No Enemy but Time (New 7/15)
Posted: Fri Jul 12, 2024 10:21 pm
Contents
Chapter 1 (below)
Chapter 2
**************************************************
Author's Note: Copyright 2024 NeverDoubted. Please do not repost this story on other sites without permission (neverdoubted@protonmail.com). By accessing this story, the reader hereby certifies that he/she is of an appropriate age to access adult material and that such material is permitted in the locality or country where the reader resides. The following is a creative work of fiction, and the characters or incidents described do not resemble any persons or events in the real world.
I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I did writing!
~ND
**************************************************
Special Note: While this is part of the Can't Catch a Break series, each book in the series is a self-contained story that is meant to be read by itself. A full synopsis of this series is available in my library.
Can't Catch a Break - No Enemy but Time
Chapter 1
Instead of writing like she was supposed to be doing, Michelle looked up from the empty notebook and let her eyes wander. The other kids, even the ones who usually struggled to buckle down and concentrate, were all bent over their desks, writing intently. She liked poetry, and normally, would have no difficulty with such a simple writing assignment. But today, her unease was especially strong. Distractingly so. Why did Claire have to ask that stupid question?
They had been huddling among a group of girls - friendly acquaintances who regularly hung out together on the playground - when Claire had suddenly, and inexplicably shifted the discussion to the topic of boys.
"What about you, Michelle," she had asked, singling her out for some reason, "which boy do you like?"
Michelle was completely unprepared to field questions on such a foreign subject.
"Which boy do I like?!" she had thought in alarm, even while she stared blankly at her friend. Without answering, she looked around helplessly at the other girls. They were all staring back at her with equally wide eyes, anxiously waiting to hear her reply - as if her next words would set an extremely important precedent within the social strata of ten and eleven-year-olds. Michelle shrugged her shoulders and looked bashfully at the ground, trying to make herself smaller. Eventually, Claire sniffed and begrudgingly moved on.
But even now, hours later and back in class, the troubling encounter kept replaying in her mind. She thought the consensus on boys had been long settled. They were loud, crude, and generally to be ignored or avoided at all times. There was no pressing need to like them at all! Had something changed?
Shaking her head and trying to return to the task at hand, she buckled down and wrote a few lines. But the signals firing in her brain chafed within their neuron tunnels and made focusing difficult.
"And why did she only ask me?" she grumbled silently.
The way Claire had gone about asking, springing it on her and only her, had been unfair and embarrassing. Having just moved back at the end of summer did kind of make her one of the newer girls in the group. But the others had never acted meanly toward her or made her feel ostracized because of it. The more she thought about it, being unable to give any sort of answer whatsoever bothered Michelle more than being singled out.
The girls formed neat, monolithic columns with their desks through the heart of Mrs. Oster's fifth-grade classroom. The boys, who were less organized, were scattered in smaller clusters - mostly around the back and sides. She had to shift in her chair and turn her head to locate Hunter in his regular spot. He was looking down at his paper like all the other students, working on his poem. Sensing eyeballs on him, he looked up, met her gaze, flashed a warm smile, and waved. She returned his greeting in kind.
Michelle liked Hunter as well as she could like any boy. That was the most honest answer she could have given. But something told her there was more to the kind of "like" that Claire was referring to. This was all too much for her to process right now.
Turning back to her poem, she erased the uninspired prose. Then, propping her elbows on her desk, she cradled her head in her hands - holding back all her hair except for a few, unruly black tendrils which hung down to graze the notebook - and stared at the blank page. Butterflies flittered around in her stomach and her brow furrowed under the weight of the conflict. But then, when a thought came to her, she perked up.
"I should have turned the question back on her," she realized, way too late to matter. "I don't know, Claire, who do you like?"
But knowing Claire, always so confident and composed, she likely already held a good, satisfying answer in reserve for just such an occasion. She lived just down the street from Jeremy Taben, and the two of them were often seen walking home from school together - much like Michelle and Hunter always did. Claire probably would have simply answered, "I like Jeremy," and magnified the awkwardness of Michelle's hesitancy.
...or worse, what if Claire had answered, "I like Hunter Tarverly" before Michelle could stake her claim?!
