"Yez gotta do it, Olive!" the skinny girl told the short, one-eyed sailor.

"Mmm. Mmm. But I don't like spinach," said the tar in an effeminate whine.

"Yabbut, the Sea Hag has swopticated our identikeys. Yez is gone ta have ta be strong ta beat her. So eat yez spinach!" The skinny girl tried to force some spinach into the mouth of the sailor.

"Mmm. No. Mmm. No. No, Popeye, I don't like spinach!" The limp-wristed sailor seemed surprised that he could easily resist the efforts of the girl to force the green vegetable into his mouth. "Hey! I'm already strong!"

"Yez is just ornery manly strong, Olive. Yez needs to be strong like a bull elefink. And the only way yez can get that strong is by eating spinach!" The girl pushed her brunette hair out of her eyes. It had escaped from the tight little bun on the back of her head and wisps of it kept floating into her face.

"You eat it," said the sailor.

"I will, but it won't do as much good for me to eat it cuz I is now you and a she-elefink isn't as strong as a bull-elefink, nohow. Besides, I has been eating spinach since Peter was a Pupp and me body, yez body now, has got all edumacated in being strong from eating spinach. Nobody, nohow, noway is as strong as Popeye the Sailor when he eats his spinach. So eats yez spinach, Olive!"

"It's nasty, vile green stuff that tastes like dirt," protested the sailor.

"Did yez think I liked it? I never did but it makes me strong so's I can't be hurted and I can do anything I can think of, practicably." The brunette took a wad of the spinach from the can and put it in her mouth, making a face. "Look, Olive, I is eating the spinach! Now you eats some!" She chewed and swallowed. "We gots to hurry and find the Sea Hag so's we can get swopticated back before she finaches her evil plan, whatever it is."

"But I don't want to," said the sailor. "I don't want to eat the spinach and I don't want to fight with the Sea Hag. She's just a filthy old lady who lives on a filthy old boat and does filthy things with sailors."

"I tells yez, she's the Sea Hag and she's evil incarminated!" screeched the skinny brunette.

"Well, you go fight her, then." The sailor turned to a window to look out. "I'm expecting someone." He simpered a bit, pulling off his cap to slick back his thinning blond hair with a wet thumb.

The skinny girl watched. "I yam disgustipated," she said. Then she vibrated like a tuning fork and spun like a top and made a whistling noise like a freight train going down hill while bouncing up and down like a jack hammer.

Her long black hair came out of her bun and stood out around her head stiffly. Her too-round face became more oval and her beady little eyes got bigger with long eyelashes. Her hair curled and lay in soft, shiny locks on her shoulders.

Her nearly invisible breasts swelled forming luscious ripe mounds under her blouse, the globes visible in a deep cleavage as she stretched the cloth out of shape. Her hips widened, her skirt shortened turning from dull black to shiny red. Her lips, legs, arms and backside all rounded and filled out. Even her size thirteen feet and boxcar shoes shrunk to a pair of delicate size six stiletto heels.

"Oh, my," she said, and her thin, screechy voice had changed to a melodious coo. "I've been bootified!" She tried to turn her head to look at her booty. "Oh my," she said again. "There's a lot of me back there now, I've got a caboose-ka-booty!" she murmured.

"He's here!" said the sailor just then, turning around. He stared at the new brunette admiring herself. "Who are you?"

"Um, hmm? Er?" said the now beautiful girl. "I guess yez better call me ...."

The door shook with a sudden pounding. Startled, the sailor leapt into the air but the gorgeous new girl stepped aside, refusing to catch him. "Who is it?" she cooed in her new voice. The sailor fell to the floor with a crash but quickly stood up with his head stuck through a bicycle wheel.

"It's me! Bluto!" said a basso voice before the door burst inward to reveal a tall, bearded man in a sailor suit holding a bouquet in one big fist. Even his beard was burly. "Hmm? Hah? Who are you?" he asked the girl.

"Er--whut do I tell him? I can't tells him the truth--Er? Hmm? I know!" The girl muttered to herself before saying in her sweet voice, "I yam Poppi Oyl, Olive's cuter, curvier cousink!"

"Hmm? Er? Hah?" said Bluto. Steam came out from under his collar and his eyes rolled back to show Mick Jagger lips and tongues before returning to normal. "Howzabowtadate?" he howled.

"Well, of all the nerve," said the one-eyed sailor, glaring at Poppi. "Who does she think she is?"

"I come to take Olive to the dance tonight," said Bluto. "Is she here?"

"I'm right here," said the smaller sailor, taking the bicycle wheel off from around his neck. "It's me. Oh, he doesn't recognize me!" Bluto pushed the smaller man aside casually, moving closer to the lovely Poppi Oyl.

"Olive ain't herself tonight," said Poppi. "Will I do to go to the dance wif?" She batted her lashes at him and swiveled her hips. "Action stations," she muttered, "man overboard." Then louder she added, "Brutus McHale O'Vitch Rolloboffsky, yez has never looked better."

"Hrm? Hrr?" said Bluto. "Do I know her? I didn't know Olive had a cousin, and a pretty one, too. Hrr? Hrm? She even knows my real born-name," he muttered. "Call me Bluto, everyone does. My kid brother never could say Brutus." He grinned, showing gold molars.

"Oh, you don't say?" said the cute brunette. "If I calls yez Bluto will you take me to the dansk?"

"Sure!" said the big man.

