My Deepest Darkest Secret

When I went to milk the cows today, Jay Appleton was waiting outside my shed. "You're being selfish," he told me.

I ignored him and just started walking, but he followed, 'tho he had to jog to keep up with my long strides through the orchard. I was impressed that he was able to keep up, even if he was wheezing by the time we reached the stockade fence that separated Appleton Orchard from Mills Farm. "I can be as selfish as I want to be," I told him, as I stretched my legs over the fence.

Pa had built that fence all around our property to keep out prying eyes. I was sure Jay wouldn't be able to climb over too easily, cuz it was taller than his head and covered in wire and orange "NO TRESPASSING" signs. But Jay surprised me again. There was a small gap at the bottom of the fence that he was able to wiggle through!!!

"No, you can't," he said, catching up to me again. "You're not living alone anymore, Melly. You have to deal with other people."

"I'll deal with you if you keep pestering me!" I flexed my fingers in his face in case he didn't get the point. "Know what I could do with these hands if I wanted to?"

"Yeah, I know," he said, and the steel in his voice stopped me cold. What exactly did he know about me, and how long had he been using that gap under the fence?

I sat down hard on the grass. I was still taller than him, even while sitting on my butt, but we seemed more equal now. "What do you want, Jay?"

He took a deep breath and let it go before he spoke. "For whatever reason, my mother likes you. Maybe she feels sorry for you, or maybe she's always wanted a daughter, but she cares for you and all your moping around is driving her nuts. So what I want is for you to do whatever it takes to cheer her up."

"She wants to paint my nails," I admitted.

"So let her."

"And she wants to paint the inside of my shed with a pretty shade of pink."

Jay winced. "Better you than me."

I nodded. "Jay?"

"Yes, Melly?"

"Can we be friends yet?"

"No, Melly. Not ever."

"Well, why not?"

"Because I know what you can do with your bare hands." He made a squishing-twisting motion and made it obvious that somehow he knew my deepest darkest secret!!! I'll have to be very careful around Jay from now on.

Alone

Mrs. Appleton came by this morning. She said I'd feel better if I let her give me a makeover. She actually brought nail polish and a paint brush. I told her to go away, and she did.

Dr. Crisp came by later on. He said we could skip my lessons and play basketball, if I wanted. I said for him to go away as well.

Then Mr. Appleton came by with a platter of food. I told him I wasn't hungry. Why did I say that? I'm hungry all the time, even with this new diet!!! But he believed me and he went away. I should have asked him to leave the food.

Tiny Town Dreams

I didn't get much sleep last night. Every time I closed my eyes, all I could see were police lights and camera flashes. When I finally drifted off, I dreamed I was back in Tiny Town and it was tinier than ever. The people only came up to my ankles instead of my knees, and there were tanks the size of my fist. They were firing missiles at me that stung like wasps when they hit. It was like my very own Japanese monster movie!!!

In the dream, I wasn't alone. Miss Freckles stood on my left side. She was as tall as me and full of taunts and jeers, just like in my shadowy memories. "See how they hate you? It's because you're such an unnatural freak! Why don't you do them a favor and just curl up and die?"

"Don't listen to her, my queen," said a voice from my other side. It was the handsome Dream Boy from my other dream. He was also as tall as me, or actually taller. It was so strange to have all three of us standing together in the town square, with so many teeny-tiny people running all around us.

"You're as much of a freak as she is," Miss Freckles said to Dream Boy. He bowed toward her, bending respectfully at the waist. A bunch of jets flew past our heads, dropping bombs that covered the area with smoke. My eyes stung, but they didn't hurt at all. When the smoke cleared, the three of us were still standing as tall as ever.

"You're not real," I told the other two giants. Dream Boy chuckled while Miss Freckles rolled her eyes. "You're just part of a bad dream," I insisted.

"You're real." Miss Freckles stomped her foot next to the movie theater, making it crumble into steel beams and brick dust. "And the town is real. Do you really think these fine folks will allow a clumsy monster like you to stomp through their streets every day to the high school and back?"

