That was all well and good, Megan thought. But on what pretext could she ever gain access to a student's dorm? What was she supposed to do, show up and claim she was checking for booze, or dress like one of them and hope to be invited to a party? That would be weird. If Henrietta wasn't crazy, Megan had good reason to avoid seeming suspicious. If Henrietta was, then looking at the students' walls--whatever that meant--would be pointless anyway.
It was getting dark out, and while she could still hear the students beyond her cabin window--squealing, gossiping, playing guitar--their fat forms stretching out last year's sweaters (it was late September) were becoming invisible in the twilight. Was it worth it to go outside and look--to try to blend with the shadows, to hope she wouldn't be recognized and steal a peek into one of the dorm rooms? The girls typically made a lot of noise when they moved--but she could be quiet. She'd never been particularly graceful, but compared to the average Buttercombe student, she was Catwoman.
She began to sketch herself dressed in a black bodysuit and cap she didn't have, jumping and sliding across walls. It was absurd. She relinquished the fantasy, washed her brushes, brushed her teeth, and climbed into her massive bed--"Empress Size," Miss Polluck had called it--and big enough to fit five of her. She slept.
In her dream, she was running in the dark, in the rain, away from something. She kept on stumbling over roots and stones, and each time she fell a little harder, was hurt a little more. For a while, she wondered why this was, and then she looked down at her body. At once, it was no longer she who was running, but the girl from her class that day who had reminded her of herself. She was getting fatter as she ran, and she was terrified and beginning to feel breathless. Once more, she tripped on a root, then began to get up, only to stop in terror. There, before her, was the very thing she had been trying to escape: the buildings of Buttercombe, which melted like candy in the rain. The blonde, huge by now, turned around and fled again in the direction she'd come. She felt something catch her by the ankle. She screamed, falling, the earth crumbled under her weight, but her mouth filled with dirt. It tasted like chocolate cake; she tried to spit it out but there was no air. Falling, falling, falling.
"Knock-knock-knock!"
"Gingerbread!" Megan muttered into her pillow, then sat up, breathing the cool air of the cottage. What a dream. Ugh.
"Knock-knock-knock!"
It occurred to Megan that the knocking was NOT a residual part of her nightmare. She wrapped a bathrobe tightly around her frame. "Hold on!" she called.
It was Sadie, the sister of one of her freshman pupils. She looked as scared as Megan had just felt.
"What's wrong?"
"Miss Porter, sorry to bother you, Miss Porter, BUT your cabin is the closest to campus. There is a BAT in our dorm." The pretty brunette's eyes looked like they belonged in a silent film. Her body, of course, did not.
"All right," said Megan. "Looks like I'm pest control tonight. Just let me get dressed, and then lead on." This is all rather convenient, she thought. Though she would have preferred some other pretext to get into a students' dorm, this was good enough.
Even without Sadie, Megan could have easily found the affected dorm. One thing she had quickly remembered about seventeen- and eighteen-year-old girls, since taking this job, was the relish many of them took in screaming and laughing. About five girls were outside of the dorm, doing exactly that, as a legitimately frightened bat, inside, occasionally hit the inside of their window. The girls hailed Ms. Porter as a hero, and eventually every window was opened and the bat swept out of the dorm's rooms. At the end of it all, Megan received several grateful, pillowy hugs from overexcited young women, and left for her cottage again.
And as she walked back, she thought about what she'd seen on the wall of the dorm. There were small paintings--one for each of the girls who lived there. And Sadie--in the portrait--LOOKED like a silent film star, with a willowy, but still womanly, build. The other girls, similarly, were all tiny--or at least, trim. She had asked them about the portraits, off-handedly, after the drama with the bat, and they'd said that every first-year was required to get one.
"So someone paints you freshman year?"
"A guy paints all the teachers and students the first year they arrive," asserted Sadie, earnestly wide-eyed, chins bobbing. "It's a tradition."
"You're sure he paints these?" Something looked wrong about them.
"Yes, Miss Porter, he does. It takes him a long time, though, so after he does sketches, and references, you go home. He didn't finish mine until the END of first year."
"That's quite a long turnaround time."
"Yes. I'm sure you'll get your portrait painted, too."
Megan closed the door of her cabin and tried to forget the running dream as she drifted off again. Suddenly she sat up. "No brushstrokes!" she almost shouted. But it was true. The paintings of Sadie, of Charlotte, of Sarah and Regina, had had no brushstrokes. She wasn't sure if that was what Henrietta had wanted her to see, and she couldn't understand what it had to do with the girls' gaining weight. But it was weird. She lay back down, resolving to ask Ms. Polluck why she had not yet been sent for her portrait, and to find and talk to this "artist" herself. She sank back in bed, and found her sleep to be mercifully dreamless.
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