HOME | DD

Description
Jon turned his Camaro down the street that his house was on with a squeal of tires. He smirked at the sound, undoubtedly imagining how cool he looked. Derrick couldn’t really say anything about Jon’s beater of a car since he didn’t have one and was reliant on the older boy for rides. Summer vacation was here and he didn’t want to get stuck bumming rides from his parents or sister so he just nodded with a smile when Jon looked over to him.

Jon seemed satisfied by the wordless exchange and then broke into conversation mid sentence, “It’s going to be a good summer man. I got some work with a construction company, going to make much bank and have all my nights and weekends open.”

“Yeah, you know it,” Derrick agreed. Jon had graduated and was supposedly heading to the local community college. He wasn’t a bad baseball player and had won a minor scholarship to offset the cost of school but seemed to have it in his head that community college was just a temporary step until the state university or some other school recruited him. Derrick was pretty sure that Jon wouldn’t make a semester without failing and his ball playing was adequate at best. He wasn’t the sharpest crayon in the box and definitely didn’t have a ounce of the talent his older brothers did. Not that he would tell Jon that. He needed the meathead if he was going to have any kind of social life and truth be told, he did feel he owed him the support since Jon had prevented him from having to take the bus in the last school year. He’d have to find someone for the next school year of course, but he had the summer for that.

Jon pulled into the driveway and cut the engine which quit with a couple of obstinate coughs, “I don’t think my parents are here.”

“Yeah,” Derrick agreed. Of course they weren’t, there weren’t any cars in the driveway. But that was Jon, having to state the obvious.

“I got to see if I can borrow a few bucks for gas,” Jon turned to him and asked for the third time, “you sure you don’t have any money?”

“Sorry man, totally tapped,” Derrick shrugged. Of course he had some money, just not enough to want to give it to Jon, “I’d give it to you if I did, it’s the least I could do with you giving me rides and all. But man, I’m just not doing as good as you.”

Jon grinned, punching Derrick in the shoulder, “Yeah, I know. It’s cool bro. C’mon, maybe the brat has some.” Jon jumped out the car and ran for the door while Derrick got out more sedately. ‘The brat’ Jon referred to was his kid sister, Charlie. She seemed okay, if not a little weird and kind of a spaz. Jon noticed something out of the corner his eye and, speak of the devil, there she was. She was leaning out the window apparently the noise of Jon’s arrival drawing her attention. He turned to follow Jon in when his head snapped back to her on its own accord. Her belly was round, resting on the window sill as she leaned out trying to look around the corner of the house. She was wearing a simple white tank top that strained to cover it. Despite the lousy angle and the obscured view, he could tell she was quite big. He paused, fixated for a moment before he realized she was looking at him with a questioning look and a small bit of irritation. He was just starting to smile and say hello when he was interrupted from his reverie.

“Yo Derrick, come on,” Jon called, leaning his head out the front door.

“Yeah, coming,” Derrick coughed and with a hop headed after Jon. He looked back to see if Charlie was still there, stealing a quick glances. She seemed okay. Following Jon up the stairs, who took them up in bounds, he continued his train of thought. She was better than okay really. He never really paid any attention to her before and Jon despised her, rarely saying anything about her other than how annoying she once in a while. She was cute really. Not that he would ever tell Jon that. He was sure Jon wouldn’t like that at all. And that belly. THAT he definitely wouldn’t tell Jon about.

It was his horrible little secret, the thing he never told anyone, not even hinted at. There was something about pregnancy that just tripped a switch in his head. It was a rather jarring discovery when it came to his conscious attention some years ago and one that he just kept to himself. Everyone else around him thought it was gross, at best thought it was just something you were just likely to tolerate with varying degrees of acceptance at some point in your life if you were involved with someone you were going to have children with some day. Not him, it was as strong a draw to him as any other part of a woman, maybe more so. And like a lot of those other parts, big was good. Charlie looked huge from what little and how brief a look he had gotten. Try as he might, he couldn’t remember having seen her from closer up. It didn’t matter, Jon was already banging on her door and demanding she opened up. He’d be able to get a better look to jog his memory. Still, strange he couldn’t remember from the previous times he was here in the last few months.

“Where’s mom and dad?” Jon demanded. Derrick tried to look around him but could only just see the top of Charlie’s dirty blonde hair.

Charlie was as fond of her brother as he was her, “I dunno, working?” she replied in an icy tone.

He kept trying to look around the big lug but it was useless. Derrick dodged back as Jon seemed to try to do something Charlie that elicited her taking a swing at him. Jon turned and run, laughing like the goon he was. Finally, his view was clear of Charlie. Wow, how did he not remember this?

She stood in the doorway, glaring at Jon’s back as he ran, her arms folded over her enormous belly. She was as tall as he was but despite that it did nothing to make her belly look any smaller by comparison. It jutted roundly out, stretching the tank top tightly over it. She seemed to be just wearing her normal clothing rather than infuriating maternity wear made to cover over the pregnancy like so many women unfortunately did. His breath caught as he noticed there was a thin strip of exposed belly below where the shirt failed to meet the black track shorts she wore. He stared, his mind wondering what it must feel like as he watched it slowly rise and fall as she breathed. It looked tight but he couldn’t see a trace of stretch marks. It was perfect.

It was about then that he noticed that she was glaring at him. He looked up and started to smile. He should say something.

“And what do you want?” she barked in his face, clearly still agitated by her brother’s intrudence.

Truth be told, he couldn’t help being a little frightened by her expression and that he had been caught awkwardly in the middle of staring. “What? Nothing!” he retreated to Jon’s room, feeling more than a little embarrassed. “Smooth Derrick, real smooth,” he chastised himself. He followed Jon into the room. Jon had already dropped into the ratty recliner before the tv and fired up the game console so Derrick sat took the office chair at the desk. He leaned an elbow on the desk and supported his head. Talk to her like a human being, how hard is that? Running away, not impressive. He mentally flogged himself while the console warmed up.

“Parent’s shouldn’t be too long,” Jon randomly started, as he typically did.

“Yeah,” Derrick watched as Jon started one of the sports games that he loved so much. Derrick couldn’t tell the difference from one football game to the other but Jon had assured him, at great length, that this one was the best. He couldn’t get his mind off Charlie, “Your sister didn’t have any money she could spot you?”

Jon gave a short laugh and blew a raspberry, “I’m not asking that loser.”

“Why not?”

Jon shrugged in annoyance, “She’s in a bitchy mood.”

“Yeah, sure,” Derrick agreed with just a hint of sarcasm that went over Jon’s head. Of course she was annoyed. Jon did everything he could to be to antagonize her twenty-four seven. She’d probably find him just as annoying by association to her brutish brother of course. No chance he’d be able to speak to her much less spend any kind of time in her presence. And he desperately wanted to. “Maybe I should ask her?” Derrick offered with an affected air of disinterest.

Jon’s brow pinched together still focused on his game, “Why bother?” Jon’s talking slowed as more and more of his meager brain capacity was dedicated to playing the game, poorly at that, “I told you, she’s in a bitchy mood.”

“Well for starts, she probably doesn’t hate me like you, asshole,” Derrick muttered under his breath.

“Huh?” Jon dully asked.

“I said it’s probably hormones,” Derrick lied.

“Yeah, she’s fat,” Jon snickered to himself as if he had said the most clever thing ever.

Derrick just glared at him. After a moment he took a deep breath and let it out. What was he thinking anyways? Why would Charlie hate him any less than her brother? They’d never shared a word. He cursed himself quietly. Why hadn’t he tried to speak to her before? He had months, surely and couldn’t remember a single time he had so much as said hello to her? And why could he not bring a single image to mind of her pregnancy before just now? It was like it had suddenly just snuck up on him.

A couple hours had passed and Jon’s parents still hadn’t shown up. Between the boredom of watching someone else play a thoroughly boring game and his mind running around in circles with Charlie, he couldn’t take it anymore. “Going to the bathroom,” he announced getting out of the seat.

“K. Have fun,” Jon smiled at his own ‘joke’.

Derrick shook his head and stepped into the hall, closing the door behind him. He took a moment to gather himself and formulated a plan. He focused on Charlie’s door mid way down the hall. He would just knock, nicely, and ask, politely, if he could borrow a few dollars. Even if she didn’t have any money or didn’t want to lend any, it opened the door (literally) to conversation. At the very least he would at least get another look at that incredible belly. That was worth it on it’s own.

He formulated some possible angles. Apologize for Jon’s behavior. Show some empathy about how much of a jerk he was. If she felt he was on her side about it, surely she’d react favorably. At the least he could show he wasn’t like her brother. Show her that he was the nice guy. It was good ground work even if it didn’t pay off today. Feeling that he had a pretty good strategy set up, he softly knocked on the door. Just loud enough to be heard but not so loud as to sound demanding. He heard the creak of bed springs and no verbal abuse so felt things were going well.

“Yeah?” Charlie opened the door then looked confused as she realized it wasn’t her brother.

“Umm…” what was he going to say? Derrick puzzled for a second. Something about her brother being a jerk. Oh yeah, he had wanted to borrow some gas money. “Hey, sorry about earlier and stuff. Could you lend us a couple of bucks for gas?” hastily he added, “We can pay you back tomorrow.” Well Jon could anyways. It was his car and his sister, his problem.

Charlie rolled her eyes and sighed with a pained expression. “Yeah, don’t have a dime, sorry dude,” she scratched her slim belly, flicking away bit of lent from the rumpled tank top.

“You sure? We only need a few bucks,” clearly she was lying. She had answered too quickly, an automatic response. A lot like he had answered Jon’s request earlier. He tried to appeal to how it would benefit her, “it’d get us out the house? That’s got to be worth lending a little money, right?”

“I really don’t care what you guys do, just do it away from my door,” she glared at him for a moment then slammed the door shut.

He glared back at the closed door and narrowed his eyes. “Man, he is right, she is a little asshole,” he thought to himself as he stalked back to Jon’s room.

He saw her a couple times more that week. Following Jon’s example he avoided any interaction with her which really was for the best. At best she was annoying, at worst she was actively unpleasant in the extreme. He chuckled when her and Jon got into a verbal sparring match that almost came to blows before their father enforced the peace by separating them to opposite ends of the house. Granted, Jon couldn’t keep up with her wit but he made up for it with the vulgarity. Monday rolled around and he had stayed the night at Jon’s insistence that they were suppose to be heading to the beach to meet with some other friends early that morning to take advantage of the last week before Jon’s job started. Jon was an extraordinary sour mood that morning as storm clouds were threatening a downpour which caused the group to cancel the trip. He even had worse news, at least to Jon’s view of things.

“And not only that, Dad’s getting the twerp a car,” Jon abruptly segued.

That would explain the silence in the house. He realized he hadn’t seen the little heathen all morning. “Really, she’s old enough to drive?” Derrick fully knew that she was but also knew the jab would lighten Jon’s mood.

Sure enough Jon chuckled, “Yeah, I know, right? It’s not all bad I guess. Dad’s got a job for her too. She gets the car as long as she works.”

Derrick shrugged, “Well that’s not so bad, gets her out of your hair.”

“Yeah. Well sorta. I mean, I still got to work too, so I wouldn’t see her anyway,” that seemed to take some of the starch out of Jon’s glee.

“Maybe she’ll have to work weekends. That’ll suck for her,” Derrick offered as a consolidatory prize.

“Yeah, that’d be awesome!” Jon agreed, back to smiles.

They couldn’t come to any decisions on what to do and were irritated that the clouds had parted but no one wanted to head to beach anymore having found other things to do that didn’t involve them. Didn’t involve Jon more likely, Derrick figured. Jon wasn’t exactly what you’d call popular despite his own instance to the contrary.

The boredom of watching Jon selfishly insist that he needed to play for just ‘one more level’ before giving Derrick a turn on the console was broken by the arrival of Jon’s dad. With a knock he opened the door and peeked in, “Hi Jon, Derrick.”

“Hey Dad.”

“Hello Mr. Powers.”

Jon’s father stepped in, purposely blocking Jon’s view of the TV in order to get his attention. “Jon, the lawn needs cutting.”

Jon paused the game and groaned in protest. “It’s the twerp’s turn!”

“Not from what I remember, she did it last weekend. Promptly, I’d like to add.” Mr. Powers folded his arms and gave his son a critical look. “From what I remember you promised you’d do it Saturday, it’s Monday.”

