Weight Lifting

 

            Today was the day that Stella had been dreading: weight-lifting day in gym class. Stella had always been on the small side, and she wasn’t exactly athletically inclined. Gym was always torture for her, but today would be even worse because she would have to show everyone how puny she was. She supposed she had to have some muscles in her body, but to her they felt nonexistent.

            Taking as long as she could, Stella changed into her gym clothes and then slowly joined the rest of the class in the weight room. She knew she would be marked late, but it was worth it to not have to be one of the first on the weight machines. She joined the back of the line to watch the others in her class.

            They were working on the bench press today. Of course, the boys all wanted to show off how strong they were and tried to lift as much weight as they could. Stella wondered, again, when she would get her growth spurt. Her parents said that someday she would find her strength and her height, but she didn’t really know what that meant. So, she just waited to get taller and stronger. Now, she was in ninth grade, looking about the same as she did in seventh. People often mistook her for a seventh grader, and she was tired of telling them otherwise.

            When the boys finished showing off, it was the girls’ turn. Most of them weren’t able to lift nearly as much as the boys, but Stella knew it was still way more than what she could lift. As her turn got closer, she got more and more nervous. She didn’t want everyone to see what a complete weakling she was.

            When it was Stella’s turn, she lay down on the bench, looking up at the bar. She was determined to lift that weight no matter what. She didn’t need people laughing at her weakness, her height, and her athletic ineptitude too. Taking a deep breath, she put her hands up on the bar. Two spotters stood to the side in case they needed to help her or take off some weight.

            Taking a deep breath, Stella closed her eyes and focused. She was going to lift this bar. Exhaling, she pressed the bar with all of her might. To her surprise, she was able to lift it – easily. She did a few reps and set the bar back up like it didn’t weigh anything. Her spotters went to put on more weight while Stella marveled at her newfound strength. Looking at her arms, she saw muscles that definitely hadn’t been there before.

            She lifted the heavier bar down again and did a couple more reps. This was even easier than before! The spotters put more weight on, and other students were now coming over to watch. Her spotters added weights three more times, and Stella easily lifted it each time. She wasn’t even breaking a sweat. The whole class was now watching her. She had lifted more than any of the boys. Most of them were cheering, saying things like, “Come on, Stella!” and “You can do it, Stella!”

            When the spotters put even more weight on the bar, there were cries of “That’s over 200 pounds now! Wouldn’t that be a school record?”

            Stella was getting a little nervous. Shouldn’t it be physically impossible for her to do that? When she lifted the bar down again, she still did a few reps, but it was starting to get a little more difficult.

            “This next one will be 250 pounds!” her spotter cried next to her.

            A hush fell over the crowd as Stella lifted the bar, and she did a few reps with difficulty. Everyone cheered and people shouted, “More! More!”

            Soon, Stella was up to 300 pounds. Beads of sweat were running down her face now as she gripped the bar. Using all of her strength, she lifted it down over her chest and then slowly raised it up to set it back. Someone standing outside the weight room would probably have thought there had been an explosion or something. The cheering was deafening.

            Sitting up, Stella said, “That’s it, I can’t do any more.”

            Cries of protest rang out and everyone begged Stella to keep going.

            Reluctantly, Stella agreed and lay back down. The bar was set to 350 pounds. Once again, she gripped the bar, but when she pressed, she couldn’t lift it. Trying again, she took another deep breath and focused. She exhaled as she slowly lifted the bar over her chest. Everyone went quiet around her. She carefully lowered the bar and then brought it back up again.  As she did so, she noticed something strange about her arms. They seemed to be turning…red. Not red like she had been working out, but red, like the color of a red delicious apple. There also seemed to be small square shapes all over her arms. Shocked, she quickly set the bar back up.

            No one said anything as they all stared at her. Stella sat up and realized that her hands were also turning red with the strange square shapes. She felt so hot too. Not just sweaty, but like she was burning up from the inside.

            Stella ran to the locker room while everyone stared after her. She was scared when she looked in the mirror and saw that her face had changed and was still changing. Were those square shapes turning into scales?

            Stella ran away from gym class, and away from the school, and she didn’t stop until she reached home. It was a five-mile walk, but it only took her a few minutes. Her parents were still at work, so she called her mom and tried to explain what had happened. All that came out, however, was “Help! I’m red! Squares!”

            “Hold on, Stella,” Mom answered. “I’ll be right there!”

            Stella ran to her room and shut the door. She tried to calm down by lying on her bed, but she felt so different. Soon, she heard the front door open and Mom called out, “Stella, where are you?”

            “Up here,” Stella cried weakly.

            Footsteps sounded up the stairs and Mom knocked on the door. “Stella, can I come in?”

            “I look like a monster, Mom,” Stella said weakly.

            “It’s okay, sweetie. It’s totally normal.”

            When Stella heard those words, it took a few moments for them to sink in. Finally, she asked, “What is normal about this? I’m pretty sure that no one else has had this happen to them.”

            “Let me in, and we’ll talk about it.”

            Slowly, Stella opened her door and almost shut it again. “Mom?” she whispered. Her mother stood in front of her, but it wasn’t her mother as Stella knew her. Her skin was a deep magenta, and she was also covered in scales. Her face had stretched until she had a long scaly snout with sharp teeth showing from under her lips. Her eyes had changed and she had pupils like a cat’s. “You’re a…dragon?”

            “Yes, and so are you. Your dad is too. It manifests itself when you find your strength or your height, which you’ve obviously done today.”

            After the initial shock of finding out she was a dragon, Stella learned to embrace it. She learned to change her appearance at will and how to use her newfound dragon powers. The best was flying. It took a while to master, but her massive dragon wings took her places that no other fourteen-year-old could go. Becoming a dragon opened up worlds of wonder for her.