Chapter 4

Maddie's mother, Abbey, stood in the living room dressed in a smart business suit with her purse over her shoulder. Car keys jingled in her fingers. "Maddie? Ready to go?" she said as she checked her watch.

Maddie emerged from the kitchen, a piece of buttered toast in her fingers. "Ready," she said. A minute later they were rolling down the street in Abbey's Explorer.

"You look nice," Abbey said.

"Thanks," Maddie said. She had been very self-conscious about her new figure. Since Jason was at their uncle's farm, she had taken to wearing his sweatshirts, and she had even appropriated a couple of her dad's old dress shirts. Anything to hide her new boobs. But today she had said screw it. Maybe her new cock was making her feel ... cocky. She had put on a loose, but fitted top that she'd purchased a week ago. The top allowed her to show off her spectacular breasts, but in a demure way.

Abbey cleared her throat and said, "Martha called this morning. Jason and Thad were playing in the barn and Jason sprained his ankle."

"Bad?" Maddie asked.

"Apparently nothing serious, but he'll have to stay off his feet for a while. And you know Martha, she insisted that he stay over a couple of weeks so she could nurse him back to health," Abbey said.

"Humph," Maddie grunted.

"I miss him too," Abbey said.

Maddie and Jason got along well for teenage siblings, and she had been looking forward to his homecoming for more than just his company. She wanted his input on what to do about the charm, and what to do about the fact that she was a fifteen year old girl with the body of an amazingly beautiful woman, not to mention this cock business. How was she going to handle school? Her mother might be in denial about her new body, but the school year was approaching and her fellow students would be merciless.

As if she had been reading her daughter's thoughts Abbey said, "Honey, I've been talking to Dr. Linscombe, and he's set up an appointment for you for next week."

"I see," Maddie said quietly. So much for thinking that her mother might be in denial. Abbey had dragged Maddie and Jason to their family physician before, worried that the rapid changes in their bodies were a sign of some exotic illness. Dr. Linscombe had poked and prodded and taken blood. He'd assured Abbey that while this seeming explosion of puberty was unusual, the fact that no one else in the family was exhibiting any signs of illness due to exposure to something odd in their home environment, meant that it was simply a genetic anomaly. In other words, he had noticed that she and Jason had been late maturing. He had thought that their rush through puberty now was simply their bodies playing catch up. But that appraisal had been made weeks ago, no doubt the doctor would freak out when he saw the difference those weeks had made.

They pulled off the highway and stopped in front of the Westland Clothing Center. It was one of the charities that Abbey supported. Part of that support was to encourage Maddie to volunteer there during the summer. She encouraged Maddie by suspending her allowance, and instead she paid Maddie the going minimum wage out of her own pocket for the time Maddie put in. It was deadly boring work, but Maddie didn't complain. Her wages always amounted to more than what her allowance would have been. Plus, her father usually slipped her allowance to her anyway.

Maddie stepped out of the SUV, but held the door open. "Mom," she said. "I feel fine. I wish you'd asked me before making an appointment. He didn't find anything wrong last time."

"Honey, girls just don't develop like you have," Abbey said. "It won't hurt to have the doctor check you out one more time." She looked at her watch. "I'm going to be late."

"You know," Maddie said, "you have the habit of saying things like that just as one of us is going somewhere."

Abbey smiled at her younger daughter. "I have three children. I know how to curtail arguments." She put up her hand to stop Maddie from commenting. "Honey, I'm worried about you. You'll see that this is for the best." Before Maddie could say anything more, Abbey eased the Explorer forward, causing Maddie to close the door. She watched her mother wave goodbye as she pulled away.

Maddie sighed. She'd have to figure something out, but not this second. She entered the Westland Clothing Center through its automatic sliding door. The building had been a big box store at one point. Now it was about a half-acre of mismatched clothing racks full of donated garments. The donations came mostly from church groups. The donated clothing entered the store through the old receiving doors in the rear of the building. There, groups of elderly ladies checked the clothing, made measurements, determined the garments worth and then made up a label containing the sale price and other information. The ladies were picky. The Westland Clothing Center carried only the best in used clothing. Items deemed unworthy were sent along to other charities. Proceeds from the sales funded a homeless shelter.

Maddie walked the width of the store and entered what had been the employees' only section and printed her name and the time on a chalkboard to show she was present. She made her way to the office area and stepped into the manager's office. "Hi, Ms. Rockford," she said to woman in charge of Westland Clothing Center.

