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The weak morning light broke through the window of the Darnell flat as it did every day: it peeked through Wisp's abused, painted-on curtains, it came through the glass panes of the room next door where Jace slept (all four limbs flung out on the bed, a 50/50 meld of flesh and metal) and in the ex-study where Irelia Torstenn was now ensconced. It managed to evade Beatrix's room, as Beatrix closed her curtains up tightly in order to get her beauty sleep.

A million tiny baby birds were born all at once, Wisp Darnell thought dazedly, as things slowly shifted into shape. She came un-asleep in portions. For some reason, that morning she felt bizarre, a little choked, a little fevered as though she were coming down with a cold -- and immediately freaked out that she was, in fact, going down with a cold, and had to freebase echinacea or something, as getting sick was one of her worst nightmares.

She pulled herself out of bed.

She looked down.

(The Darnell household was immediately pierced with a loud, shrill scream.)

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH," shrilled Wisp, and tripped over herself to get to the mirror -- no wonder she'd felt choked and smothered, as her nightgown didn't fit any more -- looked at her nightgown, wrestled herself out of it, looked at herself topless and screamed again. "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH," she continued, and immediately and slightly primly struggled for her dressing-gown, which now only came down to her mid-thighs -- and "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH," again, for good measure.

"JAAAAA~AAAAACE," she warbled. "IREE. IREE! MOM. MOM MOM MOM."

She busted into Irelia's room first, since it was the door right next to hers, and jumped up and down in a frantic panic. It was much louder than Wisp's old jumping up and down. Her voice had changed as well -- her piping soprano had deepened, become slightly richer, still a high and breathless warble but in the tones of an older girl. She went to go and joggle Irelia's shoulder, but yelled "OH MY GOD," again.

"It's CATCHING," she said. "Oh my god! Irelia wake up. IRELIA. UP YOU GET. -- oh my god are those your boobs?!"

"Loll~ll," said her adopted sister out loud, one of her more annoying habits. "Hey, how come you get massive boobs?"

She pouted, but was too buoyantly happy to really carry it off. From the next room, they could hear Jace muttering incoherently to herself as she obviously tried to stick her head under the pillow. Before Irelia could prevent it, either, Wisp had stuck out one hand and had prodded at her cleavage, obviously just fascinated by how it jiggled. "Ugh," she said. "So not fair! I didn't get boobs or hips or anything, mine are tiny compared to yours! Boo!"

Before she could molest Irelia again, she jumped back a few steps to take her in better, admiring the other girl. Irelia seemed to mainly grow boobs, hair and legs, and she clapped in glee. "Hooray!" she said. "Female lady freedom!"

"More like you're already pissing o..."

Jace was standing in the doorway in her sweatpants and t-shirt, and whatever she had been about to say had died. Both Wisp and Irelia were treated to the (now shorter) redhead's mouth hanging open as she stared, in obvious shock and then growing alarm, at the two teenagers standing in front of her. She had to push her hair out of her face, falling in long red spikes in front of her eyes. It probably did look a little hysterical: Irelia was half-dressed and Wisp looked like a lolita cam-ho in her little frilly nightdress, startled and blonde vs. bewildered and curly brunette.

"NO WAY," Jace finally said, "no, that is so not fair. Both of you?!"

"I'm sorry," said her sister, sincere. "I'd hoped you'd do it too. Maybe you're going to grow really really soon, right?"

"Holy s**t," uttered her sister again, unknowingly echoing Wisp, "what the hell is on your chest, Rel?"

Beatrix Darnell appeared in the doorway space behind the increasingly red-faced Jacoba; she beheld Wisp, who was trying to measure how long her legs were now in her tiny little nightgown, and she beheld Irelia, who was spilling out of her own. Thwomp hovered next to her head; she did not actually have to see the boob-spilling to suspect what was going on.

"I am calling Becca," she said tiredly, "and then we are going bra shopping. No school today."

"What about for me?" her eldest (and now smallest) demanded.

"We'll see," said Bea, and disappeared again.

"Woot!" said Wisp. "Bras!"

Jace kept on staring at Irelia's boobs with an expression of mixed surprised and distaste: Wisp was patting the adopted Darnell girl's shoulder sympathetically, and then proceeded to eat eight bananas while trying to re-braid her hair and compare breasts at the same time. This kept on making her laugh derangedly.

"Oh, dear God," they heard Beatrix mutter from the next room. "The sins of the mothers."

A horrible new chapter in their lives had begun. In Jace's opinion, at least.

*

They left Jace with Uncle Jack and Akili, which seemed to always cheer her up, though she sulked into the house with an expression of stormclouds as they swapped her for Rebecca -- she seemed to have taken the call in her stride, even as Beatrix let her have the driver's seat of the car and took shotgun with no small amount of relief. Beatrix hated driving with Thwomp on tow: it gave her a headache.

"Grandma B," Wisp said dolefully, "how come I have teeny tiny mosquito bite boobs and Irelia has like, gazungas? Because Jace said I'd been bad and so the boob fairy didn't visit me but I am pretty sure that is just a crappy parable. I am so miserable. I am the miserablest. Evie check them out."

"Can you tell her that having small breasts is not the end of the world?" said her mother tiredly, to Becca, even as Wisp tried to heave her boobs in Evie's direction. "Irelia, welcome to a world of back pain, for one."

Irelia grumped.

"Ok, so why are we NOW ganging up on me? Back pain, small packages," Irelia scowled and crossed her arms, staring out the window, "Wisp is just being a drama queen."

Irelia was stressed and a little scared. The only breasts she had seen had been in the pages of National Geographic, which were of natives droopy boobs. She thought everyones were supposed to look like that. Not like her own small cantaloupes that seemed to be trying to point towards the ceiling. It just wasn't... natural.

"I knew boobs were a bad sign. Why does Jace get all the luck?"

Irelia was in a bad mood. She seemed to have progressed from the Terrible Twos to the Terrible Teens.

Much to Bea's dismay, Becca laughed in response to her impatience. "Bea, you don't want them to know what I got up to. Akili wasn't my first bad boy, you know." Then she sobered a bit and sighed. "Girls, it doesn't make a difference. No one looks the same, anyway, least of all you cabbage kids." She turned the wheel neatly to round a corner. Evie did a little spin in her cup to reflect the movement of the car. "It'll be fine. We'll get you all geared up and then you can go conquer the world with your new endowments."

Wisp, who was immediately forgiving, immediately stuck her tongue out back and beamed; she touched her knuckles to Irelia's just to underscore the forgiveness, and cheered up. Her blue eyes were even bigger in her face than they had been before -- when she widened them in Shock Misery, it was quite a deal.

"Grandma B," she said, "how old were you when you started dating a boy? Did you always go for bad boys? Did they have motorbikes?"