chapter 3

Ebony then held the pen in her chubby fingers. She then closed her eyes and concentrated a moment.

Judy watched as Ebony's eyes then opened and she let go of the pen...

...which floated freely as if the pull of gravity on it had disappeared suddenly.

Judy had seen this trick before. There had to be a wire of some kind on the pen. But she couldn't see one.

"Okay..." Judy nodded as she concentrated on Ebony. "What's going to happen now?"

"It'll start in a minute," Ebony replied. "Just watch."

Just as Ebony announced that, Judy noticed Ebony's belly was getting bigger.

"Your belly..." Judy gasped. "It's growing."

Then, Ebony's legs, butt, and hips began to grow as well, then her upper arms, shoulders, and breasts. Even her cheeks and double chin began to slowly get in on the expansion.

"I'm getting fatter," Ebony replied as her belly began to be exposed from under her sweat suit as it continued to grow. "My powers are doing it."

Ebony then closed her eyes again and then grabbed the pen as she opened her eyes.

Almost as suddenly as it started, Ebony's body stopped getting fatter. In a matter of a few minutes, Ebony looked like she had gained nearly 20 pounds. Her sweat pants managed to stretch enough to cover the load caused from her expanding bottom, legs, and hips, but she had a roll of belly flab hanging over top of her waistband which her top could no longer cover.

Judy touched Ebony's exposed belly. "This is incredible, how..."

"That's the thing, no one knows how or why this is happening to me," Ebony grunted as she moved to sit down. "I've had doctors check me out and they say there's no medical reason why I do this. The only explanation is I inherited it from my mom, because she was the same way."

"Your mom was a psychic, too?"

"Yep," Ebony smiled as she tried to rearrange her sweat suit's waistband so it wasn't so tight around her belly as she sat down. "So was my grandma, and her mother, too. And they all gained weight whenever they used their powers, too. They then eventually grew so fat, it killed them. When my mom died 2 years ago, she was bedridden and the doctors said she was too huge to be weighed accurately. She broke their largest scale which went up to 900 pounds. They needed to cut out the front door and use a tow truck to get her body out of the house. She needed two graves in the graveyard because she was too big to be cremated."

"I'm sorry to hear that," Judy felt sad. "So, if this is what happens to you when you use your powers, why are you still a psychic?"

"It's the only thing I know what to do," Ebony replied. "Besides, after I made that tornado prophecy, everyone wants me to make prophecies for them. I like to think my powers are helping people, so that might make up for becoming a helpless blimp. Besides, I pull a couple of million a year in being a psychic, which is why I could get this house ready for the time I become immobile and can't go out in public any more. While I don't gain much seeing the future, it slowly adds up over time. Plus when I use my other powers, my weight gains are larger and faster."

"Well, no one noticed until you began to change your costumes from sexy to more modest," Judy quipped.

"Yeah," Ebony smirked. "When I really started to show the weight I've gained, I decided to wear more modest clothes to cover up it up as much as possible and start wearing girdles if I can. Besides, over Size 10, there's not much that's sexy for women which doesn't make them look like they're wearing a tent or look like a balloon. Luckily, my manager knows someone who can make outfits out of stretchy materials so I don't burst out of them while I'm on stage."

"But, you say you're trying to keep your weight under control."

"I had lost 50 pounds since my last tour," Ebony then patted her belly. "I think I gained about 20 of it back during that demonstration. I've been trying to lose as much as I can before my next tour because my outfits I use for gigs are looking more and more shapeless. It's hard, especially when I can lose a lot of weight, only to gain it all back again and add more when I go on tour."

"I think I can understand that a bit," Judy remembered her own battles of the bulge. "So, when did you discover this was happening?"

"I was 6 when I discovered my powers," Ebony replied.

When Ebony was 6 years old, she was considered one of the cutest girls in the neighbourhood. Sitting on the floor watching tv, Ebony was a normal-sized 6-year-old girl who wore a pink t-shirt with black stretch pants and was barefoot that day. Her mother, who looked like an older, heavier version of the adult Ebony, was sitting at a nearby table doing some "business stuff", wore a tent dress with an African-like pattern on it which looked more like a bed sheet converted into a dress than a real dress.