Until that point, she processed her world in the same way she assumed everyone else did - using the five, regular senses. But now, for the first time in her young life, she wondered if it might be possible for things...people, to be connected in more ways than what you could see, hear, taste, touch, or smell. The very concept made her head spin.
Dizzy, and with her cheeks growing warm, Michelle pushed those heavy, new thoughts to the back of her mind, which suddenly felt crowded and cluttered. She had to tell herself that there were no claims being staked. It had just been a silly, throwaway question. She didn't have to "like" anybody if she didn't want to, and she needed to just stop obsessing over it. Easier said than done.
Lifting her head slightly, she turned to her left and located her friend-recently-turned-rival. Claire was crafting her poem in her usual, neat handwriting. Her blonde hair bobbed gently as she bopped to some silent song in her head. By all signs, she was completely oblivious to the turmoil she had unintentionally touched off within her fellow classmate.
Michelle rested her cheek on her left palm and slumped into her chair to mope. In her mind, the differences between herself and the other girls had never been more pronounced. And at the center of it all was the unique living arrangement she had with Hunter and his family while her dad was living overseas. Sure, she and Claire both walked home alongside a boy after school. But Claire didn't proceed to follow him inside and live there!
That's why Claire was free to think new thoughts about someone like Jeremy Taben that were off limits to Michelle. The situation was just more...complicated.
"...How many times has Jeremey seen Claire without clothes on," she wondered, icily, suspecting the answer was zero. Then, taking a silent census of the girls around her, she guessed how many had ever been naked around any of the boys in their class. Probably none, not even once. None, except her.
Michelle made up her mind to bring her concerns to Hunter's grandmother that very evening. As ancient and set in her ways as she was, Mrs. Tarverly would surely listen and be a sympathetic advocate on her behalf. After all, Michelle had been placed under the old woman's care almost constantly over the nearly eleven years of her life. Evelyn and Pastor John loved Michelle just as much as they loved their own grandson.
With a plan of action in place, the troubled girl started to feel a little more at ease. But the butterflies did not fully go away. And by the end of the lesson, she had not finished a single stanza of her poem. A good student, she usually got all her assignments done in class, and rarely had homework. But she was confident that she could find time over the coming weekend for this small assignment.
When the bell rang, she loaded her backpack and said all the right farewells to her classmates. But as she met up with Hunter outside the school for the walk home, her feet felt heavier than usual.
The way he jabbered the whole way home, she could tell he was glad to be free from school for a couple days. Every time he said something and looked up at her with a twinkle in his eye, she couldn't help but share in his infectious excitement. But while she did chime in occasionally, where appropriate, she added little to the conversation. Her thoughts were still getting hijacked.
If someone had asked her yesterday who her best friend in the whole world was, she would have said "Hunter", without hesitating, even though he was a boy, and she was, obviously, a girl. But that was before Claire's question. Why did she have to phrase it that weird way? "Which boy do you like?" As if they were passing out lollipops on the corner and Michelle had to claim one to be hers before someone else took it.
Though she had tried to mask it, Hunter must have picked up on her internal conflict. When they reached the back door to the parsonage, he held the door for her before stepping into the small anteroom that acted as both a mudroom and a laundry.
"Hey, wanna go hang out in the treehouse?" he offered, kicking off his school shoes and nudging them in the direction of the floorboard, "we can play house, if you want."
"Uh, maybe in a little while," Michelle answered, smiling sweetly at his offer, "I have to do something else, first."
Hunter did not follow up, but simply nodded. Sometimes girls just need their space. He left then, no doubt heading for his bedroom to change into play clothes.
Michelle unbuckled and slipped out of her shiny, black school shoes. Straightening Hunter's against the wall, she placed hers neatly beside them. As she worked the long, black socks over her knobby knees and down to her ankles - her legs seemed to be longer every time she checked them - she thought about his considerate offer to play house with her...and smiled.
Over the years, that treehouse had served as the cornerstone for countless games and adventures. One day, it could be a Spanish galleon, fending off pirates on the high seas. The next, it was a space station, orbiting a newly discovered, alien planet below. That treehouse had been a castle, an outpost, a submarine, and a saloon.
Michelle loved to play along with whatever fantasy Hunter dreamed up for them. But she especially enjoyed it when he let her pick the game. And more often than not, she would choose to play the same thing: "house".
