Snackdown Smackdown By Madison Marbury madisonmarbury@hotmail.com Spinach in the schoolyard. The serving spoon flicked a pile of green gop on the tray. The perfect little nose of Brianna, head cheerleader, wrinkled in disgust. "What the hell is that crap?!" she yelled at the lunch lady. "Where's the tacos? It's Wednesday. Taco day. We want our tacos!" "New rules," the gruff old lunch lady spat. "Tacos are gone." A gasp spread down the lunch line. "Whaddaya mean, gone?" bellowed big bad Bobby, the wrestling captain. "You haven't even started serving yet!" "Not gone, run out," the lunch lady said, pointing her spoon. "Gone gone. One of you little brats complained about nutrition, so the principle instituted new lunch policy. No tacos, pizzas, fried chicken or burgers. Now you all eat healthy." She scooped up another mound of the green mass, and plopped it down on Bobby's tray. The wrestler grimaced at the sight of it. "No, please," the lunch lady deadpanned. "The look on your face is thanks enough." Brianna stroked Bobby's hair, trying to calm him. "It's OK, hunkie," she said. "We'll just grab Coke and chips from the vending machine." The lunch lady laughed. "The 'healthy diet' policy extends to the vending machines. Haulin'em out as we speak." The line of raucous junior high students fell suddenly silent. "Maybe we can stop them before they reach the door!" someone screamed. As one, the mob scrambled out the lunch room, leaving just Brianna and Bobby to stew in their own vegetarian lunches. "Someone's gonna pay for takin' my tacos," Bobby said, rubbing his fist in his hand. "We're gonna find that little punk who griped about the food." Brianna clutched Bobby's large hard arm, and gave it a squeeze. "Oo, and persuade him to ask for our coke machines back?" "Yeah," said the wrestler darkly. "Persuade." The cheerleader squealed with delight. "Oo, Bobby, you're soooo civic minded!" >>From the corner of the room, a quiet, lanky girl with mousy hair and freckles heard the whole thing. She swallowed hard, and ran out to the playground hoping nobody noticed her. "Timmy!" she called, running breathlessly to the small kid eating lunch by himself under the monkey bars. The boy smiled, and waved her over. "Gwen," he said. "Cool. How'd the bio test go?" "Tim, did you get the principal to ban tacos and throw the vending machines out?" The small boy placed his whole grain sandwich down, and considered how to answer this. "Yeah," he said at last. The girl's jaw dropped. "ARE YOU INSANE?!" Tim tried to speak, but Gwen bulled forward. "Are you an idiot? What the hell gives you the right to say what other people eat?!" "I don't," Tim said. "I just made a case to the principal. It was his decision." "They're not gonna care!" Gwen said, stomping her foot and pointing back towards the school. "You pissed off the entire school! They're gonna beat you to a bloody pulp unless you tell the principle to bring the snacks back!" The small boy looked at the ground, and exhaled, as if carrying a burden to heavy for his shoulders. "I can't do that," he said. "You HAVE to!" Gwen insisted. "Tim, I'm your best friend. I can't let you get hurt." "If I back down, the whole school will get hurt," Tim said. "Gwen, my mom's a doctor. She told me what those kids are eating is doing to them. It's killing them, as sure as cigarettes. And if they were selling cigarettes in school, wouldn't you stand up to stop it?" Gwen put her hands on her hips. "I eat the same chips and soda they do," she pouted. "So I guess I'm some junkie with cancer too?" Tim paused, and gave his friend a steady gaze. "Gwen," he said evenly. "Look at yourself. Look at your body." Gwen would not give him the satisfaction, but she saw her reflection around in her mind's mirror. She was skinny. Way, way too skinny for her tall body. Her parents always worried about her, and insisted she eat. But they were so desperate for her to eat, they came not care what it was- hot dogs, snack cakes, empty calories. "This is your friend talking," Tim said. "I will love you no matter what that body is. But you're killing it. Very slowly, but it's dying." "I'm more alive than you, buster," Gwen spat. "Gwen, think. You're always climbing trees, playing touch football with the guys, walking on your hands. You're active all the time, yet you look like hell. Your body is starving for nutrients. Why, I bet if you had just one good meal, your body would soak up the nutrition like-" But Gwen had stopped listening, as she heard Bobby the wrestler shout "There he is!". She turned to see him bursting out to the playground, leading his team of wrestlers advancing toward poor Timothy. Close behind followed a grinning Brianna with her cheerleaders, and