Say Cheese - and Die Screaming! (8 page)

Shari greeted me at her front door. I could see the shock in her eyes when
she saw how huge I had become.

I was shocked, too. I cried out in surprise. She was starting to look like a
stick figure!

As she led the way to her room, she kept tripping over the cuffs of her
jeans, which sagged down over her feet. She had tied a knot in the belt around her tiny waist, an attempt to keep the jeans from falling off.

“If I get any smaller, I’ll have to wear doll clothes!” she wailed.

“Did your parents take you to a doctor?” I asked, huffing and puffing as I
tried to drag my weight after her.

“Of course,” she replied in her tiny, weak voice. “The doctor said to make me
drink milk shakes five times a day!”

“I wish
my
doctor said that.” I sighed.

I lowered myself carefully onto her bed. I didn’t want the bed to collapse
under me. But as soon as I sat down, I heard a crunching sound. The sound of
wood splintering.

And the bed crashed loudly to the floor.

“Don’t worry about it,” Shari said softly. “I don’t have the strength to
climb up to bed, anyway.”

“If I get any bigger,” I moaned, “I won’t be able to get out of the house. I
really won’t fit through the door.”

She folded her hands in front of her. Her fingers were so skinny, they looked
like bird claws. With her black hair hanging down from her tiny, round head, and
her straight pole of a body, she looked more like a mop than a person!

“What are we going to do?” she wailed.

I patted the camera with a fat, spongy hand. “I brought this,” I said. “I
thought maybe—”

“What good will that stupid camera do?” Shari cried. “I wish I’d never seen
it! Never! Never!”

“I have an idea,” I told her. I flicked a fly off one of my chins.

She hugged herself, wrapping her skinny arms around her toothpick body. “What
kind of an idea?”

“Let’s take new pictures of ourselves,” I said. “Maybe the new pictures will
show us looking normal. Maybe the new pictures will change us back to the way we
were before.”

She raised her eyes to mine. I could see her thinking about it, thinking
hard. “It’s kind of risky—isn’t it?” she said finally.

“Do you have a better idea?” I asked.

She thought hard again. Then she lowered her eyes to the camera. “Okay,” she
agreed. “Let’s do it.”

I struggled to climb to my feet. But my arms and legs were barely strong
enough to push up my huge body.

Before I could move, Shari flew across the room. She grabbed the camera from
my lap.

“Oh!” she cried out as she nearly dropped it. “It feels so heavy!”

“That’s because you’re so light,” I told her. I tried again to lift my bulk
off the bed. And failed again.

“Sit still,” Shari ordered. “I’ll take your picture first.”

“Okay,” I agreed. “I hope the new photo shows me skinny.” I tried to cross my
fingers. But they were too fat to cross!

“Say cheese,” Shari said, aiming the camera at me.

“Don’t be funny,” I snapped. “Just take the picture.”

She stared through the viewfinder. Raised her finger over the shutter button.

Then she lowered the camera with a sigh. “It—it’s too dangerous,” she
stammered.

“Shari—take my picture!” I insisted. “Look at us! We couldn’t be any worse
off—could we?”

She nodded in agreement. Then, with a sigh, she raised the camera to her eye
again. It felt so heavy in her skinny arms, she had to hold it up with both
hands.

“Here goes,” she said softly. “I hope it shows you normal again, Greg.”

She snapped the picture. The flash made me blink.

A second later, the white square slid out from the front of the camera. She
carried it over to the bed and dropped lightly down beside me.

“Let’s see it!” I cried, eagerly grabbing for it.

“Careful!” Shari warned. “If you fall over, you’ll crush me!”

I gasped. She was right. Sitting next to me could be extremely dangerous.

“Maybe you’d better stand up,” I suggested.

She climbed to her feet, swaying because she wasn’t used to being so light.
“It’s starting to develop,” she announced.

She held the snapshot in front of me so we could both watch it. The yellow
filled in first. I squinted to see if I could make out my face.

Was it fat in the photo? Or back to normal?

The yellow was too pale. I couldn’t see my face at all.

Shari and I both were frozen there, staring at the small square. Not moving a
muscle. Not blinking. Watching it darken.