"Will yez be big and strong and dansk every dansk with little old me and beat up on the Sea Hag and stop her evil world denomination?"

"Uh?" said Bluto.

"Now you just wait a minute, Mr. Rolloboffsky," said the smaller sailor, putting his fists on his hips and pouting. "You had a date with me!"

"I did?" said Bluto. "But we go to the gym on Wednesday, Popeye. This is Friday." He looked sideways at Poppi and spoke out of the corner of his mouth. "Who is this...pansy?"

"Who duzz you thinks it look like it is?" she asked in a stage whisper.

"It looks like Popeye, Olive's other boyfriend. Hard to believe there could be two sailors that ugly, but he gets Saturday this week and Friday night is my night. And he sure doesn't act like Popeye." Bluto dangled a wrist and batted his eyes.

"Yez are too funny, Bluto. Hmm? Er?" said Poppi, thinking fast. "That's Oliver, Popeye's cousink. He's a sailor, too, but he's 'In the Navy,' if yez gets what I means." She smiled at the big man and .45 caliber dimples appeared in her cheeks. "Don't akse, don't tells."

"I wasn't going to ask," said Bluto. "I assure you, Miss Oyl. I think we can have a gay evening without him." He grinned again.

Poppi giggled. "That was akshally funny. Are you going to take me to the dansk, Mr. Rolloboffsky?"

"Sure," said Bluto. He presented his arm.

Oliver the Sailor Boy linked his arm through Bluto's and smiled at Poppi Oyl. "We'll be late. Don't forget to put the cat out," he said.

"Hmm? Er?" said Poppi, looking around. "I didn't know the little feller was on fire."

Bluto peeled Oliver off his arm, not being at all nice about it. "I'm taking the young lady this evening, Sailor Boy. You and me only has dates when we're four thousand miles from shore."

"Oh!" said Oliver. "You're hurting me. Don''t be so rough!"

"Trade yez," said Poppi, swapping Oliver's grip on Bluto's arm for one on a hatrack and wrapping her own now delicate limb around the burly arm of the big man with the burly beard.

"Let's go, Poppi," said Bluto, holding the door open with one hand. "Oh, these are for you," he presented the flowers he had almost forgot.

"Don't mind if I do," said Poppi. She sniffed of the bouquet. "Roses is red, violets sure ain't, why duzz these peonies smell just like paint?"

Bluto blushed. "They were out of red ones."

Poppi handed the flowers to Oliver who had just gotten disentangled from the hatrack. "For me?" he purred.

"Don't akse, don't tell," said Poppi.

Bluto and Poppi started for the door again but Oliver grabbed her by the hair and yanked her back. "He's mine!" he screamed. "My sailor! Mine!"

"He duzzn't want yez," said Poppi, twisting Oliver's prominent nose. "Leggo me hair or I'll swap yez other eye for a martini olive and eat the olive."

"Bitch!" screamed Oliver the Sailor Boy.

"Faggot!" screamed Poppi Oyl. They flew at each other like Fokkers.

"I saw him first!" said Oliver.

"Yez never did!" said Poppi. "I yam knowing Bluto before you knowed either of us! We was shipmates in the Spacifick Ocean!"

"Hrm? Hrr? Hah?" said Bluto, backing quietly out the door. "I'll just get some fresh air." Safely outside, he shuddered. "Dames."

In the garden the Sea Hag's face appeared in a thorn hedge. "Don't eat the spinach," she said.

Bluto staggered back from her ugliness, clutching his throat. "I didn't plan, too. Nasty stuff, spinach."

"Not the can I left inside," said the Sea Hag. "I treated it with 100 zillion L.C. units of cosmic reverso-rays. Instead of making you strong, it makes you pretty."

"Hrm?" said Bluto, running his fingers through his beard. "Why don't you eat it then?"

The Hag made an even more awful face than usual. "It still tastes like dirt."

"That gives me an idea, though," said Bluto. He pushed up his shirt sleeves and went back inside, carrying a gong.

"Ding!" Bluto rang the gong and Poppi and Oliver went to opposite corners of the living room. They were both scratched and bruised but Poppi was still cute and Oliver still looked like he opened spinach cans with his teeth.

Moving quickly, Bluto fed a little more spinach to Poppi and the rest of the can to Oliver. Faster than you can say 'recombinant DNA enhanced agricultural products,' Poppi's lipstick, mascara and hosiery were perfect again.

The effect on Oliver was even more dramatic.

Blonde hair fell past her shoulders, and a blue eye sparkled under her bangs. Her other eye stayed closed in a permanent sexy wink.

Her lips were red and full and pouty, gold hoops dangled from her ears, and her bust nearly burst out of her sailor blouse. A tiny waist, full womanly hips, legs that curved in the right places and arms that didn't curve in the wrong ones, and a pair of bell bottom sailor pants of tight satin made her just as pretty as Poppi.

"I'm Olivia the Sailor Girl," she purred.

"Hotcha," said Bluto. "How about I take both of you lovelies to the dance?"

The girls pouted, but after Bluto let them feel his muskle, they agreed to share.

"After all," he said. "There's enough of me to go around." He held an arm out for each of them and led the way.

"I think yez should know," Poppi whispered. "I yam a real gorl, but she ain't." Poppi stared at the suspicious bulge in the front of Olivia's capri pants to show what she meant.

Bluto glanced down and shrugged. "Nobody's perfect."