“Yeah, but…” Jon started to complain.

“Yeah nothing, your turn,” Jon’s dad then took on a look of some pride, “besides, your sister is off taking her new van out for it’s maiden voyage.”

Jon looked annoyed but Derrick snickered as what Mr. Powers had said sank in, “wait, did you say van?”

“Yes?”

“Like a mini-van?” the idea struck Derrick as amusing.

“No, it’s a panel van,” Mr. Powers cocked his head to the side, curious as to what was so funny.

“What color?” Derrick asked, barely containing his glee.

“White. What of it?”

“Does it say ‘free candy’ on the side?” Jon in a rare moment of insight added as he realized where the joke was going.

“Very funny. Lawn. Weed the flower beds too. Now,” his dad smirked with some irritation in his voice. Quite innocently he added, “oh, and since you have Derrick here, surely he’d want to help you with your chores since he’s such a good friend.” The last bit he added while giving Derrick a vengeful grin, “And don’t call your sister a twerp,” he called over his shoulder as he left the room.

“Well come on, sooner we’re finished, sooner we can get out of here,” Jon said, resigned to his fate.

Not only had the sun come out, it had come out with a vengeance. Jon grunted his way through the yard pushing the mower who’s drivetrain seemed to have given out while Derrick picked through the flower beds on his hands and knees. He’d tried to squirm out of it but there was no way to get out of the work with a way of going home on his own. Plus he’d surely piss of Jon, he wasn’t likely to believe any excuse to leave anyway. He stewed in his own juices, cursing his own luck. He was suppose to be at beach, being lazy and maybe chatting up some girls. Not that that ever happened but a boy could dream. Jon’s father had left shortly after making sure they had started to get in at least some work done and his mother wasn’t going to be in from her job until later so during one of their many breaks beneath the shade of the tree in the front yard they took turn griping about their luck.

“It’s got to be the hottest day yet!” Jon stated the obvious

“Yeah, kind of what happens when summer starts, tends to get hotter,” Derrick wasn’t in a mood.

“Shut up,” Jon elegantly countered. At least it was too hot for him to get physical about it, “and the little twerp is off driving around having a great old time I’m sure.”

“Yeah, she sucks,” Derrick offered. The idea of someone else avoiding the pain they were in seemed personally offensive.

“Dad gets her a car for nothing, like she deserves it,” Jon stood, wiping off the dirt from his rear as he got ready to tackle the backyard while Derrick finished weeding the front.

“Yeah damn her,” never mind that Jon had gotten his car the exact way but he wasn’t in the mood to point it out to him and was generally glad to focus his ire on someone that wasn’t sharing his sentence anyways.

Derrick continued with the weeding, intermittently fighting off fire ants and mosquitos as he did. He was working himself into a foul mood as the afternoon wore on. His annoyance at nature was momentarily distracted as he saw a simple white van came driving up the street. “Ah, the golden child returns,” Derrick sarcastically mumbled to no one in particular. He stopped to watch her pull in hoping she’d clip the fence alongside the driveway dividing the Powers yard from their neighbors. Alas she didn’t. Even worse she had a giant toothy smile on her face as she pulled to a stop. Derrick never felt so much hate. Here he was a dirty, sweaty buffet for the local insect population, pulling up weeds for HER family without getting paid for it and she was having the time of her life. Well, she can just take her stupid van and shove it right up her stupid…

The thought didn’t finish as she stepped out. His breath caught and he shuddered making a gurgling grunt as she gingerly stepped down from the driver’s seat. Reason she did so and the reason why he found himself unable to make think coherent coincided: she was enormous.

Her belly swelled out hugely, pulling her t-shirt to its limits. It tented over her belly and draped over the edge, delightfully revealing a crescent of bare skin, pulled taut to the point being slightly shiny but flawlessly smooth. When she turned her back to him to close the van door it failed to hide the swells of it’s side. He thought for a moment that surely it couldn’t had been as large as his first impression but when she turned to start walking to the house he was proven otherwise. If anything, it looked even larger than he had first thought. Basketball, beachball, watermelon, the analogies failed to describe it. It was massive. He licked his lips, his mouth gone suddenly dry. She took a few waddling steps forward and then noticed he was there. He couldn’t turn away, despite feeling that he was staring blatantly. He knew that was going to be reprimanded but could not force his eyes off her middle.

Unexpectedly, rather than rebuffing his rudeness she turned and with a flourish gestured to her van, as if she were a prize presenter on a game show. She beamed proudly, seeming to think that the attention he was giving her was because of her new ride. It wasn’t much to look at, it still had faint marks of lettering for a flower delivery service and had a few subtle dents but he didn’t pass up the opportunity to avoid embarrassment. He smiled back and gave a golf clap, ending it with a thumbs up.

She seemed pleased by his response, bowing slightly, turned on her heels and continued to the house. He felt lightheaded and the corners of his vision blurred out as he was treated to her running her hands over her gravid middle and giving it a hearty pat along the bottom. She slowly waddled her way to the house passing nearby due to his position in the flower beds, cradling it from below with her hands with support, hands not quite able to meet because it’s immensity. She entered the house, leaving him staring blankly at the door for few minutes before he bit down on his knuckles and collapsed on to his side. “Holy cow she is so awesome.” Derrick said aloud ignoring the ants swarming up his arm.

Derrick blazed through the remainder of the flower garden and even sprinted to the backyard to help Jon finish with whatever he could. His head swam with the memory of the brief encounter with Charlie incredibly pregnant self. He wanted to get this work done and find a reason, any reason at all, to speak to her. It was imperative. It was a complete, all consuming necessity or he sure he would lose his mind. “The van, complement the van.” Clearly she was happy about that. All he had to do was get this done, take a shower, change and get to her before Jon the meatheaded idiot ruined her mood. He completed everything he could while Jon puttered slowly with the lawnmower. With nothing left to do he signaled for Jon to turn off the mower.

“Okay dude, I’m done,” Derrick shouted as the mower wound down,“I’m going to go shower and change.”

Jon, who’s hygiene was questionable on a good day gave him an odd look, “You got a date?” Jon snort laughed.

“Yeah, I wish,” Derrick said, making Jon look at him quizzically, “man, I’m covered in dirt, insect bites and half the lawn clippings you produced since you didn’t put the grass catcher on. I’m going to change.”

“Psh, whatever wuss,” Jon derisively dismissed as he got ready to restart the mower.

A thought occurred to Derrick, “You’d better change too. We’ll go…” he thought desperately, “we’ll go cruise for chicks later. You don’t want to smell like a locker room for them, do you?”

Jon paused for a moment and thought about it, “Yeah, good idea.”

Perfect, that would buy him at least another thirty minutes of Jon free time to speak to Charlie. He had absolutely no intention of going cruising anywhere with him, he just needed something to get Jon into the shower and out of his way. If he was going to cruise with anyone, it was going to be Jon’s sister. He considered that, making his heart skip a beat. She did have a van now. If he could get in good with her, he could ditch Jon for good. Besides the really obvious reason of wanting to spend some time with her, she also had her own ride and was in his grade level. It was perfect. Needless to say, the very thought of being anywhere within line of sight of Charlie was enough to fill him with a completely insane level of giddy optimism.

He ran into Jon’s house, gathered the clothes he had set aside for after the aborted beach trip and ran for the shower. He slowed as he passed by Charlie’s closed door and resisted the urge to knock right then. “No, you reek, clean up first,” he told himself. He could tell she was in there, she seemed to be speaking. Phone perhaps? He couldn’t tell what she was saying but she seemed excited about it. He strained to hear and put his ear against the door carefully.

“...after the third, but I decided to push my luck. It worked out okay, I was able to find another one pretty quickly. Stopped and got something to eat then headed directly home to enjoy! No more timing things with a bus schedule. Oh the sweet freedom of my own transportation. This really opens up a lot of new opportunities. I mean, I’m going to have to work my work schedule but I’ll have plenty of time.” Charlie paused for a moment, he worried that she might have heard someone at the door but she continued after a moment. “So yeah, a red letter day for all sorts of reasons. Going to get some pictures as usual, probably throw in some pictures of the van too. Charlie Powers, signing off.”

It was strange, Derrick thought vaguely. He had assumed she was talking to someone on the phone but except for a very brief pause, it didn’t seem like she was listening to anyone. Besides that, who finishes a conversation with ‘signing off’? And pictures? Of what? He had assumed of the van but then she had said ‘pictures of the van too’. He felt a shiver. Of herself? Did she have a Vlog about her pregnancy or something? That would explain the one sided conversation. He got goosebumps just thinking of the possibility. Pictures? Video? Of Charlie’s ponderously, ludicrously large belly? He was so distracted that he jumped with a start as it registered that a door had just slammed at the rear of the house announcing Jon’s entrance. He ran into the bathroom, mindful to be quiet and not alert either of the Powers to his lurking behavior in the hall. He waited at the door and silently prayed that Jon would just head into his room without disturbing Charlie and ruining her mood before he had a chance to make his move. He breathed a sigh of relief as he heard Jon stomp his way down the hall without pausing and close his own door. Satisfied that things were still going as planned, Derrick showered like the wind.

Reasonably cleaned and sufficiently preened he had went into Jon’s room as nonchalantly as he could manage to let him know the shower was available. He waited patiently for Jon to decide to get up and shower, pretending to show interest on a random wikipedia page he had pulled up. Once Jon left for the shower Derrick waited for the sound of the shower start then dashed quickly to Charlie’s door. He ran a quick hand through his hair, smoothed his clothing out then softly knocked on the door.

There was a muffled sound inside and then what sounded like a sigh, “What?”

Derrick noted the sound of aggravation on Charlie’s voice, “Um, hey Charlie, it’s Derrick,” he raised his voice slightly to be heard clearly through the door but hoping not so loud that Jon might hear in the shower.

“Who?”

“Derrick, your brother’s friend?” she must have not heard him clearly. He was starting to lose his nerve. Clearing his throat he summoned up what little courage he could, “Could I talk to you for a minute?”

There was a moment of silence then a grunt. His pulse quickened as he heard the lock click on the door and the door cracked open. Charlie looked at him curiously for a second then recognition crossed her face, “Oh, you,” she opened the door wider and waddled away, which he assumed implied permission to step in.

Derrick lingered a moment watching her go back to the chair before her computer desk. She had evidently changed into a very billowy baby doll shirt which did only a very rudimentary job of hiding her size. Even from behind he could see the swell of her belly sway from side to side as she went back to her chair. With great effort she slowly lowered herself into the chair, her arms straining as she dropped herself with a final ‘oof’. It was mesmerizing

Charlie looked back at him blankly and folded her arms atop her remarkably round middle. “Yeah?” she asked him, snapping him out of his daydream.

“Oh,” he fidgeted and ran his fingers through his hair again, “congratulations on the van!” He put on the most genuine smile he could and was rewarded as she smiled back.

“Yeah, thanks.”

Derrick took a step in to clear the doorway and closed the door a little behind him. Not all the way, just enough to block view of the hallway and hopefully mute their conversation. He had considered closing it all the way but decided it’d be better not to make the imposition, “It’s got to be pretty sweet, first car and all that.”

Charlie nodded in agreement, “Yeah, freedom and all that. I like it.”

“Heard you got a job too,” it was going well, he felt. He just needed to keep the conversation flowing.

She seemed a little less thrilled about that, “Part of the deal, shouldn’t be too bad though,” she shrugged and then shifted in her seat. She slouched a bit and ran her hands across the top of her belly, entwining her fingers where she finished the maneuver.

He felt a jolt of electricity ride up his spine as she did, making eye twitch as hit hit his brain. It felt like she noticed the reaction so he quickly continued, “Where at?” He managed while he scratching his chin, his voice cracking slightly. He folded his arms and rocked on his feet, trying to look as casual as he could.

She raised an eyebrow, “Some pretzel place at the mall,” she looked at him suspiciously and straightened up in her seat. “Friends of my parents’ place. Or friend’s of friends. Something like that. Why you want to know?”

Her intense scrutiny was somewhat withering and Derrick felt himself starting to sweat, “Oh, just curious, you know?” He was losing her, he could feel it.. She turned back to her computer and randomly opened a browser. He noticed that there were minimized windows at the bottom of the screen already, evidently his intrusion having interrupted whatever she had been doing. The fabled cache of pictures he had theorized. “Um, I was thinking about getting a job,” he tried to get a better look at what she had hidden but the last thing he said caused her to whip her attention back to him again. He quickly looked to her face, hoping she didn’t notice the prying. “I mean not there, just…” his words trailed off at the look of irritation on her face as she focused back to the screen. She right clicked and closed the menus without re-expanding them and he felt his hope draining away rapidly.

