I said.
“Then why has he been coming to the church at night, sneaking around like a, like a rat?”
“He’s been bringing me food.”
Marsh picked up a wrapper, different from the food storage cans Lear had brought. “From the grocery store? How is he affording it?”
I wiped my face with my giant hands.
“This ends now,” Marsh said. “How can the Lord diminish your size if you insist on consuming every morsel you find? From now on, you will start eating sensible meals three times a day.”
Locusts flooded the church. Marsh may have given me shelter, but if he got between me and food, there would be hell to pay.
I stood up full. “You’re just trying to make an example of me so you can fill your pews!” My voice thundered through the rafters.
Marsh calmly and carefully adjusted his lapels, glasses, and hair, and then walked to the back entrance. It was only then that I noticed he was shaking. “I must go prepare my statement about the pitfalls of attending the carnival. Apparently, they are to have a rock and roll band.” Before he closed the door, he said, “Eyes to heaven, Phoebe. God only gives us challenges we cannot handle so we can grow into someone who can handle anything.”
• • •
A few days later, I stood up to stretch and bumped my head on the church’s ceiling.
“Ow,” I said, rubbing my head. Then, “Oh.”
I was twenty-five feet tall. Soon there wouldn’t be enough food in Pennybrooke to keep me alive, and I’d die here. Mass would be held around my bones.
I could hear Marsh’s low voice speaking to one of the members of his congregation over the phone. “I am terribly sick, I’m afraid,” he said. “And I could not secure a replacement.”
He was coming up with excuses for why there would be no service that Sunday. The Sunday before we had just been able to squeeze me into the storage room, but now my hips couldn’t fit through the single doorframe. I could still fit through the double-door entrance to complete Liz’s assignments, but there was nowhere for me to hide outside on a bright Sunday morning.
I could only marvel at my height for so long, staring from the ceiling all the way down to my feet, before my stomach informed me it was time for breakfast. Officers Graham and Shelley had started delivering groceries twice a day now, and they were a mile better than Lear’s preserves. In the morning came chilled milk bottles and pancakes and melons and cheeses and berries and bananas and bacon and steaming omelets and premixed orange juice concentrate. In the evening came baskets of hams and roasted chickens and hamburgers and potato salad and Jell-O and pudding and cakes and pies and tomato juice. Liz told me I’d earned every crumb.
At her request I had performed three more “events” that week. I spread them out and did them at odd hours so as not to be too predictable and get caught. The people of Pennybrooke were starting to panic, so the police established a night watch. Of course, the pod versions of Officers Shelley and Graham volunteered and then kept an eye out while I did what I had to do.
I stomped down the aisle, stomach grumbling, and opened the door handle with my fingernails. There was no food on the front doorstep. My stomach twitched, but I didn’t let it worry me yet. Crouching, I picked up the ham radio’s speaker, like a grain of rice between my fingers.
“Palm Tree to Ant Lion. Palm Tree to Ant Lion.” Even though I was whispering, my huge voice still wafted small breezes around the church.
“Hello, Phoebe,” Liz said. “I’m guessing you’re calling about the food.”
“Yeah. I caused another, um, event last night, but there was no delivery this morning.”
This event had been my favorite so far. I broke into the record store, collected vinyl of white singers doing terrible renditions of black singers’ music, and threw them like Frisbees into the desert.
“Yes, it was very cute,” Liz said. “But I’m reading boredom in the lines on Father’s face.”
Funny. On last night’s venture out, the remote was nowhere to be seen over the mountaintops.
“Phoebe,” Liz said, “this time we need you to give an actual person a good scare.”
My heart started to beat so heavy, I could practically hear the air around me resonate. This was where things changed. This was where I turned into the kind of Shiver Ma and I always tried to escape.
“What happens if I don’t?” I held my legs, as big as buckled trees.
“Well, then we can’t deliver any more food.”
My pounding heart was drowned out by my gurgling stomach.
I heard Peak clear his throat over the speaker. “And we’ll take more drastic measures.”
“If you please, Mr. Peak,” Liz said. “I have this under control.” There was some grumbling and then a door slamming.
“You mean release more monsters?” I said, my voice rising. “I thought that’s why you did this to me. So you wouldn’t have to do
something worse.”
Liz sighed. “I know I’m asking for a lot, Phoebe. But we don’t want to take any chances. A little fear goes a long way with Father. Panic is very interesting to him. Men screaming and women shooting guns and things of that sort.” She paused. “I just made a little joke, Phoebe. You can laugh.”
“Ha,” I said.
“With a little more panic, Daddy is more likely to remain tuned in to see what happens next. We can tease him along like this for months.”
“But what comes after panic?” I said.
“We aren’t asking you to hurt anyone.”
“Not yet you aren’t,” I said.
“We will only resort to violence if it becomes absolutely necessary.”
How could it not eventually? The more familiar you become with something, the more boring it seems, just like Liz had said. Daddy would only be able to watch people worrying for so long before he’d want more. Before he’d want blood.
Liz’s voice suddenly brightened. “This baby sure is taking his sweet time. But you’ll be an auntie soon enough. What do you think of that?”
I scoffed. “I’m over the moon.”
“Please complete this event within the next three days,” Liz said. “We do not want to have to resort to Peak’s . . . drastic measures. This is Ant Lion signing off.”
The speaker fell silent.
I was just setting down the radio speaker when a knock came at the door. Shave and a haircut. Beth. Fortunately, Marsh was still busy in the back room, calling members of the congregation.
“Come in,” I said.
Beth entered the church like a ray of sunshine, carrying a duffel bag stuffed to bursting.
But there she saw my face. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. Just”—I put my hand on my stomach—“a bit of indigestion is all. Too much eating maybe.”
Or not enough.
“Well, I’ve got great news.”
I hoped it was a swimming pool full of food, but I didn’t think Beth could fit that in a duffel bag.
She plopped the bag down on the ground. “I finally finished.”
“Oh. Good,” I said, trying to look relieved. I smoothed out the comforter Creation. “Frank is starting to smell like his namesake.”
Attack of the 50 Foot Wallflower Page 14