When a person is supernaturally compelled by forces beyond human understanding to do something, there's a tendency of the human mind to rationalize the action somehow. Sometimes, the explanation only comes with difficulty, if at all: they may handwave that they "just felt like it today", may point to one or the other small detail as igniting curiosity enough to hazard whatever absurd adventure is entailed by the investigation of said detail, or in some cases, they may claim they were acting on the direction of some completely absent and silent figure who may not have even been aware said action was taking place, such as Jesus Christ, middle management, or the hand-me-down wisdom of their late and beloved grandfather.
At other times, however, there is some excuse that seems, if anything, to be a much more reasonable or even obvious explanation for the compulsion than the actual supernatural answer. Take Jon today, for instance: you, being the reader of this story, might justifiably claim that the reason he decided to thrust himself into the middle of a group of Christ-crazed pontifical prudes, a few of whom he previously had had a rather low opinion of, could only have been that he had temporarily lost his mind, was afflicted by a fever of the brain that drove him to such delirium that the poor man somehow considered Nadine Ferguson of all people to be... well, not a friend, but a tolerable choice of acquaintance for that day. If you had tried to tell Jon that, though, he simply would not believe you. If asked, he'd tell you his interest was first piqued by the curious fact that half the school seemed to be crowding around Nadine that day.
You see, Nadine, her good friend Tina Shepherd, and two other girls Jon did not immediately recognize had decided that that morning was a fine morning to preach the good word of God to those who couldn't escape it in the cafeteria before class that morning, and had come armed and ready with their bibles, brochures, and excessively modest attire to do some solid teaching of their Gospel to the laypeople at their school. As usual, nobody gave a flying fuck about their Gospel. Instead, all eyes were glued to one of Nadine's apparent new friends: as a thicc, busty girl with hips wide enough to rock babies to sleep and a waist much too thin for either her bouncy upper half or phat lower half, her desperate attempts to hide how sinfully tempting her body was only served to somehow make it lewder. There was no skirt long enough to hide just how much ass she needed it to contain, no blouse she could find which wouldn't outline the way her enormous chest pressed against it; she found herself blushing constantly and having often to fight the weakness of her flesh as her more pervy male classmates and more jealous female classmates flocked to discuss sin with her.
Not that the other new girl wasn't pretty herself: she was a graceful, slender little princess that seemed delicate enough to shatter like glass if you dropped her, and in Jon's opinion could certainly match Nadine's other friend for beauty in her own way, but curiously, people just didn't seem as interested in her at the moment. There was something... off, about the curvier girl, Jon thought. She seemed familiar. She certainly shouldn't have seemed familiar: there was no way a straight adolescent male like Jon could forget seeing a girl like that, and thus she should either have been ringing no bells, or ringing the bells 'til they were hard and stiff. But as it was Jon seemed sure he knew her but couldn't place her. So, he and Karyn decided to go ask what the buzz was about.
"Good morning, friend!" plain old nerdy Tina Shepherd called out as they approached, running up and thrusting a brochure at them. "Do you have a moment to talk about our lord and s-"
"NO." Tina was practically shoved out of the picture, and Jon turned his attention to the two new girls instead. "I was just wanting to ask your names? I feel like we've met before, but I can't put my finger on it."
The shy little princess turned a bit red, but answered first. "Delilah," she answered simply. The other girl, the one everyone and their teacher was ogling, was just giving Jon a strange look for a moment. She seemed flattered, somehow, but also rather confused.
"Don't tell me that even you don't recognize me, Jon!" she said with a bashful grin. "I mean, I guess I have changed a lot over spring break, but I thought we knew each other fairly well... anyway, I uh, I guess you can call me Sister Brewer now."
Jon physically recoiled in shock at this new information. "GLADYS BREWER!?" he nearly screamed. Suddenly all the commotion made sense: the Gladys Brewer he knew just before Spring Break was a colossus of fat and sweat that more resembled a skeleton suspended in Jell-O than a typical teenage girl. Jon had been somewhat closer to her than most of the student body before, but honestly that wasn't much of a bar to clear: Gladys had been the sort of person most students had an almost primal revulsion to, and Jon, just by being polite and barely considering her an acquaintance, might very well have been one of the nicest students in the school to her. And this "new" girl was Gladys: now that Jon knew what he was looking at, those same eyes, same hair color, same skin tone (if somewhat more unblemished now), same height, everything that stayed the same pointed very definitely to his formerly-obese friend. But the rest of her figure...
"YOU MUST HAVE LOST LIKE A HUNDRED FREAKIN' POUNDS, GIRL!" Jon couldn't stop himself from yelling out. That one earned him an elbow and a dirty look from Karyn, one that read as you don't say that to women, you blockhead! But Gladys just giggled and blushed like a secret Valentine at the comment.
"It's okay, Karyn, I don't mind," Gladys said, grinning like a fool. "He's guessing too low, actually: according to the scale this morning I've lost 137 pounds over the past week!" she proclaimed proudly.
"Yes, PLEASE tell us how!" one of the cheerleaders in the crowd begged her, to a nearby Sarah's disdain. "One does not simply lose 140 pounds in 7 days; a lot of people can't lose that much weight in 7 months!"
"A lot of people don't have that much weight to lose," Gladys replied with a shrug. Continuing solemnly, she said "I don't really think it's any big secret that I wasn't taking care of myself physically or spiritually before the break. I needed something... a revelation, a miracle, something, I didn't know... to break me out of all these bad habits, you know? And so, in comes Nadine."
"Yuh huh, yuh huh," Amber Levine, the cheerleader, nodded along eagerly without fully hearing what it was Gladys was trying to say. "So what did you do?"
