Lunchlady, Punchlady
by madison marbury
Spinach for free?  Someone will pay.


Based on a comic scripted by shadowninja

Doris stirred the pot with big strokes. It was a big pot, an old pot, one of
those industrial size vessels they probably once used in the army to make
meals for hundreds. And yet now its home was the cafeteria at St. Olivia's
Catholic School for Girls. How did it make the journey from feeding fighting
men to developing women, Doris wondered. On any other day, the quality of the
food it heated probably wouldn't have been very different from times of war:
mushy, caloric and unremarkable.

But this was not any other day. Doris had taken this job for a reason, and the
reason was heating up in that pot.

"Just about ready," she thought. She put on her potholders and tried to lift
the pot. Stupid! She'd been adding huge cans of spinach one at a time. With
100 kids to feed, she figured she'd need a lot. But now her petite five-foot
frame couldn't lift the pot. She growled at herself, then giggled. Well, it
wasn't every day your problem was also your solution, was it? And she may as
well test it anyway. Who knows, maybe she just dreamed what happened the night
before, when she made herself a meal of this stuff. Did it really happen?
Would it happen again? To her? More importantly- for other people? For growing
young girls in need of self- esteem?

Warily, she grabbed a serving spoon, and scooped out a soggy wad of dark green
leaves. She blew on it anxiously, almost afraid. Then she chomped it down and
swallowed.

The theme to Popeye the Sailor man played in her head, and just like last
night, she felt her body rumble like a bomb about to explode. Oh, my, she
thought, catching herself. If only dreams felt this good!

Her fists shot to her hips, and she flared her back out wide like an eagle
spreading wings. Her pecs expanded into slabs of steel, lifting her breasts up
and popping the top buttons of her dress. Sneering, she lifted the sixty-pound
pot off the stove with one hand. "That's so easy, I bet I could lift the stove
too!" she thought. But that could wait 'til later. She had a lunch to serve.

The sign posted outside the lunchroom was new. The students noticed it
immediately. Usually the sign announced tacos on Monday, meatloaf on Tuesday,
chicken fingers on Wednesday. But today the sign said something it had never
said before. And almost no one liked it.

"Are they serious?" asked Betty

Abby looked again. Perhaps there was small print they were missing. "Who
knows," she said. "But it would explain the mad rush away from the lunchroom
today."

The sign read, in oddly hand-written script:

"SPECIAL FREE SPECIAL LUNCH!

Because it's SPECIAL in addition to it being FREE!

SPINACH SURPRISE!"

And apparently very recently, the writer had added in a desperately friendly
purple marker: "Did I mention it was FREE and costs nothing?"

"I don't know which sounds worse," sighed Abby. "The spinach or the surprise."

Of all the days to forget my bag lunch, groaned Betty to herself. "Has anyone
tried it?"

"Don't know. The lunchroom's kind of empty." Even on the good lunch days, the
girls knew most of the school either preferred going to the corner pizzeria,
or had eating disorders and made lunch out of half a diet Pepsi.

Betty cautiously peered into the cafeteria. No one was there except the lunch
lady, slumping on her stool, head in her hands, staring disconsolately into
space, waiting for someone, anyone to serve. Gee, that's weird, thought Betty.
Never seen her before. Pretty chunky. It almost looks like she's taking it
personally. Betty felt a little sad for her.

"Well, I guess it can't be that bad," she ventured. "And it beats starving."

"Nuh-uh," Abby said. "No way. Sorry Bets, but I hate spinach. I'll grab us a
table. Get yourself a plate and come down. If it sucks, we'll share my
baloney."

"Thanks Abs," Betty said with a sigh, heading toward her lunch. "You're the
best."

As they entered, the lunch lady jumped to life, smiling and waving them toward
the counter. She was and odd sight, five feet tall, in a hair net, and bore
arms that were more thickly muscled than Abby's dad- and he was a construction
worker. It was kind of creepy.

The lunch lady beamed as she approached her. "Good afternoon little missy!"
she chirped. "What a great day! Thanks so much for coming!"