what must have been every other clique in the school, anxious to see what was going to happen. Gwen shook in her boots. She had never seen so many people so mad before, and she was just coming to realize, she was on the wrong side of them. Soon big bad Bobby was looming over her, sneering. "Outta my way, beanpole," he growled. There was nothing Gwen wanted more than to be able to oblige. But she couldn't let Tim get hurt. He won't hit a girl, she kept telling herself. Use that. Be calm and reasonable, and he won't be able to deal. Then maybe a teacher will come out and stop this before it gets bad. Gwen stood up to her full height, and forced a smile. "C'mon, Bobby," she said. "We both know you don't want to hurt Tim." "I want, my tacos," the beast said evenly. "And I want my morning Coke!" Brianna chimed in petulantly. "Then let's talk about how you get them," Gwen guided. "Let's take it to the student government. Or ask the principle to set up an arbitration panel made up of students. But I don't want a guy as cool as you to get expelled, just because he lost his temper and hit some stupid little kid." The wrestler stopped for a moment, confused. Gwen dared herself to hope. Could she really pull this off? Brianna didn't like how this was going at all. And she certainly didn't like this skanky bitch calling her boyfriend "cool". "Heeey," she almost hissed. "She probably LIKES that vegetarian glop they're serving!" "Hey, yeah!" her fellow cheerleaders offered in support. "Think bout it!" Brianna said. "Have you ever seen her eating a Twinkie?" "Or a Devil Dog?" another said. "But- but I don't like Twinkies or Devil Dogs!" Gwen said desperately. A shocked gasp rose as one from the crowd. That was the wrong answer, Gwen realized. "I like Suzy Q's!" she protested. "Honest!" The crowd was riling up again. Brianna smirked, and leaned on Bobby's shoulder. "She thinks she's healthier than you are, Big Bobby," she said to his ear. "Oh yeah?" he grunted. In a flash, he grabbed her arm and forced it into a flexing position. Gwen squealed, as his meaty hand crushed her forearm. "Look at that!" Bobby said, yanking the arm as she hollered. "She's lecturing us about being strong? She got nothing." Gwen took exception to that remark. Nothing, she thought? Her arms might be thin, but she knew they were hard from all the tree climbing and touch football she played. I'll show you nothing!, she thought as she fought her tears and tried to really tense her muscle. But to her shock, it was literally true. She was showing them nothing. The muscle she thought she had was not there. Her arm looked exactly the same, whether she flexed her bicep hard, soft or not at all. Maybe there was a little raising of the skin, but you'd need an electron microscope to measure it. Bobby laughed at her. He pinched the arm hard, to show the crowd how soft it was. It wasn't soft (which surprised him a bit), but he pinched so hard it didn't matter. Gwen howled in pain, and fell to her knees. "That's how strong her green stuff makes her," Bobby gloated. "Boys, show her what good old American food can do!" Like a shot, the six members of the wrestling team surrounded Gwen. She was eclipsed in a wall of angry male flesh. Her lip trembled, she cowered and whimpered. They all rolled up their sleeves, and hit a double bicep pose. The crowd ooh'ed and aah'ed, as their mounds rose. Each boy had a gushy bicep the size of a lemon. The school gave them a mini-ovation for their posing, and the boys smirked at her. But part of Gwen was surprised- they looked so flabby. While they had muscle, most of their size was a couple of inches of fat surrounding that muscle. But size was size, and they each outweighed her by 100 pounds. It was intimidating. Gwen had never been so scared. She was at Bobby's complete mercy. He could do anything he wanted, and he didn't want anything good. It looked like he was about to order her up a double whupping with cheese, and there was nothing she could do about it- until a small blur burst at Bobby and gave him a defiant push. "You leave her alone, you creep!" Tim shouted up to him. "I'm the one you want! Beat me up! Leave her out of it!" Bobby laughed, and grabbed Tim by the collar. "Like bravery means squat to me," the bully said. "You wanna see what standing up for yourself gets you, punk? Watch your girlfriend." And with nod from Bobby, the wrestling team proceeded to beat down on Gwen. She tried to defend herself, but it was useless. Six pairs of arms rained down on her like sledgehammers. In seconds, she was bleary, bloodied, and limp. "GWEN!" Tim yelled, in vain. He could not choke back his tears. Bobby chortled. "She likes that lunch crap so much?" he asked