Sucker Punch

Sucker Punch

10/24/2025

Nancy. Hard hitting. Nothing superfluous. Nose to the grindstone Nancy. She was the fattest in the class and a bit of a show-off, with her hand to the air every question like she knew the answer to every one. What a square.

Carla. Blonde. Pretty. Also smart and just admitted to the cheerleaders (though she admitted, herself that she was the ‘fattest’ of the cheerleaders. Funny - she must have weighed 107 sopping wet.

Fun, little Carla. New, exotic little Carla from Chesterfield! - like a little Porsche that screams to be purchased.

Who knew she was up to nothing good?

Nancy took her time getting ready for school that morning. She put on a soft sweater, beige, and her nicest jeans, the ones she’d gotten from K-Mart.

Carla also took her time getting ready for school that morning. She chose a soft sweater, pink, and her best Lululemon tighties, for which she’d gotten compliments before. She’d been up for a while that morning, so she put on a little extra moisturizer and re-combed her neat ponytail before heading out the door.

Nancy entered the classroom and immediately knew something was wrong. Snickers sounded all around her. She looked around and identified the reason - Mr. French’s sweater was also soft. Beige. Tucked in. It was the late 80’s. No one tucked anything in, except on Sunday, especially sweaters. Even Nancy knew that.

“Someone got the memo!” She heard, to more unsuccessfully choked sniggers to those nearest the speaker, Jada Lynn.

Carla entered the classroom hairs after Nancy. She waited behind her while Nancy hesitated in the aisle. What a dummy Nancy was. She sniggered along, which notified Nancy that someone was behind her. Nancy hastily sat down, and sat still.

Carla sat down in her own seat, two in front of Nancy, just as the bell rang. Mr. French gave her an extra long look. It seemed like he was trying not to raise an eyebrow. She giggled, and he started class without another word or look her way. “Good.” She then proceeded to show the class her gross brown arm hair - one dark one against the blond. She combed her blonde short hairs on her arm, and hesitant but appreciative giggles from the class sounded all around.

Nancy, then, that girl, was headed to the front of the class, her butt barely fitting down the row of desks. Carla couldn’t help herself. “Moooo,” she quipped in her jaunty little striped dress.

Nancy stopped in the aisle, threw out a hip, turned with a hand placed squarely akimbo, and met Carla’s eyes.

A flash of recognition - a bad one, made quite a stir in both their minds like a little “what the hell…?”, both their eyes widened, and then…

Suddenly, nothing made sense to either of them.

Nancy’s pert lips were spread in a “Moooo” towards Carla, who now stood in the aisle, and was somehow just….so much….bigger. Nancy sat in Carla’s seat, and she felt incredibly great. “Wow”. She thought. What a great feeling! She looked at her other self - her body, anyway, in the aisle, and thought, “Wow, I look good in those jeans. And, girl, I love that sweater!...What just happened…”

Meanwhile…

Carla felt wide hips beneath her, much bigger than she remembered, and she felt a soft, brown beige, she knew, sweater underneath her closed, angry fist. She felt this giant, unfortunate feeling - one she knew well….embarrassment. She was fifteen, after all. Yet this was so much worse than the embarrassment she knew. She knew embarrassment to be a baby blue little dejection compared to this giant…giant dark humiliation she now felt. And anger. Nancy?…Carla?…Nancy, had had enough. Carla, looking through Nancy’s brown eyes then noticed that blue dress on her pert little body. It did not become her, with those blue and white stripes! Yuck.

Meanwhile…

Carla’s moooo, which still sounded through the classroom, must have been funny, because more than a few voices were giggling in response to her rudeness. The girl in 5G, Jill, looked up under her lashes at Nancy’s body, now inhabited by Carla, and then turned back to 6G: Nancy (in Carla’s body) and gave her a high five, which missed because “Carla” missed it, and Jill’s hand ended up slapping Carla-Nancy’s table with a loud “Whack!”

Nancy, in Carla’s body, who, in the moment of confusion where she knew she was meant to be laughing, because according to everyone else, she was Carla, suddenly wasn’t, so she couldn’t laugh. She was Nancy, but as Carla now and she suddenly saw through Carla’s eyes things that she hadn’t seen before. She saw that, for one, that HER friend, - Nancy’s friend! - had also been laughing. She was sucking up to that toad, Drew again, who was also laughing oddly with a weird little head bob, and sucking up to the classroom barbie, Nellie, again. What a turd. He never once looked at Nancy’s now traitorous friend, Nancy saw with a little emotion.

Carla, in Nancy’s body, saw some things, too, that she didn’t like. What was Billie doing not laughing at her jokes? She had a bird’s eye view of his face over Carla’s shoulder and he wasn’t laughing at all. In case, he was looking…....chagrined!....with his head down, like he was embarrassed about the joke.

Carla also saw that Victoria person she so wanted to get together with…Victoria, who had been ignoring her all year. She wasn’t laughing.

Carla’s fist got even tighter next to her waist and she forgot all about…everything. She sucker punched her own face. Nancy’s body’s fist - not a faint little dainty ones like her own, was just about as big as Carla’s body’s face.

…to be continued…