"I invited her to come hear the Word of God," Nadine said matter-of-factly. "It cures all ills, great and small."
"There's a church camp she told me about that apparently features a weight loss program. One that quite literally works miracles," Gladys elaborated, giving her new wet dream of a body an enticing little sway to demonstrate. Jay Duncan (another of Gladys' former friends) looked like he was going to faint on the spot. "I, um, didn't have any other plans with anyone over the break, so I thought, why not? I might as well try out Nadine's odd thing; if it works for me, great, if not, oh well. And god help me..." Gladys clasped her hands to her chest as she spoke, her eyes taking on an inspired shine Jon had never in them before. "I have seen the Light! God answered all my silent prayers, gave me everything I could have asked for and more! I owe it all to Him; Nadine's suggestion converted me, Body, Mind, and Soul, to His worship, and all the blessings I have now were gifted to me because of that! Don't you see!?" Jon almost found it unsettling how passionate she was. Amber Levine was not as disturbed.
"Yuh huh, yuh huh, I see," Amber Levine continued to nod eagerly, gaze just as innocently vacant as before. "So what did you do, to lose all that weight?" she continued to press.
Gladys' face fell as much in misunderstanding as disappointment, and Nadine scowled, but before they or any of the other would-be preachers could answer, Sarah McMillan interjected. "She poisoned herself, that's what she did," she answered indignantly. "I've heard of your cult's little 'weight loss program' before, myself, and it's nothing but bad news. You have to deliberately give yourself a virus or something that makes your metabolism into a madhouse for a while and turns you into a Jesus Freak like Nadine! It better not be contagious," she said, coming up to Amber to pull her away from the group.
Nadine gave Sarah an Evil Eye like she was willing the soul out from her body, then spat in her face.
Sarah shrieked. "YOU BITCH!" she screamed, wiping the spittle from her cheek and smudging her makeup a little in the process. "THE HELL WAS THAT FOR!?"
"I spit in the eyes of sinners," Nadine growled. "Maybe then they'll see His Light."
"WHAT I SEE IS A PACK OF PRUDISH PRETENTIOUS PRICKS IN FRONT OF ME!" Sarah screeched loud enough for seemingly the entire city to hear. "YOU AREN'T GETTING AWAY WITH THAT!" And then she stomped off, either to the principal's office to report them or to the bathrooms to fix her makeup: Jon wasn't sure. Amber followed her, more out of concern for her friend than anything. Karyn whistled.
"On the one one hand, that was the meanest thing I've seen all week, and on the other hand, holy hell Nadine's got guts," Karyn nodded appreciatively. "I'm feeling the weirdest mixture of respect and contempt right now."
"Aaaaaaanyway," Jon said, trying to keep the atmosphere from becoming any more awkward, "Class is gonna start soon, but Gladys, I'd love to come and chat more later! When-"
"I'd like to a lot more than just 'chat' with you, baby," came the unwanted interruption from one Steve "the Stud" Farber. "You ever wanna see what life's like with a REAL man, you know just who to call~."
"H-hey, we were friends first!" Came the desperate plea of one Leonard Drullers, another nerd from the school's, eh, "larger" crowd.
"Pfft. Boys, am I right?" called out Emily Morris, perhaps hypocritically; she was one of the school's most openly lesbian students. "You need some girl time~."
"Oh good heavens, stop it, you all!" Gladys had her face in her hands and was going red again from all the new attention. "I-I can't date boys who aren't members of the church, and uh, and I have plans later today anyway!" she sputtered, grasping for something to get her away from all that sinful temptation. "Yeah, yeah, Nadine and Tina have a new club for student members of the church, and I don't wanna miss my first days there!"
"I'll be there," Jon said immediately, without half a thought. It didn't strike him as an odd thing to say so quickly until a few moments later, and even then, it was for the wrong reason. "Wait, 'new' club? I thought the Baptists have had a club here for years."
Everyone gave Jon a strange look. "The Baptists do have a well-established club here," Nadine explained, "but we aren't Baptists, Jon, my family and I converted away from that years ago. We're Coteriettes, Jon, members of the Church of the Multitudes, now."
"Yeah, you didn't know that?" Karyn asked curiously. "I could have sworn you did."
"I've never heard of the Coteriettes before in my life," Jon said with a shake of his head. "Although I will say, Karyn, it does seem pretty interesting that there's this crazy new church I've never heard of before, doesn't it?"
Karyn still seemed confused, but understanding of what Jon was implying slowly came to her, and she nodded. "We'll talk about it later, then. C'mon, let's go," she said, leading him off in the general direction of their first period classes and hopefully to somewhere more private. Jon hesitated; he didn't want to leave the Coteriettes just yet, for whatever reason, but eventually he let himself be lead away.
Steadily, the crowd dispersed. First period would be starting soon, after all. Gladys left, and a lot of the crowd left with her, including Nadine. After a bit, it was just Tina and Delilah left, gathering up discarded brochures and generally straightening up what little mess their proselytizing was responsible for.
"Hey," Tina said to Delilah eventually, "Breathe, Sister. It didn't seem that bad."
Delilah took a deep breath as instructed. "I don't think anyone even recognized me," she said glumly. "I didn't think that would be the problem, but somehow it seems worse than if they did."
Tina shrugged. "Count your blessings, I suppose. God answers prayers in His own way, according to His own plan. You're doing fine, I promise: just breathe, and don't forget to pray."
She took another deep breath. "Thanks, Tina." And with all that done, Delilah Lettman, formerly Derek Lettman, left the cafeteria for a minor tardy to her first period class.
