Kimberly stood confidently in line behind the other gymnasts as Coach Schmidt began the training session weighting them on the scale. She had been doing gymnastics for years and never heard of daily weighing sessions. Nevertheless, Coach Schmidt was classified to one the best gymnastics coaches ever, and was she to question a legend like Coach Schmidt?
" You're a pound off."
"I'm sorry," a girl around Kimberly's height murmured. "Sir, it's just a pound."
"Just a pound? Get off my scale!"
Kimberly's eyes narrowed as she took in what she had just heard. The girl quickly passed everyone with warm tears streaming down her face. She quickly wiped her face. "I hope he doesn't embarrass me like that," Kimberly prayed as she got closer to the scale.
It was finally Kimberly's turn. Her heart began to pound as she nervously stood on the scale. "How tall are you?" asked Coach Schmidt
"Five feet," she replied as she slowly began to lose confidence.
Coach Schmidt began to weigh her and saw she was 120 pounds. "You need to watch your calories," he smirked as he glanced up at her as she stood on the scale. "You need to lose ten pounds."
"But, this is average for a girl my height," Kimberly answered as she got off the scale.
"Do you want to be the best or be average like other women your height. What you were before isn't good enough for me!" Coach Schmidt screamed in her face. "To succeed is to be stronger, faster, and higher. The only way you can do this is to lose weight."
She hung her head and sadly walked away from the scales. "I feel like I'm the fattest person in the gym," Kimberly thought to herself. If she was fat why didn't anyone tell her that she needed to lose weight? Why did Tommy call her "Beautiful"? The next time he called her "Beautiful", she was going to ask him not to call her that anymore. She didn't think she was worthy of being told she was pretty.
Kimberly watched as a tall girl with long black hair stood up on the scale. "Great Job, Tara!" cheered Coach Schmidt as he started clapping. "You're down to 95 pounds!"
"I can't believe that the football didn't lose a game all season!" Aisha cheered when the crowd broke out in applause when the buzzer went off. She noticed that Tommy wasn't the only one clapping. It appeared that he could care less now as his mind was wondering. "Tommy, are you okay?"
"Yeah, I'm okay," he lied when he saw Rocky make his way through the crowd to his friends. "I'll catch you inside the youth center." Tommy got up from the bleachers and headed inside. All he could think about was Kimberly. She had only been doing her training under Coach Schmidt for a week. And he was already seeing a big difference in her. She had been sleeping during study hall every day, she was only eating things with low calories, and she had fainted after they fought Rita and Zedd's tengas.
He made his way into the youth center and noticed that Ernie was making a big cake. "Hey, Tommy," greeted Ernie when he watched the white ranger walk into the room. "How did the football team do?"
"They won the game," Tommy replied as he took a seat at table. Kimberly's blue bookbag was sitting in the chair. Why wasn't she at the game? Was she practicing the whole time? "Ernie have you seen Kimberly?"
"Yeah, she was. She spent the two hours doing gymnastics," Ernie confirmed as he was finishing putting the frosting on the cake. "An hour and a half ago, she said she was going home."
Meanwhile, Kimberly was soaking in the tub. The water was getting cold and she turned the faucet on to warm up the water. She was still tired from train all day and she leaned back as the warm water began to fill the tub. Her eyes got heavy and they slowly closed.
Tommy was still sitting in the youth center waiting for his friends to come for cake and punch. He wanted to be able to enjoy the party with his friends, but he needed something to get his mind of things. Maybe, a nice warm soak in the bath tub would take his mind of things. He walked into the newly finished bathroom and stripped out of his clothes and laid them on the padded bench.
Once he laid his clothes on the bench, he headed to the tub. Suddenly, he noticed that he was standing in a puddle. Looking down he saw that water had ran over the edge of the bath tub. Tommy started walked over the tub taking baby steps and hoping he wouldn't fall. When he reached tub, he pulled the shower curtain back and saw Kimberly stretched out in the tub. "KIMBERLY!" He quickly lifted her out of the tub and sat her on the bench. Kneeling beside her, he checked for a pulse.
Kimberly felt the air from the furnace blowing and her bare skin as she began to shiver. "Where am I?" she moaned as she slowly woke up and saw that Tommy was in the room. "AAAHHHHHHHHH!"
"Kim are you okay?" Tommy asked in a worried voice as he grabbed a towel and handed it to her. "I was really scared?" She yanked the towel out of his hand wrapped it around herself.
"What were you doing in here?!" she snapped in a disgusted voice. "Are you spying on me?"
His face turned bright red from embarrassment as he quickly put his boxers back on. "I came into soak in the tub," Tommy swore as he watched her tear up. "Beautiful, I promise you that I didn't know you were in here."
"Tommy, I wish that you'd stop calling me that," Kimberly requested as she walked over to the other side of the room to get her clothes from the cubby hole. "I'm going in the closet to get dressed." She went inside the closet and the very first thing she saw was a tall mirror... She dropped her clothes on the floor.
As she stood in front of the mirror, she saw a fat girl staring in front of her. Tears streamed down her face and she started sobbing when she saw herself in the mirror. Tommy quickly put on his khakis, Henley, and flannel shirt. "Kim!" Tommy fretted as he walked to the closet and opened the door and found her in front of the mirror. "Are you okay?"
"Look at me!?" she yelled with hot tears streaming down her face. "I'm as big as a house."
Tommy walked over to the mirror and saw that he was tall and narrow. "Kim, it's just a fun house mirror," he assured her when walked over to her and reached for her hand. "I'll go stand in front of the mirror with you and show you."
"I'm not going to look in that mirror again!" she warned and she back away from him and hit a wobbly stack of boxes. The boxes hit and clothes with the school logo fell in the floor. A paint can fell in the middle of the floor and black paint covered all the all the Angel Grove Attire.
In the meantime, Mr. Kaplan was walking down the hall and slipped in water and hit the floor. "WHY IS THE HALL COVERED WATER?!" he shouted as he got up and noticed that water was coming from the bathroom. It had been fixed up over fall break and now it was probably ruined. "THAT'S IT! IF ANYONE IS IN THAT BATH ROOM, YOU HAD BETTER HAVE A GOOD EXPLIANTION FOR THIS HORRIABLE MESS!" As his face turned bright red getting ready to explode, he walked into the bathroom. He looked around the room to see where the water was coming from. A light bulb appeared in his thoughts and steam was coming out of his ears like steam from a train. He opened the shower curtain and saw that there was no water in the bath tub.
Tommy and Kimberly heard footsteps heading towards the closet. He quickly grabbed Kimberly's hand and teleported out of there just as Mr. Kaplan was turning the door knob.
A beam of pink and white light appeared next to the school shed. "Why did you teleport?" Kimberly asked when she saw that they were outside. "I didn't have get my stuff."
"I didn't want Mr. Kaplan to find us," Tommy quickly said. "If he found us, we'd be in detention for a long time. Why don't you get an overnight bag and you can stay at my house tonight? I think we need to talk about something."
Kimberly trailed her hands over her hungry belly, feeling the hard ribs on her finger tips. After coach Schmidt's comments, she couldn't help but feel self-conscious about her blossoming body.
"Tommy," Kimberly whispered as she looked up at him. Tommy turned to her, eye focused on her and listening keenly. "Am I fat?"
Did he misunderstand something or did Kimberly seriously question her thin and beautiful body?
"Kim, you're fine the way you are," Tommy assured her although he wasn't sure why he had to in the beginning. He started to wrap his arms around her, but she
although he didn't know why he had to in the first place. He reached for her, but she shrugged him off and without exchanging a few words, she teleported out of there.