“Yeah, well, good talk,” she raised a hand and waved a goodbye without looking back up at him.

“Yeah, sorry. Congrats on the van...again,” he felt crestfallen and started to back away. Maybe there was some way to recover. He desperately tried to think of something to say but his brain failed to cooperate. He was just gearing up to offer some sort of apology for the intrusion when he realized that the shower had stop and he could hear thumps coming from there. Jon was probably moments from emerging and it would not good if he found him here. But Derrick just had to say something to try to salvage what he felt was his last chance. She was looking at him at him from the corner of her eyes. There was a growing sense that she was about to lash out of him. As incredible as she was, he’d seen what her wrath was. He took another step away then suddenly found himself unable to restrain his mouth.

“You doing anything?” he blurted out suddenly.

“What?” she looked at him incredulously.

“Later I mean, do you-” he stopped and looked behind him. He could hear the door to the shower was opening. He felt panic and without another word suddenly retreated, slamming the door behind him leaving a bewildered Charlie behind.

She cocked her head to one side and looked at the door confused, listening to the sounds of running footsteps and a door slam from the direction of her brother’s room. She heaved herself to her feet and waddled to the door. She heard her brother’s footstep thud toward his room a second later. Charlie edged the door open slightly and peeked out, her belly pressing against the wall causing some kicks from it’s occupants. She rubbed the spot absentmindedly as she watched Jon open the door and enter. For a moment she caught sight of the guy that had intruded into her room. He was looking back in her direction terrified and quickly looked away when he realized she was looking at him. She closed the door and locked it, shaking her head. She patted the sides of her enormous belly and blew out a breath. “What a weirdo.”

Derrick cursed his own stupidity. He had totally blown his chances with Charlie, he was sure of it. He couldn’t stop thinking about her. She was so huge! It distracted him the rest of the evening. Jon drove them out to a popular hang out but his heart just wasn’t in it. He moped in a corner slowly drinking a soda while Jon tried to impress, with as little success as usual, some of the girls there with his utter lack of wit and terrible pool skills. He couldn’t even enjoy Jon’s pathetic attempts at flirting with the usual sadistic glee it gave him. Derrick just couldn’t stop thinking about her. He cursed his misfortune. It wasn’t just that she was pregnant. It wasn’t just that she was the biggest pregnancy he had ever seen outside of news reports or the internet. It was that he knew her! He had a conceivable chance at her! And he had blundered it away. It was just too depressing. He held his head in his hands at the table and waved away Jon’s attempts to recruit him as his wingman for another failed attempt to chat up a couple of girls.

Derrick dropped his head to the table. “You’re better off without me dude.” Truely.

The only tiny shiny light of hope he had left himself was that he had left his things at Jon’s house to give Jon a reason to pass by there on the way to drop him off at his own house. One final chance to try to smooth over his earlier disastrous attempt. On the ride home he rehearsed in his head how to approach her. He was currently considering explaining that he had suddenly felt ill so wasn’t quite thinking straight as the pulled into the driveway. Looking up to the second floor he could see that her lights were still on. Perfect, she was still awake. Now to keep Jon from interfering. He told Jon that he would just run in and grab his stuff real quick. Jon made an uninterested noise. He turned the radio up and bobbed his head to the music. Derrick ran out the car and to the door. He knocked, hoping it would be Charlie to answer. It would have made things easier but he was disappointed as her mother answered instead. He greeted her and explained that he just needed to pick up the things he ‘accidently’ had left then bolted up the stairs, slowing to a fast walk as she chastised him for running in the house.

Once upstairs and having rounded the corner into the hallway he slowed. Giving his appearance a final once over he headed to Charlie’s door only to have it open as he got to it. “Perfect!” he thought. With her coming out on her own, it would spare him the awkwardness of having to knock. Plus even if he wasn’t able to start a conversation he’d still have at least one more opportunity to see Charlie’s...Charlie’s what?

Derrick stopped in the hall with a puzzled look even as Charlie scrutinized him with an equally puzzled but hostile look. Derrick didn’t notice, lost in thought. What had he just been thinking about? He turned his attention forward, watching Charlie come up the hall and across to the bathroom. She was dressed in a rumpled over-sized t-shirt, evidently getting ready for bed. “It was something about her,” he thought, but unable to remember what it was. “I was just thinking about it,” he stared off into space trying to grasp the forgotten thought even as Charlie pushed past him and went into the bathroom with one more perplexed look back at him as she did.

Derrick pondered then slowly started walking to get his things. He remembered that was why he had to go back to Jon’s before going home but there was some other reason. Something about Charlie. What about Charlie? Try as he might he couldn’t remember. He had a vague recollection of starting to ask her out. Why did he do that? “She’s alright looking,” he thought to himself, “but she’s so annoying.” He remembered in a flash her dismissing him from her room earlier about something he was saying. He remembered complimenting her on her van. Was it that he was trying to butter her up to get her to be his ride to school next year? He shook his head and laughed, “That thing’s hideous! I think I can find someone with something better.” But there was still that vague idea scratching at the back of his mind.

He kept working his mind around the conundrum as he gathered his things. It was giving him a headache. It was like waking up in the middle of a dream and feeling it slip away until it was only a vague feeling. It was exactly like that except it was a hole in his memory that centered around why he would try to even say one word to Jon’s strange little sister. “I must just be tired,” he shook off the vague deja vu sensation that was rolling around in his skull and left the house. Moments he left and tried to forget about the odd compulsive thoughts. He wasn’t successful.

He fitfully slept that night. His dreams kept coming around to Charlie but every time he woke he could feel the dream drift away unforgotten. He finally gave up trying to get back to sleep right around the time his mother called for him to wake up as she headed out the door to work. He showered, changed and plopped himself down on the couch. He ignored the phone when it rang. It was probably Jon but he had no desire to see anyone. He yawned, the lack of sleep getting to him. He tried to dismiss the bizarre feeling that there was something missing that slowly disappeared as the day went on.

By the next day Derrick was feeling back to his usual self. He explained to Jon that he must have come down with something a couple days ago to explain his absence the day before. Things were back to their usual patterns and Derrick was feeling his old self. At least until later that afternoon.

It had started raining heavily by mid-morning, just after Jon had brought Derrick to his house to hang out. Whatever plans they had were dashed by the rain so they just settled for watching a dvd. They had decided to watch Avengers and were in the process of tearing apart the room looking for it.

“Did you put it back in the case?” Derrick asked looking under Jon’s bed. He shuffled things aside with a bat being unwilling to put his arm in the refuse that lurked beneath the bed.

Jon searched through the same three same drawers for the fourth time, “I don’t know. Did you find the case?”

“No.”

Jon turned around and gave him the ‘are you stupid’ look for once, “then what difference does it make?”

Derrick glared at him, “I’m just asking to know what I’m looking for, a dvd or a dvd in a case.”

Jon rolled his eyes, “Either one, who cares?!”

Derrick’s rebuttal was interrupted as they heard Jon’s mother call from downstairs, “Charlie, come here a second.”

“What is it?” he heard Charlie call back, by the sounds at her own door.

“Come here for a minute.”

“Why? Did I do something?”

“JUST COME HERE FOR A MINUTE!!” Her mother yelled up exasperated.

“Okay, sheesh,” she heard Charlie go downstairs.

Jon suddenly realized. “Oh, betcha she has it,” he announced with a snap of the fingers. He started to head for the door.

Closer to the door, Derrick volunteered to get it. He headed out and after hearing that Charlie and her mother were having a conversation somewhere around the kitchen area he poked into her room. A quick scan of the room and he located the missing dvd case sitting at Charlie’s desk beside her computer. He picked the case up to check if the dvd was inside and finding it so started to turn to leave. As he did, his eyes strayed across her screen. For some reason they stopped, focused on a menu minimized at the bottom of the screen. He was about to instinctually look away when a vague recollection came to him. There was something about that menu. It had to do with why he had been talking to Charlie that day but he couldn’t make what the connection was. If maybe he were to look…

He started to reach for the mouse then paused. It was rude and intrusive but it was driving him nuts. If a quick peek would just untie the knot in his head it would be worth it. He promised himself he’d make up for the breach in privacy to Charlie, somehow, to justify it. He clicked it quickly before he changed his mind. He felt a moment of guilt in the fraction of a second it took for the menu to open. That quick flash of self-reproach as his mind reeled at what he was looking at.

There were dozens of pictures of Charlie, all in various stages of pregnancy. Most were at least large but some were outlandishly so. His eyes flicked about the screen. He was astonished to see that what he was seeing was only a small portion of the collection of pictures as he scrolled down. “When had Charlie been pregnant?” Derrick asked himself as he zoomed down the page. “It’s got to be something fake? Yeah, that must be it,” Derrick figured, although part of his brain kept insisting it was real. He picked out a picture from the set and opened it. There stood Charlie, turned in profile to apparently display the size of her belly to the camera. She was quite large though surely a lot was in the exaggerated stance she effected. Still, she looked very large, all belly projecting out. Her hands framed the top and bottom of the belly, pulling the blue and black striped sweater over it tightly. Derrick felt his heart quicken, pounding in his ears. Charlie looked insufferably proud, smiling like the cat that ate the canary at the camera. He flicked over to the next few pictures. Apparently the camera must have been set on a timer taking pictures automatically she was wearing the same outfit but just in slightly different positions in the proceeding pictures. Derrick skipped over the next few as he noticed from the thumbnails the gem of the series. He frantically clicked on the mouse trying to will the photo to open quicker. It was still Charlie in the same sweater but this time she had the sweater pulled up to reveal the gorgeous mound of her belly.

She was smiling with her eyes closed in a very pleased expression. She had the sweater pulled up over her belly with one hand and was cradling her tummy with the other. Derrick inhaled slowly. The skin was flawlessly smooth, not a sign of stretchmarks. He could make out the trace work of veins below the lightly tanned skin. The resolution of the camera was good enough that he could could make out the goosebumps that played over her middle. He made up his mind about something at that point, it wasn’t fake.

“No fuzzy edges, no discoloration, pixelization,” Derrick was no expert on digital editing but he couldn’t see any signs of tampering. He doubted Charlie was either. He still couldn’t come to grips with it though. “When the hell was she pregnant and where was I for this?!” he hopelessly cried to no one. Out of nowhere he suddenly felt a jolt of vertigo. For just a brief instant he sees Charlie sitting in a chair, leaning back with an absolutely gigantic pregnant belly on her lap. They were talking, he was trying to ask her out, but then…

He snapped back to reality as he heard footsteps heading up the stairs. It was Charlie! He clicked minimize quickly and ran for the door then leaping back to snag the dvd he had originally came for. He dashed out the door pausing only briefly to carefully set the door to about as open it was when he had initially entered then fast walked back to Jon’s room as silently as possible.

He got to the room, handed the dvd to Jon without preamble and sat at his customary post at Jon’s writing desk . As Jon put in the dvd Derrick’s mind raced. The pictures. A pregnancy that he could and couldn’t remember. When? That brought up another oddity, the pictures were named by dates but the sizes varied dramatically and ranged from small to large and back randomly. Well, from large to larger to whoa mama anyways. He couldn’t help but smile at that even as felt the developing headache. Also, the oldest dates were nearly a year old but none looked smaller than ready to give birth. The brief snippet of possible memory was already fading away. Try as he might he was losing the details. The details of the menu were starting to slip too. He thought about that, trying to hold on to the things that were going dull. He had the impression of the brief image of Charlie was from only a few days ago but as of today she no signed of having ever been pregnant. He knew it had happened but part of him said it didn’t. And it was getting the upper hand. He kept trying to hold on but it was a losing battle. It was exactly like waking up out of a dream and feeling it slip loose. “Like dreams…” a thought suddenly occurred to him. He remember reading about dream analysis and how they would instruct the person being studied to immediately write down what they were just dreaming about to remember it. He quickly dug around in Jon’s desk and pulled out an unused notebook and pen. Hurriedly, he jotted down a few notes.

‘Charlie is pregnant sometimes. Sometimes she’s not.’ In bold letters he added ‘YOU’VE SEEN THIS!’

