Good Luck, Fatty

and am now hallucinating…
    Marie is pregnant.

 
     
    chapter 3
     
    MY PARENTS are hypocrites. After years of lecturing everyone on the virtues of Namibia, Zimbabwe and Ethiopia, they hightailed it back to the good ol’ US of A to pop out the newest Cotton. (A boy, they tell me. They’re naming him Roy.)
    And while Roy finishes cooking in Marie’s volcano of a belly, they want me to move into the barn they’re renting (yes, a literal barn) in Hollyhock and help them “feather the nest.”
    What I want to do is hang with Harvey at The Pit, train for the Yo-Yo, and maybe kiss Tom Cantwell again.
     

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    I mope into The Pit, the normally peppy bell dinging halfheartedly over my head. Out the side of my mouth, I mumble, “Hey, Harvey.”
    Something strange has been happening since I painted that folksy ad for the Yo-Yo on the display window: actual customers (!) one of whom has Harvey’s rapt attention. “This model should suit you just fine,” he tells the woman, a middle-aged teacher-type with a mop of fake blond curls. He taps the bike’s fender encouragingly. “Don’t you think?”
    The woman seems more enamored with Harvey than the bike. She smiles, twirls her hair and, with a flirtatious lilt, says, “Does it come with riding lessons?”
    I amble over to the counter, absently hook my fingers into the fishbowl for a Milky Way but end up withdrawing them in surprise. Harvey has swapped my favorite candy for some crinkly-wrappered, fruit-and-nut-clustered granola bars.
    Another middle-aged woman—this one petite, brunette, and a bit biker-chick around the edges—strides into the shop with a boy of about ten, who is tugged as if by a magnet toward our new skateboarding section.
    I stay put at the register, wait for Harvey to steer the teacher-lady my way, which he does swiftly and with finesse. When I offer her our bike-repair plan for an extra thirty dollars, she accepts with a vigorous nod and a “Why, thank you!”
    Ten minutes later, I ring up a vintage orange Penny board for the kid, who pays me with a fistful of crumpled ones and fives and a bunch of loose change. Once the kid clunks out the door, Harvey and I again have The Pit to ourselves.
    “What’s up with these?” I ask, dangling one of the granola bars between my thumb and forefinger and wearing a sour face.
    Harvey gives me a sly smile. “Nutrition,” he says. “Fuel.” He moves in and drapes a supportive hand over my shoulder. “You can’t keep eating junk,” he tells me with a wave at the windows, “if you’re going to win this race.”
    I glance down at my vast jellyroll (known in normal-sized folks as the upper abdomen), which overhangs the counter and blocks whatever view I might have had of my shoes. “Come on,” I say, despite my disappointment. “There’s no way I’d ever…”
    “We don’t know that,” Harvey snaps. “It depends on who signs up and how hard you’re willing to work to beat them.”
    “But…look at me,” I say. “Don’t you think…?”
    Harvey shakes his head. “No, I don’t. What I think is that you have a challenge in front of you. A challenge you can meet with the right mix of effort and determination. The only way to fail is to quit—or never to try in the first place.”
    Once in a while, Harvey slips back into his principal persona, and I just follow along. “You’re probably right,” I say, trying to conjure an upbeat expression. “When do we start training?”
    Harvey studies me for a moment and then breaks out in a wide grin. “Whenever you give the word.”
    I grin back. “Word.”
     

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    The girls at school hate me. Not just because I’m a tubbo, but because I’m a tramp. Because I let their brothers and boyfriends screw me with impunity. Rumors have been floating around Industry High since halfway through last year, when I let Alphonse James take my virginity, opening the flood gates.
    Most of the guys know the rumors are true, because either they’ve screwed me, or one of their buddies has. The girls seem reluctant to believe that any boy would dip a toe in my pond, let alone the caliber (I use the term loosely) of guy who’s been known to skulk around my shore. Mostly the girls loathe me out of suspicion. And fear. I can sense the shudders roll through them in the hallways, when, for the briefest instant, they realize I’m not so different from them.
    I have special permission from the principal (Harvey made sure of it before he abdicated the