chapter 4

Mandy Michaels groped her way through the library of Haynesworth Hall. She inched her was carefully, suddenly becoming more and more aware that something was terribly wrong. Things had changed from what she remembered of the year before. For one thing, she was constantly bumping into this or that and more often than not she found herself literally squeezing herself through tight places that hadn't been tight just a year ago.

After much difficulty, she made her way to the small door in the wall of the library that opened the way to the passage that would take her to Auntie Melba. She stood there transfixed, almost dumbfounded. Mandy sensed that something was VERY different now, that something had profoundly changed, although for the life of her she couldn't figure out just what.

From out of the darkness came a voice that seemed to drip both exasperation and sarcasm. "It's no use you know. You'll never get in!". Mandy quickly turned around. Emerging from the shadows was a strikingly large woman. She wasn't tall at all, in fact, she may have been an inch or two shorter than Mandy's five feet two inches. But she was immensely large. She may very well have been at least three times Mandy's weight and Mandy by now had become a very large woman in her own right.

"What do you mean?", Mandy gasped in surprise. "I know what you're here for and there's no way you're going to get into that little passage!", replied the woman. At that point the woman firmly grasped Mandy's hand and lead her to the large bay window that looked out onto the quadrangle in front of Haynesworth Hall. She switched on a small lamp that stood on the librarian's desk. It provided just enough light for Mandy to be able to see her reflection in the glass. "See what I mean!", the woman stated in a VERY insistent tone.

Mandy looked frightened and confused. She didn't know what this rude, corpulent woman was talking about, but she DID know that she was going to see Auntie Melba that night come hell or high water.

The woman realized it was going to take some more convincing to bring Mandy back to reality. "Okay, little girl, tell me, how much do you weigh?" Mandy instantly snapped back, "Ninety-two pounds, I weighed myself only this morning!".
"Is that so?", answered the corpulent woman. "Well why do you look at your reflection in that glass one more time and then tell me what you THINK you weigh!"

Tentatively Mandy looked at herself up and down. Once. Twice. Three, Four, Five times. Each time she saw the image of herself as she looked the year before. Then, for some strange reason, the fat lady slapped Mandy on the butt and told her to look again. Mandy indignantly gazed back at her reflection, but THIS time what she saw was the little butterball she had become. For the first time Mandy got very, very scared. She realized that she was NOT going to crawl her way back to Auntie Melba's room, that she was NOT going to visit with Auntie Melba once again, and she suddenly realized just what that was going to mean to her.

She wanted to cry. She almost fainted. But then she heard the voice of the fat woman once again, only this time it was kind and sympathetic. She sat Mandy down on one of the big overstuffed chairs in the library and explained.

"I'm afraid, my dear, that when the clock strikes midnight you will be every bit as fat as me, maybe more so." Mandy looked into the woman's eyes and she could see tears forming, tears of real genuine sympathy. She also came to the realization that she had seen this woman before. "Why you're Mrs. Walner from the cafeteria, aren't you?" Mrs. Walner nodded her head. "But........"

Mandy was about to ask a bunch of questions, but Mrs. Walner touched her finger to Mandy's lips and said, "Let me explain. Twenty-five years ago, I was YOU. I was pretty, smart, and absolutely sure of myself. I'd heard the legend of the Curse of Haynesworth Hall for three years and I thought the whole thing was a crock. Back then I stood five feet tall and if I weighed more than eighty pounds it would have been a miracle, so it should have come as no surprise that I could get into that accursed passage and make my way to that damnable room. Like you I met Auntie Melba. And also like you, the effort of getting back to that room made me ravenous, so Auntie Melba fed ME a huge platter of chocolate brownies. I don't think I have to tell you the rest of the story. There IS some good news. The curse doesn't last forever. Twenty-five years from now you'll be standing right here where I am and you'll be comforting another girl who dared defy the Curse of Haynesworth Hall. And when the clock strikes midnight, all of the fat you've accumulated will transfer to her.".

It was at that very minute that the clock started to strike midnight. Halloween was about to end. At that point Mrs. Walner reached out her hands to Mandy and clasped them firmly on her chubby belly. Slowly but surely Mandy began to billow and swell. At the same time Mrs. Walner's immense belly began to diminish, her butt grew smaller and you could even see cheekbones on her undeniably pretty face. By the time the clock had struck twelve, the transformation was complete.

Mandy was now ponderously fat, so fat that her tremendous weight totally destroyed the chair she had been sitting in. That's what happens when you weigh six hundred and fifty-nine pounds. The curse was now complete. Mandy had acquired an additional four hundred and seventy-five pounds and Mrs. Walner was a lithe and sylphlike one hundred pounds.

Mrs. Walner was about to leave the library of Haynesworth Hall for the very last time when she turned to Mandy and said, "Let me give you some advice. Don't be bitter. There are worse things in this world than being fat. For one thing, now you can eat as much as you want without worrying about losing your slim, trim figure. And if you need a job for the next twenty-five years, I believe there's a vacancy at the cafeteria!"

Mandy smiled wanly and waddled off to face the world as blob of unwieldy flesh. Who knows what the next twenty-five years will bring? All Mandy knew for the moment was that she'd be counting the days until Halloween 2016!