Something magical had happened the first time she suggested it. And as they both worked diligently to transform that little cube of wood and nails into a proper home, something resonated within them both.
It doesn't take a genius to figure out why. She didn't have a mother, neither of them did - well, not one they had ever known. Michelle's had died giving birth, and Hunter's parents had that terrible car accident when he was just a baby. She still had a loving father who cared about her. But his calling kept him on the mission fields most of the time.
Hunter's grandparents stepped in and did the best they could as surrogates. But grandparents and parents are not the same thing. Like her father, Pastor Tarverly also had a divine calling. That meant he had an entire congregation to consider and lead - his flock. He was also so old that it often felt like he was from a completely different age of history as everyone else. He might have been around when the bible was being written.
Opening the washing machine lid and tossing in her knee-socks, Michelle flicked open the latch on her skirt and tugged at the zipper. Once it was loose enough, she dropped the cute, tartan wrap to the ground, baring her legs along the way, and stepped out of it. Shrugging the dark blue vest off her shoulders, she scooped up her skirt and tossed both items into the wash to join her socks.
She tugged the matching tie still cinched around her neck loose before moving on to the buttons of her white blouse. Knowing how to undress her without being told, her fingers moved down her front automatically. That freed her mind to start working out what she was going to say to Mrs. Tarverly.
Evelyn was just as old as her husband and looked even older. She had already raised, and tragically, lost a son. And while she did her best to model a household built on love and respect, like the spidery lines and creases on her sagging face, the weariness of her age was creeping up on her. With every day that passed, her interest seemed to shift more and more from household chores and Sunday potlucks to pearly gates and streets of gold.
Because she already had a pretty good idea what her response would be, Michelle dreaded bringing up the subject in the first place. Evelyn always deferred to her husband on matters of finance. And even if she could be convinced to raise the issue, Pastor John would not be easily swayed. He was not the type to spend money unless it was absolutely necessary. But surely, they could not deny a growing girl's earnest request for more clothes, could they? Maybe, if she straightened up around house before Evelyn got home, it would put her in a more agreeable mood?
Tugging her arms through the sleeves of the blouse, she stripped it the rest of the way off and tossed it into the machine before reaching for her panties. She made quick work of the small, white fabric, peeling it down her legs in one, smooth motion.
She was about to turn eleven. That's almost a teenager! Didn't that count for something? Or did they even notice? She gulped at that thought. Both of them were practically blind as bats and barely noticed anything anymore! How were they supposed to notice a little girl turning into a slightly bigger girl? She barely noticed it, and she was paying much closer attention.
Dropping her panties - the final piece of her school uniform - into the wash, she looked down at her immature body. Her slight build may have made it difficult for others to guess her age when she was younger. And while she had always trailed Hunter in weight, she didn’t feel she was alarmingly skinny. Also, he was five months older than her.
With his extra bulk, he was slightly stronger of the two. But when the occasion called for it, she made a hard target and could usually hold her own in wrestling matches - often wriggling her smaller, more flexible frame free from his grasp just when he thought he had her pinned. That's all that really mattered.
Something about her lighter carriage and an exceptional, hidden springiness in her gangly legs meant she had always been able to leap higher than him. She also ran like a deer and could usually fend him off in shorter foot races - though he would catch her at a distance. That her long, spindly legs had gotten even longer during her most recent growth spurt would surely add to her advantage in that type of contest. She grinned thinking she should challenge him to a race this very evening. Loser has to help grandma can the vegetables tomorrow?
Carefully measuring out the proper amount of detergent, she dialed the aged washing machine to "gentle cycle" and started it running. She wouldn't need her uniform again until Monday, but there was no point in putting it off. Before leaving the laundry room, the naked girl tarried in the threshold. Standing tall with her back flat against the door frame, she placed her hand on top of her head. When she stepped away to look at the impromptu measurement, she smiled.
Having already turned eleven, Hunter's most recent mark was on the frame. Michelle had yet to leave her matching mark, but judging from her hand, she was going to turn eleven at least an inch taller than him!
With elation, she eyeballed the distance to the door frame overhead about to leap up and give it a high five. But before she could, she discovered something astonishing! Instead of jumping, she strained up on her tiptoes and stretched out her right hand...and touched the frame!
