Fat Pat

FAT PAT

A short story
by

R.
Bromfield

Copyright © 2011 R. Bromfield

Smashwords Edition

School starts tomorrow so my big sister
Patricia has locked herself in her room and isn't coming out
because she says she's fat.

In fact, it looks like she won't go to school
ever any more. Mom's talking to her all the time through the door
but she's not going to budge. She has a chair wedged under the
handle and won't let anyone come in, except me. I'm Patricia's
little sister Katie. I'm only nine and, as everybody knows, little
kids are invisible so I can get to stay in Patricia's room with
her, even when the rest of the world is forbidden. I'm only going
into grade five tomorrow so that's no big deal. Not like high
school where there are all kinds of big kids from all different
neighborhoods. I can understand how it might be a bit scary for
Patricia -- especially if you're fat.

This situation started a few weeks ago but I
guess it really got bad last night when Mom asked her what she was
going to wear for her first day of school. That's when Patricia got
all mad and went stomping up stairs and started slamming doors and
everything.

Me and Mom went up and Mom said "Patty,
what's wrong sweetheart? Is it something I said?"

Patricia was really mad. "It's nobody's
business, and don't call me Patty."

Patricia hates to be called Patty or Pat --
even Patricia sometimes. I don't know what you're supposed to call
her because that's her name. Anyway, when Mom went downstairs for a
minute I knocked on the door really quietly and went "Hey,
Patricia, it's me, Katie." I was careful not to call her Patty or
anything.

"What do
you
want?"

"Nothing, let me in." After a few big clunks
and scrapes she opened the door and little bit and I squeezed
inside. Right away I saw that clothes had been thrown all over the
place and she'd covered both her mirrors with sheets, so she
wouldn't be able to see herself I guess. The blind was down and the
curtains were shut. I don't know if this was so no one could see in
or if Patricia just wanted to stay in the dark. I sat on the bed.
"What are you doing?" I was actually trying to make conversation;
you know, to lighten things up a bit.

"Did
she
send you in here to interrogate me or
something?"

"No, she's downstairs."

"Good." Patricia said then opened the drawers
on this nice little vanity she has and started taking everything
out and piling it on top; makeup, creams, eyebrow pencils -- she's
allowed to have all that kind of stuff. Mom says I'm still too
young.

It's no secret what the problem is, it's just
that no one can talk about it in front of her, which is pretty
silly really because, of course, Patricia 's not fat at all. One of
her friends said one time that she was big boned and got pushed
down on the ground for it. I was there and it was hard not to
laugh. Patricia 's got a pretty good sense of humor but there's
some things you just don't laugh about with her and her weight is
one of them.

Right now she looked pretty upset so I
figured I'd try to, you know, help. "I think maybe you
should
go to school
tomorr..."

"You can just keep your opinions to yourself.
You're here because I let you be here."

Then Mom's voice came through the door.
"What's that sweetheart? I didn't hear you."

"I wasn't talking to you, I was talking to
Katie."

"Well please talk to
me
honey, I love you and Katie loves you too, don't
you Katie?"

Patricia gave me a nasty look so I didn't say
anything.

"Girls?" Mom said.

We didn't say anything.

After a minute Patricia's phone rang with
that singer she's in love with so much and she looked at the screen
then threw it on the bed beside me. I looked at the screen. It was
Mom.

When the phone stopped Mom said from outside
the door "I know you feel you're a bit overweight honey but it's
just not true. Actually you're very um..."

"What, pleasantly plump?"

"No sweetheart, not at all..."

"I caught it from Daddy. Everybody knows
that. And don't call me sweetheart either."

"Sweethea... uh, Patricia, your father was
big because he ate too much and he didn't take care of himself.
It's not contagious. You can't catch it.

Right then the pink sheet covering the mirror
slid off onto the floor and Patricia looked at herself for a long
time. I think she forgot I was there. She looked pretty sad. "You
always said I had his eyes," she said to Mom through the door.
"...that I've got his chin, well now I've got his pant size
too."

Mom sounded like she was starting to get mad
now. "Don't be ridiculous. Your father was a size forty-three.
You're not even a size five, six at the most. Why don't you come
out here where we can talk about it?"

Daddy died when I was just a little baby so I
don't remember him too well. It was a cornery, whatever that is,
and it happened one time when Daddy was looking all over for the TV
remote. This cornery made his heart stop.

Patricia put the sheet back over the mirror
again. "You even let him give me a fat name. People don't even have
to see me to know."

"Swee... uh dear, I'm afraid I really don't
follow you. Patricia's not a fat name. We could have called you
Connie, that's a fat name, or Evelyn, that's..."

"Oh yeah? What about Fatty Patty, or big fat
Patty, or Fat Pat?! That's what they call me when I'm not there you
know, Fat Pat."

It was true, some of the big kids
did
call her that but it was just
to be mean. Big kids are really mean to each other all the
time.

"Patricia dear, I really do think you're
getting carried away."

When Patricia didn't answer her, Mom called
out to me. "Katie honey, tell Patricia to open the door and come
out here so we can talk like grownups."

I looked at Patricia and she looked hard at
me again so I kept quiet.

I heard Mom lean against the door and say to
herself "What did I do to deserve this?"

Patricia heard her too. "Who are you talking
to out there?"

