“Wow,” she said. “The boys are going to be watching that show.”

Donna’s bedroom was smaller than mine by perhaps half a foot, but it had a bigger closet. Being a corner room, she had more windows than I did, too. It was a nice room with the walls painted a soft dusty rose and a brighter, pinker ceiling. The sun coming in reflected off two large mirrors and filled it with light.

My room, by contrast had pale lavender gray walls, a blue ceiling and only one big window over my bed. Linda’s room, the smallest, between ours, was done in greens and yellows.

Donna threw herself at her still unmade bed and wrestled the pillows and covers into a sort of nest. She propped her head up on one hand and looked at me expectantly.

“Huh?” I said smartly.

She gestured at her chest. “How did it happen?”

“Heck if I know,” I said, sitting down on the bench in front of her dresser. “Slowly, at first, you know about that, then last night it all just…” I gestured at my own chest. “It…they…like…exploded.”

“Huh,” she said, pinching her lower lip with her free hand. “Did it hurt?”

“Sort of, but not really hurt-hurt.” I tried to remember. “It ached, it felt hot, then it kinda burned when it felt like my skin was being stretched.” I glanced down at the mounds and the furrow between them.

“Doesn’t hurt now,” I explained. “Except…they’re kind of heavy.” I put a hand behind my back and felt how some of the muscles were a bit tight. “You know?”

“They look heavy,“ Donna agreed. She blinked several times then looked down at herself. “Huh,” she commented. “You’re like more than twice as big as me, and I sometimes notice the weight, so….” She looked up and grinned. “Ow, I guess?”

I twitched, nervously, and felt the swaying inside my shirt. Donna’s eyes seemed drawn to the movement.

“Wow,” she said. “The boys are going to be watching that show.”

“Aggh!” I tried to fold my arms in front of my breasts but they didn’t fit and folding them under just sort of pushed things together and further forward.

Donna made an “Ooo!” face with her lips pursed. “Jonny, you are definitely going to need a bra!”

“I duwanna!” I said. “I’m your brother!”

“Nobody’s going to believe that!” She sat up, looked at me sideways. “Mom said she gave you a bra to wear last night. Was it one of mine? Where is it?”

I frowned, a little worried that I looked like I was pouting. “I think Mom said it was one of yours, it sure wasn’t one of hers. And I don’t know where it is, I didn’t have it on when I woke up.”

She nodded, pulling on her lower lip again. “Yeah, you’re big but Mom is bigger. She once told me she gained a cup size with each of us kids.” She grinned suddenly, bounced off the bed and sat beside me on the dressing table bench. “Let’s see if I’ve got something that fits you.”

“Something that will make them look smaller?” I suggested.

“Nah,” Donna scoffed. “Why would I have something like that?” She pulled open a drawer, saying, “By the way, very few people go to sleep wearing a bra, most of them aren’t that comfortable.”

She pulled something out of the drawer and held it up, a plain white object with satiny round pockets. It looked familiar.

“This was on top, and I haven’t worn it in a while cause it’s almost too big. A 30A/C.” She presented it to me.

I resisted but she pressed it into my hand. “That size sounds familiar, I remember mom saying something like that. What does it mean?” I don’t know why I asked; I didn’t really want to know.

“I had two of these, so this probably wasn’t the one Mom gave you to wear. She wouldn’t put it back in my drawer if you had it on for any length of time.”

I nodded. “And I was all sweaty,” I added.

“Ew!” She snatched the bra back from me and sniffed of it. “No smell, so this isn’t the one she stole for you.” She handed the item back to me again, and like an idiot, I took it.

“Put it on,” she urged. “We’ll see how it fits.”

“I don’t know how,” I said.

“Pftt! You put your arms through the straps and then fasten the snaps in back of you.”

“Huh?”

“Or you can fasten the snaps in front of you, then turn it around and slip your arms through the straps.”

I handed it back to her. “No,” I said.

“Jonny!”

