“So let me understand. You took a bet to be transformed into anything with some tiny robots-." "They are called nanomachines ma’am,” Nancy clarified to Penelope, Charlotte’s mother. “Sorry, ”nanomachines”, without knowing what you may become?”
After the shock of seeing her daughter be a kid again, Penelope stayed for the time being. She came over because she was worried and wanted to make sure that her daughter was doing okay. They had a short dinner while Charlotte and Nancy explained how this happened.
Charlotte nodded her little head and said, “For one month, yes. Don’t get me wrong Mom, there have been times that I became somewhat normal. Like I had turned into a guy for a day and I had walked around town while my hair was bigger than my body.”
Penelope furrowed her eyebrows and with a cautionary voice said, “But there have been some changes that were not normal?” “Well?” Charlotte grew embarrassed at the past transformation, with half of them being too erotic for her mother to accept.
“She did turn into a fairy for a day. If you like, I can show you the picture,” Nancy butt in to save Charlotte. “Really now. Can I see?” Nancy took her phone out and handed it to the elderly lady. Penelope smiled at the various photos of her daughter, looking straight out of a fairytale book.
“This is incredible, how did you manage to make her look so small?” Nancy simply grinned and said, “Well, she was small. Small enough that the doll's clothes could fit her.” With the two women gushing over Nancy’s phone, Charlotte wishes that the floor would open up and swallow her whole. Or something that could save her from embarrassment.
As if her wishes were granted, the Grandfather Clock down the hall rang out. Penelope looked at her watch and said, much to the horror of Nancy and Charlotte, “Midnight already?” Charlotte got off her seat and ran off as fast as her little legs could run.
“What was that about?” Penelope asked Nancy but not before giving chase to her daughter. Nancy follows Penelope and tries to stop her from prying into the metamorphosis that is happening to Charlotte.
Charlotte ran to the only place where she could get some privacy from her mother, her bedroom. And to make sure that she won’t get in, she locked the door behind her. Soon after that quick succession, Charlotte heard her mother jiggling the knob and knocking on the door.
“Charlotte, are you okay?” Penelope asked through the door. “I’m fine Mom. I’m just tired from today, that’s all.” Charlotte said this while she could see that the ground was going farther away and how little everything was getting around her.
Not satisfied with the excuse that she gave out, Penelope shook the knob again. “Oh no, you are not getting away like this. You are going to open this door and you will say it like a proper woman.” Nancy swoops in an attempt to save her friend. “Excuse me, Mrs.-“ Penelope held out her hand to silence her. “Unless you happen to know how to open this door, I don’t want to hear a word.”
Wanting to give time to Charlotte to finish transforming and to distract her mother at the same time, Nancy responded with, “In that case, can you follow me? I know where it is but I can’t reach it.” Charlotte’s mother doesn’t want to leave her daughter alone. But the need to see her outweighed her being stuck outside the door.
Penelope let go of the doorknob and said, “I’m going to be back real soon dear with the key. And when I do, I want you to be ready to properly give me a goodbye.” Nancy led her friend’s mother to another part of the house and said that the key should be on the top shelves.
Nancy was proud of her trickery on the older woman. While she does have the ability to open the door with her fob, she doesn’t want Penelope to know about that. So to keep Penelope preoccupied with her foolish search for a key that isn’t there, Nancy talks to her and continues to explain what is happening to her daughter.
“Here’s what is happening to Charlotte, ma’am,” Nancy continued to be polite to the elderly woman to placate her woes. “I had set the transformation to come into effect at the beginning of the day. And since midnight is the first time of the day, Charlotte had been transformed at that time.”
Still focusing on a key that wasn’t there, Penelope moved to another shelf, her thoughts being busy with the newfound information. “Had she, you know, changed out in public?” Penelope looked down at Nancy who wouldn’t look at her eyes. “There’s has been times that happened but-“
Before Nancy could finish her sentence, the two ladies heard a loud “CRACK” that came from Charlotte’s bedroom. Now even Nancy is worried about Charlotte's wellbeing. The two ladies stopped their senseless search for the key and went their separate ways.
Penelope went back to Charlotte’s bedroom door, now riddled with panic and the well-being of her daughter. Nancy meanwhile beeline to her computer. As she clicked on her laptop to see what Charlotte received for today, Charlotte’s mom banged on the door, pleading, “Charlotte! Are you okay, honey?”
Once Nancy found the program and saw what Charlotte got, she put it down and made her way to the bedroom. As she approached Penelope and her pounding on the door, Nancy began to think of a way to break the news to her. But before she had a chance to explain, Penelope turned toward her with fear in her eyes.
“What is happening? What is happening to my daughter?” Penelope demanded to be the only person in the house who knew what happened. Nancy sighed and said carefully to not freak her out too much, “Ma’am, I just want to let you know that behind this door is your daughter in a terrible state. If you want to spare yourself from the frightful sight, then let me just say that you shouldn’t go in.”
“I don’t care. Charlotte is my daughter and if anything bad happens, I will be there,” Penelope said firmly, not giving the option a second thought. Nancy sighs for the second time while she takes the key out of her pocket.
Penelope's eyes grew wide at the key in her hand. “You had it the whole time!” Nancy said nothing as she inserted the key in the pinhole of the doorknob. “I will say it again, are you sure you want to see your daughter like this? Because once you do, it will haunt you forever.” Penelope nodded her head, ready to rush in to save her daughter. With no more words to say, Nancy opens the door into the dark bedroom of Charlotte.
Penelope only saw darkness in the room. As she was about to flip the switch to turn on the light, a voice spoke out in the darkness, saying, “D…don’t! Please… don’t turn…on the… the light!” Penelope knows that it is her daughter’s voice speaking out in the void, but it sounds different somehow. Almost like she is speaking with something in her mouth and out of breath.
As Penelope peered through the darkness, she could see something sitting in the middle of the room. Or to be more apt, someone sitting in the room. But it couldn’t be Charlotte. Mostly because the figure in the room is too big to be her. “Charlotte honey, I don’t care,” and with that, Penelope turned on the light.
With the light on, she could see that what caused the loud cracking noise was the bed in the bedroom. But what on top of the broken bed damn near caused Penelope to faint with fright. Sitting on the remains of the bed was a pile of fat, a literal blob of the woman that was once Charlotte.
It was like every part of her body was filled to the brim with adipose, from the chubby digits of her fingers and toes to the flabby flesh that covered her limbs, and finally to the apron of belly fat that rested between the chunky thighs and spread across the mattress. Even Charlotte’s face wasn’t spared by the onset of fattening, with her head melding with her rotund body. The only thing that remains of Charlotte is her mind, buried under layers of body rolls and jowl with over a dozen chins.
“I told you,” Nancy came behind the stunned mother, finally being able to see her for the first time this way. “Can you save her? She can’t be seen like this!” Penelope interjected at the woman who caused this mess. “She did tell you not to come over and I even told you that you may regret coming in,” Nancy said to cover her bases. Nancy looked back at her friend, with a mad look in her eye and said, “At least she is ready for the Thanksgiving dinner feast.” Charlotte’s mother finally fainted at the bad joke, with her daughter unable to do anything but sniffle between her stuffed cheeks.