‘You forget about it after you see her pregnant. You’ll forget what you were thinking about it at the time. If you see her pregnant, WRITE IT DOWN!’

He debated the next line but decided it was important, ‘There’s an entire folder on her computer with proof.’

Derrick closed up the notebook and stared at the cover for a couple of minutes. He had a vague recollection about something he was suppose to remember about Charlie. Something that was important to him. Cautiously he opened the notebook and peeked in. He read what he had written a few minutes earlier and digested it. He smiled slightly. He remembered.

“So wait,” Charlie interrupted offering Derrick some fries “so you just wrote it down and POOF! You remember everything?”

Derrick waved off the fries and adjusted his seating. They were in the parking lot of a local fast food franchise. He scooted forward to let his legs dangle over the back door of Charlie’s van. “No, not really. It was more like I remembered remembering. At first anyway,” Charlie gave him a look that said she didn’t understand from where she sat next to him so he decided to elaborate, “I remembered writing that down to not forget what I was forgetting but I don’t remember the forgotten memory I was trying to remember.”

Charlie nodded, stuffing her mouth full of fries, “Oh yeah, thanks. Perfectly clear now.”

Derrick laughed. “You have to be there I guess. Point was, the more I did it, the more I started remembering. Really brief, really sketchy memories but I remember having them. More importantly, I knew what I was writing was true, I could just feel it so it encouraged me to continue,” he picked up his sightings sheet from where it was between them and showed it to her, “and that lead me to doing this.” He saw that odd look in Charlie’s eye start developing, the look where he had learned he was crossing some line with her that left her mad at him every time, “Look, I’m real sorry about that.”

“About what?” Charlie guardedly asked.

“About…” he huffed in frustration, “about stalking you, about looking on your computer without you knowing, all that,” he hung his head in shame, waiting for her to explode on him.

Charlie took a bite from her burger and chewed carefully, reguarding him. “Eh, it’s alright,” she accepted the apology which did a lot to lift Derrick’s spirits, “you had a mystery eating at you, I guess under those conditions, I can forgive you.”

“Thanks Charlie, really,” Derrick honestly told her.

“No prob,” she wiped her mouth with a napkin then tucked it into the bag between them, “one thing I don’t get though, why did you start getting curious in the first place?”

Derrick blushed and quickly picked up his drink. He slurped on the straw as he thought about what to say. While he had been forthcoming on his recounting to Charlie about how he had finally managed to work around the mindblock, he didn’t admit at what was the driving force to do so: his attraction to pregnancy, “I don’t know, maybe I’m just keyed into this sort of thing,” Charlie looked curiously and he quick stammered out, “you know, magic and stuff.”

Charlie blew a raspberry, “Magic, yeah.”

“Well how do you explain it?” Derrick looked at her incredulously but smiling. They chuckled together as she shrugged and then more thoughtfully Derrick rephrased his question, “Seriously, how do you do it?”

Charlie seemed to regard him carefully and have an internal debate. She finally came to a conclusion and exhaled sharply, “Okay, I’ll show you but you have to promise to keep it a secret,” she wiped her hands on her work shirt then started rummaging in a backpack.

Derrick’s pace quickened, “Yeah, sure, no problem. Secret, no sweat,” he wasn’t sure what she was going to do or how it was going to happen but he was ready for anything.

Charlie produced a worn knit wool cap. She proudly held it out for Derrick to examine. Confused as to the significance Derrick reached out for the cap only to have her jerk it away. “Look with your eyes, not your hands!” Charlie childishly chastised him.

“It’s a hat?”

“It’s not just a hat, it’s the thing that makes it happen,” Charlie explained as if that explained anything. She put the cap on and watched the parking lot between her and the restaurant.

Derrick went along with it and sat silently next to Charlie. He looked down to her middle, not sure if he really expected anything to happen. Nothing did. “Nothings happening,” he stated after a couple of minutes of waiting.

“I know, we’re waiting,” Charlie half turned to explain but kept scanning across the lot.

“Waiting for what?” he frowned as she just held up a finger for him to wait. Another ten minutes had passed by. He had finished his drink and was losing his patience, “Charlie, is this a joke?”

“Ah, there we go!” Charlie either didn’t hear or ignored his comment, pointing towards the door of the restaurant. A woman was holding a door open to let her three small children out. Soon to be four by the look of it. She was wearing a long clingy dress that went down to her ankles. Her belly thrust out, pulling the fabric tight. She waited for her kids to exit and waddled after her. “Perfect, and she’s coming this way,” Charlie straightened the hat and leaned back a little, adjusting her position.

Derrick had noticed the woman but wasn’t certain why Charlie had. “What does...whoa!!!” he jumped back as he saw Charlie’s belly suddenly swell out roundly. He blinked and stared. It was definitely there. He looked back to the woman and saw that she was now not pregnant and reacting with renewed vigor in herding her kids to the nearby car. He looked back to Charlie who seemed delighted at his astonishment.

She leaned back and gave the top a pat to the top of her freshly swollen middle, “Tada!”

Derrick leaned back, giving her middle a very thorough look. He leaned from side to side to take in different angles and Charlie obliged him by getting up and turning side to side. He felt sweat trickle off his forehead. “Can I...uh...do you mind?” he moved his hand apprehensively towards Charlie’s middle.

“Huh? Oh, you want to feel it?” Charlie shrugged and lifted up the hem of her shirt, exposing her gravid belly, “yeah, sure.”

Derrick’s vision grew dark around the edges as he felt suddenly lightheaded. Gingerly he reached out, slowly moving his fingers towards the rounded globe of tightly drawn skin. His fingers made contact, the surface yielding softly. Out of reflex Derrick withdrew his hand like he’d been bit but seeing that Charlie didn’t seem to mind it, he prodded again. Just fingertips at first, he dared to go forward and lowered his hand, palm fully on the delightful swell of her middle and even rubbed slightly. “Cool,” he whispered softly, unable to think clearly.

Satisfied that she’d presented enough evidence to it’s existence, Charlie tucked the shirt back over her freshly acquired belly and sat back on the back of the van beside Derrick. His attention was fully fixated on her newly pregnant middle she noticed. She assumed that made sense. He was probably having to adjust to not being crazy after all. The silence, not to mention the staring, was however getting to her. “So there you go.”

Derrick snapped out of his stupor, rubbing his eyes. “Yeah, damn, there you go,” he looked back down at her middle, as if to confirm it was still there, “so what the hell just happened?”

Charlie pointed up to the wool cap still on her head, “This thing lets me steal someone else’s pregnancy.”

Derrick stared at her, waiting for further explanation. Finally, he blurted, “How?”

“I dunno, it just does,” Charlie shrugged again, probing the side of her belly where she felt it’s occupant kick.

“Where’d it come from?!?” the implications of the hat were hitting Derrick like a storm of sledgehammers, “what happens to the mother? What happens to the baby?”

“Chill out,” Charlie gestured for him to calm down, “the babies go back. It’s only temporary!” Charlie offered Derrick a sip of her drink as it appeared he was starting to hyperventilate

“What? Are you sure?” Derrick took a gulp from the offered drink and started to choke

“Yeah, I used to do it to my neighbor all the time when she was pregnant,” Charlie patted Derrick on the back as he coughed, “and her kid turned out fine.”

His nerves seemed soothed. Having caught his breath, he pointed up at the hat. “So where’d did that thing come from?”

Charlie plucked the hat off her head and held it tenderly. She rubbed her fingers in the coarse, poorly knitted cap like it was fine silk. “Got it at a garage sale.”

“A garage sale?” Derrick stammered.

“Yup, bought it for a dollar!” Charlie seemed inordinately pleased at herself over it.

“That’s...ridiculous!” Derrick couldn’t believe it. Proof of the supernatural, undeniable proof of magic (cause really, what else can it be?), and Charlie bought it in a garage sale? How had no one heard of this? Why were there no legends? Where there more? But most importantly, “Why the hell is there a hat that lets you steal someone else’s pregnancy?”

“Temporarily,” Charlie amended, amused at Derrick obvious mental breakdown.

“Temporarily, whatever,” He shook Charlie by the shoulders, “things don’t just happen! That thing came from somewhere! Why?”

Charlie took his hands off her shoulders and patted him on the head. In a gesture that was quickly getting on Derrick’s nerves, “I dunno,” she shrugged.

“You’ve never thought about this? Any of this?” Derrick whisper yelled at Charlie, trying to not draw attention to themselves despite Charlie’s lack of care.

“Not really. A little bit. I thought maybe it was like maybe a magic babysitting item.”

Derrick blinked,“What?”

Charlie leaned back and pressed a hand a top of belly, “So you’re a pregnant mother, you’ve been carrying this thing around for months. Your feet hurt, your back hurts, you’re sore all over,” she pointed up to her hat, “so you go to the person with the hat, they take care your pregnancy so you can have a few hours of rest!” Derrick was just gaping at her, “I don’t know, maybe if you have to have surgery or something?” she looked miffed and hugged her middle, “I don’t hear a better explanation from you.”

Derrick relaxed and chuckled, “You’re right, sorry, I don’t have one,” he sat beside her and took a gamble giving her middle a poke which she seemed not to mind, “give me some time, I’m new to this.”

That seemed to relax her, for whatever reason, “Yeah, I guess. Besides, I don’t care how or why it works or where it came from,” she hugged her middle, giggling a little, “as long as it works.”

“Yeah, I guess so,” he held his hand on her belly, albeit over fabric rather than bare skin like before, but she didn’t seem to care so he took what he could.

“Oops, here comes another,” Charlie suddenly said, shifting up in her seating and making sure her hat was firmly secure.

“What’s that?” Derrick barely managed to say before he felt his hand suddenly push where it sat on her middle. It rose a few inches, Charlie’s belly dramatically and swiftly growing larger in an eyeblink. “Nng..” Derrick grunted incoherently as his mind registered what had happened.

Charlie laughed openly at his stupid expression, his mouth gaped open as he stared at the suddenly larger Charlie with his hand on his middle. It hit him what had happened, “You can take more than one at a time?”

Charlie nodded, “Yeah, and yes, they all go back to the right place,” Charlie bit her finger as she thought for a moment, “I think anyway.”

Derrick didn’t pay attention, his focus solely on Charlie’s belly. He slowly ran his hand over the curved top. “Yeah,” he swallowed slowly and continued in a lower voice, “how many can you do at once?”

“I’ve done quints a couple times.”

Derricks head snapped up, “Five?!”

Charlie nodded happily, “Oh yeah, I was freaking huge!” She held her hands out in front of her, further than her already large belly was sticking out, “It was pretty uncomfortable really,” she smiles and giggles to herself as she remembers, “I had to crawl up the stairs.”

Derrick giggled nervously, his mind still grappling with imagining what Charlie looked like. He could imagine that her pantomime was probably not far off, “I would have loved to see that,” he quietly answered.

Though he wasn’t meaning for her to hear, she evidently did but didn’t seem to think much of it, “I’ve got some pictures on the computer at home,” she answered simply, making Derrick’s heart skip a beat, “I’ll show you sometime.” She plucked Derrick’s paralyzed hand off her middle, putting it down next to her. She shimmeyed off the back of the van and pulled her shirt down over her middle tightly to eliminate wrinkles. Derrick stared on in a daze, “so, where’d you park?”

Derrick coughed and looked away, “Parked?”

“Yeah, where’d you park your car? I’ll drop you off.” The fastfood place they had stopped to get food was on the outskirts of the mall parking.

“Oh, my sister dropped me off this morning,” Derrick sheepishly admitted, “I don’t suppose you could give me a ride home?” he grinned at her expectantly.

“Yeah, sure,” Charlie teased him with a sneer but casually waved away his thanks.

“Thanks Charlie,” Derrick said for more than just the ride.

“Yeah, nothing to it Derrick.”

Direct couldn’t help but notice it was the first time she had gotten his name right. He decided to hazzard, “I hope you don’t mind, but I’d like to hang out sometime,” Derrick braced himself against her almost certain rejection.

Charlie looked at him curiously, not in a hostile fashion but like she was really taking stock of him. After a while she shrugged, “Yeah, I suppose so. I guess it’d be nice to have someone to talk to about this,” she patted her middle and rubbed the coarse fabric over it to make it clear was ‘this’ was about.

Derrick couldn’t imagine his luck, “Yeah. Just what I was thinking.” The possibilities were endless.

