Chapter 2 - the shack

"Anyway," said Justin, "we're gonna have to get some more now. Someone has to do a food trip."

"Who?"

Justin snorted. "Fark... not me. You?"

Noah thought about it, smirked. "Nah. can't be assed."

"Hahaha, exactly." Justin chewed the inside of his cheek. "Let's call a little meeting, I reckon."

Noah shrugged. "Alright then."

"You go round everyone up that's here. I'll go get Danny and Emma and Sophie and whoever else went with them."

"Where'd they go?"

"Exploring outside."

"Uh-huh."

Justin left the kitchen and went down the stairs and Noah listened to the rattle-click of the flyscreen door below.

Then he went throughout the shack and rounded up whoever he found. "Come out to the kitchen," he told them. "Justin wants to have a meeting about food."

Last he came to Mia, and he stopped himself behind the sliding door. Just to look at her and admire her without her knowing. Then he stopped feeling like a creeper, slid the door open and leaned out.

She turned at the sudden sound, looked up at him with strong daring eyes, and that firm rear jaw.

Noah cleared his throat, smiled. "Hey. When you hear everyone crowding around the kitchen, come join us. We have to have a meeting thing. Something about food."

Mia's heard thudded to a stop. Lurched into gear again. "Oh." Mia going cold with guilt, sat up a bit straighter and tilted her head, tried to act innocent. "What for?"

"The food's already gone," he said, "we need to figure out who's getting more, so Justin wants to have a meeting." Then he turned and went back inside and Mia was heavy-hit with guilt dropping like a cold ball of lead inside her.

She was the one who'd eaten all the food. Or most of it. There, in the previously stocked-up cupboards, had been more food than she'd ever had available in her whole young adult life, and she'd taken her chance to finally push past her capacity. So when no one was in the kitchen, she had done trips last night, sneaking food into the folds of her dark blue hoodie and then stashing it under her bed sheets to consume bits of it whenever she had the chance to do so. By the time she settled down in bed the first night, she was already well past full, bordering on discomfort -- and she hadn't even properly begun on what was under those sheets. She squared herself to the task and devoured all those goods that one night. Her stomach had never been so abused. There was a point where she had nearly called an ambulance because it was so painful. for a moment it had been as if she'd ruptured something in her insides. Internal bleeding or something. But she braced through the half-hour of near agony, scrunching her face against every wave of pain.

So, having over estimated how much she could actually eat in one hit, she had ended up clearing out their food supply meant for the first week. The first week!

And she still hadn't put on a milligram of weight.

With her memory playback ended, she looked up at the landscape again, reclined into the sunchair and cringed at herself.

----------------------

CHAP TER TWO

Emma was the last to cram herself into the kitchen. Everyone looked to Justin and Noah. Justin spoke. He added a nice little laugh to lighten the situation. "So... Someone or some people have eaten all our food. I mean, I know there's thirteen of us, but far out it can't have just gone that quick."

"True," Sophie said.

Everyone looked around at each other. There were a few exchanged words.

Daniel said, "Now it's who-stole-the-cookie-from-the-cookie-jar? Who dunnit?"

"Suppose it is," said Justin.

Daniel grinned and looked around at everyone, eyes comically suspicious, peering into everyone's dramatic soul. "So... who d-d-d-did it?"

Mia swallowed and clenched her jaw.

Daniel's eyes passed over Charlotte and she stuck her hands up. "It wasn't me!"

"Aaaaand she's on the defensive!"

"Not me either," Joseph said, eyes darting shiftily. "Could be you," he suggested, raising an eyebrow at Justin, who smirked and said, "Yea, sure thing, dood."

Joseph looked at Sophie. "Could have been you. You're awfully... quiet."

Sophie frowned at him. "What? No, what about you? Or Luke? Or Mia?"

"Hah, Luke? Nah. Mia? No way, she's never been fat in her life and she never would be even if she did eat all that."

Mia, in that moment, became a contradictory, uncomfortable mixture of emotions. Embarrassment, for being accused. Shame, for being the *actual* culprit and not speaking up. Relief, since no one thought it conceivable that it could be her. Then the deep hidden disappointment that she would never gain any weight, long-simmering sexual frustration. Would there ever be a way out? A way to expand?

Joseph continued, "Sort of jealous to be honest. Even if you did eat, like, I dunno, ten times your amount, you'd never even gain weight. Damn you and your genetics."

Luke laughed. "Now who said anyone was fat or gettin' fat? This is just about over consumption. Let's just agree to go get some more."

"Well, uh... who's gonna do it?"

Noah spoke up. "That's sort of what we're here for, so..."

"Yep," from Justin. "So who wants to do it?"

No one spoke for a time.

"I'll go."

Everyone looked to Mia.

It was she who had eaten over her amount. So, in a desperate effort to compensate for her guilt and get rid of at least one of those messy emotions, she decided she owed them all as much, even if she wouldn't tell them.

"Really? You'll go?" Justin asked.

Mia nodded. "What's the big deal?"

"...It's like, a half hour drive or more to the nearest town..."

Mia shrugged. "I can do it." And she would do it. It was only fair.

Justin simply nodded. "Okay."

And that was it.

-------------------------

CHAPTE R THREE

Mia went on the grocery trip later that day. Noah agreed to let her use his car even though it wasn't insured for her to drive, which she thought was a nice gesture from him. And he'd insisted.

He'd insisted with those calm endearing eyes. With his simple shapely smile.

Everyone wrote a list of items requested, then pitched in their share of cash. Then she'd gone for the thirty minute drive in an unfamiliar car down dirt roads and empty highways to the active highway and then into the nearest town.

The town was called Maksonplain -- a rather busy place for a rural area. It was a true, solid little urban city of its own, and Mia had a pleasant enough time driving down its streets listening to the local radio.

It took hours to check every item off the list in the town's main supermarket, and even when she was finally pushing the cart to the checkout, a few bakery items were still missing. The supermarket didn't have them. So she asked the checkout woman where she could get those last bakery items, to which the woman told her of a notorious little private bakery down the road known for having an excess of every bake able product imaginable.

So Mia paid for the groceries, trundled them out in a rickety trolley and piled them into the boot and the back seats. She pushed the trolley to the rack and got in the car and cruised around to the bakery the checkout woman had told her about.

It was a cute little thing, crammed between two other giant buildings along the main business street. She found a park but the curb, swung in, got out and walked over to that bakery. The neon sign above the door said "Breads, Rolls n' More".

'Rolls', she thought, standing there underneath the sign. 'I want those'. Her hand brushed over her pathetic, lifeless stomach. She walked up to the glass door, pushed on it and walked in. A bell chime dingle-dangled. She looked around.

On either side of her ran racks and racks of food made with bread and decorated with everything in the world that falls under the word "unhealthy". A few small tables sat here and there, waiting for people to sit on them so that could finally be what they were made for. Straight ahead was the counter, unassuming and like any other, serving as a glass display case of all the bakery's best looking delicacies. She went up to it and placed her elbows on the glass, gazing down and surveying all the fattening foods arrayed in perfectly attended rows and columns that make the mouth water.