Hannah had learned, in her time spent as Ms. Polluck’s T.A., that it paid handsomely to arrive early. So she often did. She was the only girl on campus capable of making it from the West Wing to the Grand Hall without being stopped by an R.A. and given a demerit—it probably helped that she was much faster than the lot of them, owing to her svelte shape.
Every morning Hannah usually managed to arrive before Ms. Polluck, who tended to spend the first period of each day making her rounds in the hallways and the cafeteria, had a chance to make it back to her office. There was a good ten minutes before and after each class, but Ms. Polluck usually took an extra five minutes to arrive. To save on time, Hannah never took the elevator up to the fifth floor, where the office was, and usually just took two steps at a time up the large staircase so that she could get a head-start on her pre-Polluck routine.
Ms. Polluck was a very busy woman, so Hannah liked to have things ready for her upon her arrival. One cup of medium-roast coffee with two sugars and a little dispenser of whipping crème, plus two appetite stimulants from the bottles that Hannah ordered off the internet every month or so, and a carafe dosed modestly with weight-gain powder and two more appetite stimulants in case she wanted more coffee. A pale yellow box of donuts (six jelly-filled, six crème) delivered from the in-school bakery opened and ready on her desk, once a Friday-only sort of treat that Hannah had steadily increased in frequency with little white lies to Ms. Flatterly until it was now a necessary part of Ms. Polluck’s daily morning routine, as well as more than a few napkins so as to keep the glaze off of the many files Ms. Polluck handled throughout the morning. Her chair, a new one Hannah noticed (as it lacked the worn leather and seemed significantly wider and more posh) was already pulled out and ready for Ms. Polluck to plop down in. Her breakfast was already on-call to the same people who delivered the room service—two omelets with extra cheese, bacon, sausage, ham and egg, two pieces of toast with extra butter, a side of extra-thick bacon (five pieces) and a thick juicy sausage—and would probably arrive about ten minutes and four donuts into the morning, where Ms. Polluck would either forget about her pesky papers and enjoy her hearty meal or, less likely, attempt to stuff herself while doing her job as Headmistress.
As she poured the coffee, Hannah’s thoughts drifted idly to her new roommate; alternating between a proposed hypothetical morning routine that she might be able to work out for Mel and hypothesizing just how big Mel would get if she just left her alone. Certainly not big enough, Hannah thought as she plopped the dissolving pills into the little white mug. She pictured Mel at a heavier size, wedged into their dorm room doorway while Hannah hand-fed her slices of cheesecake as the walls splintered against the onslaught of her imaginary immensity.
“Ouch!” Hannah winced as the hot brown liquid poured over the rim of the cup and onto her hand, burning her slightly. She hadn’t been paying attention and had overshot her pouring
A soft ‘ding!’ and heavy footsteps announced the immediate arrival of her headmistress, the hardwood floor just outside the office creaking with Ms. Polluck’s telltale footfalls.
“Shit. Shit. Shitshit.” Hannah whispered as she poured some coffee back into the carafe and wiped up the spill, plopping a third appetite stimulant in the mug for good measure, “Shitshitshitshit shiiit…”
Hannah hurried over to the small desk on the other side of the office as Ms. Polluck’s footsteps grew closer and louder, Hannah was able to feel the pressure in the wood as she scampered. The little golden handle on the office door began to wiggle just as Hannah threw herself into the rolling office chair (that may have been Ms. Polluck’s from last year) and resumed “working”.
The door flew open and revealed...
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