Description
Jon turned his Camaro down the street that his house was on with a squeal of tires. He smirked at the sound, undoubtedly imagining how cool he looked. Derrick couldn’t really say anything about Jon’s beater of a car since he didn’t have one and was reliant on the older boy for rides. Summer vacation was here and he didn’t want to get stuck bumming rides from his parents or sister so he just nodded with a smile when Jon looked over to him.

Jon seemed satisfied by the wordless exchange and then broke into conversation mid sentence, “It’s going to be a good summer man. I got some work with a construction company, going to make much bank and have all my nights and weekends open.”

“Yeah, you know it,” Derrick agreed. Jon had graduated and was supposedly heading to the local community college. He wasn’t a bad baseball player and had won a minor scholarship to offset the cost of school but seemed to have it in his head that community college was just a temporary step until the state university or some other school recruited him. Derrick was pretty sure that Jon wouldn’t make a semester without failing and his ball playing was adequate at best. He wasn’t the sharpest crayon in the box and definitely didn’t have a ounce of the talent his older brothers did. Not that he would tell Jon that. He needed the meathead if he was going to have any kind of social life and truth be told, he did feel he owed him the support since Jon had prevented him from having to take the bus in the last school year. He’d have to find someone for the next school year of course, but he had the summer for that.

Jon pulled into the driveway and cut the engine which quit with a couple of obstinate coughs, “I don’t think my parents are here.”

“Yeah,” Derrick agreed. Of course they weren’t, there weren’t any cars in the driveway. But that was Jon, having to state the obvious.

“I got to see if I can borrow a few bucks for gas,” Jon turned to him and asked for the third time, “you sure you don’t have any money?”

“Sorry man, totally tapped,” Derrick shrugged. Of course he had some money, just not enough to want to give it to Jon, “I’d give it to you if I did, it’s the least I could do with you giving me rides and all. But man, I’m just not doing as good as you.”

Jon grinned, punching Derrick in the shoulder, “Yeah, I know. It’s cool bro. C’mon, maybe the brat has some.” Jon jumped out the car and ran for the door while Derrick got out more sedately. ‘The brat’ Jon referred to was his kid sister, Charlie. She seemed okay, if not a little weird and kind of a spaz. Jon noticed something out of the corner his eye and, speak of the devil, there she was. She was leaning out the window apparently the noise of Jon’s arrival drawing her attention. He turned to follow Jon in when his head snapped back to her on its own accord. Her belly was round, resting on the window sill as she leaned out trying to look around the corner of the house. She was wearing a simple white tank top that strained to cover it. Despite the lousy angle and the obscured view, he could tell she was quite big. He paused, fixated for a moment before he realized she was looking at him with a questioning look and a small bit of irritation. He was just starting to smile and say hello when he was interrupted from his reverie.

“Yo Derrick, come on,” Jon called, leaning his head out the front door.

“Yeah, coming,” Derrick coughed and with a hop headed after Jon. He looked back to see if Charlie was still there, stealing a quick glances. She seemed okay. Following Jon up the stairs, who took them up in bounds, he continued his train of thought. She was better than okay really. He never really paid any attention to her before and Jon despised her, rarely saying anything about her other than how annoying she once in a while. She was cute really. Not that he would ever tell Jon that. He was sure Jon wouldn’t like that at all. And that belly. THAT he definitely wouldn’t tell Jon about.

It was his horrible little secret, the thing he never told anyone, not even hinted at. There was something about pregnancy that just tripped a switch in his head. It was a rather jarring discovery when it came to his conscious attention some years ago and one that he just kept to himself. Everyone else around him thought it was gross, at best thought it was just something you were just likely to tolerate with varying degrees of acceptance at some point in your life if you were involved with someone you were going to have children with some day. Not him, it was as strong a draw to him as any other part of a woman, maybe more so. And like a lot of those other parts, big was good. Charlie looked huge from what little and how brief a look he had gotten. Try as he might, he couldn’t remember having seen her from closer up. It didn’t matter, Jon was already banging on her door and demanding she opened up. He’d be able to get a better look to jog his memory. Still, strange he couldn’t remember from the previous times he was here in the last few months.

“Where’s mom and dad?” Jon demanded. Derrick tried to look around him but could only just see the top of Charlie’s dirty blonde hair.

Charlie was as fond of her brother as he was her, “I dunno, working?” she replied in an icy tone.

He kept trying to look around the big lug but it was useless. Derrick dodged back as Jon seemed to try to do something Charlie that elicited her taking a swing at him. Jon turned and run, laughing like the goon he was. Finally, his view was clear of Charlie. Wow, how did he not remember this?

She stood in the doorway, glaring at Jon’s back as he ran, her arms folded over her enormous belly. She was as tall as he was but despite that it did nothing to make her belly look any smaller by comparison. It jutted roundly out, stretching the tank top tightly over it. She seemed to be just wearing her normal clothing rather than infuriating maternity wear made to cover over the pregnancy like so many women unfortunately did. His breath caught as he noticed there was a thin strip of exposed belly below where the shirt failed to meet the black track shorts she wore. He stared, his mind wondering what it must feel like as he watched it slowly rise and fall as she breathed. It looked tight but he couldn’t see a trace of stretch marks. It was perfect.

It was about then that he noticed that she was glaring at him. He looked up and started to smile. He should say something.

“And what do you want?” she barked in his face, clearly still agitated by her brother’s intrudence.

Truth be told, he couldn’t help being a little frightened by her expression and that he had been caught awkwardly in the middle of staring. “What? Nothing!” he retreated to Jon’s room, feeling more than a little embarrassed. “Smooth Derrick, real smooth,” he chastised himself. He followed Jon into the room. Jon had already dropped into the ratty recliner before the tv and fired up the game console so Derrick sat took the office chair at the desk. He leaned an elbow on the desk and supported his head. Talk to her like a human being, how hard is that? Running away, not impressive. He mentally flogged himself while the console warmed up.

“Parent’s shouldn’t be too long,” Jon randomly started, as he typically did.

“Yeah,” Derrick watched as Jon started one of the sports games that he loved so much. Derrick couldn’t tell the difference from one football game to the other but Jon had assured him, at great length, that this one was the best. He couldn’t get his mind off Charlie, “Your sister didn’t have any money she could spot you?”

Jon gave a short laugh and blew a raspberry, “I’m not asking that loser.”

“Why not?”

Jon shrugged in annoyance, “She’s in a bitchy mood.”

“Yeah, sure,” Derrick agreed with just a hint of sarcasm that went over Jon’s head. Of course she was annoyed. Jon did everything he could to be to antagonize her twenty-four seven. She’d probably find him just as annoying by association to her brutish brother of course. No chance he’d be able to speak to her much less spend any kind of time in her presence. And he desperately wanted to. “Maybe I should ask her?” Derrick offered with an affected air of disinterest.

Jon’s brow pinched together still focused on his game, “Why bother?” Jon’s talking slowed as more and more of his meager brain capacity was dedicated to playing the game, poorly at that, “I told you, she’s in a bitchy mood.”

“Well for starts, she probably doesn’t hate me like you, asshole,” Derrick muttered under his breath.

“Huh?” Jon dully asked.

“I said it’s probably hormones,” Derrick lied.

“Yeah, she’s fat,” Jon snickered to himself as if he had said the most clever thing ever.

Derrick just glared at him. After a moment he took a deep breath and let it out. What was he thinking anyways? Why would Charlie hate him any less than her brother? They’d never shared a word. He cursed himself quietly. Why hadn’t he tried to speak to her before? He had months, surely and couldn’t remember a single time he had so much as said hello to her? And why could he not bring a single image to mind of her pregnancy before just now? It was like it had suddenly just snuck up on him.

A couple hours had passed and Jon’s parents still hadn’t shown up. Between the boredom of watching someone else play a thoroughly boring game and his mind running around in circles with Charlie, he couldn’t take it anymore. “Going to the bathroom,” he announced getting out of the seat.

“K. Have fun,” Jon smiled at his own ‘joke’.

Derrick shook his head and stepped into the hall, closing the door behind him. He took a moment to gather himself and formulated a plan. He focused on Charlie’s door mid way down the hall. He would just knock, nicely, and ask, politely, if he could borrow a few dollars. Even if she didn’t have any money or didn’t want to lend any, it opened the door (literally) to conversation. At the very least he would at least get another look at that incredible belly. That was worth it on it’s own.

He formulated some possible angles. Apologize for Jon’s behavior. Show some empathy about how much of a jerk he was. If she felt he was on her side about it, surely she’d react favorably. At the least he could show he wasn’t like her brother. Show her that he was the nice guy. It was good ground work even if it didn’t pay off today. Feeling that he had a pretty good strategy set up, he softly knocked on the door. Just loud enough to be heard but not so loud as to sound demanding. He heard the creak of bed springs and no verbal abuse so felt things were going well.

“Yeah?” Charlie opened the door then looked confused as she realized it wasn’t her brother.

“Umm…” what was he going to say? Derrick puzzled for a second. Something about her brother being a jerk. Oh yeah, he had wanted to borrow some gas money. “Hey, sorry about earlier and stuff. Could you lend us a couple of bucks for gas?” hastily he added, “We can pay you back tomorrow.” Well Jon could anyways. It was his car and his sister, his problem.

Charlie rolled her eyes and sighed with a pained expression. “Yeah, don’t have a dime, sorry dude,” she scratched her slim belly, flicking away bit of lent from the rumpled tank top.

“You sure? We only need a few bucks,” clearly she was lying. She had answered too quickly, an automatic response. A lot like he had answered Jon’s request earlier. He tried to appeal to how it would benefit her, “it’d get us out the house? That’s got to be worth lending a little money, right?”

“I really don’t care what you guys do, just do it away from my door,” she glared at him for a moment then slammed the door shut.

He glared back at the closed door and narrowed his eyes. “Man, he is right, she is a little asshole,” he thought to himself as he stalked back to Jon’s room.

He saw her a couple times more that week. Following Jon’s example he avoided any interaction with her which really was for the best. At best she was annoying, at worst she was actively unpleasant in the extreme. He chuckled when her and Jon got into a verbal sparring match that almost came to blows before their father enforced the peace by separating them to opposite ends of the house. Granted, Jon couldn’t keep up with her wit but he made up for it with the vulgarity. Monday rolled around and he had stayed the night at Jon’s insistence that they were suppose to be heading to the beach to meet with some other friends early that morning to take advantage of the last week before Jon’s job started. Jon was an extraordinary sour mood that morning as storm clouds were threatening a downpour which caused the group to cancel the trip. He even had worse news, at least to Jon’s view of things.

“And not only that, Dad’s getting the twerp a car,” Jon abruptly segued.

That would explain the silence in the house. He realized he hadn’t seen the little heathen all morning. “Really, she’s old enough to drive?” Derrick fully knew that she was but also knew the jab would lighten Jon’s mood.

Sure enough Jon chuckled, “Yeah, I know, right? It’s not all bad I guess. Dad’s got a job for her too. She gets the car as long as she works.”

Derrick shrugged, “Well that’s not so bad, gets her out of your hair.”

“Yeah. Well sorta. I mean, I still got to work too, so I wouldn’t see her anyway,” that seemed to take some of the starch out of Jon’s glee.

“Maybe she’ll have to work weekends. That’ll suck for her,” Derrick offered as a consolidatory prize.

“Yeah, that’d be awesome!” Jon agreed, back to smiles.

They couldn’t come to any decisions on what to do and were irritated that the clouds had parted but no one wanted to head to beach anymore having found other things to do that didn’t involve them. Didn’t involve Jon more likely, Derrick figured. Jon wasn’t exactly what you’d call popular despite his own instance to the contrary.

The boredom of watching Jon selfishly insist that he needed to play for just ‘one more level’ before giving Derrick a turn on the console was broken by the arrival of Jon’s dad. With a knock he opened the door and peeked in, “Hi Jon, Derrick.”

“Hey Dad.”

“Hello Mr. Powers.”

Jon’s father stepped in, purposely blocking Jon’s view of the TV in order to get his attention. “Jon, the lawn needs cutting.”

Jon paused the game and groaned in protest. “It’s the twerp’s turn!”

“Not from what I remember, she did it last weekend. Promptly, I’d like to add.” Mr. Powers folded his arms and gave his son a critical look. “From what I remember you promised you’d do it Saturday, it’s Monday.”