And suddenly, I could see myself.

My huge blobby face. My round, balloon body.

Still enormous. Still enormously fat.

“Noooooooo!” I let out a long cry of horror. “Noooooooo! I want to be changed
back!”

Shari was shaking her tiny head sadly, still staring at the darkening photo.
“What’s that on your face?” she cried. “Yuck!”

I grabbed the snapshot from her and held it close. “Oh, no!” I groaned. “My
skin—it’s all scaly. I look like an alligator or something!”

Shari grabbed back the photo and studied it. “The scaly stuff is on your
arms, too,” she said. “It looks like reptile skin or something.”

And as she said that, I started to itch.

I glanced down and saw red scales covering my arms. Itchy red patches. I
started to scratch. But the scratching made the scales itch even more.

My skin flaked off under my fingernails.

“Oh, yuck!” I moaned. “It itches so bad!”

I scratched my arms. Then I scratched my face. More dry skin peeled off as I
scratched. Chunks of skin.

Shari took a step back. She let the new photo fall to the carpet. “Oh, this is so horrible!” she declared. “You’re still
huge—and now all your skin is cracking off!”

“Ohh! My back itches so bad!” I wailed. “But I can’t reach it.”

“I’m not going to scratch it for you!” Shari declared. “It—it’s too gross!”

I pulled a chunk of scaly, red skin off the back of my hand. “Do you want me
to take a new picture of you?” I asked Shari. “Maybe you’ll have better luck.”

“No! No way!” she cried. She took another few steps back. “No new picture. It
will only make things worse.”

Her face twisted in disgust. She swallowed hard. “I’m sorry, Greg,” she
choked out. “But you look so gross, I think I’m going to be sick.”

I tried to scratch the back of my neck. But my arms were too fat. I couldn’t
reach back there.

I rubbed my forehead. A big chunk of skin dropped off and bounced on the
carpet.

“Let’s just rip up the photos!” Shari declared.

“Huh?” I gaped at her.

She bent to pick up the scaly new picture of me. “Let’s rip them all up,” she
urged. “I’ll bet as soon as we rip them up, our bodies will return to normal.”

I stopped my frantic scratching for a moment. “Do you think so? Do you think
that’s all we have to do?”

“Maybe,” Shari replied. “It’s worth a try—don’t you think?”

I pulled the first two photos from my pocket. The negative of Shari and the
first fat photo of me.

“I’ll rip these two up,” I said. “You tear that one. We’ll see what happens.”

We both held the photos up. I started to tear mine—then stopped.

“Maybe if we rip them up, we’ll
disappear
completely!” I exclaimed.

Shari and I stared at each other. Our hands stayed in the air, ready to tear
the snapshots to pieces.

Should we do it?

“No!” Shari cried. “Don’t do it!”

We both lowered the snapshots.

“You’re right,” I said. My whole body was shaking. “It’s too dangerous.”

“If we tear the photos to pieces, we might be torn to pieces, too,” Shari
said. “Or we might disappear completely and never come back.”

I shuddered. “Let’s not talk about what
might
happen to us,” I
moaned. “Look at us. What could be worse?”

“A lot of things,” Shari sighed. “We’ll think of something to save ourselves,
Greg. We just have to think positive.”

I stared at her. “What did you say?”

“I said, think positive,” she repeated.

Think positive.

“Shari—you just gave me a really good idea!”

I cried.

* * *

We carried the snapshots to Kramer’s, the photo store where my brother works.

It wasn’t easy to walk there. I had to stop to catch my breath every few
steps. And I had to scratch my scaly, peeling skin. And I had to hold on to
Shari to keep the wind from blowing her away.

The walk was only about eight blocks. But it took us more than an hour.

When we finally stepped inside the store, my heart sank to my knees. I didn’t
see Terry.

“He’s in the developing lab,” Mr. Kramer told me. He kept staring at Shari
and me. I guess we looked pretty weird. A stick figure and an elephant.

I pulled Shari to the lab in the back of the store and knocked on the door.
You can’t just open the door and walk into the developing lab. If you let in the
light, you destroy the film in there.