Betty nodded uneasily, and tried not to stare at the woman's arms. They were
strangely hypnotic, the way the veins had risen to the surface, the shapes
formed by the hard muscle stretching out her skin. Her first visceral
reaction, that it was totally gross and a woman shouldn't look like that, was
fading now. Now she was edging toward becoming more intrigued. "Like the guns,
ay?" the lunch lady said, catching what she was staring at. Betty blushed.
"Oh, now don't be scared, they don't bite," the woman said with a smile. She
raised her arm and gave a quick flex. Betty let out a gasp, and took a step
back- it rose like a mountain on her arm. It was the biggest muscle she'd ever
seen, and it was on a woman. "Cool huh?" the lunch lady said, rolling her
sleeve back up. "What can I get you?"

"Er ... " said Betty, suddenly a little scared. "Yeah, I guess I'll have the
special. Um ... what's the "surprise", exactly?"

"You'll just have to find out for yourself." The lunch lady plopped a plate of
spinach onto her tray, and winked.

Betty brought the tray over to Abby, who had taken out her brown bag and was
sipping on her coke. "Wow, this place is dead," Abby said, scrunching her
nose. "God, I can smell that spinach from here! It's awful!"

Betty sighed, setting her tray down. The spinach lay on her plate in a
discolored, unappetizing, damp pile. An odor wafted from it, like old
sweatsocks marinated in aluminum foil. "Ergh," said, Betty, poking it with
disgust and her fork. "Yeah, I don't think I want to eat this. That new lunch
lady kind of creeps me out."

"I know! Did you see her clothes?"

Just then their conversation was interrupted by the sound of the lunchroom
doors being kicked open. Into the cafeteria strode the group of four everyone
at school called the Bag Hags. Well, everyone called them that behind their
backs- no one in their right mind would call them that to their face. Susan,
Ursula, Rhonda and Tanya were a clique of spoiled girls from rich families.
Rhonda was their leader and inspiration- an unrepentant brat with good looks,
hard body, and a mean streak a mile wide. Her father had given so many
endowments to the school, there was no way the principal would discipline her.
He had also paid for her other, saline- based endowments, which was why her
group was called the Bag Hags. They generally took advantage of lunch hour to
change into inappropriately small tank tops and cutoffs.

"Well, well well, what have we here?" Rhonda said imperially, strutting toward
the pair. Betty was dreading this. Last week they had all been assigned to do
charity work at the local old folk's home, and the Bag Hags hadn't shown up,
and Betty had been so frustrated she did a very stupid thing, and complained
to a teacher about it. The Hags were not pleased.

"Look girls!" Rhonda said, grabbing Betty's hair. "If it ain't Skin and
Bones!"

"OW!" Betty cried in pain. "Let go!"

Abby rose from her seat, but Susan and Tanya had come up behind her and shoved
her back down.

Rhonda sneered into Betty's face as she struggled. As captain of the field
hockey team, Rhonda was as tough as she was mean. Whereas Betty was always
small and skinny. "What the fuck were you thinkin' toothpick?" Rhonda spat.
"Everyone in school knows not to fuck with me, and what do you do? Fuck with
me. Now I gotta make an example outta you."

Abby struggled. "Don't you touch her, Rhonda!" she said, struggling to get
free. "I'll tell! You'll get expelled!"

Rhonda chuckled. "Me? Hurt poor little Bones here?" She yanked her hair up and
down a few times as Betty whimpered. Rhonda reached down into the vile mass on
Betty's plate, and picked up a handful. "Why, I was so concerned for her
welfare, I thought I'd drop by and make sure she was getting a square meal!"

And with that, Rhonda punched Betty in the mouth with the handful of spinach.
Betty's head snapped back with the force. Abby tried to scream but Tanya
clamped her hand over her mouth.