“Yeah, but…” Jon started to complain.

“Yeah nothing, your turn,” Jon’s dad then took on a look of some pride, “besides, your sister is off taking her new van out for it’s maiden voyage.”

Jon looked annoyed but Derrick snickered as what Mr. Powers had said sank in, “wait, did you say van?”

“Yes?”

“Like a mini-van?” the idea struck Derrick as amusing.

“No, it’s a panel van,” Mr. Powers cocked his head to the side, curious as to what was so funny.

“What color?” Derrick asked, barely containing his glee.

“White. What of it?”

“Does it say ‘free candy’ on the side?” Jon in a rare moment of insight added as he realized where the joke was going.

“Very funny. Lawn. Weed the flower beds too. Now,” his dad smirked with some irritation in his voice. Quite innocently he added, “oh, and since you have Derrick here, surely he’d want to help you with your chores since he’s such a good friend.” The last bit he added while giving Derrick a vengeful grin, “And don’t call your sister a twerp,” he called over his shoulder as he left the room.

“Well come on, sooner we’re finished, sooner we can get out of here,” Jon said, resigned to his fate.

Not only had the sun come out, it had come out with a vengeance. Jon grunted his way through the yard pushing the mower who’s drivetrain seemed to have given out while Derrick picked through the flower beds on his hands and knees. He’d tried to squirm out of it but there was no way to get out of the work with a way of going home on his own. Plus he’d surely piss of Jon, he wasn’t likely to believe any excuse to leave anyway. He stewed in his own juices, cursing his own luck. He was suppose to be at beach, being lazy and maybe chatting up some girls. Not that that ever happened but a boy could dream. Jon’s father had left shortly after making sure they had started to get in at least some work done and his mother wasn’t going to be in from her job until later so during one of their many breaks beneath the shade of the tree in the front yard they took turn griping about their luck.

“It’s got to be the hottest day yet!” Jon stated the obvious

“Yeah, kind of what happens when summer starts, tends to get hotter,” Derrick wasn’t in a mood.

“Shut up,” Jon elegantly countered. At least it was too hot for him to get physical about it, “and the little twerp is off driving around having a great old time I’m sure.”

“Yeah, she sucks,” Derrick offered. The idea of someone else avoiding the pain they were in seemed personally offensive.

“Dad gets her a car for nothing, like she deserves it,” Jon stood, wiping off the dirt from his rear as he got ready to tackle the backyard while Derrick finished weeding the front.

“Yeah damn her,” never mind that Jon had gotten his car the exact way but he wasn’t in the mood to point it out to him and was generally glad to focus his ire on someone that wasn’t sharing his sentence anyways.

Derrick continued with the weeding, intermittently fighting off fire ants and mosquitos as he did. He was working himself into a foul mood as the afternoon wore on. His annoyance at nature was momentarily distracted as he saw a simple white van came driving up the street. “Ah, the golden child returns,” Derrick sarcastically mumbled to no one in particular. He stopped to watch her pull in hoping she’d clip the fence alongside the driveway dividing the Powers yard from their neighbors. Alas she didn’t. Even worse she had a giant toothy smile on her face as she pulled to a stop. Derrick never felt so much hate. Here he was a dirty, sweaty buffet for the local insect population, pulling up weeds for HER family without getting paid for it and she was having the time of her life. Well, she can just take her stupid van and shove it right up her stupid…

The thought didn’t finish as she stepped out. His breath caught and he shuddered making a gurgling grunt as she gingerly stepped down from the driver’s seat. Reason she did so and the reason why he found himself unable to make think coherent coincided: she was enormous.

Her belly swelled out hugely, pulling her t-shirt to its limits. It tented over her belly and draped over the edge, delightfully revealing a crescent of bare skin, pulled taut to the point being slightly shiny but flawlessly smooth. When she turned her back to him to close the van door it failed to hide the swells of it’s side. He thought for a moment that surely it couldn’t had been as large as his first impression but when she turned to start walking to the house he was proven otherwise. If anything, it looked even larger than he had first thought. Basketball, beachball, watermelon, the analogies failed to describe it. It was massive. He licked his lips, his mouth gone suddenly dry. She took a few waddling steps forward and then noticed he was there. He couldn’t turn away, despite feeling that he was staring blatantly. He knew that was going to be reprimanded but could not force his eyes off her middle.

Unexpectedly, rather than rebuffing his rudeness she turned and with a flourish gestured to her van, as if she were a prize presenter on a game show. She beamed proudly, seeming to think that the attention he was giving her was because of her new ride. It wasn’t much to look at, it still had faint marks of lettering for a flower delivery service and had a few subtle dents but he didn’t pass up the opportunity to avoid embarrassment. He smiled back and gave a golf clap, ending it with a thumbs up.

She seemed pleased by his response, bowing slightly, turned on her heels and continued to the house. He felt lightheaded and the corners of his vision blurred out as he was treated to her running her hands over her gravid middle and giving it a hearty pat along the bottom. She slowly waddled her way to the house passing nearby due to his position in the flower beds, cradling it from below with her hands with support, hands not quite able to meet because it’s immensity. She entered the house, leaving him staring blankly at the door for few minutes before he bit down on his knuckles and collapsed on to his side. “Holy cow she is so awesome.” Derrick said aloud ignoring the ants swarming up his arm.

Derrick blazed through the remainder of the flower garden and even sprinted to the backyard to help Jon finish with whatever he could. His head swam with the memory of the brief encounter with Charlie incredibly pregnant self. He wanted to get this work done and find a reason, any reason at all, to speak to her. It was imperative. It was a complete, all consuming necessity or he sure he would lose his mind. “The van, complement the van.” Clearly she was happy about that. All he had to do was get this done, take a shower, change and get to her before Jon the meatheaded idiot ruined her mood. He completed everything he could while Jon puttered slowly with the lawnmower. With nothing left to do he signaled for Jon to turn off the mower.

“Okay dude, I’m done,” Derrick shouted as the mower wound down,“I’m going to go shower and change.”

Jon, who’s hygiene was questionable on a good day gave him an odd look, “You got a date?” Jon snort laughed.

“Yeah, I wish,” Derrick said, making Jon look at him quizzically, “man, I’m covered in dirt, insect bites and half the lawn clippings you produced since you didn’t put the grass catcher on. I’m going to change.”

“Psh, whatever wuss,” Jon derisively dismissed as he got ready to restart the mower.

A thought occurred to Derrick, “You’d better change too. We’ll go…” he thought desperately, “we’ll go cruise for chicks later. You don’t want to smell like a locker room for them, do you?”

Jon paused for a moment and thought about it, “Yeah, good idea.”

Perfect, that would buy him at least another thirty minutes of Jon free time to speak to Charlie. He had absolutely no intention of going cruising anywhere with him, he just needed something to get Jon into the shower and out of his way. If he was going to cruise with anyone, it was going to be Jon’s sister. He considered that, making his heart skip a beat. She did have a van now. If he could get in good with her, he could ditch Jon for good. Besides the really obvious reason of wanting to spend some time with her, she also had her own ride and was in his grade level. It was perfect. Needless to say, the very thought of being anywhere within line of sight of Charlie was enough to fill him with a completely insane level of giddy optimism.

He ran into Jon’s house, gathered the clothes he had set aside for after the aborted beach trip and ran for the shower. He slowed as he passed by Charlie’s closed door and resisted the urge to knock right then. “No, you reek, clean up first,” he told himself. He could tell she was in there, she seemed to be speaking. Phone perhaps? He couldn’t tell what she was saying but she seemed excited about it. He strained to hear and put his ear against the door carefully.

“...after the third, but I decided to push my luck. It worked out okay, I was able to find another one pretty quickly. Stopped and got something to eat then headed directly home to enjoy! No more timing things with a bus schedule. Oh the sweet freedom of my own transportation. This really opens up a lot of new opportunities. I mean, I’m going to have to work my work schedule but I’ll have plenty of time.” Charlie paused for a moment, he worried that she might have heard someone at the door but she continued after a moment. “So yeah, a red letter day for all sorts of reasons. Going to get some pictures as usual, probably throw in some pictures of the van too. Charlie Powers, signing off.”

It was strange, Derrick thought vaguely. He had assumed she was talking to someone on the phone but except for a very brief pause, it didn’t seem like she was listening to anyone. Besides that, who finishes a conversation with ‘signing off’? And pictures? Of what? He had assumed of the van but then she had said ‘pictures of the van too’. He felt a shiver. Of herself? Did she have a Vlog about her pregnancy or something? That would explain the one sided conversation. He got goosebumps just thinking of the possibility. Pictures? Video? Of Charlie’s ponderously, ludicrously large belly? He was so distracted that he jumped with a start as it registered that a door had just slammed at the rear of the house announcing Jon’s entrance. He ran into the bathroom, mindful to be quiet and not alert either of the Powers to his lurking behavior in the hall. He waited at the door and silently prayed that Jon would just head into his room without disturbing Charlie and ruining her mood before he had a chance to make his move. He breathed a sigh of relief as he heard Jon stomp his way down the hall without pausing and close his own door. Satisfied that things were still going as planned, Derrick showered like the wind.

Reasonably cleaned and sufficiently preened he had went into Jon’s room as nonchalantly as he could manage to let him know the shower was available. He waited patiently for Jon to decide to get up and shower, pretending to show interest on a random wikipedia page he had pulled up. Once Jon left for the shower Derrick waited for the sound of the shower start then dashed quickly to Charlie’s door. He ran a quick hand through his hair, smoothed his clothing out then softly knocked on the door.

There was a muffled sound inside and then what sounded like a sigh, “What?”

Derrick noted the sound of aggravation on Charlie’s voice, “Um, hey Charlie, it’s Derrick,” he raised his voice slightly to be heard clearly through the door but hoping not so loud that Jon might hear in the shower.

“Who?”

“Derrick, your brother’s friend?” she must have not heard him clearly. He was starting to lose his nerve. Clearing his throat he summoned up what little courage he could, “Could I talk to you for a minute?”

There was a moment of silence then a grunt. His pulse quickened as he heard the lock click on the door and the door cracked open. Charlie looked at him curiously for a second then recognition crossed her face, “Oh, you,” she opened the door wider and waddled away, which he assumed implied permission to step in.

Derrick lingered a moment watching her go back to the chair before her computer desk. She had evidently changed into a very billowy baby doll shirt which did only a very rudimentary job of hiding her size. Even from behind he could see the swell of her belly sway from side to side as she went back to her chair. With great effort she slowly lowered herself into the chair, her arms straining as she dropped herself with a final ‘oof’. It was mesmerizing

Charlie looked back at him blankly and folded her arms atop her remarkably round middle. “Yeah?” she asked him, snapping him out of his daydream.

“Oh,” he fidgeted and ran his fingers through his hair again, “congratulations on the van!” He put on the most genuine smile he could and was rewarded as she smiled back.

“Yeah, thanks.”

Derrick took a step in to clear the doorway and closed the door a little behind him. Not all the way, just enough to block view of the hallway and hopefully mute their conversation. He had considered closing it all the way but decided it’d be better not to make the imposition, “It’s got to be pretty sweet, first car and all that.”

Charlie nodded in agreement, “Yeah, freedom and all that. I like it.”

“Heard you got a job too,” it was going well, he felt. He just needed to keep the conversation flowing.

She seemed a little less thrilled about that, “Part of the deal, shouldn’t be too bad though,” she shrugged and then shifted in her seat. She slouched a bit and ran her hands across the top of her belly, entwining her fingers where she finished the maneuver.

He felt a jolt of electricity ride up his spine as she did, making eye twitch as hit hit his brain. It felt like she noticed the reaction so he quickly continued, “Where at?” He managed while he scratching his chin, his voice cracking slightly. He folded his arms and rocked on his feet, trying to look as casual as he could.

She raised an eyebrow, “Some pretzel place at the mall,” she looked at him suspiciously and straightened up in her seat. “Friends of my parents’ place. Or friend’s of friends. Something like that. Why you want to know?”

Her intense scrutiny was somewhat withering and Derrick felt himself starting to sweat, “Oh, just curious, you know?” He was losing her, he could feel it.. She turned back to her computer and randomly opened a browser. He noticed that there were minimized windows at the bottom of the screen already, evidently his intrusion having interrupted whatever she had been doing. The fabled cache of pictures he had theorized. “Um, I was thinking about getting a job,” he tried to get a better look at what she had hidden but the last thing he said caused her to whip her attention back to him again. He quickly looked to her face, hoping she didn’t notice the prying. “I mean not there, just…” his words trailed off at the look of irritation on her face as she focused back to the screen. She right clicked and closed the menus without re-expanding them and he felt his hope draining away rapidly.

