Susan Whitmore was born to Jeanine Whitmore and her husband Lawrence.
Her father was a safety engineer at the Three Mile Island nuclear facility
around the time of the accident, and thereafter he drowned his guilt about
the incident with alcohol. He left her mother when Susan was nine, forcing
her to take a job as a waitress in addition to her job as a hospital lab
technician in order to support Susan and her younger sister Jennifer, who
was only three at the time. Susan took charge of the housework and
practically raised Jennifer between baby-sitters.
(Four Years Later . . .)
It was Susan's first day of Junior High, and Susan hadn't seen her
friends all summer, as she and Jennifer had been at her grandparents' all
that time. Running late, she jumped into the shower. While in there, she
felt as if she were bloating. Upon toweling off and getting the soap out of
her eyes, she discovered that her body had expanded, appearing to gain about
fifty pounds! Panicking, but realizing her mother had already left for work,
she threw on one of her mother's bulky bathrobes and proceeded to get
Jennifer off to school. She then grabbed an oversized t-shirt and squeezed
into a pair of her mother's jeans, running out of the door to class.
At school, she was made fun of by her friends for porking out so much
during the summer. Getting upset with them, she ended up eating lunch with
the "Moo Crew", a clique of fat girls she originally would have shunned.
They welcomed her with open arms, going so far as to chip in to buy her an
extra dessert for lunch.
By the time she got home, her mother's jeans had finally stretched
out to feel more comfortable on her. She quickly arranged for the sitter to
pick Jennifer up at school so she wouldn't have to see her like this. When
her mother got home to change for her second job, she was alarmed at seeing
Susan and asked what happened. Susan started with describing what happened
in the shower that morning and ended with her friends' abuse. Her mother
told her that a full doctor's visit was more than they could afford at
the moment, but that she could perform a blood test on her when she got home
from work tomorrow. Until she finds out what's wrong with her, Susan should
just try to blend in as well she can.
The next morning, Susan woke up in a soaking wet bed and back to
normal size. Stripping her bed and throwing the linens into the dryer, she
went to take another shower. Relieved that she had lost the weight of the
day before, but realizing she couldn't explain such a dramatic weight-losses
natural, she jumped into the shower thinking about gaining the weight back.
She promptly lost her balance and fell, wedging herself into the bathtub
with all the fat she put on. Her body started to overflow the tub as she
reached out to turn the water off with her foot. Now stuck in the bathtub,
she got to thinking that if she could pull the water in, maybe she could push
the water back out. Concentrating on pushing out, suddenly all the water
came out with a WHOOSH, overflowing onto the bathroom floor! Looking down,
she found she had lost all but the original fifty pounds of water weight she
had gained the day before. Since she was still sitting in the tub full of
water, she had to concentrate to keep from ballooning back up again. Keeping
concentration, she finished her shower, got dressed and went back to school.
When her mother got home that afternoon, Susan told her what
happened. Her mother said that she might be a mutant, but not to worry, that
together they'd get through it. Maybe with more control, Susan could slowly
reduce the amount of water weight gain she suffered until she became normal
sized.
Over the rest of her school years, Susan acquired better control of
her powers, lowering her weight gain to about ten pounds under normal
circumstances. During which time she became fast friends with the "Moo
Crew". Between eating lunch with them everyday and binge-fest sleepovers on
weekends, she ended up putting on about forty-five pounds naturally, making
her fairly heavy-set. That and since she wasn't dating, she used food as a
social and emotional release.
Attending a community college for courses in computer systems, she
soon got a job in a freelance computer systems analysis company, still
fighting the battle of the bulge, especially during the rainy season . . .