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Show 5 in over a year. Fat. She had gotten fat. Never, she vowed, would she become fat again. She had always been a large girl, always the tallest girl in her class in grade school-big boned, but not fat until those last hard years with her parents. Now, that was over. She began to diet. It was almost easy, with being so busy all the time. Her dresses gradually grew too big for her, her pants began to sag. It was wonderful. It was the one good thing-absolutely, unqualified-in her life. And that was why she did dread Christmas vacation. It meant confinement to the house for three weeks, with no school to provide relief. Three weeks! It was hard to imagine them passing-they loomed threateningly ahead-like a recurring nightmare. She would start stuffing her face again. She would grow, like a fat ballon, as big as a house. Something had to be done. She began cutting her afternoon classes to catch the bus to the local shopping center. Without telling anyone-if the Bradshaws, or Robbie, found out, she would be in for it. At least she had a year's work experience, she had worked the year before her father died. On the weekends, stocking shelves at Whitman's, the department store where her mother had worked; the last few months, she had even filled in as a clerk at the cosmetic counter. Her big boned frame, her size, had helped her there, she looked three or four years older than she actually was. It would be nice to go back to work at that store. It was a nice store, nice people. But the bus connections were terrible-the trip would take over two hours one way. Something had to be found close by. Here in the center. She applied at all three department stores-spending hours on |