Betty lolled her head around, her mouth dripping blood and spinach juice.
Before she could come around, Rhonda picked up another fistful of vegetable
and fed/punched her, again, and again, and again. WHAM! WHAM! WHAM! WHAM! Abby
couldn't believe what she was seeing. She cried in horror- how could anyone do
this to another person, just beat them and beat them beyond the point where it
made any sense? It was inhuman. And she could tell from their sadistic sneers,
she was next.

Finally after far too many punches, Betty was slumped in an unconscious heap.
Rhonda shook her bloody fist distastefully. "God, I don't know what's grosser-
your blood, or this crap," she said, taking up the remainder of the plate.
"God, I can't even look at it anymore." Ursula forced Betty's unconscious
mouth open, and Rhonda poured the rest in. "Choke on it, bitch," Rhonda said.
"Susan! Tanya! Take the other one outside. Tie her to the flagpole. We're not
done having fun yet."

And just to add injury to injury, she put the metal lunch tray on the table in
front of Betty, then slammed her head down into it a few times. "Enjoy your
lunch! Ha ha ha ha!"

Ursula gave Rhonda a high five as they ran after their friends to join in the
public humiliation of Abby.

The small figure of Betty lay beaten, lifeless and alone, face down in her
spinach plate. She did not move for a moment, then, gave a single, involuntary
swallow, as the last bit of spinach went down her gullet.

Her body shuddered and jerked. The table rumbled and began to shake violently.
With a life of its own, Betty's left arm snapped up, grabbed her head, and
pulled it up off the table, as her right arm gently slapped her cheeks until
she came to.

"Hrwah?" Betty said, not sure where she was or what had happened. Her left arm
tapped her on the shoulder to get her attention. She looked over to it, and it
pointed to itself before it made a fist and started to flex.

It stopped for a moment when it was a quarter way up, just long enough for it
to dawn on Betty that, hey, wait, is that my arm? I mean, it had her nail
polish on it. It had her stubby fingers, man she hated her stubby fingers. And
the yellow plastic smiley-face ring Abby gave her. But her arm was skinny. Or
it used to be skinny. Now- now it was like, whoa!

The arm then proceeded to flex half-way, and again paused. Now Betty's
attention went to the mound that was rising where her bicep was. OK, hold up.
No effing way. No effing way! Betty had always worked out like mad with those
two-dumbells her mother had in the attic, because she was so skinny it was
ridiculous and Abby always said exercise was the best way to put meat on your
bones. But whenever she flexed to herself in the mirror, there was never
anything there. She had a ten-year-old girl's arm, thin, flabby and useless.
Or at least she used to. This thing ... oh god. Oh god. It was like her dad's
arm, just miniaturized to the point where it would fit on her body, and then
every ounce of fat was taken off it. She had a bicep. She had an effing bicep!

And with that she seemed to sort of consult with her arm, informally asking
it, can I take control of this flex now? And her left arm said, sure, go
ahead, it's your arm. But you use me like you mean it. Understand? If you're
going to own me, then own me.

Betty flexed mean and hard.

She had been wrong. This muscle was nothing like her father's. She felt it as
she twisted her fist and gave it that last little oomph. It rose three inches
above her one-inch diameter arm. It tore the sleeve of her shirt off. It was
hard as a rock and made her feel dangerous. She knew instinctively it was
better than her father's, stronger. The old man was no match for her. She
could take her father easy! He wasn't even worth the bother to fight!

Suddenly she giggled. Spinach surprise, huh? I guess she knew what the
surprise was now.

Her suddenly muscular hearing heard a girl crying out in the playground. Then
it came back to her- Abby. The very thought of those bullies touching Abby
made her madder than she'd ever been in her life. Well if God had given her
muscles, it was for a reason, and it wasn't hard to figure what that reason
was.

But just to be sure ...

In the blink of an eye Betty dashed behind the lunch counter, shoving handfuls
of spinach into her mouth with both arms. The lunch lady, who had been in the
back cleaning the kitchen, saw her and came running.

"Oh my!" she said, seeing Betty's new physique. "OH MY!" she said when she saw
what she was doing. "No, please! Don't eat too much!'