his gang. "Throw her in the trash with it." Like a drill squad, the wrestling team picked up Gwen's lifeless form and carried her back to the lunch room, to the large steel barrel the students had all dumped their vile green lunch into, untouched. "Bon appetit, bitch," one of them laughed, as they dropped her headfirst into the barrel, and returned to the schoolyard. "Give it to him, Bobby!" they hollered. "Teach that punk a lesson!" someone yelled. Brianna grinned. "That'll teach him to mess with the Coca Cola company!" The whole school was cheering him on, as Bobby sat on Timmy, and whaled on him with his right fist, again and again and again. "You think you're healthy now?" he taunted, bringing another blow down, breaking Timmy's nose as the little boy screamed. "How about now?" Sticky blood trickled down the bully's knuckles. The sound of the cheering and shrieking wafted in through the windows of the lunchroom, and echoed faintly within Gwen's steel barrel. She moaned faintly, and gagged. She was face-down in the barrel bottom, where the remains of lunch had collected in a viscous pool. She couldn't breathe, her mouth and nose were full of it, she was choking on it. She tried to get out of the barrel, but her right arm was pinned. She struggled to raise herself with her free hand, but knew it was useless. She couldn't raise herself even a quarter of an inch. She wasn't strong enough. She panicked, she felt disgusted and weak and she was going to die in a garbage pail while her best friend got crippled for standing up for his beliefs. This was insane. She cried, and gagged as she swallowed a mouthful of discarded lunch. Ick, she thought as it went down (or up, as she was upside down). Stewed spinach and tofu. Gross. I'm going to choke to death on Timmy's health food. But the mouthful she had swallowed seemed to wriggle inside her, shooting up her esophagus hard enough to launch her head up out of the muck for moment! It was just a few inches, bit she gasped for a breath of air, and clutching the lip of the barrel with her only free hand, tried to keep her body up out of it as best she could. She grunted, and grimaced. Her arm burned like crazy, and she fell back into the spinach screaming. Her mouth filled with the stuff again. She prepared to cringe at the slimy feel as she closed her swallowed another mouthful. But this time a thought struck her. Maybe she could eat enough of the glop to free her nose, she thought. She quickly sucked up another portion and swallowed. This time the double portion shot up her throat even faster, like some spiraling out-of-control firework. It really had some kick this time, hitting her stomach and lifting her maybe a foot. This time she really bore down, trying to hold herself up with her left arm long enough to free her right. She growled like a weightlifter. Her arm shuddered- god, it felt like it was on fire! So much pain, and slowly she was descending back to the bottom of the drum again. But slowly. Freakishly slowly. And... she heard a whine of metal bending. Good lord, her grip was bending the lip of the barrel! That's nuts, she thought. Unless... Throwing caution to the wind, Gwen simply lowered her head into the spinach and voraciously gobbled up every drop that could fit in her mouth. She swallowed with an enormous gulp. She exploded up out of the barrel like it was a Howitzer cannon. Gwen exulted, as she gracefully somersaulted back down, and landed in a one-arm handstand on the rim of the barrel. She scowled, kept her other arm behind her back, and pumped out a set of five one-armed handstand push-ups like it was nothing. Veins sprouted through her arm like a highway map. With a single push off, she flipped in the air, did three twists and stuck the landing with her arms outstretched. She brought her left forearm up grandly, causing a volcanic bicep the size of a desk globe to burst from her skin and stretch it tight. She brought her right arm up to the same effect, ending in an awesomely powerful double bicep flex. "HEEEEELP!" she heard Timmy cry. Her brow lowered, fists clenched, she strode back out to the playground, kicking the doors open so hard they hung off their hinges. The whole of the playground turned their heads to the noise, and went still in shock as they saw her. "You get off him right now," Gwen commanded, glowering directly at Bobby. "Or I'll turn your face into taco meat." The captain chuckled. "Finish her, boys," he told his teammates. In single file, the wrestling team rushed as the lone, outsized girl stood her ground, waited for the right moment, and... BAM! She performed a Russian leg sweep on the first attacker, driving him straight through the concrete with such force the