"Myself. I'm talking to myself. That's what
all this is doing to me. It's making me insane."

Patricia looked at the stuff on her vanity
and let out a big sigh. I thought right then "Some day that'll
be
my
vanity and this will be
my
room".

"Patricia, would you feel better if we signed
you up for an exercise program?"

"I don't think they could do much for me by
tomorrow Mother. I've got the thighs of a polar bear."

"Patricia you have to go to school tomorrow,
that's all there is to it."

"I'll take a correspondence course.

"Sweetheart, be sensible."

"Stop calling me that."

I heard Mom talking to herself again then
she said loud to the door "When I was your age I didn't have my own
room to lock myself in." and I thought about the vanity and the
closet and the desk and the whole room being mine again someday.
"Has it occurred to you" Mom said, "that you probably don't weight
any more than
most
of the
girls in your class."

"Don't you mean most of the boys? I want to
go to school in another town."

"Wouldn't that be kind of expensive?"

"Is that all it means to you, money?"

"Of course not but... well, wouldn't there be
people there who would see you too?"

Patricia let out a big kind of angry sound
that made me jump.

Mom didn't give up. "Darling, can't you just
give it one day and see how you feel? Then, if you don't want to go
back, then we'll talk about it. Okay?"

Now Patricia had everything from her vanity
drawers out and lined up in front of her. "There's nothing to talk
about Mother, my life might as well be over, that's all."

Then Mom's voice got really serious.
"Darling?" Patricia didn't say anything. Instead she dumped a bunch
of powder right out on the vanity. "Honey?" Mom said through the
door. "Please answer me."

Patricia didn't say anything, she just kept
dumping the cosmetics out. I looked in that drawer lots of times
before but I never realized she had so much of that stuff.

"You won't do anything... foolish will you?"
Mom said.

"You mean like rip down all my wallpaper or
something?"

Patricia looked around at the pink, yellow
and blue polka dot wallpaper.

"No," Mom said. "I mean um..."

"God, I never noticed it before." Patricia
said.

"Never noticed what darling?"

"You even got me fat wallpaper!"

"Those are planets." Mom said. "You said you
were interested in astronomy."

"Everything you ever got me is
fat
!"

I imagined Mom was rubbing her eyes the way
she does when she's upset about something. Then she said to me
"Katie, tell mummy what Patricia is doing now."

I figured there was nothing wrong with
telling this; she was going to see it later anyway. "Now she's
dumping all her perfume and stuff out and making a muck with it on
her vanity."

"Katie, come and open the door so mummy can
come in."

Patricia shot me a scary look and said
"Katie, if you move one inch I'll make you stay in the closet."

"Katie?" Mom called out again, but I didn't
answer. "Okay Patricia," Mom said after a while. "I'm going to call
for some professional advice. Is that what you want?"

When no one answered I heard Mom go down the
hall and down the stairs really loud so we could hear but slowly so
Patricia could always call her back. She didn't.

"What's professional help?" I asked
Patricia.

"Who knows?" she said "I hope it's the police
then they can see how I'm treated around here. Besides, she doesn't
have to make a big show about going downstairs to call; she's got a
phone in her hand."

When Patricia was finished mucking up the
stuff on her vanity she came and fell down on the bed beside me and
shoved her face in the pillows. Maybe this was a good time to
discuss some of the important things. "So if you don't go to
school," I said. "will you still grow up?"

"Don't be silly."

"But then you'll grow up to be stupid so
you'll have to keep your room and that means I won't get it."

"Do you ever stop thinking about yourself?
Can't you see I have like a serious problem here?"

"Can I have your bike?"

She made that big sound again and I jumped
again. She stuck her head in the pillows and maybe she was crying
but I couldn't tell for sure. I looked at her and wondered if this
is what being a big kid meant, I wasn't sure I wanted to become
one.

After a few minutes she looked up at me.
here eyes were all red. She
had
been crying. "Think you could go downstairs and make me a
P&B sandwich?"

"Do you think you should be eating? You know,
when you're so worried about being fat and everything?"

"So you're against me too?"

I didn't want to make things worse so I
rolled off the bed and started for the door.

"Anyway," Patricia said into the pillow.
"I'll just order my clothes from a tent factory."

When I got downstairs Mom was on the phone.
She didn't see me at all. I made two peanut butter and banana
sandwiches, put them on a plate, got two glasses of milk and went
back upstairs, you know, invisible, like nothing happened.

"Didn't you make one for yourself?" Patricia
said as she took the sandwiches and wedged the chair back under the
door knob.

"No". I said, actually thinking one of
them
was
for me, but
it was better not to get her more mad than she already
was.

Patricia opened the curtains and the blind
and we sat there on the bed looking out the window and she let me
have half of one of the sandwiches. Once Patricia wiped here eyes
on her bread and I realized that you could blow your nose in bread
if you wanted to. I told her this and we both started to laugh,
which was a bit of a relief. After a while a yellow car came down
the street and turned into our drive. We couldn't see who was in
the car but we could hear Mom say something to them then they went
in the side door to the kitchen.

A while later there was a knock on the door.
It didn't sound like Mom's knock either, and it wasn't Mom's voice
either. "Patricia?" It was a man's voice. "Patricia, are you in
there?"

Patricia and me looked at each other. I made
a scared face; it was strange to hear a man's voice in our
house.