This choice: The girls keep working at it... That is, until Ronnie finds out... • Go Back...Chapter #46Ronnie does not Appreciate Attempts to Exercise by: Bobo the Hobo   The girls kept working at it and, in time, Alice was sure that she would get better.
In the days that followed, Alice would see remarkable improvement in her ability to mount fences and make long walks without doubling over in agony. The many trips she would make to the track had built up some stamina that would have otherwise gone unmustered had she stayed on the couch with Hillary all day, and climbing the fence had leant her the tiniest amount of upper body strength that no amount of fork-lifting could grant. The actual running part of the whole ordeal still seemed a bit foreign to Alice but, as Melissa liked to tell her, 'practice makes perfect!'
And she wasn't incorrect. In her first week of running, Alice had managed to drop one of those pounds that had snuck up on her during her first two weeks at Buttercombe Academy. She was making progress on the track, able to go slightly longer without collapsing into a sweaty heap on the cold metal bleachers. Slowly but surely, Alice was becoming quite the little runner!
Unfortunately, this came with a bit of a runner's appetite. She had been burning so many extra calories lately that Alice's body (having grown somewhat entitled already with two weeks of Buttercombe-grade indulgence under her belt) demanded just a bit more sustenance to even out her newfound athleticism. And of course the knowledge that she was burning away all that nasty pudge made it a bit easier to partake in some social snacking, grabbing a few sweets here or there as a little reward for all her hard work on the track.
And while maybe she might have lost a little more weight without upping her intake, Alice had to admit that she was having fun running with Melissa. She was getting exercise, she was sweating, her uniform already felt looser!
At this rate, now with a week and a half of running under her belt, it seemed like nothing could go wrong!
***
'Ugh, you absolutely reek of sweat, Ally.' Hillary bemoaned as she caught a wiff of Alice's dirty track clothes, 'Honestly, I'll never understand what you and that Melissa girl that gets you so sweaty.'
The warm jets of the shower roared, overpowering even the whiniest of Hillary's rants, as Alice was bulleted by thousands of warm streams of water. She hung her head under the nozzle, rinsing the soapy white shampoo from her noggin as she squinched her eyes shut. She combed her hands through her hair thoroughly, making sure that not one inch of her head went unwashed and that no sud remained. Eyes still shut and her body still soaked, Alice stepped out of the shower onto the rug and grabbed a towel.
'I'm sorry Hillary, I couldn't hear you.' Alice said in a politely elevated voice, 'What did you say?'
'Ugh, nevermind.' Hillary huffed from her seat on the couch, 'I was just saying that your clothes smell absolutely terrible.'
Alice grabbed one of Hillary's (custom ordered!) fluffy white towels from the rack and dried herself off. As she went to wrap it around her waist, Alice became distracted by the noticeable lack of pudge in her midsection. It was flatter and smoother than it had been last week. Perhaps not as flat nor as smooth as she would have liked, she still had an extra five pounds or so to go, but there were definitive results to all this exercising she'd been doing.
Her legs were toner, she'd built up a little bit muscle in the short time she'd been running. It wasn't much, and it certainly hadn't spread anywhere else in her body. She was nowhere near as skinny as Melissa was, but then she was hardly as good a runner as she was.
Alice felt confident that, in time, she too could run laps like her friend did. That one day she'd be able to eat as much as she wanted without gaining an ounce just because of how much work she'd put into her body beforehand.
She was so hungry that tonight she was actually looking forward to making a bit of a pig of herself. She'd had to skip breakfast so she could work on an assignment for her Clothing Construction class, and she was so late getting to lunch today that Melissa went ahead and ate without her!
Tonight, if she recalled correctly, Ronnie had promised a really filling meal. Normally this would send a little chill down her spine at the thought of all the irreparable harm it could do to her figure. But since she'd been working so hard, and had been starving all day who was she to refuse such a treat?
'Aaaaallyyyy!' Hillary cried from the kitchen, 'I'm ribbing you and you're not even paying attention to me!'
