C’mon, complained Eddie, trying to twist away. “No pinching the cheeks!”Laughing, Raven let go of his cheeks and pulled out her fake teeth. “It’s me, Eddie. Raven!”

“Raven?” asked Eddie, stunned.

“No, I am Tanya Baxter, Raven’s mother,” Raven loudly announced in the hallway after putting her teeth back in. “My daughter is in a bit of a jam, and I’m here to bail her out. All right?”

As she and Eddie walked down the hall, Raven saw Richie again. “I’m comin’ back for you,” she teased. Then she swung her fat-suit rear, bumping him in the behind and sending him — slam!-into a bank of lockers.

Richie shuddered. One close encounter with the flirtatious Mama Baxter was bad enough, but two was downright freaky. Rubbing his bruised leg, he couldn’t limp away fast enough!

“Come on, Eddie, let’s go,” said Raven and they headed for Mr Petracelli’s classroom.

“You don’t even look like your mom,” Eddie told Raven, looking over her fat suit. “You look more like you ate your mom.”

“Relax, Eddie, okay,” said Raven. “Petracelli has never met my mother. I’ll just get in, tell him Raven’s grounded for life, and then I will un-ground myself.”

When they reached the Terminator’s classroom door, Raven turned to Eddie. “All right, I’m going to go in to see Mr Petracelli. I want you to count to 10, knock on the door, and say that there’s an emergency at home and I have a phone call.”

Raven took a deep breath and waddled into her history classroom.

“Well, hello there, Mr Petracelli,” she said through her Mama Baxter overbite. “I’m Tanya Baxter, Raven’s mother.”

Mr Petracelli rose from his desk and shook Raven’s hand. “Thanks for coming,” he told her.

“Anything for my baby’s favourite teacher,” said Raven. Then she tried to take a seat. But when she attempted to put the giant rubbery rear of her fat suit into a student desk chair, it wouldn’t fit.

C’mon, she thought, get in there!

Again, she tried to shove her big bottom into the desk chair. But it still wouldn’t fit. The third time, she did a little hop, thinking she could lift the bottom in.

Unfortunately, the rubber bounced instead, sending Raven down to the tiled floor.

No worries, no worries, she told herself, rolling around the floor in the fat suit. Finally, she struggled to her feet again. Adjusting her purple jacket and hat, she faced the teacher.

“So, I know this is about my baby getting talkative in class,” she said. “And she assures me she’s very sorry, and it’ll never ever happen again.”

Continues next week
Based on the popular TV series created by Michael Poryes and Susan Sherman. Illustrations: Uday Deb