“Ah, but that was on the show,” said Helena smugly, lifting a finger as
if to accentuate her point. “What of real life? Once at a charity ball
in Britain meant to raise funds on restoring old castles, I witnessed a
rather portly man have a heart seizure and then proceed to land on my
unfortunate mother. She was trapped under him for mere seconds before
hefting him off her body.” Raising an eyebrow significantly, Helena
said in tones of utmost solemnity, “I assure you, she possesses an
unnatural level of Herculean strength.”

“How portly is portly to you Brits?” asked Alice, narrowing her eyes.
“This guy could be like 150 and you could think lifting that is
something worthy of steroid injections.”

“Portly is approximately 181 kilograms or 400 pounds as you barbaric
metric system prejudiced Americans would say,” drawled Helena
humorously.

“Metric system is different and weird to us and we are a country filled
with people scared of what is different and especially scared of what
is weird to us,” said Alice in snippy but playful tones, wagging her
finger at Helena. “You’ve lived here for years. You can’t tell me you
didn’t already know that.”

“I know but somehow I keep thinking that it shall one day miraculously
change,” Helena replied, smiling. She lifted her eyebrow and playfully
poked at Alice’s stomach. “You haven’t made your reply. Do you yield
and admit my mother would triumph in this pointlessly brutal
competition?”

“No way,” said Alice, squirming around and pointing her finger in
Helena’s face who smirked at this and grabbed it in her hand then
pulled it to her lips for a quick kiss. Pausing at this then shaking
her head to clear her suddenly foggy mind, Alice said adamantly, “My
mom would win because of her show. Maybe fat guys didn’t try to get
jiggy with her in real life but she did tons of fighting on that show.
You had to have seen the finale for season five. She totally fought
with that costar Joan something of hers for like twenty minutes in that
weird ***** underground cave thing. I remember it took forever because
she got this horrible cold from it and complained about being in that
freezing water for almost five hours filming that fight. Which means my
mom has super good endurance. Your mom might be freakishly strong but
mine could totally hang in there all scrappy and feisty and then when
your mom got tired she would whack her on the head with a stray coconut
or something.”