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I reached the safety of my bedroom. There I made sure the door was locked, and even slid the chair underneath the knob for good measure. Stuck to the bottom of my shoe was the note June had slid under my door before leaving. I opened it now.
    Evelyn…the box in the living room is full of old clothes I don’t want anymore. Drop them at the student goodwill for me would ya? -Luv June
    Of course even on the tail of her whispered thanks to me, she was asking for yet another favor.
    “Bitch…” I muttered to myself, balling up the note and aiming for the pink plastic trash can in the corner.
    I missed. A shrug of my shoulders and I shed the nightdress, stepping from it so that I once again stood completely naked. I wanted to at least know where I was starting. Now would also be a good time to start that journal I’d been planning on keeping; it would help me keep track of my weight.
    “One ten…” I whispered in disbelief as the numbers on the scale stop ped moving upwards.
    I’m one hundred and ten pounds now?! Denial shot through me and I stepped off the scale, feeling my new body with tentative fingers, convinced that it would all blow up –literally-. I stepped back on and once again the tiny red numbers ticked up from zero to one hundred and ten.
    Holy Shit!
    I suddenly wanted to be free of this room. I wanted to see if the wind felt different as a skinny person. I wanted to see how fast I could jog across campus. I wanted to see what George would say wh en I walked into the nursing home for my evening visit.
    Thank you June! I crowed inwardly as I raced from my room to retrieve the box of June’s old clothes.
    She’d left more than just a handful. The box was too heavy for me to lift. It would have taken several trips of hauling separate bags down to the student goodwill to get rid of it all. Bitch!
    I stepped on the scale again as I picked up the first piece of material that caught my eye. A little sequined black dress hung from my fingers, my eyes following the intricate detail down to the red numbers ticking upward.
    “One hundred and…eleven!?” I practically squeaked, jumping from the cool white metal square as if it had burned me.
    One pound!? How had I gain ed one pound in the last two minutes?! My body flushed cold and then hot as I remembered the witch’s word s.
    “It’s when you let your dark side out that you begin to lose your precious gift…”
    Ok, so I’d called June a bitch…so what…? Was cursing part of my dark side…? Perhaps the thought of her being a bitch… But she was…!
    “Ok…I sighed…that’s one I need to write down.”
    I discarded the dress on my bed, firing up my lap top before I forgot. With a words program opened, I saved a blank document as ‘Skinny Rules & Bad Deeds’. With two columns separated out I typed in labels at the top: Skinny Rules and then Bad Deeds once again . There. If my weight changed, I would put in my new weight right beside the bad deed that I’d done, that way I could make sure not to do it again. I wanted to smack myself as I typed slowly in the first column: no cursing, or thinking about cursing someone out . In the far right column I type d : Calling June a Bitch-111 Pounds.
    I could deal with one hundred and eleven pounds. I was bound to gain a few over the years. But I wasn’t a bad person…far from it. I made a mental note to find out the witch’s name. In all my haste and confusion, I hadn’t even asked. I didn’t want to call her the witch anymore. It just seemed wrong now.
    I smiled to myself as I twirled gracefully from my sitting position on the bed. I would definitely need to go shopping for underwear, bras, and shoes, but June had left enough clothing that I could get through the s ummer before having to buy clothing that actually fit me.
    Out of the box, I pulled free a pair of dark blue skinny jea ns and a tiny white tank top that had the words: Save A Virgin. Do Me Instead!, p rinted in bold re d lettering across the