Chapter 6

When I got home and walked in, my mother and sister were in the kitchen, talking over a kettle of herbal tea as they often did before bed. Fighting down tears of joy, I wordlessly hugged them, trying not to let my emotions show but failing miserably.
“Ow, ow, you’re crushing me!” My sister objected. I relaxed my grip a little, but didn’t let go. I breathed in her scent - her shampoo, her sweat after an active day, the familiar scent of our washing powder. It was her!
She eventually fought lose, and I had to wipe my eyes again.
“What on earth has gotten into you Charlie?” she asked, smiling warmly at me.
“I’ve had a really strange day, Becky. Strange, but good. I just want you to know I really love you - the both of you.” I said.
“Aw, we love you too sweetheart, “ my mother said. “Do you want to sit down and have a cup of tea with us? You said you had something we needed to talk about?
“I’d love a cup of tea, but are there any leftovers? I smell meatloaf?”
“I’ll heat a portion for you baby,” she said, and walked over to the fridge. I couldn’t believe how young she looked! She looked so healthy. So full of life. I brushed another tear from my eye and sniveled.

“Charlie,” my sister whispered, making urgent eye contact.
“Yeah?”
“Go shower. You reek of sex and perfume. Put on some fresh clothes too.” She grinned at my expression.
“Thanks Becky, I owe you one.”
“I can’t wait to hear about it. But hurry now before she gets back.”

I had forgotten about that detail in my overwhelming state of emotion. And between my sister and my mother, I held my mother as the more perceptive one. Chuckling to myself, I took a quick shower and pulled on a pair of sweatpants and a new t-shirt before I walked downstairs.

I stuck my head in the living room on my way back to the kitchen and said a simple “Hi dad” to my father. He was watching the late news and doing a crossword and just waved his pencil in the air and mumbled a “good evening” without looking up. I didn’t mind - I just couldn’t handle yet another interaction this night.

My sister smiled knowingly at me when I sat down at the table.
“Hey little brother,” she said and raised an eyebrow.
“Let me look at you, sweetheart,” mom said and took a hold of my chin, turning my face so she could look into my eyes.
“Yes I do believe you’ve grown up a little over the night,” she said. “Doesn’t he look taller to you, Becks?”
“Mom, please, just stop,” I begged.
“So who is the lucky girl, Charlie? Is it Anna? You said you were going to her house to study, yes?” she asked.
“Mom. Just stop it. Even if you were right, and I’m not saying you are, there’s such a thing as integrity. You don’t kiss and tell.” She smiled and looked very pleased with herself. Then she patted me on the knee.
“That’s my boy. I hope you introduce her to me soon. Now what was it you wanted to talk to me about?”
My sister left the table and declared that she was going to bed, but that she expected a full report from me tomorrow.

I turned to my mother and drew a deep breath before I began:
“Mom, I want to discuss something that happened in school today, and maybe I’d like your help writing a letter. And I have some papers for you to sign.”
And then I launched into a very long explanation.

I told her about the four bullies in my class, detailing how they would pick on me and how they treated other students - particularly the girls - explaining what had happened that morning on the way to school, and about what happened during lunch. I told her I was worried that things might become violent now that I’d finally stood up to them, and then explained what my biology teacher had suggested about writing a letter.

Hours later, after midnight, we had written the letter together and mom had signed the banking papers. To say she was surprised at my sudden interest in the stock market would be an understatement, but when I agreed to only put half of my savings into the stock market, she gave me the green light. She even said she would accompany me to the bank after school the next day. When she hugged me goodnight, she told me she was happy I had finally told her about the bullies, and that she was very proud of me. And I told her how much l loved her.

When I finally went to bed I was cognitively and emotionally exhausted, but I was also the happiest I had ever been. I was asleep the second my head hit the pillow.

Two hours later, I woke up. Wide awake and feeling refreshed as if after a long night of quality sleep. I lay in bed for ten or twenty minutes more, trying to go back to sleep, but my brain wasn’t having it. Sighing to myself, I turned on the light and opened my calendar.
Tuesday 4th: Grammar, verbs.
Wednesday empty.
Thursday 6th: Social Studies, test.
Friday 7th: Chemistry ch7&8.