"Num mugh num," Betty said through wads of spinach as she dropped a few
handfuls onto a plate. "And an order to go, thanks. Whoa!"

Betty swallowed, and exploded. In a second she grew a full foot and put on at
least a hundred more pounds of muscle. The head of her biceps rose a foot over
her shoulders- they were boulders!

"Thanks miss!" she called back to Doris as she ran out with the plate. "Sorry
about the mess! I got justice to mete!"

Outside, the scene was grim. The Bag Hags had not only tied Abby to a
flagpole, they mocked her underwear while she cried helplessly.

"Look!" Susan said, snorting. "Care Bear underwear!"

"This don't even qualify as a cup," Ursula said, pointing to Abby's bra. "It's
barely a saucer!"

Suddenly they felt a powerful gust of wind push their skirt back and ruin
their hair. It was Betty, moving so fast she was little more than a blur,
dashing up to the flagpole with her plate of spinach. Abby boggled at her
buddy's knew physique. "No time to explain!" Betty said as she gently forced
Abby's mouth open and poured as much of the plate of spinach in as she could.
"Just suck it down and swallow. It's got vitamins."

'Wh-wh- what's going on!" Rhonda managed to say. Betty liked the look of fear
in Rhonda's eyes. She could only imagine what it must feel like to see your
victim go from a three-foot tall weakling to four feet of she-hulk without the
icky green skin. "Like the new me, bitch?" Betty said menacingly, taking a
step toward her. "Wait'll you see my sister!"

Rhonda backpedaled so quickly her foot missed the ground and she fell on her
ass. Her companions just stood there agape, as a cartoon theme played in their
heads, and the little runt they had tied to the flagpole suddenly burst free
from her bonds with muscularity rivaling Mr. Universe. Abby herself could
barely believe the transformation, as she flexed what use to be pipecleaner
arms, and a bowling ball of a bicep rose up.

She looked at Betty, Betty smiled back. They both looked at the Bag Hags, who
were suddenly as small and scared as they were mean.

"Let's get'em!" Abby said with a smile.

In the blink of an eye she was in Susan's face. "You think your boobs make you
special?" Abby sneered at the terrified bully. "Eat it!" She blasted an
uppercut punch so powerful it drove the girl's pendulous right breast into her
chin with enough force to launch her straight up into the air, so fast and far
that she receded into a tiny black dot in the sky.

Betty spotted Ursula try to run away. Oh, that's the one who held me by the
hair, she realized. "Well, turnabout is hair play," she proclaimed, and
grabbed Ursula's long black locks. Ursula kept trying to run, and put more and
more effort into it, but all she was doing was causing herself so much pain
tears were cascading down her face, causing her mascara to run and making her
look like Goth clown. Betty laughed. "You think that hurts, wait'll I put some
muscle into it." And with that she flicked Ursula into the air by her hair,
and started spinning her around until her hair broke off at their bleached
roots, and she careened into a wall.

Tanya quietly tried to crawl away, but bumped right into a waiting Abby. "Wow,
you're on all fours," Abby said. "How appropriate ... for a bitch!"

Abby kicked Tanya in the head so hard it left her clothes behind. She flew
back-first into the very flagpole she had tied Abby to. The pole resounded
with a clang, and the rope whirled around and around and tied itself around
the sagging, unconscious bully. "Knots to you!" Abby said.

Betty gave a thumbs up to Abby. "Three down," she said, before turning to
Rhonda. "And one to go."

"Don't you touch me!" Rhonda demanded imperiously as Susan descended from the
sky, and fell on her with such force it made a crater six feet deep, knocking
them both cold.

Betty looked down on them both. "Not a problem," she called down to Rhonda.

Abby hugged Betty. "We did it! They won't be bothering anyone at this school
anymore!"

Betty laughed. "But I think we better get to your gym locker and find you some
clothes- you can't go to your afternoon classes like that."

Abby giggled. "No sweat."

