Fatty Legs: A True Story

Chapter 6 is the story of the red stockings that inspired the nickname “Fatty Legs,” for which the book is named. The Raven’s cruelty intensifies after the incident at the radio station. Margaret-Olemaun returns from extra chores to a dormitory full of celebration. The girls are excited about their new stockings. Agnes informs Margaret-Olemaun that everyone will get a new pair. The Raven gives her a bright red pair, unlike all of the other girls’ dark pairs. Margaret-Olemaun thinks of this as “a heartless trick” (66). In her own estimation, the red stockings made her look “like a plump-legged circus clown” (67), and the other girls and the Raven laugh at her. She compares the Raven to the evil Queen of Hearts in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.

When the leader of the Gwich’in girls, Katherine, calls Margaret-Olemaun “Fatty Legs,” she retaliates by calling her “Fatty Face.” The Raven punishes only Margaret-Olemaun, making her do the laundry. As she sees her tears “poof” into steam on the cast iron vats in the laundry room, she gets an idea of “how [to] stop all of this Fatty Legs business” (69).

The torment from the other girls at school gets worse for a few days, but then Margaret-Olemaun seizes her chance to destroy the stockings.