Dream Boy pulled the flagpole from an office building and pointed it at me as he spoke. "How long will you continue to live as a peasant among the tiny ones when you can be Queen of the Tall Ones?"

"These people are too good for you," said Miss Freckles.

"You are too good for these people," said Dream Boy.

I woke up in a cold sweat.

I Hate This Tiny Town!

I'm back home in the quiet empty shed that I've never appreciated so much until now, and I'm not going out again for the rest of the week!!! Except to milk the cows, I guess, but I don't even want to be around them right now.

My second-ever trip into town was even more of a disaster than the first time. This time the police cars, helicopters, and flashing lights started on Bypass Road and didn't let up for a moment!!! They'd set up barricades all along my route to let me know where to step, and to keep back crowds of gawking little people and their flashing cameras!!!

I had to walk in the street cuz the sidewalks are so narrow, and cuz the awnings and tree branches are so low. That was real embarrassing and there were lots of stopped cars honking at me like I was the one who planned for them all to be late to wherever they were driving. And I had to go reeeeeeeal slow, even tho' I was aching to get the trip over with, cuz Mrs. Appleton walks like a snail. After each step I'd have to wait for her to catch up!!!

The shopping part was easy enough. I stood outside each store entrance surrounded by police and townies while Mrs. Appleton went in to find a clerk. He'd come out and strain his neck to look up at me. After a few minutes, Mrs. Appleton would ask if he had any clothes that might fit me. And in three different stores, three different clerks said exactly the same thing: "Let me go check in the back room!"

No, of course they didn't have anything in Size Two-Zillion, or whatever it is I wear. We knew that before we started, and Mrs. Johansson will just have to deal with paying for something to be made special for me. If she wasn't such a stubborn witch, she'd have agreed to that from the start and I'd never had to go back into town at all!!!

The only good part was when somebody threw a basketball at me from the court in the playground as we passed by. I caught it with one hand.

"Hey, Goliath! Let's see what you've got!" called one of the players on the court.

So I lined up my shot and banked in a seventy-footer. Bam!!! That shut the townies up for a few minutes!!!

Food for a Growing Girl

Thanks so much to everyone who left comments about my ruined farm and empty belly!!! It's good to know people are worried for me--and so were Dr. Crisp and the Appletons when I talked to them. Mrs. Johanssen wasn't, 'tho. Her charts say a girl my age should be getting between 1,500 and 2,000 calories per day, and she thinks I'm certainly eating more than that. "With your size, I'm worried that you eat too much rather than too little," she said. Then she recommended I switch to fat-free milk and add a multivitamin for my RDA's.

Lucky for me, Dr. Crisp is my doctor and not Mrs. Johanssen!!! Doc measured me today and I've lost almost 75 pounds since last month, 'tho I still weigh almost two tons so I'm not exactly wasting away. But get this--I'm up to 17 feet 11 inches even, half an inch taller than before!!! So I do have some growing left in me, in case you were wondering.

Doc came up with a diet plan to give me what I need without making Mr. Appleton grumble too much about the cost. I should be fine now, 'tho I can't say the same about the farm. It's too late now for planting anything, and Mr. Appleton draws the line at feeding two dozen head of cattle. In fact he said I could solve both of my problems by adding more beef to my diet--as if I'd ever eat any of my cows after raising them from calves!!!

I'm not worried about where my next meal is coming from anymore. Now all I have to worry about is my big clothes-shopping trip into town. It's tomorrow, so wish me luck!!!

I Think It Started with a G...

I haven't seen many movies in my life, but there was a good one on TV this weekend. It was about a gigantic lizard-man who walks out of the ocean and stomps over an entire city. The army hit the lizard with the most powerful missiles they had, and that only made the monster mad.

This thing was sooooo big, it even made me feel small and that was really nice for a change. I would love to be in a city where a giant lizard was attacking cuz I wouldn't be the tallest one anymore. "See everybody? That guy is enormous and I'm almost normal, just like all of you!!!"

I missed the credits so I'm not sure what the movie was called but the monster had some weird Japanese name and I think it started with a G... I want to watch it again if I can find it!!!