The two friends disappeared into the school, singing to each other, "We're
stogn to da finach, 'cuz we eat our spinach ... "

But as they disappeared, a hand reached out of the crater and pulled its owner
up. Rhonda emerged, dazed, battered and bruised. What the hell just happened?
She thought. The last thing she remembered about when things weren't crazy,
she saw the bony geek dumping a plate of lunch into the other dweeb's mouth,
and then ...

And then. There was the very plate, lying on the ground, a. few glops of the
disgusting lunch fare were still clinging to it. Time for a practical
experiment, Rhonda thought. She crawled over to it, and licked what little was
left off the plate.

When she swallowed, it was like a bell rang in her head. Suddenly the pain was
gone, replaced with an indescribable fury. She felt her clothes stretch, just
a bit. She looked down at her arms, which were always toned, but now ...

"Hey, losers!" she called to her posse. "Pick your sorry asses up. We're going
to the cafeteria." She scowled. "For a late lunch."

Back in the cafeteria, Doris had seen what was transpiring and had suddenly
gotten scared. This was not exactly proceeding as planned. She thought the
girls would just get really proud of their new strength. She hadn't
anticipated what they might do with it, and she certainly hadn't expected a
fight. If the principal found out, she could be in some serious legal
jeopardy.

First things first: if there were any sign of well-muscled Doris, when she was
so scrawny and plain the day before, that would definitely draw suspicion. She
checked out her arms. Had the spinach had time to wear off? Her arms looked
like they were back to normal. She flexed just to be sure. A bare popcorn
kernel of a bicep popped up with a squeak. Whew! That was one problem solved.

Now to get rid of the evidence. She dumped the entire, still full-to- the brim
serving tray into the garbage can. Ergh! It was sure a struggle to lift that
thing now that she wasn't strong. And there was still some left in that big
pot to get rid of. But it couldn't be very much, she though, tossing the tray
in the dishwasher. Once she got rid of that, no one could blame her for this
mess. And more importantly, no one else would get hurt.

The cafeteria doors burst open. In strode muscular Rhonda, leading the rest of
the Bag Hags straight up to the counter. "You!" Rhonda said, pointing at
Doris. "Yeah, you, slop monkey! Give us that lunch you got," Rhonda said
snottily.

"Er ... sorry, we're closed," Doris said nervously.

Rhonda grinned wickedly. She reached across the counter, snatched Doris by the
collar, and hoicked her roughly across with a crash. "That wasn't a refusable
request, bitch," she growled into her face. Doris gulped. She saw the
teenager's arms bulging through her sleeves. Uh-oh.

"Case the joint, girls," Rhonda barker, holding firm to her captive. "It's
gotta be here somewhere."

"Er ... is this it in the pot here?" Tanya said, looking down into it. Rhonda
motioned to Ursula to check. "Little bit," Ursula said. "A plates worth,
maybe. There was gobs more, though."

Rhonda reared her fist back as Doris cowered. "Where's the rest of it?"

"I ... I flushed it down the toilet!" Doris pleaded, trying not to look at the
wastebasket. "It was dangerous and going bad and I didn't want anyone else
getting hurt!" Rhonda threw her roughly to the floor.

"Bad decision, bitch," she said, rolling up her sleeves. "Now I gotta beat the
crap out of you."

The girls collectively gasped. Rhonda had beat up lots of kids before- but a
grown up? Rhonda was angered by her friends' doubt. "You jerks still don't get
it", she hissed. "Look at me," she said, holding out the two striated, veined,
bulging limbs. She flexed and a hard mound rose up the size of a lemon. "I
make the rules now. Watch this. And don't blink or you'll miss it."

She strode up to Doris, and casually picked her up off the floor with one arm
while rearing her other back. The punch was thrown so fast her fist made a
hissing sound like a rocket and made an audible BANG when it connected to
Doris's chin. It twisted her head around five times, like it was on a coiling
spring, then unwound itself back the other way before lolling lifelessly like
a dead flower drooping off the stem. Rhonda threw another punch, and another,
and another. It sounded like some horrible, human powered jackhammer was
working on Doris's face. In five seconds it was over. Doris was limp and
bloody, her body broken, supported only by Rhonda's rock hard arm.

