Boot Camp Grandma

Boot Camp Grandma.
(850 words)
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 "Would it kill you to go outside once in a while?" My mother barged into my room without knocking, throwing on the light as she did so, for the second time that week. I groaned and rolled away from my desk. "Mom. It's not that big a deal! I went outside on Wednesday." She crossed her arms, still framed in the doorway. "You mean when you 'walked the dog?' First of all, a walk down the drive and back is not a walk. Second, that was two weeks ago and you haven't been in the sunshine for ever. This is a real problem hon."  I ignored her, per usual.
So a couple of days later this happened again. But this time my dad and my mom came into my room. My dad pulled the plug on my laptop and my chargers, dimming my room to a dark pit. My mom threw on the light, revealing the piles of too small clothes and chip packets everywhere. "Okay, Drake, that's it. We're tired of this." My dads gruff voice was full of military like command. My mother just looked at me with disgust. "Tired of what? Me being a teenager?" "No. You being a lazy slob who only goes outside to go to the school bus. I mean you don't even go to  PE anymore Drake! What happened to that hu?" I stood up angrily, and suddenly had to sit back down, I was so out of breath. "Juniors, don't have to take gym."
A long argument. A bit of shouting, and finally this.
"There is no argument! You are going to California. No question."
"No! I do not want to live with some old bitty! And-and what about school?!"
My mother crossed her arms and said "You're going to take a year off school and go live with your grandmother, no discussion."
"Do I have NO say in this!?
Apparently not, as the next day my mother was calling my dad's mom and making arrangements. I would leave when school was out.
So finals came and went, and still I didn't tell anyone about California. I had to have my teachers sign me out of class, and when they asked why I said I wasn't going to be here. I was mortified that I was being sent off to be watched my my grandmother. I didn't have that many friends, and my weight was probably the reason. But I ignored that, I was big I didn't care.
So then the day came, the day that my mom was sad, my dad was demanding, and I was trying my hardest to talk them out of it at the last minuet. Finally I just caved, I mean California couldn't be that bad, right? I started looking through my bags to see what my mother had packed, because I couldn't be trusted to pack 'the correct gear' what ever that meant.
What I found was definitely the wrong gear.
"Mom? What the heck is this? These aren't even mine!" I pulled out a tight looking pair of shorts and a way too skinny pair of sweatpants. "They are yours!" My mother called back, walking down the hall to my room. "You grandmother said to send extra clothes a size smaller so you don't look so baggy when you get back." I thought to myself two things when I shoved the two way too small pieces of clothing into the suitcase; one, I am never, NEVER, going to fit in that. And two, my grandma is like eighty. There is no way in hell she is going to help me.
That was about two months ago. When I boarded the plan to Northern California, I had the same deniel as I did in my room. But now? Now I have a 70 year old woman who doesn't look a day over 50 running with me up and down the beach, screaming at me "ONE MORE! COME ON ARE YOU MY GRANDSON OR A COUCH POTATO?!" I sweated out at least a gallon of sweat  a day, she has me living off nothing but smoothies, fruits and vegetables. She made me do a hundred sit ups and fifty push ups before breakfast. Then a run in the afternoon, and get this she was making me SCHOOL while I was stuck in this torture fest. She made me read this book 'Salt,Sugar,Fat.' About how the big shot food companies trick us into becoming addicted to sugary foods. She also made me read Sherlock Holmes and Dracula.
I stayed there for a year. I started out at 200 pounds. Now? Now I'm a healthier, smarter, 119 pounds. How's that for an intense work-out?
They didn't  recognize me at school, no one did. Not even my teachers. That felt like an accomplishment, to be so healthy and fit that no one even recognized you. My parents cried when they picked me up from the airport. My dad made me drop and give him twenty right there on the airport floor.
And you know what? It was amazing.
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-Jessica Baker-