“Yeah, well, good talk,” she raised a hand and waved a goodbye without looking back up at him.

“Yeah, sorry. Congrats on the van...again,” he felt crestfallen and started to back away. Maybe there was some way to recover. He desperately tried to think of something to say but his brain failed to cooperate. He was just gearing up to offer some sort of apology for the intrusion when he realized that the shower had stop and he could hear thumps coming from there. Jon was probably moments from emerging and it would not good if he found him here. But Derrick just had to say something to try to salvage what he felt was his last chance. She was looking at him at him from the corner of her eyes. There was a growing sense that she was about to lash out of him. As incredible as she was, he’d seen what her wrath was. He took another step away then suddenly found himself unable to restrain his mouth.

“You doing anything?” he blurted out suddenly.

“What?” she looked at him incredulously.

“Later I mean, do you-” he stopped and looked behind him. He could hear the door to the shower was opening. He felt panic and without another word suddenly retreated, slamming the door behind him leaving a bewildered Charlie behind.

She cocked her head to one side and looked at the door confused, listening to the sounds of running footsteps and a door slam from the direction of her brother’s room. She heaved herself to her feet and waddled to the door. She heard her brother’s footstep thud toward his room a second later. Charlie edged the door open slightly and peeked out, her belly pressing against the wall causing some kicks from it’s occupants. She rubbed the spot absentmindedly as she watched Jon open the door and enter. For a moment she caught sight of the guy that had intruded into her room. He was looking back in her direction terrified and quickly looked away when he realized she was looking at him. She closed the door and locked it, shaking her head. She patted the sides of her enormous belly and blew out a breath. “What a weirdo.”

Derrick cursed his own stupidity. He had totally blown his chances with Charlie, he was sure of it. He couldn’t stop thinking about her. She was so huge! It distracted him the rest of the evening. Jon drove them out to a popular hang out but his heart just wasn’t in it. He moped in a corner slowly drinking a soda while Jon tried to impress, with as little success as usual, some of the girls there with his utter lack of wit and terrible pool skills. He couldn’t even enjoy Jon’s pathetic attempts at flirting with the usual sadistic glee it gave him. Derrick just couldn’t stop thinking about her. He cursed his misfortune. It wasn’t just that she was pregnant. It wasn’t just that she was the biggest pregnancy he had ever seen outside of news reports or the internet. It was that he knew her! He had a conceivable chance at her! And he had blundered it away. It was just too depressing. He held his head in his hands at the table and waved away Jon’s attempts to recruit him as his wingman for another failed attempt to chat up a couple of girls.

Derrick dropped his head to the table. “You’re better off without me dude.” Truely.

The only tiny shiny light of hope he had left himself was that he had left his things at Jon’s house to give Jon a reason to pass by there on the way to drop him off at his own house. One final chance to try to smooth over his earlier disastrous attempt. On the ride home he rehearsed in his head how to approach her. He was currently considering explaining that he had suddenly felt ill so wasn’t quite thinking straight as the pulled into the driveway. Looking up to the second floor he could see that her lights were still on. Perfect, she was still awake. Now to keep Jon from interfering. He told Jon that he would just run in and grab his stuff real quick. Jon made an uninterested noise. He turned the radio up and bobbed his head to the music. Derrick ran out the car and to the door. He knocked, hoping it would be Charlie to answer. It would have made things easier but he was disappointed as her mother answered instead. He greeted her and explained that he just needed to pick up the things he ‘accidently’ had left then bolted up the stairs, slowing to a fast walk as she chastised him for running in the house.

Once upstairs and having rounded the corner into the hallway he slowed. Giving his appearance a final once over he headed to Charlie’s door only to have it open as he got to it. “Perfect!” he thought. With her coming out on her own, it would spare him the awkwardness of having to knock. Plus even if he wasn’t able to start a conversation he’d still have at least one more opportunity to see Charlie’s...Charlie’s what?

Derrick stopped in the hall with a puzzled look even as Charlie scrutinized him with an equally puzzled but hostile look. Derrick didn’t notice, lost in thought. What had he just been thinking about? He turned his attention forward, watching Charlie come up the hall and across to the bathroom. She was dressed in a rumpled over-sized t-shirt, evidently getting ready for bed. “It was something about her,” he thought, but unable to remember what it was. “I was just thinking about it,” he stared off into space trying to grasp the forgotten thought even as Charlie pushed past him and went into the bathroom with one more perplexed look back at him as she did.

Derrick pondered then slowly started walking to get his things. He remembered that was why he had to go back to Jon’s before going home but there was some other reason. Something about Charlie. What about Charlie? Try as he might he couldn’t remember. He had a vague recollection of starting to ask her out. Why did he do that? “She’s alright looking,” he thought to himself, “but she’s so annoying.” He remembered in a flash her dismissing him from her room earlier about something he was saying. He remembered complimenting her on her van. Was it that he was trying to butter her up to get her to be his ride to school next year? He shook his head and laughed, “That thing’s hideous! I think I can find someone with something better.” But there was still that vague idea scratching at the back of his mind.

He kept working his mind around the conundrum as he gathered his things. It was giving him a headache. It was like waking up in the middle of a dream and feeling it slip away until it was only a vague feeling. It was exactly like that except it was a hole in his memory that centered around why he would try to even say one word to Jon’s strange little sister. “I must just be tired,” he shook off the vague deja vu sensation that was rolling around in his skull and left the house. Moments he left and tried to forget about the odd compulsive thoughts. He wasn’t successful.

He fitfully slept that night. His dreams kept coming around to Charlie but every time he woke he could feel the dream drift away unforgotten. He finally gave up trying to get back to sleep right around the time his mother called for him to wake up as she headed out the door to work. He showered, changed and plopped himself down on the couch. He ignored the phone when it rang. It was probably Jon but he had no desire to see anyone. He yawned, the lack of sleep getting to him. He tried to dismiss the bizarre feeling that there was something missing that slowly disappeared as the day went on.

By the next day Derrick was feeling back to his usual self. He explained to Jon that he must have come down with something a couple days ago to explain his absence the day before. Things were back to their usual patterns and Derrick was feeling his old self. At least until later that afternoon.

It had started raining heavily by mid-morning, just after Jon had brought Derrick to his house to hang out. Whatever plans they had were dashed by the rain so they just settled for watching a dvd. They had decided to watch Avengers and were in the process of tearing apart the room looking for it.

“Did you put it back in the case?” Derrick asked looking under Jon’s bed. He shuffled things aside with a bat being unwilling to put his arm in the refuse that lurked beneath the bed.

Jon searched through the same three same drawers for the fourth time, “I don’t know. Did you find the case?”

“No.”

Jon turned around and gave him the ‘are you stupid’ look for once, “then what difference does it make?”

Derrick glared at him, “I’m just asking to know what I’m looking for, a dvd or a dvd in a case.”

Jon rolled his eyes, “Either one, who cares?!”

Derrick’s rebuttal was interrupted as they heard Jon’s mother call from downstairs, “Charlie, come here a second.”

“What is it?” he heard Charlie call back, by the sounds at her own door.

“Come here for a minute.”

“Why? Did I do something?”

“JUST COME HERE FOR A MINUTE!!” Her mother yelled up exasperated.

“Okay, sheesh,” she heard Charlie go downstairs.

Jon suddenly realized. “Oh, betcha she has it,” he announced with a snap of the fingers. He started to head for the door.

Closer to the door, Derrick volunteered to get it. He headed out and after hearing that Charlie and her mother were having a conversation somewhere around the kitchen area he poked into her room. A quick scan of the room and he located the missing dvd case sitting at Charlie’s desk beside her computer. He picked the case up to check if the dvd was inside and finding it so started to turn to leave. As he did, his eyes strayed across her screen. For some reason they stopped, focused on a menu minimized at the bottom of the screen. He was about to instinctually look away when a vague recollection came to him. There was something about that menu. It had to do with why he had been talking to Charlie that day but he couldn’t make what the connection was. If maybe he were to look…

He started to reach for the mouse then paused. It was rude and intrusive but it was driving him nuts. If a quick peek would just untie the knot in his head it would be worth it. He promised himself he’d make up for the breach in privacy to Charlie, somehow, to justify it. He clicked it quickly before he changed his mind. He felt a moment of guilt in the fraction of a second it took for the menu to open. That quick flash of self-reproach as his mind reeled at what he was looking at.

There were dozens of pictures of Charlie, all in various stages of pregnancy. Most were at least large but some were outlandishly so. His eyes flicked about the screen. He was astonished to see that what he was seeing was only a small portion of the collection of pictures as he scrolled down. “When had Charlie been pregnant?” Derrick asked himself as he zoomed down the page. “It’s got to be something fake? Yeah, that must be it,” Derrick figured, although part of his brain kept insisting it was real. He picked out a picture from the set and opened it. There stood Charlie, turned in profile to apparently display the size of her belly to the camera. She was quite large though surely a lot was in the exaggerated stance she effected. Still, she looked very large, all belly projecting out. Her hands framed the top and bottom of the belly, pulling the blue and black striped sweater over it tightly. Derrick felt his heart quicken, pounding in his ears. Charlie looked insufferably proud, smiling like the cat that ate the canary at the camera. He flicked over to the next few pictures. Apparently the camera must have been set on a timer taking pictures automatically she was wearing the same outfit but just in slightly different positions in the proceeding pictures. Derrick skipped over the next few as he noticed from the thumbnails the gem of the series. He frantically clicked on the mouse trying to will the photo to open quicker. It was still Charlie in the same sweater but this time she had the sweater pulled up to reveal the gorgeous mound of her belly.

She was smiling with her eyes closed in a very pleased expression. She had the sweater pulled up over her belly with one hand and was cradling her tummy with the other. Derrick inhaled slowly. The skin was flawlessly smooth, not a sign of stretchmarks. He could make out the trace work of veins below the lightly tanned skin. The resolution of the camera was good enough that he could could make out the goosebumps that played over her middle. He made up his mind about something at that point, it wasn’t fake.

“No fuzzy edges, no discoloration, pixelization,” Derrick was no expert on digital editing but he couldn’t see any signs of tampering. He doubted Charlie was either. He still couldn’t come to grips with it though. “When the hell was she pregnant and where was I for this?!” he hopelessly cried to no one. Out of nowhere he suddenly felt a jolt of vertigo. For just a brief instant he sees Charlie sitting in a chair, leaning back with an absolutely gigantic pregnant belly on her lap. They were talking, he was trying to ask her out, but then…

He snapped back to reality as he heard footsteps heading up the stairs. It was Charlie! He clicked minimize quickly and ran for the door then leaping back to snag the dvd he had originally came for. He dashed out the door pausing only briefly to carefully set the door to about as open it was when he had initially entered then fast walked back to Jon’s room as silently as possible.

He got to the room, handed the dvd to Jon without preamble and sat at his customary post at Jon’s writing desk . As Jon put in the dvd Derrick’s mind raced. The pictures. A pregnancy that he could and couldn’t remember. When? That brought up another oddity, the pictures were named by dates but the sizes varied dramatically and ranged from small to large and back randomly. Well, from large to larger to whoa mama anyways. He couldn’t help but smile at that even as felt the developing headache. Also, the oldest dates were nearly a year old but none looked smaller than ready to give birth. The brief snippet of possible memory was already fading away. Try as he might he was losing the details. The details of the menu were starting to slip too. He thought about that, trying to hold on to the things that were going dull. He had the impression of the brief image of Charlie was from only a few days ago but as of today she no signed of having ever been pregnant. He knew it had happened but part of him said it didn’t. And it was getting the upper hand. He kept trying to hold on but it was a losing battle. It was exactly like waking up out of a dream and feeling it slip loose. “Like dreams…” a thought suddenly occurred to him. He remember reading about dream analysis and how they would instruct the person being studied to immediately write down what they were just dreaming about to remember it. He quickly dug around in Jon’s desk and pulled out an unused notebook and pen. Hurriedly, he jotted down a few notes.

‘Charlie is pregnant sometimes. Sometimes she’s not.’ In bold letters he added ‘YOU’VE SEEN THIS!’

