“Won’t you sit next to me?”
Alice was reminded of many a time during childhood where her mother had used the same sickeningly sweet voice to disguise the bubbling venom beneath her words. As Alice had grown older and receded further into her mother’s shadow, conveniently at the same time that her sister had outgrown said shadow and went out of her way to perturb her, the scalding lectures and consistently painful jabs had lessened somewhat; but the painful twinge of their memory lingered only a scratch beneath Alice’s subconscious. Beads of sweat began to bud against Alice’s forehead and underneath her arms, her entire body going numb and tingly as she slowly walked over to the seat next to her headmistress.
Ms. Polluck and her mother didn’t look dissimilar. They were both short-ish women with fair skin and blonde hair, and they looked familiar enough to trigger an unfounded fear within Alice as early as orientation. The two women managed to instill an unmatched fear in the (admittedly) timid Alice, who sat her widening buns next to the healthy heart-shaped hips of Ms. Polluck.
“That’s a dear.” Ms. Polluck smiled, “Always so polite.”
“Y-Yes ma’am.” Alice nodded quickly, “I-Is there… um… something I can do for you?”
Ms. Polluck’s smile grew less practiced, and more pronounced. A slight change of expression noticed only due to Alice’s terror-heightened state of mind. It made her uneasy, to see that pleased expression.
“Well… honestly, if you want the truth…” Ms. Polluck broke her stance and crossed her meaty legs, propping a thick arm up on the rest of the couch as she turned slowly to face Alice, “Unless you can let out a skirt or two from my wardrobe, there’s not much you can do for me right now, Miss Carlyle.”
“O-Oh.” Alice smile cracked slightly, “Um…”
“You see, it’s an awfully stressful job, being the headmistress and all.” Ms. Polluck let one of her arms fall slack over the curvature of her belly, patting the side of her full stomach with one hand, “I’m afraid I’ve been letting my stress get the better of me lately, as you can probably see. One too many of Ms. Flatterly’s triple chocolate chunk brownies.”
Alice giggled nervously.
“You laugh, but you’ll understand one day, Miss Carlyle.” Ms. Polluck said in a surly tone, “It’s not always so easy to keep your girlish figure when other responsibilities are in play. To work, school… well, those two being one in the same in my case.”
“W-Well… Missus Polluck, you… um… you look great!” Alice said with a feigned chipperness that nearly sent her whole façade into shambles, “I, uh… really… like… um….”
“You’re too kind.” Ms. Polluck humored Alice’s pathetic attempts at flattery, unperturbed by her shrinking stature or quiet voice (a welcome change from Mother, at least!), “But I was wondering if, maybe, you knew anyone who could make a few… alterations to my outfits, as it were?”
“I-I’m sorry?” Alice’s voice was flat and shaky, “I don’t really—“
“Oh, you see that’s so odd then because—“ there it was; the sudden shift in mood as MotherMs. Polluck began to narrow her sights, “—Samantha Wilsey was telling me, just earlier today actually, that you’ve done all sorts of alterations to her school uniform.”
The mousy blonde girl gulped, audibly breaking the heavy silence between the two women. If she had known altering her own (well, someone else’s) uniform was such a big deal, she never would have done it! Alice was just trying to help!
“And I thought to myself, nooo not Miss Carlyle; the sweet, polite, observant Miss Carlyle who worked so hard to get into Buttercombe on good merit and wouldn’t dare jeopardize her place in the Academy by doing something so foolish as destroying school property.” The heavyset headmistress laid it on thick as Alice squirmed beside her.
“D-Destruction of—“ Alice quivered, “I-I never destroyed anything!”
“Did you or did you not—“ here Ms. Polluck cleared her throat, and began speaking in a more direct tone of voice, “Cut up some old uniforms and Frankenstein Miss Wilsey up something that fits? End quote.”
“I-I…” Alice’s eyes began to water as she began to choke up in the face of accusation, “I-I didn’t know…”
“Well you should have. It’s on the first page of the student handbook, and I never thought that you of all people would be guilty of something so…so… needless!” the headmistress’ façade began to crack as she dropped her approach, her true emotions bleeding in, “Alice, dear, if Ms. Wilsey wanted to get her uniform tailored all she had to do was go to Ms. Lancer. Students, you are not authorized to do anything like that!”
“I-I know…” Alice whimpered, “It’s just… S-Sam thought…”
“It doesn’t matter what Miss Wilsey thought, you should have known better.” Ms. Polluck crossed her thick arms over her full breasts, “You’re going to have to learn not to let a bad apple ruin your chances of success, just because you want to make friends doesn’t give you the right to destroy the uniforms I order and pay for.”
“Y-Yes ma’am…” Alice sniffled, her lower lip quivering and shaking as she fought back the waterworks, “I understand…”
“Good.” Ms. Polluck capitalized on the word, widening her eyes slightly and arching her eyebrows as she looked at Alice, before letting her head fall morosely with a heavy sigh.
Alice was very much in tears now. Warm wet streams gushed from her eyes and rolled down her chubby cheeks as she sniffled and snorted. She tightened her lips as she attempted to stifle the pitiable noises she was making, but a deep whimper still caught Ms. Polluck’s attention. Her expression softened slightly as soon as she saw that Alice was bawling, though it still held a familiar matronly sternness to it.
“Oh Alice, come now… there’s no need for that.” She sighed, bringing a monogrammed handkerchief out of the pocket on her butter-yellow blazer, “You were just trying to help; I can understand that. But I can’t have you doing any more unauthorized alterations.”
Alice blew her nose into the fancy hankie, doing her best not to ruin it too much with snot and the like…
“Y-Yes ma’am…” she blubbered, “A-Are you going to tell m-my Mother?”
“No… there’s no need for that either.” Ms. Polluck took the handkerchief back gingerly and balled it up to be discarded later, “You’re a young woman now, capable of making your own decisions and facing the consequences of your actions.”
Alice breathed a quiet sigh of relief.
At least there was one bright side to all this...
“But I can’t let such a flagrant disregard for the rules go unpunished.” Ms. Polluck regained her firmness, “So, starting tomorrow…”
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