"Don't have the tv up too loud, Ebony," her mom said. "This business stuff is very important. If I make too many mistakes with it, I could get in real trouble."

"Okay, Mommy," Ebony nodded.

Ebony was playing with a doll at the time while she was watching tv. It was a cartoon show, when a commercial came on for the exact same doll she already owned.

But, there was one big difference between the doll Ebony currently had in her hands and the doll on tv.

The doll on tv could move on its own...eventhough Ebony didn't notice the disclaimer which said in small letters barely seen on the screen DOLL DOES NOT MOVE ON ITS OWN.

"The tv says the dolly is supposed to move," Ebony said to herself. "But, my dolly doesn't. I wish it would."

Ebony looked at the doll closely then concentrated on it a bit. For a few minutes, the doll did nothing. Then, Ebony noticed the doll was beginning to flinch like it was trying to leap out of Ebony's hand and jump to the floor on its own.

Then, to Ebony's surprise...the doll did.

Not only did it land on the floor, the doll got up on its own and started walking around.

"It's moving now?" Ebony couldn't believe it. "Mommy, my dolly's walking around."

"It's just a commercial, Ebony," Ebony's mom said without looking up from her work. "That doll doesn't move unless you move it."

"But, Mommy, I know that," Ebony added. "But, when I wished it would, it got up and started walking around. Look it!"

When Ebony's Mom heard that, she immediately stopped what she was doing and rushed to see what was going on. She then noticed the doll walking up towards where she stood.

"You made it move?" Ebony's Mom gasped in shock.

"Yep!" Ebony nodded.

"You must stop doing that now," Ebony's Mom demanded. "If you don't, you'll get fatter!"

"Get fatter?" Ebony exclaimed with confusion...

...then noticed her belly was getting bigger.

"I'm getting a belly, Mommy!" Ebony patted her belly as it continued to expand as it grew over the waistband of her stretch pants.

"Stop moving the doll and you'll stop getting fatter," her mom explained.

Ebony immediately grabbed the doll with her pudgy hand and her weight gain stopped immediately.

"What's happened to me, Mommy?" Ebony looked confused by her sudden weight gain. "Am I going to get as fat as you?"

"Someday later in your life, Ebony, you will," Ebony's Mom sat beside her. "You've inherited my psychic powers, and the curse that goes with them. You keep using them, and you'll keep gaining weight. You can lose the weight, but if you use your powers too much, you'll keep getting fatter until you won't be able to move or even breathe. It happened to my mother and my grandmother and her mother as well."

"What can I do not to get so fat, Mommy?"

"Don't use your powers until you need to use them," Ebony's Mom put a flabby arm around her daughter. "When you've grown up, it's up to you on how you want to use them. But, if you do use them, use them for good purposes, not bad."

"But, I wanna be a psychic like you, Mommy," Ebony sighed.

"You can be," Ebony's Mom smiled and kissed Ebony on the forehead. "Just not yet. I don't want to have to make clothes for you out of bed sheets and curtains like I have to do for myself or have to go on diets to try to lose what I've gained. You're a child and children should learn to use the bodies properly without worrying about getting too fat."

"Well, your mother was right about that," Judy quipped after the story ended. "Did you keep your promise to your mother?"

"It wasn't easy," Ebony laughed. "Especially to my closest friends in school. When people heard that my mom was a psychic they always would ask me if I could give them a free reading."

"So, did you?"

"Of course," Ebony nodded. "But, I tried not to use my powers. I used playing cards instead. But, there were a few times I did use my real powers...but I always tried to keep them hidden from my friends."

"Such as?" Judy looked interested.

"If it looked like one of my friends was going to be in danger that couldn't be avoided," Ebony tried to remember an incident without revealing any names. "Such as a time I was 10 and one of my friends were fooling around on a fire escape about 4 storeys up from the pavement."