Grumbling about life’s unfairness, I opened my grammar book and started revising verb forms. Always liked advanced grammar, but always hated the easy stuff, and 7th grade grammar was definitely the latter. Thirty minutes later, I felt I knew all there was to know about verbs, so I picked up the social studies textbook and took some notes. My heart wasn’t in it, though - all I could think about were my three quests, as I was beginning to think of them.
First: save my sister’s life and do my best to keep mom and dad healthy.
Second: get laid as often as humanly possible, while making sure to treat girls with respect and love.
Third: save the word.

I bet many would think I had them in the wrong order, but I knew that for the third to work, the other two had to happen as well. Dr O had emphasized the importance of a good sexlife, and I extended the reasoning to include all things I needed to do in order to maintain my mental health - and saving my sister’s life was simply something I had to do. Seeing her lose herself and die a second time would break me, I knew.

Now that my family and friends had seen my physical appearance and seemed to accept me, I could get busy getting my physique in order too. It would probably happen automatically just from the enhancements Dr O had given me, but I felt a strong urge to get myself in shape. Gunilla and Anna didn’t seem to mind my twelve kilos of chub last night though, come to think of it. Why was that? Just seeing me in tight speedos? Nah, that couldn’t be it. It had to be all the mental changes I was displaying. Confidence was attractive, as were displays of physical dominance such as with Henrik. Why was I suddenly acting so confident? I’d never been this confident ever before in my life - not even as a 40+ year old man. Surely it wasn’t ‘big-cock-confidence’? Nah. It was probably hormonal in nature, and perhaps there was something in Dr O’s mood-boosting cocktail? Also, having this body that felt like nothing I had ever experienced was probably part of it. It felt like a well-oiled machine with brutal horsepower and endurance.

That thought gave me an idea. I pulled on slacks and a t-shirt and snuck down to our garage. Yup - there it was: Dad’s gym-bench, barbell and weights, forgotten beneath a layer of boxes, dust and spider webs. I got busy pulling the gear out to the middle of the floor and gave it a good wipe.

Lifting weights felt remarkably good. It was as if my muscles had been needing the exercise for a long time. I also noted that I needed to buy more weights, because even loading on the full 90 kg that dad had lying around, I could easily bench-press it. I could even bicep curl it! Ridiculous. That was easily more than twice what I had curled in my life. Oh well - once I started bringing in a little money, I would buy some more weights.

Then I looked at my wristwatch and noted that it was only 04.50 AM. I had plenty of time for a morning jog. I went in the house again and tied on my jogging shoes, and was startled by my sister as she came down the stairs. I startled her even worse.
“Jesus!” she exclaimed, then lowered her voice and whispered: “What are you doing up this early?”
“I couldn’t sleep, so I thought I’d go for a jog.” I said in a hushed tone.
“Ok, where is my brother and what have you done to his body?” She asked, shaking her head in disbelief.
“Look, Becky, about yesterday. Thank you for being discrete.”
“Well well, my little brother is growing up fast I see. You’ll have to tell me all about it after school.” She grinned.
“Nope. I don’t kiss and tell.” I stated firmly and winked at her.
“You little bastard - I’m curious!”
“Well, you’ll just have to live with it. Are you taking the bike to work?”
“Yeah, how so?”
“I thought I could jog along and give you some company.”
“I dunno, I can’t get there too late, or I won’t be able to finish cleaning all the areas before I need to get to school.”
“Tell you what - if I’m too slow, you go ahead and leave me in your wake. Not going to happen though.”

She shook her head in disbelief, but let me come along. When we got there, she was at a loss for words. I had easily kept pace with her, and I was hardly breathing hard after the three kilometre jog. I kissed her cheek and ran back home. Then I went another couple of kilometres in another direction before jogging home a second time.

I was eating a bacon & mushroom omelet for breakfast when my mother got up.