She tried to hand the thing back again but I dodged, got up from the bench and went toward the door. “I’ll be in my room, estivating like a horntoad.” I said.

I don’t know if horntoads actually do this but my grandfather in Arizona told me that the little lizards bury themselves head down in the sand when the weather gets too hot. He added the detail that they use their short tails to close off their assholes to keep from drying out, so it really sounds like a grandpa story to me. Still, the image had stuck in my mind and Donna knew the story, too.

“Jonny!” she called after me.

Before I reached my room though, Mom appeared with a tape measure in hand. “Oh good,” she said. “Let’s get some measurements so we can know what your sizes are.”

“Mo-om,” I protested as she followed me into my room. “I duwanna do this.”

“Big baby,” said Donna out in the hall behind Mom. “He’s afraid to put on a bra.”

“Go away, Donna!” I yelped.

“Calm down,” Mom urged. “This isn’t going to hurt.”

“Yes, it will,” I insisted. I scooted around the bed, opened my closet and tried to climb in. Climb is the right word because my closet is elevated with drawers under it for things like winter bedding, I guess.

“Jon Lawrence Edwards!” Mom using my full name would normally stop me but I was determined to hide as best I could. Which wouldn’t be very good with Mom right there and Donna behind her laughing at me.

“Ow!” I said. I’d forgotten about the electrical junction box hidden behind the clothes and a corner of the open door of it had poked me in a tender place, right in the nipple.

“You okay?” Mom asked pulling on one of my arms.

“Yeah,” I admitted. But I couldn’t see anything with clothes wrapped around my head, and that had really hurt. “Something poked me,” I complained. “Having big titties is dangerous.”

Mom and Donna were laughing at me as they helped me down out of the closet.

“It’s not funny,” I protested, but I had to stifle a giggle myself. “That hurt.”

“So, you admit you need a bra?” Donna asked.

“Oh, sure, kick me when I’m already injured.”

“Let me see,” said Mom and dang if she didn’t just pull my t-shirt up to get a look at my chest!

“Mo-om!” I squealed, holding my hands and elbows up out of her way.

Donna was braying like a jackass, and Mom gave me a quick squeeze to see if anything really hurt. “It’s just a little red spot, baby,” she assured me.

I pulled my shirt back down causing more jiggling. “Donna’s in my room and you pulled up my shirt!”

I distinctly heard Mom roll her eyes, but Donna laughed even harder.

“Pfft,” I said, trying to get mad about it until Donna reached around Mom to poke me in the ribs below my boobies. I’m really ticklish and that was so unexpected that it went through me like an electric shock and I burst into giggles. I tried to tickle her back, she’s just as ticklish as I am, and we both protested to Mom at the same time.

“Mo-om!” in perfect chorus, which reduced us all to giggles.

“You’ve got a cute giggle,” Donna whispered in my ear as we got disentangled after the tickle fight..

“I do not,” I insisted.

“You both do,” Mom said, making that clicking noise that seemed to be the sound of her rolling her eyes again. “Now get out here where I can measure you, Jonny.”

“I duwanna,” I said but I knew Mom wouldn’t tolerate any more protests, and I stepped into the middle of my room to stand in front of her.

“Over by the doorway, sweetheart,” she said. “I want to see how tall you are, now, too.”

“At the doctor’s office,” I put in, “the nurse said I was four-feet-eleven inches and I weigh 85 pounds.”

“Uh, huh,” said Mom, looking at the marks she had just made on the doorframe. “I make it almost four-eleven-and-a-quarter. The bathroom scales aren’t very accurate but we can check them, later. C’mere, Donna. We’ll measure you, too.”

I got out of the way so Donna could stand next to the doorframe. I hadn’t grown at all in at least the last year but neither had Donna, really.

“We measured in gym class,” Donna was saying. “I’m five-three-and-a-half and I weigh 98 pounds.” She’s been taller than me since we started eighth grade, but she hasn’t grown in the last year either.

“Pretty much,” Mom agreed. “Now measure me,” she said, taking Donna’s place.