‘You forget about it after you see her pregnant. You’ll forget what you were thinking about it at the time. If you see her pregnant, WRITE IT DOWN!’

He debated the next line but decided it was important, ‘There’s an entire folder on her computer with proof.’

Derrick closed up the notebook and stared at the cover for a couple of minutes. He had a vague recollection about something he was suppose to remember about Charlie. Something that was important to him. Cautiously he opened the notebook and peeked in. He read what he had written a few minutes earlier and digested it. He smiled slightly. He remembered.

“So wait,” Charlie interrupted offering Derrick some fries “so you just wrote it down and POOF! You remember everything?”

Derrick waved off the fries and adjusted his seating. They were in the parking lot of a local fast food franchise. He scooted forward to let his legs dangle over the back door of Charlie’s van. “No, not really. It was more like I remembered remembering. At first anyway,” Charlie gave him a look that said she didn’t understand from where she sat next to him so he decided to elaborate, “I remembered writing that down to not forget what I was forgetting but I don’t remember the forgotten memory I was trying to remember.”

Charlie nodded, stuffing her mouth full of fries, “Oh yeah, thanks. Perfectly clear now.”

Derrick laughed. “You have to be there I guess. Point was, the more I did it, the more I started remembering. Really brief, really sketchy memories but I remember having them. More importantly, I knew what I was writing was true, I could just feel it so it encouraged me to continue,” he picked up his sightings sheet from where it was between them and showed it to her, “and that lead me to doing this.” He saw that odd look in Charlie’s eye start developing, the look where he had learned he was crossing some line with her that left her mad at him every time, “Look, I’m real sorry about that.”

“About what?” Charlie guardedly asked.

“About…” he huffed in frustration, “about stalking you, about looking on your computer without you knowing, all that,” he hung his head in shame, waiting for her to explode on him.

Charlie took a bite from her burger and chewed carefully, reguarding him. “Eh, it’s alright,” she accepted the apology which did a lot to lift Derrick’s spirits, “you had a mystery eating at you, I guess under those conditions, I can forgive you.”

“Thanks Charlie, really,” Derrick honestly told her.

“No prob,” she wiped her mouth with a napkin then tucked it into the bag between them, “one thing I don’t get though, why did you start getting curious in the first place?”

Derrick blushed and quickly picked up his drink. He slurped on the straw as he thought about what to say. While he had been forthcoming on his recounting to Charlie about how he had finally managed to work around the mindblock, he didn’t admit at what was the driving force to do so: his attraction to pregnancy, “I don’t know, maybe I’m just keyed into this sort of thing,” Charlie looked curiously and he quick stammered out, “you know, magic and stuff.”

Charlie blew a raspberry, “Magic, yeah.”

“Well how do you explain it?” Derrick looked at her incredulously but smiling. They chuckled together as she shrugged and then more thoughtfully Derrick rephrased his question, “Seriously, how do you do it?”

Charlie seemed to regard him carefully and have an internal debate. She finally came to a conclusion and exhaled sharply, “Okay, I’ll show you but you have to promise to keep it a secret,” she wiped her hands on her work shirt then started rummaging in a backpack.

Derrick’s pace quickened, “Yeah, sure, no problem. Secret, no sweat,” he wasn’t sure what she was going to do or how it was going to happen but he was ready for anything.

Charlie produced a worn knit wool cap. She proudly held it out for Derrick to examine. Confused as to the significance Derrick reached out for the cap only to have her jerk it away. “Look with your eyes, not your hands!” Charlie childishly chastised him.

“It’s a hat?”

“It’s not just a hat, it’s the thing that makes it happen,” Charlie explained as if that explained anything. She put the cap on and watched the parking lot between her and the restaurant.

Derrick went along with it and sat silently next to Charlie. He looked down to her middle, not sure if he really expected anything to happen. Nothing did. “Nothings happening,” he stated after a couple of minutes of waiting.

“I know, we’re waiting,” Charlie half turned to explain but kept scanning across the lot.

“Waiting for what?” he frowned as she just held up a finger for him to wait. Another ten minutes had passed by. He had finished his drink and was losing his patience, “Charlie, is this a joke?”

“Ah, there we go!” Charlie either didn’t hear or ignored his comment, pointing towards the door of the restaurant. A woman was holding a door open to let her three small children out. Soon to be four by the look of it. She was wearing a long clingy dress that went down to her ankles. Her belly thrust out, pulling the fabric tight. She waited for her kids to exit and waddled after her. “Perfect, and she’s coming this way,” Charlie straightened the hat and leaned back a little, adjusting her position.

Derrick had noticed the woman but wasn’t certain why Charlie had. “What does...whoa!!!” he jumped back as he saw Charlie’s belly suddenly swell out roundly. He blinked and stared. It was definitely there. He looked back to the woman and saw that she was now not pregnant and reacting with renewed vigor in herding her kids to the nearby car. He looked back to Charlie who seemed delighted at his astonishment.

She leaned back and gave the top a pat to the top of her freshly swollen middle, “Tada!”

Derrick leaned back, giving her middle a very thorough look. He leaned from side to side to take in different angles and Charlie obliged him by getting up and turning side to side. He felt sweat trickle off his forehead. “Can I...uh...do you mind?” he moved his hand apprehensively towards Charlie’s middle.

“Huh? Oh, you want to feel it?” Charlie shrugged and lifted up the hem of her shirt, exposing her gravid belly, “yeah, sure.”

Derrick’s vision grew dark around the edges as he felt suddenly lightheaded. Gingerly he reached out, slowly moving his fingers towards the rounded globe of tightly drawn skin. His fingers made contact, the surface yielding softly. Out of reflex Derrick withdrew his hand like he’d been bit but seeing that Charlie didn’t seem to mind it, he prodded again. Just fingertips at first, he dared to go forward and lowered his hand, palm fully on the delightful swell of her middle and even rubbed slightly. “Cool,” he whispered softly, unable to think clearly.

Satisfied that she’d presented enough evidence to it’s existence, Charlie tucked the shirt back over her freshly acquired belly and sat back on the back of the van beside Derrick. His attention was fully fixated on her newly pregnant middle she noticed. She assumed that made sense. He was probably having to adjust to not being crazy after all. The silence, not to mention the staring, was however getting to her. “So there you go.”

Derrick snapped out of his stupor, rubbing his eyes. “Yeah, damn, there you go,” he looked back down at her middle, as if to confirm it was still there, “so what the hell just happened?”

Charlie pointed up to the wool cap still on her head, “This thing lets me steal someone else’s pregnancy.”

Derrick stared at her, waiting for further explanation. Finally, he blurted, “How?”

“I dunno, it just does,” Charlie shrugged again, probing the side of her belly where she felt it’s occupant kick.

“Where’d it come from?!?” the implications of the hat were hitting Derrick like a storm of sledgehammers, “what happens to the mother? What happens to the baby?”

“Chill out,” Charlie gestured for him to calm down, “the babies go back. It’s only temporary!” Charlie offered Derrick a sip of her drink as it appeared he was starting to hyperventilate

“What? Are you sure?” Derrick took a gulp from the offered drink and started to choke

“Yeah, I used to do it to my neighbor all the time when she was pregnant,” Charlie patted Derrick on the back as he coughed, “and her kid turned out fine.”

His nerves seemed soothed. Having caught his breath, he pointed up at the hat. “So where’d did that thing come from?”

Charlie plucked the hat off her head and held it tenderly. She rubbed her fingers in the coarse, poorly knitted cap like it was fine silk. “Got it at a garage sale.”

“A garage sale?” Derrick stammered.

“Yup, bought it for a dollar!” Charlie seemed inordinately pleased at herself over it.

“That’s...ridiculous!” Derrick couldn’t believe it. Proof of the supernatural, undeniable proof of magic (cause really, what else can it be?), and Charlie bought it in a garage sale? How had no one heard of this? Why were there no legends? Where there more? But most importantly, “Why the hell is there a hat that lets you steal someone else’s pregnancy?”

“Temporarily,” Charlie amended, amused at Derrick obvious mental breakdown.

“Temporarily, whatever,” He shook Charlie by the shoulders, “things don’t just happen! That thing came from somewhere! Why?”

Charlie took his hands off her shoulders and patted him on the head. In a gesture that was quickly getting on Derrick’s nerves, “I dunno,” she shrugged.

“You’ve never thought about this? Any of this?” Derrick whisper yelled at Charlie, trying to not draw attention to themselves despite Charlie’s lack of care.

“Not really. A little bit. I thought maybe it was like maybe a magic babysitting item.”

Derrick blinked,“What?”

Charlie leaned back and pressed a hand a top of belly, “So you’re a pregnant mother, you’ve been carrying this thing around for months. Your feet hurt, your back hurts, you’re sore all over,” she pointed up to her hat, “so you go to the person with the hat, they take care your pregnancy so you can have a few hours of rest!” Derrick was just gaping at her, “I don’t know, maybe if you have to have surgery or something?” she looked miffed and hugged her middle, “I don’t hear a better explanation from you.”

Derrick relaxed and chuckled, “You’re right, sorry, I don’t have one,” he sat beside her and took a gamble giving her middle a poke which she seemed not to mind, “give me some time, I’m new to this.”

That seemed to relax her, for whatever reason, “Yeah, I guess. Besides, I don’t care how or why it works or where it came from,” she hugged her middle, giggling a little, “as long as it works.”

“Yeah, I guess so,” he held his hand on her belly, albeit over fabric rather than bare skin like before, but she didn’t seem to care so he took what he could.

“Oops, here comes another,” Charlie suddenly said, shifting up in her seating and making sure her hat was firmly secure.

“What’s that?” Derrick barely managed to say before he felt his hand suddenly push where it sat on her middle. It rose a few inches, Charlie’s belly dramatically and swiftly growing larger in an eyeblink. “Nng..” Derrick grunted incoherently as his mind registered what had happened.

Charlie laughed openly at his stupid expression, his mouth gaped open as he stared at the suddenly larger Charlie with his hand on his middle. It hit him what had happened, “You can take more than one at a time?”

Charlie nodded, “Yeah, and yes, they all go back to the right place,” Charlie bit her finger as she thought for a moment, “I think anyway.”

Derrick didn’t pay attention, his focus solely on Charlie’s belly. He slowly ran his hand over the curved top. “Yeah,” he swallowed slowly and continued in a lower voice, “how many can you do at once?”

“I’ve done quints a couple times.”

Derricks head snapped up, “Five?!”

Charlie nodded happily, “Oh yeah, I was freaking huge!” She held her hands out in front of her, further than her already large belly was sticking out, “It was pretty uncomfortable really,” she smiles and giggles to herself as she remembers, “I had to crawl up the stairs.”

Derrick giggled nervously, his mind still grappling with imagining what Charlie looked like. He could imagine that her pantomime was probably not far off, “I would have loved to see that,” he quietly answered.

Though he wasn’t meaning for her to hear, she evidently did but didn’t seem to think much of it, “I’ve got some pictures on the computer at home,” she answered simply, making Derrick’s heart skip a beat, “I’ll show you sometime.” She plucked Derrick’s paralyzed hand off her middle, putting it down next to her. She shimmeyed off the back of the van and pulled her shirt down over her middle tightly to eliminate wrinkles. Derrick stared on in a daze, “so, where’d you park?”

Derrick coughed and looked away, “Parked?”

“Yeah, where’d you park your car? I’ll drop you off.” The fastfood place they had stopped to get food was on the outskirts of the mall parking.

“Oh, my sister dropped me off this morning,” Derrick sheepishly admitted, “I don’t suppose you could give me a ride home?” he grinned at her expectantly.

“Yeah, sure,” Charlie teased him with a sneer but casually waved away his thanks.

“Thanks Charlie,” Derrick said for more than just the ride.

“Yeah, nothing to it Derrick.”

Direct couldn’t help but notice it was the first time she had gotten his name right. He decided to hazzard, “I hope you don’t mind, but I’d like to hang out sometime,” Derrick braced himself against her almost certain rejection.

Charlie looked at him curiously, not in a hostile fashion but like she was really taking stock of him. After a while she shrugged, “Yeah, I suppose so. I guess it’d be nice to have someone to talk to about this,” she patted her middle and rubbed the coarse fabric over it to make it clear was ‘this’ was about.

Derrick couldn’t imagine his luck, “Yeah. Just what I was thinking.” The possibilities were endless.