Meeting Anna and Gunilla at the bus stop that morning was awkward. At first, I was about to just nod and smile in their direction, but Anna came over and hugged me before dragging her over to where she was standing with Gunilla and the other members of the handball team - the archetypical ‘popular girls’ of our school. My sudden promotion to a higher social standing by none other than the Ice-Queen herself sent subtle ripples through the ranks of gathered teenagers; at least the ones in lower secondary, where everyone knew who was the boss despite being only in 7th grade. Gunilla also gave me a quick hug, but more awkward - and she blushed in the most delightful manner as our eyes met.

Things got a little strange after that, because the Ice-Queen’s sudden promotion of me had come as a surprise, and it had interrupted whatever they had been gossiping about. I was sure it had been gossip from the way they didn’t continue whatever the conversation had been.

“Thanks for helping us with biology yesterday, Charlie,” Anna said by way of making conversation - walking on thin metaphorical ice broaching that subject.
“Hey, the pleasure was all mine. Thanks for helping me with social studies.” I tried to say as casually as I could. I felt myself flushing when images of yesterday flashed before me. Gunilla blushed an even deeper shade of pink than before, apparently seeing similar images. I spotted two or three of the other girls exchanging meaningful glances. One of them spoke up - a cute dark-haired girl in grade 8 I remembered well, but couldn’t remember the name of.
“So we heard about what you did yesterday, Charlie - that was very brave of you.” She smiled winsomely.
“Nah, he’s nothing to be afraid of,” I answered, looking over my shoulder in Henrik’s direction. I had spotted him when I arrived, but paid him no heed.
“We heard about that too, but that wasn’t what I meant,” she said, her smile getting even bigger.
Anna and Gunilla both coughed uncomfortably.
“Oh ... so what did you hear?” I asked casually.
“You know, instructing the girls in phys-ed.”
“Oh. That. No biggie.”
“I heard the opposite,” she quipped. That set a whole bunch of them giggling, and I had no come-back for that.
I arched a significant eyebrow at Anna and Gunilla, and Gunilla understood the unspoken question, and shook her head subtly in reply. No they hadn’t told them about our extracurricular activities - this was just the result of girl-talk about my speedos and ... I blushed again, seeing more images flash before my eyes; a long line of pretty girls stealing glances at my groin while I ogled their bodies. I quickly raised my bag in front of me and pretended to search for something to cover my bodily response to my mental arousal.

I was saved by the arrival of the school bus, and I repeated yesterday’s trick of getting on at the front to save a seat for Andy, who was sprinting the last 80 meters as usual. He tried to press me for details about my study session with the girls, but I shrugged it off and talked about topics from the textbooks until he gave up that line of questioning and started talking about Gunilla’s tits and ass instead. It was a topic I now had intimate knowledge of, but had to feign ignorance about. I agreed they were spectacular, but told him I also appreciated smaller tits - like Linda’s. You know - boy talk.

When we got to school, I excused myself to Andy and went to the administrative wing of the building. At first, the lady at the reception desk didn’t want to let me into the office to speak with the vice principal unless I stated my errand, but when I insisted on seeing him without telling her what it was about, she sighed and let me in, and got back to the magazine she was reading.

The vice principal, Mr Nilsen, was not surprised to see me, but he was surprised when I handed him a letter and asked him to sign my copy after reading it.
“This is about your little scuffle yesterday, is it? Or about what happened in the canteen?” he asked, looking at me over the rim of his thick glasses. He was an elderly gentleman of Danish origin, known for both his gentle manners and his explosive temperament. Stories about him lifting a student by his ears and similar absurdities were in circulation among the kids, and we were all very hushed whenever he visited our classroom.
“Not so much about yesterday as about a situation that has been brewing for many years now, Mr Nilsen. Since the beginning of middle school or thereabouts.”
“Middle school you say?”
“Perhaps it would be best if you just read the letter. Ms Jonsson suggested I put it in writing, and my mother helped me write it last night.”
“I see.” she said, and started reading. It was four pages. As he read, I could see his color shifting gradually from pallid white to a deeper and deeper shade of red, and wondered whether I would get to see one of his legendary fits.