stunned crowd had to catch their footing from the quaking ground. WHAM! German suplex to the next, on top of the first unconscious victim. THWACK! Belly to belly suplex onto the growing pile. OOF! Overhead suplex?! My god! Bobby's eyes left his head. This wasn't possible! ERGH! Angle slam! And the final man ran into... CHOKESLAM!!! The much smaller Gwen leapt up, grabbed her stunned opponent by the throat, and picked him up off the ground WHILE STILL IN THE AIR and slammed him down! Six of the district's finest heavyweight wrestlers lay sprawled in an unconscious heap. The crowd was agape. Gwen adjusted her top, and with a scowl, advanced on Bobby. The bully panicked. "Goths!" he cried out. "Get her!" As if on cue, a pack of kids in black hair and clothes poured from the crowd, wielding aluminum bats. "Batmen, huh?" Gwen remarked, twirling her fist behind her. "Well then go hang out! WHAM!" As they came, she socked each one of them under the chin, launching them off their feet and cracking their heads against the backboards on the basketball courts. Each Goth rebounded through their basket, and hung unconscious like bats from the hoop. Gwen chuckled triumphantly, but soon had to duck, as the Goth's leader, dressed in full vampire regalia, swung a punch at her. She ducked. "Whoa!" she said. "What are you supposed to be?!" "I'm undead!" the boy bellowed defiantly. "That ain't how the undead look," Gwen said helpfully. "Watch this." With her left hand, Gwen flipped the confused boy's cape up. As it came down over his face, her right fist exploded in a blurring volley of devastating punches right in his puss. The Goth boy howled in pain, loudly at first, then tamer and tamer as the punches kept coming and his consciousness waned. Finally Gwen whipped the cape back down, to reveal the boy's new face: a lolling, moaning, glassy-eyed mass of bloody, misshapen flesh. "Now THAT'S what the undead look like," Gwen chortled. The boy moaned piteously, and shambled off to the hills. "SKATEBOARDERS!" Bobby cried desperately. Off at the end of the park, three radical dudes with magic marker hair jumped on their skateboards, and came full speed at Gwen. "Let me help you with your 1080, fellas!" she offered, and punched them so silly they spun three times around before crashing head-first through the wall of the school. Their bruised and cut heads poked through a safety poster which read, "Dude! Wear your helmet!" Now there seemed to be nothing but a long stretch of empty space between Gwen and Bobby. The boy cringed, as slowly, determinedly, Gwen strode towards him. "Now wait a minute," the bully stammered, backpedaling. "Let's be reasonable. Let's talk!" "You blew reasonable when you threw me in a garbage can and beat up a defenseless little kid," Gwen spat back, drawing closer. "The only thing to talk about is whether you're an organ donor." "GWEN!" Timmy cried, pointing behind her. "LOOK OUT!" "DOGPILE!!" came the feminine battlecry from behind. Before Gwen could even turn around, Brianna had led the entire cheerleading squad into jumping on top of her. Our heroine was smothered by a pile of twenty-one vicious, voluptuous girls in skirts. Brianna stood triumphantly atop the pile. "Ha," she gloted. "Never send boys to do the cheerleader's job." But suddenly, the pile began to rumble. Brianna shook, and tried to keep her balance. "Whaaaa?" she spluttered. All the girls began to shudder in apprehension. That bitch couldn't... she couldn't! Slowly, shakingly, the pile began to rise up. Gwen's head began to become visible, sweat pouring down her brow, grunting with passion and gritting her teeth. Her lanky arms were spread wide to encompass the pile of cheerleaders onto her back as she lifted herself back up. "Stay on her!" Brianna commanded in fear. "Jump up and down! Drive her back to the ground! Scratch her eyes! Pull her hair! Fight dirty!" The cheerleaders tried, but Gwen's laser focus was unbreakable. Soon it was all they could do to keep from falling, as Gwen, with a final grunt of effort, straightened her knees and back, and beamed with success, as she, a 100 pounds of girl, had lifted a human pyramid of cheerleaders weighing over 2,000 pounds off the ground, and held it in her outstretched arms. Brianna gasped. This would not end well. After holding the mass of bitchiness steady for a five count, Gwen dipped her knees back down, and thrust up with tremendous force. The entire squad was launched in the air, and fell down one by one into Gwen's arms. She made sure that each new girl she caught conked the one already in her arms cold, and then dropped the unconscious load. Bobby stood agape at the awesome display. As did the bloody, beaten Timmy, sitting on