We waited about five minutes. Then Terry came out. At first, he didn’t
recognize me. I think he forgot that I had put on four hundred pounds in the
past few days.

“Yuck. What happened to your skin, Greg?” he demanded, making a disgusted
face. “Have you got a rash or something?”

“I don’t know,” I replied glumly. “Can you do me a favor, Terry?”

He shrugged. “What’s the favor?”

I held up the first two snapshots. The negative of Shari, and the positive of me weighing a ton. “Can you reverse these for
us?” I asked.

He squinted at the two squares for a long while. “I don’t get you,” he said
finally.

I sighed. “Can you take the negative and make a positive of it? And can you
take the positive and make a negative?”

Shari let out a sharp cry. She realized what my plan was.

Maybe if we reversed the pictures, it would reverse our bodies.

Terry would make a positive of Shari’s negative, and she’d grow back to her
normal size. Then he’d make a negative of my picture, and I’d shrink the way
Shari had.

It seemed to make sense. Was it worth a try?

Definitely.

Terry took the two snapshots. He studied them closely. He scratched his head.
“I guess I could do it,” he said. “But I’m really busy in there. When do you
need it?”

“NOW!” Shari and I both cried.

Terry stared at us, then down at the two photos.

I scratched the back of my neck. My arms were so fat, I could barely lift
them that high. In a few hours, I knew, I’d be too heavy to walk. Someone would
have to wheel me around in a wheelbarrow. No—make that
two
wheelbarrows!

“Please!” I begged.

“I just don’t have time,” Terry said.

“I’ll give you my allowance for the next two months!” I cried.

“Okay. I guess I can find the time. It’s a deal,” Terry replied. “Wait out
here.”

He disappeared into the lab. We stood outside the door and waited.

And waited.

And waited.

The longest half hour of my life.

Mr. Kramer kept staring back at us from the front counter. Shari and I tried
to ignore him.

I wanted to sit down. Carrying so much weight made my feet hurt. But I was
afraid if I took a seat, I’d break it. And I wouldn’t be able to get back up.

So Shari and I stood outside the door to the lab. And thought about this new
plan.

Would it work? Would reversing the photos reverse
us?

Finally, the door swung open and Terry stepped out. “Here,” he grunted. He
handed me the new prints. “Don’t forget what you said about your allowance.”

“I won’t,” I promised. “Thanks, Terry.”

I gazed at the new prints. Terry had done it right. A positive of Shari,
smiling into the camera. A negative of me, weighing four hundred pounds.

“Now, get lost,” Terry said, glancing up to the front desk. “Go ahead. Beat
it. Before you make me lose my job.”

I took Shari’s hand and started to pull her to the front of the store.

Poor Shari. She really did feel light as a feather. She looked even paler and
skinnier than when we came into the store. Her hand felt like brittle bones.

We stepped out of the store and stopped on the corner. I held the new prints
up so we both could see them.

“Is it working?” I asked her. “Do you feel any different?”

“Not yet,” she replied softly.

“Neither do I,” I moaned.

We stared at the new prints. And waited.

We stood on that corner for at least half an hour. Staring and waiting.

Waiting to feel different. Waiting for our bodies to change.

But nothing happened.

We didn’t change at all.

“We’re doomed,” I murmured sadly. “Doomed.”

A chunk of skin peeled off my forehead and dropped to the sidewalk.

The next morning, I woke up early, before my alarm. I stretched and yawned.
Then I turned and struggled to pull my huge body out of bed.

“Heave-ho!” I cried, straining every muscle.

And I went flying across the room!

“Oww!” I groaned as I hit the wall. I bounced off. Dropped to the floor.
Bounced up again.

“What’s going on?” I cried out loud.

And scrambled to the mirror. And stared at the reflection of my old face. My
old body.

No folds of sagging flesh. No puffed-out cheeks or bulging balloon of a
belly.

Me!

I was back!

I squeezed my arms. I rubbed my face. I pulled my hair.

I felt so happy to see myself!

I leaped onto the bed and started jumping up and down, tossing up my arms, and whooping and cheering at the top of my
lungs.

“It worked! It worked!”

Reversing the photo had reversed me!

“Yaaaaay!” I let out a cheer for myself.