The other Hags stared at their queen in disbelief. "Yeah," Rhonda told them,
lifting her limp prey a little higher. "And I ain't even winded. Now think if
each of you could do the same thing."

"Er ... we could run the school?"

Rhonda chortled. "We already run the school, moron. But why stop there? With
serious muscle like this, we could run the whole town. And all we have to do
is take out the trash."

The other three made gleefully for the spinach pot, while Rhonda tossed Doris
lightly in the air and socked her so hard she flew hard into the wall, and
rebounded face-first into the wastebasket where she'd dumped the spinach tray.

The old pot was almost as large as the girls. Susan, Ursula and Tanya all took
turns reaching down to the bottom, taking out one small wet soppy half-handful
apiece.

"It doesn't look like much," Urusla said.

"Much?!" Rhonda snapped, grabbing Ursula's portion out of her hand. "Watch!"

She popped it in her mouth and swallowed. A welling of power surged down her
throat and snapped into her right leg, which exploded with new muscle. Her
left leg followed. Her arms snapped out, and she flexed. Her biceps mounded up
higher than a bowling ball.

"Whoaaa!" her friends said.

"Now you eat your spinach!" Rhonda urged them. "Like Popeye the Sailor man!"

The girls greedily chomped down their small portions. They swallowed in
unison, and their eyes lit up as they each raised their arm and flexed.
Susan's bicep rose in the shape of the letter "T", Usrsula's in the form of an
"N", and Tanya's in the form of a "T". They knew instinctively it was not a
reference to the basic cable television network.

"Wow!" cried Susan. "Those twerps had better watch out! I can't wait to have
my first real fight!"

The wastebasket rumbled. The girls turned, as rumbling is a sound wastebaskets
don't generally make; but in fairness, neither do they contain pissed off
lunch ladies who had been desperately gobbling up the pounds of spinach lying
at the bottom of it for the last two minutes. Suddenly the metal can exploded,
great shards of aluminum flying like shrapnel. Doris had gulped down a full
lunch tray's worth of spinach, and was now 350 pounds of rock solid muscle.
She flexed a pair of pecs the size of tractor tires that strained impossibly
at the confines of her now-miniscule grey jacket for two seconds. The buttons
flew off her jacket ass her chest expanded, from top to bottom in a succession
of "Poinks!", each one revealing successively more cleavage until finally her
nipples, full and erect, poked out the side of each hem, simply grabbed her
lapels and tore the jacket open like a pair of curtains. Her thighs, the size
of trash cans, tore through her jeans, and she flexed a bicep the size of
Mount Kilimanjaro.

"YOUR FIRST REAL FIGHT STARTS RIGHT NOW!" Doris roared. "AND YOU AIN'T READY
FOR HALF OF IT!"

With that Doris's incredible body started to shimmer, and she moved so fast it
was as if she had split into four separate entities, each assigned to beat up
a different Bag Hag. The girls tried to fight, but even though their
spinach-enhanced strength was enough to bend steel bars, their punches still
bounced off Doris like they were cotton balls. Each Doris reared back an
enormous fist and socked a girl in the kisser with enough force to send her to
the next Doris. All four girls were pummeled around the room in a circuit,
faster and harder and more violently with each pass. It was as if someone had
just flipped the switch on a particle accelerator. Soon the whole cafeteria
was nothing but a generic whirr of female-muscle powered beatdown.

In a few minutes the room was a complete shambles of broken formica furniture,
upon which lay the four teenage girls draped in a battered, broken, miserable
heap. Doris took her magnificent body, and, as a final going away present to
the school, punched holes in the concrete wall like a jackhammer, carving out
the words "I QUIT!".

Well it's not like I can stay here after this fiasco, she thought, draping her
now-tiny leather jacket over her shoulder and heading for the door. My my my.
I'm definitely going to have to put more thought into my spinach distribution
plans in the future.