“Almost exactly five-foot-two,” my sister announced.

“Eyes of blue,” Mom commented. Well, we all had blue eyes, even Dad, but for some reason this made us giggle.

“How much do you weigh?” Donna asked.

Mom frowned. “Too much, but let’s take Jonny’s measurements.”

I pretended to make a break for the hallway, but Mom caught my arm. “Enough of that!” she scolded.

“Yes, ma’am,” I said and stood still while she worked the yellow tape under my arms and around my chest, above the flesh on my chest.

“Goodness,” she exclaimed, and took the measurement all over again. “Twenty-seven inches! Can that be right?”

“She is a skinny-minnie,” said Donna. Mom didn’t seem to notice the pronoun but I did and glared at Donna.

Mom tried the measurement again, decided it was twenty-seven after all, and had Donna write that down. She also measured under my new boobs and got pretty much the same number. She seemed almost offended by this. “You’ve got a smaller band size than my waist!” she complained.

“I didn’t mean to,” I whimpered.

“Super skinny-minnie,” Donna commented. “My band size is thirty, and I’m small.”

They stared at me and I felt my lip tremble. Mom suddenly hugged me and when she let go, Donna hugged me too. I sniffed back something that might have been a tear in my nose but I did feel better. “You guys,” I said.

“Okay,” Mom agreed. She moved the tape and took a measurement right around me at the level of my nipples. It felt weird. She did it again, showing where her fingernail was on the tape to Donna. “Thirty-two-and-a-half,” they agreed after a third try with Donna marking where the end of the tape reached.

They stared at me again. “What?” I asked.

“That’s almost a double-dee cup,” said Donna. “No wonder my borrowed bra didn’t fit you.”

I really wanted to cry this time so we all swapped hugs again and Donna snagged some tissue from the box on my dresser.

“Measure her waist,” Donna suggested, getting my pronoun wrong again. “I bet it’s like twenty-two or something.”

It was twenty-two inches or just a hair over. Donna had some chart she had retrieved from a magazine in her room. “That makes you a size-0 dress size,” she announced.

“I’m not going to wear a dress!” I protested.

Last, they measured my hips at the widest part. “Thirty-three inches,” said Donna. “When did your butt get so big and round? Did that happen last night, too?”

“I—I think it happened in the last year. My pants kept getting tighter.” I tried to look over my shoulder. “Is it really that big?”

“It’s tremendous,” Donna suggested.

“Don’t tease her about it,” Mom scolded.

“It’s bigger than her bust, and that’s huge,” said Donna, pretending to be reasonable, but they had both called me her. I know I was pouting, but it was just so unfair.

“That just means you’ve got an hourglass figure, honey,” said Mom to me.

“Great,” I moaned. “I’m never leaving the house again.”

“There are girls that would kill to have curves like you’ve got, sis,” Donna assured me.

“I’m not a girl and I’m not your sister,” I told her. I was pouting again so I tried to turn it into a glare. But another round of hugs, plus Mom kissed me on the forehead, and Donna gave me one on the cheek, left me feeling less bereft but more confused.

Then Donna whispered to me, “You’re like the big sister I never had,” and I wanted to pop her one right in the ear.

*

We had somehow made it out to the kitchen and Mom pointed at the clock. “Look at the time! Your father isn’t back with Linda yet, but if we leave when they do get back, we can be at the mall at eleven when things start opening up.”

“Shopping!” Donna squealed. I glared at her but she just grinned back.

“I’m not going,” I said.

“Don’t pout,” Mom warned. “You are going because you need something decent to wear.” She headed back toward her own bedroom. “I’m going to get you one of my tops you can put over that t-shirt so your nipples don’t show through.”

I looked down and sighed. My nipples did show and I really couldn’t stay in the house for the rest of my life. “I’ll pick out a nice, neutral-looking blouse for you, honey,” Mom said from the hallway.

“I’ll wear it, but I don’t have to like it!” I called after her.