Alice took one last look in the mirror, smiling slightly, before turning back to the door.
'Coming Hillary, just let me get dressed!'
***
It would be another twenty minutes before Alice was ready to go eat dinner at Ronnie's dorm. She had dried (mostly) and had reapplied her uniform'Ronnie was still a stickler for rules, if not an otherwise gracious host'before making her way out the door and down the hall.
'Alice!' the belly-heavy brunette cried out jovially from the other side of the doorway, eyes tracing the somewhat slimmer girl, 'Come on in, Mel's already started without you.'
Alice stepped inside the frilly apartment and was assaulted by tempting smells of treats and goodies come and gone. She turned her head to see many pots and pans steaming atop the oven, its window glowing red with promises of more meals to come. On the table, a mighty spread was already laid out and picked at'no doubt by Melissa'as it steamed a simmered so seductively.
Alice could see into the living room from behind the kitchen counter, where Mel had'as she'd been told'already started without her.
Alice started forward but found herself at odds with Ronnie's roundness. The rotund RA was forced to take several baby steps back before Alice could squeeze past the bigness of her belly. Where Alice had managed to shed a few pounds, it seemed that everyone around her had picked them up. Ronnie, if at all possible, was only getting bigger as the days crept by. No doubt it was all the cooking she did. It seemed that she was over here almost every other night.
'Go ahead and make your plate.' Ronnie advised as she tottered towards the oven, 'I've got two pies coming out, and it'd suck if you let your food get cold while you waited.'
'Or if I ate it!' Mel warned from the couch
'Or if Mel ate it.'
Alice giggled a little as she pushed past Ronnie once again to reach tonight's dinner. Ronnie had, once again, made a meal of fantastic portions. Fried chicken (boneless) and lots of buttery home-made mashed potatoes and those store-bought biscuits from the tube. Mother would have died if she knew she was eating this, Alice had never had friend chicken before she'd come to Buttercombe Academy!
But what Mother didn't know, she supposed'
Alice made herself a hearty plate and headed to the living room, where she plopped down beside her running buddy. She watched idly as Mel stuffed herself silly, the little black-haired girl could put it away faster than girls three times her size.
'Did you miss breakfast too?' Alice asked innocently
'Nah, I'm just starved.' Melissa said between bites, 'You could say I really ran up an appetite.'
'Me too.' Alice giggled, 'It's a good thing we stopped though. I was getting really tired.'
'You're such a lightweight.' Melissa joked as she nudged Alice in the ribs, 'I could have gone on for hours.'
'Because you're so much better at it than I am.' Alice said with some light-hearted self-deprecation, 'I'll bet you could run the whole day if you wanted to.'
It was here that Ronnie made her official entrance into the living room, having apparently finished her job in the kitchen and had already made a plate for herself. Ronnie sat in the loveseat opposite her two guests as she clutched her own plate rather tightly. As she sat, the couch groaned under its new pressure.
'You guys aren't talking about that old track out back, are you?' Ronnie asked with some disapproval in her voice, 'No one's used that thing in years. At least' not to run on, anyway.'
Ronnie must have been talking about all the beer cans in the fountain.
'Yeah, we could tell.' Melissa said absently as she continued to munch on Ronnie's excellent cuisine, 'The whole place looks like hell. But still handles pretty well. No holes in the track, and it's gorgeous. Me and Alice just go there to run once in a while. You know, get some energy out.' She said with a sly little smile thrown Alice's way, 'Staying in shape, all that. It's not like we're hurting anybody.'
There was a thick silence that hung over the heads of all three Buttercombe students. Alice immediately felt like apologizing. About how they knew that there was a padlock there for a reason and how they jumped the fence every time. Her need to repent went unfulfilled though, as soon the smile returned to Ronnie's face. Her tension only climaxed.
'Huh.' The rotund RA said simply before the oven timer went off.
They each had a whole pie that night for dessert.   indicates the next chapter needs to be written. |
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