Part II: Journeys (Chapter 33)
Journeys
Gargantua Goes on a Diet
by
Nicole Anne Dunkel (Copyright 1982)
Once upon a time there was a little girl who
ate SO many Bing Candy Bars she grew & grew SO tall that she
looked DOWN on the Empire State Building. Her body was so stretched out that it
couldnt stretch any more, but Gargantua, the not-so-little girl’s name, kept on
eating Bings anyway & so all that blubber had to go somewhere, so it began spreading
out, out, out. Gargantua grew into a blob of mountainous fat. She grew SO
fat she couldnt move at all so the New York City Police decided to leave her
next to the Empire State Building & build a fence around her. There she
sat, Fall, Winter, Spring, Summer, while all the city folks gawked & stared
& fed her all kinds of sweets.
Once, some tourists from Sioux
City, Iowa, even gave her Bings.
One day, some people from the
Modern Museum of Art decided to buy Gargantua & made plans to build an art
gallery around her.
“Thank you,” Gargantua said.
“It’s getting cold out here.”
But the museum people said
building a gallery to fit around her would cost too much money. “You’ll have to
go on a diet.”
“But I don’t want to go on a
diet!” she wailed.
“You have to! We spent
$1,000,000 for you so you have to do what we say.”
So Gargantua went on a diet,
restricted to just 100 dozen Bings a day.
“I’m SO hungry!” she wailed
daily, every single day. But the museum people held fast.
Gargantua grew thinner &
thinner & shorter & shorter.
Eventually, Gargantua grew
small enough to fit the museum’s budget, & the building grew around her,
until she was covered over by a glass pyramid.
People who visited the museum
paid lots of money to watch Gargantua shrink.
This pleasant life continued
for many years, but Gargantua missed her mommy & daddy.
One day, the museum people
called Gargantua into the office.
“You are free to go,” they said
cheerfully.
“But, you paid a lot of money
for me, don’t I owe you some money for my room & board?”
“You’ve more than paid your
room & board. We made over $12,000,000,000 (that’s billion!) on your
exhibit.
“Besides, look at you!”
When Gargantua looked at
herself in the mirror, she was surprised to see a normal little girl with large
brown eyes & long black hair staring back at her. She wore a pretty red
dress with white dots.
“So we have to fire you, &
bring in another Gargantua to fit in the exhibit.”
“Goody, Goody!” Gargantua said.
“I can go back to mommy & daddy.”
“You can take back your old
name.”
But Gargantua couldnt remember
her old name, it was so long ago.
“We’ll look it up,” said Ms
Moma, the head museum lady. She flipped through a card catalogue. “Aha! I found
it! Your real name is ‘Nikki’!”
So Nikki packed up all her new
skinny clothes & vowed to NEVER EVER eat another Bing Candy Bar.
She went home to her mommy
& daddy.
Except mommy was gone &
daddy was crying.
Mommy told daddy she didn’t
love him anymore & ran off to college.
Gargantua wished she had some
Bings.
THE
END
P.S. Nikki stayed with her
daddy for many, many years.
When her mommy got old and
sick, she stuck her in a nursing home.
