“I’m hundry,” Linda informed me. “Donna said you would make hopgakes for us.”

Mom asked if I wanted to go home before the Hendersons came back. It was almost ten and they should be back soon. I didn’t want them to see me wearing a bra. So I nodded, “I wanna go home,” I said, crying again.

She cuddled me. “Okay, but you can’t walk through the neighborhood this late, even if it is only two blocks away. It’s two long, dark blocks; if you don’t go through the alley, it’s more like four blocks.” She pushed me back a moment so I could see her face. “You are not going through any dark alleys, not even the one behind our house.”

I felt my face twist up. “The babies,” I said. “You can’t take me home and leave the babies.”

She shook her head. “No, I’m going to call your father to come get you.”

“Isn’t he out with his buddies watching football?” Every other Friday night in football season, Dad met some of his old friends in a bar in Mission Valley where they would drink beer and watch football on a giant television set.”

“I know where he is,” Mom said, moving toward the telephone.

“But he’ll see me. I don’t want him to see me,” I protested, very near to blubbering like a baby myself.

“Hush,” she said, picking up the phone and dialing. “He’s going to have to see sooner or later.”

“M-maybe the swelling will go down,” I suggested.

Mom shook her head at me and put her left hand over one ear while talking loudly into the receiver. I could sort of hear the noise coming through the telephone from the other end of the couch. It must be noisy where Dad was.

I curled up in a ball of misery. My chest still felt hot, and I imagined it throbbing and pulsing like some B-movie monster. What was happening to me? Wasn’t the injection I got two days ago supposed to help me become more of a boy?

But boys didn’t need to wear bras. They didn’t have soft mounds of flesh on their chests. Was I turning into a girl? Had the doctors made a mistake in what kind of shot they had given me? Or was the mistake made back when I was born, and I had been a girl all along?

Mom was still talking, but I couldn’t seem to hear her anymore. I was exhausted from the stress, the crying, and maybe the changes. Unbelievably, I fell asleep.

I woke up when I felt someone slide an arm under me and lift me off the couch. I knew it was my dad from the smell. After one of his Friday football nights, he always smelled of beer and cigarettes. “I’m sorry,” I murmured as he put my head on his shoulder and held me against himself with one arm.

It felt very familiar and still completely different. “It’s okay, sugar,” he whispered into my ear. “Daddy’s got you.”

I wiggled a bit, getting more comfortable. “I’m sorry, Daddy,” I said again. “I didn’t mean to,” I tried to explain.

I felt him chuckle. “You didn’t mean to what, punkinhead?”

I almost woke up trying to figure out what I was apologizing for, but the mental effort drove me further into a dream where Daddy was carrying me on his shoulders. Somewhere I heard his voice again, saying, “He’s sound asleep, like one of the babies.”

Or did he say, “She’s asleep?”

* * *

I woke in my bed, wearing a pair of my old pajamas and covered by a light blanket. I thrashed around a bit, trying to figure out if something was wrong. I felt hot as if I had a fever. I threw the blanket off of me and immediately saw the swelling of my chest inside my pajama top.

I stared. I’d avoided touching myself there, but now alone in the quiet darkness, I reached up to feel the soft round new growths. I could feel myself touching myself there, and I could feel the heaviness too. And my skin felt both warm and cool. Cool because of the night and warm because of the blanket. Or…?

Unnaturally warm like before, and I wondered if they were still growing. How big would they get? There’s a story we read in English class about a man who turned into a cockroach. I thought I knew how he felt.

But the horror, if that is the right word, was muted by being in my own room, in my own bed, wearing my soft old pajamas. The ones that had always been a bit too big for me. I’d pretty much stopped growing in middle school, and clothes that had been bought for a growing boy would never fit me right.

Was I still a boy? I took a deep breath and sighed. I was both thirsty and in need of the bathroom. I sat up, turning at the same time to sit on the bed, pointing my toes to touch the floor. The weights on my chest shifted and swayed as I moved, stretching and pulling my skin in unexpected ways.

I scooted off the bed, standing up when my heels reached the floor. The swaying and jiggling of my chest felt intense, and I noticed something else. My pajama bottoms felt tighter than before as if they were stretched over a bigger, rounder bottom, though the waistband seemed to droop loosely.

Most of my clothes had been getting a bit tight in the ass lately and my waist was always small, but this seemed a new, accelerated development. I sighed again.

The nightlight function of my clock radio showed that my bedroom door was not quite closed, and I could hear somewhere the murmur of adult voices. Mom and Dad were still up. I squinted at the clock, the numbers hard to read. Where were my glasses? I hadn’t left them at the Hendersons’, had I?

I’d taken them off when I was crying, but Mom had been there. She would have brought them home. They were probably lying there on my dresser, near the clock. I didn’t stop to find them, though. My need for a bathroom had gotten a bit more intense.

But when I opened my bedroom door, I discovered Fooler had been sleeping against it in the hall. He had always done that when one of us was sick, choosing to sleep in a doorway near the sick person. His ears and head came up, and his tail quivered.

“I’m going to step over you, Oscar,” I murmured. “Best pup, good dog.” He made a pretty sizable black lump in the darkness, but I navigated across him. He did that clopping noise dogs do with their jaws, and his head went back down.

I have the front bedroom in the house, so my door is right across the hall from what Mom calls the guest bathroom and Donna and I have to share. The door was open, and the nightlight inside showed it was empty.