Katherine Rockford was a large African American woman in her fifties. She wore square, black rimmed glasses and a wig that hadn't been fashionable for twenty years. "Hi, darlin', how are you doin'?" she asked Maddie.

"I'm fine," Maddie said. She remembered Ms. Rockford's reaction to her new body. At that time she hadn't seen Maddie in months, and the first thing she had said was, "Girl, looks like you got whacked hard with a puberty stick." And then she had laughed a hearty laugh that had begun somewhere near her bellybutton.

"Stocking?" Ms. Rockford asked. She wanted to know if Maddie wanted to put out the recently prepared clothes.

"Please," Maddie said.

"Okay," Ms. Rockford said, "pickin's are kind of slim. We haven't been too busy."

Maddie thanked her and went to the sorting area. Once the clothing was ready for the sales floor, it was hung on rolling racks. Maddie saw that Ms. Rockford hadn't been kidding; a single rack was mostly full but only loosely so. She tugged it through the employee's door, and into the center of the woman's section. There, she did the thing that made this incredibly dull job bearable; she pulled a pair of earbuds from her pocket and put them in place. Jacking the buds into her phone, she set her play list to random and went to work.

Thirty minutes later, Maddie straightened a rather large and ugly blouse on its hanger. She hoped to hell she would never be fat enough to wear something that size. As she hung it next to a couple of other tent-sized tops, she heard, "Hi, I think I'm supposed to help you." She turned and looked up into the brown eyes of a really cute guy. She pulled the buds from her ears and let them dangle around her neck. "I'm Pete," he said. "Ms. Rockford sent me."

"I'm Maddie," Maddie said. She could just imagine the self-satisfied grin on Ms. Rockford's face as she played the matchmaker by sending Pete out to help someone who couldn't possibly need it. Not that Maddie was complaining; he was a cutie. He had a full head of sandy brown hair. He was wearing a loose fitting grey henley shirt over denim shorts and leather sandals. His biceps filled his shirtsleeves, and she bet that if she peeked under the hem of his shirt she would find a six-pack of abs.

"So what are we doing?" he asked, eyeing the rolling rack.

"It's pretty complicated," Maddie said with a wry smile. She pulled a light weight blazer off the rack and showed him the label the ladies had attached. "See where it says 'Ladies Dress Jacket?'"

"Yeah," said Pete.

"You find the corresponding sign," she said as she pointed to a sign hanging above their heads, "and then put it with other clothes that are the same size." She hung the jacket between two others on the display rack.

Pete glanced at the sign. "Rocket science," he said with a smile.

"I'm afraid that's not all," Maddie said. She pointed to a pair of fashionably ripped white jeans lying out of place across two piles of green sweaters. "Do you see that?"

"I thought those jeans looked suspicious," Pete said.

"Good eye," Maddie said. "Not many people would have noticed the complete difference in material, cut and color. They're practically invisible." She picked up the pants with mock reverence and laid them across the bar of the rolling rack. "Now they become another item to be stocked."

"Good Lord," Pete said. "Rocket science and brain surgery combined. I'll be sure to stay close and follow your lead."

Maddie chuckled and said, "Is this your first time to volunteer?"

"No," Pete said. "My father's a minister, and he usually has me pick up clothing from a bunch of churches and bring them here, and that's it. But last night, I missed my curfew," he held up his forefinger and thumb with barely a perceptible space between them, "by only an hour or three. So he strongly suggested that I stay and do some extra work." He smiled warmly at Maddie and said, "I'm glad he did."

Maddie knew that a few weeks ago Pete's little flirt would have made her stammer and blush until her hair caught on fire. But today she acknowledged his compliment with a friendly smile and a steady, "Thank you. I'm glad you could help."

As they worked, Pete had no trouble talking about Pete. He was entering Western State University in a few weeks where he had a partial scholarship on Western's baseball team. His mother wanted him to take pre-med, but he didn't think his math and science grades would be good enough. He wanted to be a baseball coach at some level. But his dream was to have the big leagues draft him after college.

For her part, Maddie felt that she may have, kind of hinted that she too had finished high school. She had in at least in one sense. When Jason had left for his trip to their aunt and uncle's farm, Maddie had decided to check on the school work she would be doing in high school. Their state government provided all the study material a person needed to get a high school equivalency certificate online. She had been pleasantly surprised at how easily she assimilated all the course work. She had aced all the practice tests. All she had to do was apply, pay a fee, pass a proctored test and she was through with high school. Assuming, by some miracle, her parents would go along with it.