the ground next to him. "You are in so much trouble," he told the bully, not taking his eyes off Gwen. Finally, Gwen caught the last cheerleader, Brianna. She took a lingering look at the once superior blonde, now cringing in the crook of her right arm. Gwen smiled at her for moment, then looked to her free left arm, which she brought up for a flex. Even Gwen couldn't believe it, but she was going to take this moment to appreciate what her body had become, just from eating stewed spinach and tofu. She brought her fist up, and oh my god. It was like a boulder was forming in her arm, pressing up and out in all directions. She thought her skin would burst from the pressure. Brianna gulped in dread. "Didn't your mama tell you Coke was bad for your teeth?" Gwen chided her. And with that, she brought her mighty fist down in a single blow to the cheerleader's mouth. It landed with a dull SMACK!, and Brianna's face froze in a goofy, open mouthed smile. Her perfect, white teeth stood there a moment, and then slowly, one by one, began to break and fall off, leaving her with a jagged, pathetic smile that looked like an old hag's. With that, Gwen tossed her to the side. Just one thing left to do now. And that thing was running for the hills. Bobby had run all the way to the other end of the playground, a good 400 feet away, almost a dot against the chain link fence he had begun to clamber up. Gwen looked to the ground, and found a softball. "I think we'd better make sure this one stays in the park," she said, as she picked it up, reared back, and threw with all her might, then took off after the ball. The ball whizzed down the field at speeds that would make Randy Johnson hang his head in shame. Smoke rose form the surface, and flames shot out the back. Bobby desperately reached for the top of the fence. Just two more feet and he was free! But just as he pulled himself up, the softball conked him in the back of the head, driving his nose right into the top bar. It exploded with blood. He screamed and lost his grip, as he tumbled down, end over end over end, 20 feet, where Gwen caught him with one hand. "Let's try that again with the heavy ball," Gwen said, as she reared back and threw a dazed Bobby back down the field like he was nothing. Bobby's arms were pushed to his side. He couldn't believe the force he felt as he shot down the playground like a missile. His cheeks flapped from the wind. He moaned with dread- just landing on the pavement at this speed was gonna break a lot of bones. But as he looked to his side, he popped with alarm- GWEN WAS RUNNING TO BEAT HIM THERE! She patted him on the head as she passed him, and set herself up at home plate, trailing her fist behind her in a lazy circle. "Batter up!" Gwen called. "WHAM!" With one swing, Gwen's punch sent Bobby's unconscious body three miles downtown, where he crashed through the roof of grocery store, where he decimated a display of pointy, jagged taco chips, which became embedded in his broken body, cutting him everywhere. Worse, he broke open huge, economy size bottles of hot sauce, which covered him from head to toe and got in his wounds. Bobby leapt up screaming at the top of his lungs in pain, and ran like the devil, never to be seen again in this story. After watching the bully disappear into the distance, Gwen began to run back to Tim to make sure he was alright, only to find he was trying to limp over to her to do the same. "Stay off that foot!" Gwen cried. "Idiot, you're gonna make it worse." The lanky girl scooped the buy up in one arm, cradling him like a baby. Timmy forgot about his pain, his black eyes, his bleeding nose and mouth, and just hugged Gwen as hard as he could. They looked at each other as she carried him off school grounds. Gwen was so happy she had been able to stop them from beating Tim. Tim was so happy Gwen had discovered who she really was, and what she stood for. Neither knew the words to express it. "I feel... like singing!" Gwen said awkwardly. Tim groaned. "Not Shanniah Twain again." "No!" she chided, leaning over to rub his nose to hers. "You know." The girl began rocking the boy in her arms as she sang, "I'm strong to da finach!" "Oh, god," the boy said, covering his ears. Gwen continued, smiling, "Cuz I eats me spinach!" "And tofu," Tim chimed in. "I dare you to rhyme 'tofu'." Gwen laughed as they receded over a hill, oblivious to the line of twenty-six ambulances that passed them furiously, on their way to the playground. "You interrupted my song," she said. "Popeye would thank me," Tim retorted. "You should eat another can just to keep your mouth plugged up." "You better be nice," she teased as they disappeared. "I can give you the world's worst Indian rub."