The rest of the house was dark, so Mom and Dad must have been in their bedroom, even if I could still hear them talking quietly.

I slipped inside the bathroom, pulled down my pajama bottoms and sat on the toilet. Yes, I’ve always had to sit to pee—like a girl. The surgery they did on me as an infant to make me look more like a boy had been less than perfect. I piddled in squirts and dribbles; it made a real mess if I didn’t sit.

I rocked back and forth on the seat, feeling the movement of my breasts, the shift of their weight. It didn’t seem real, but there they were, and I had called them breasts. Girls have breasts. I must be a girl.

I used toilet tissue to clean myself up, but I did not flush, thinking I did not want anyone to know I was awake.

I wandered back to my bed. Fooler had moved from the doorway (he’d been stepped on in the past) and was now sleeping against the wall further down the hall. His soft snores made me smile. I knew to leave the door open a crack because if it were closed when Fooler came to check on me, he would scratch to be let in. “Good old dog,” I murmured as I climbed back into bed.

I tried to think what life might be like for me now, but the effort was too much, and I was soon asleep again. I dreamed about sharing a bedroom with Donna, the way we had done when we were as young as Linda or the Henderson twins.

* * *

Someone was poking me gently in the side. “Jonny, Jonny, Jonny. Are you awake?”

I opened my eyes. Linda, of course. She generally got up before anyone else on Saturday morning and watched cartoons in the living room with the sound turned down until someone else rejoined society.

“I’m hundry,” she informed me. “Donna said you would make hopgakes for us.”

She stood there in shorts and a t-shirt, one pudgy knee wearing a colorful bandaid, her favorite plushie, Turkle, under one arm and four fingers of her other hand lingering near her mouth.

“Can’t you just eat fingers like usual?” I asked. I pulled the covers off and yawned, aborting a stretch as my new accessories reminded me of their existence.

“No!” she told me, snatching her hand away from her mouth. Mom was trying to break her from sucking on her fingers, and she knew it because Donna and I teased her about it whenever possible.

“Jonny! You make good hopgakes! Pease?” The kid was doing well with the big-eyed expressions, and I grinned at her. Then she spoiled her efforts by poking me in the tit! Right on a nipple, too!

“Ow,” I yelped, sitting up to put further poking out of reach for people less than four feet tall. This produced quite a bit of bouncing and swaying, and I put an arm across my chest to stop that.

“Howgum you gots boobies, Jonny?” she asked, eyes getting even bigger.

‘I dunno,” I answered honestly. I used my other hand to scrub my face, trying to get completely awake. “Girls have boobies. Maybe I’m a girl.”

She laughed. “Ogay! Jonny’s a girl!” She spun in place, holding both arms out, Turkle dangling precariously from one. “Jonny’s a girl. Jonny’s a girl.”

“Wuf,” Fooler commented from the doorway.

“Not so loud,” I warned my littlest sibling. “Now you’ve told Fooler, and you know what a gossip he is! He’ll tell everyone that I don’t have my license yet!”

That set off a storm of giggles, punctuated with a patented four-year-old squeal. “What’s a light sense?” she asked.

“It’s like getting a letter back from Santa with permission to be bad,” I said, improvising. That squeal surely woke up Mom, if not Dad. Donna could sleep through a fire brigade tromping through the house.

“Hee, hee, hee, hee!” The giggle machine engaged for maximum output. Linda pressed Turkle into service to stifle herself, pushing the toy’s head into her mouth with both hands.

I slid to the edge of the bed and stretched my feet down to the floor.

Linda watched in awe, Turkle escaping from her open mouth. “Jonny, you got bigger boobies than Donna! Maybe bigger than Mommy’s.” Her eyes followed the bouncing as I stood up, putting an arm across my chest again. They were like two soft round water balloons hanging there.

“You want hotcakes or not?” I demanded. “My anatomy is officially off the discussion list.”

More giggles. “Yes! Pease! Hopgakes! Jonny’s making hopgakes! And-at-or-me what?” She turned and ran out of the room, almost colliding with Fooler, who scrambled to get out of the way.

I took a moment to try to decipher that last bit and realized it was her effort at asking me what ‘anatomy’ meant.

“Wuf,” said Fooler from the doorway, glancing at me then down the hallway where Linda had gone.

“I suppose you want me to make hotcakes, too?” I asked.

He gave me a big doggy grin, waved his tail and set off toward the kitchen.

“Best pup wants hotcakes,” I said. “I’d better get moving.” I started toward the door, but Mom suddenly appeared there, wrapped in a green terry cloth robe.

“Jonny?” she said, staring at me.

I nodded. “It’s still me,” I said, glancing down at what she was looking at. “Have they gotten bigger?”

“Uh-maybe,” she said, dodging the question. “That pajama top fits so badly it’s almost indecent.” She sighed and I nodded again.

“Do you want to make hotcakes?” she asked.

“It’s my turn,” I told her. Donna and I make breakfast most weekends. It would be her turn tomorrow.

“Hopgakes! Hopgakes! Less all hop for hopgakes!” Linda sang from the kitchen.

I grinned at Mom. “It’s okay. I like hotcakes, too.”

She rolled her eyes. “Okay, but let me get you a robe to wear,” she said and headed down the hallway to her room.

I had a robe, but it was not going to fit me. I shook my head and headed for the kitchen myself, where my public clamored for my performance.