She couldn't believe it. She had actually grown tall enough to touch the door frame without jumping! Even better, there's no way Hunter would be able to reach it yet. He was still too short. Immediately, she started thinking about the best way to show off her body's latest feat to him.
Squealing with joy and clapping her hands, she did a little, naked, happy dance before looking down her front in amazement. What other tricks and secrets did this growing body have in store for her as she got older? She couldn't wait to find out! She was really starting to like this growing up business! But then...her smile faded, for reasons that weren't quite clear to her.
Turning back to the task at hand, she walked through the living room and entered the kitchen, intending to get out the cleaning supplies. But seeing the empty countertop gave her a better idea.
"I should bake some cookies for her, instead," she thought, "nothing puts a person in a better mood than the smell of fresh-baked cookies."
Chapter 1 (below)
Chapter 2
**************************************************
Author's Note: Copyright 2024 NeverDoubted. Please do not repost this story on other sites without permission (neverdoubted@protonmail.com). By accessing this story, the reader hereby certifies that he/she is of an appropriate age to access adult material and that such material is permitted in the locality or country where the reader resides. The following is a creative work of fiction, and the characters or incidents described do not resemble any persons or events in the real world.
I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I did writing!
~ND
**************************************************
Special Note: While this is part of the Can't Catch a Break series, each book in the series is a self-contained story that is meant to be read by itself. A full synopsis of this series is available in my library.
Can't Catch a Break - No Enemy but Time
Chapter 1
Instead of writing like she was supposed to be doing, Michelle looked up from the empty notebook and let her eyes wander. The other kids, even the ones who usually struggled to buckle down and concentrate, were all bent over their desks, writing intently. She liked poetry, and normally, would have no difficulty with such a simple writing assignment. But today, her unease was especially strong. Distractingly so. Why did Claire have to ask that stupid question?
They had been huddling among a group of girls - friendly acquaintances who regularly hung out together on the playground - when Claire had suddenly, and inexplicably shifted the discussion to the topic of boys.
"What about you, Michelle," she had asked, singling her out for some reason, "which boy do you like?"
Michelle was completely unprepared to field questions on such a foreign subject.
"Which boy do I like?!" she had thought in alarm, even while she stared blankly at her friend. Without answering, she looked around helplessly at the other girls. They were all staring back at her with equally wide eyes, anxiously waiting to hear her reply - as if her next words would set an extremely important precedent within the social strata of ten and eleven-year-olds. Michelle shrugged her shoulders and looked bashfully at the ground, trying to make herself smaller. Eventually, Claire sniffed and begrudgingly moved on.
But even now, hours later and back in class, the troubling encounter kept replaying in her mind. She thought the consensus on boys had been long settled. They were loud, crude, and generally to be ignored or avoided at all times. There was no pressing need to like them at all! Had something changed?
Shaking her head and trying to return to the task at hand, she buckled down and wrote a few lines. But the signals firing in her brain chafed within their neuron tunnels and made focusing difficult.
"And why did she only ask me?" she grumbled silently.
The way Claire had gone about asking, springing it on her and only her, had been unfair and embarrassing. Having just moved back at the end of summer did kind of make her one of the newer girls in the group. But the others had never acted meanly toward her or made her feel ostracized because of it. The more she thought about it, being unable to give any sort of answer whatsoever bothered Michelle more than being singled out.
The girls formed neat, monolithic columns with their desks through the heart of Mrs. Oster's fifth-grade classroom. The boys, who were less organized, were scattered in smaller clusters - mostly around the back and sides. She had to shift in her chair and turn her head to locate Hunter in his regular spot. He was looking down at his paper like all the other students, working on his poem. Sensing eyeballs on him, he looked up, met her gaze, flashed a warm smile, and waved. She returned his greeting in kind.
Michelle liked Hunter as well as she could like any boy. That was the most honest answer she could have given. But something told her there was more to the kind of "like" that Claire was referring to. This was all too much for her to process right now.
Turning back to her poem, she erased the uninspired prose. Then, propping her elbows on her desk, she cradled her head in her hands - holding back all her hair except for a few, unruly black tendrils which hung down to graze the notebook - and stared at the blank page. Butterflies flittered around in her stomach and her brow furrowed under the weight of the conflict. But then, when a thought came to her, she perked up.
"I should have turned the question back on her," she realized, way too late to matter. "I don't know, Claire, who do you like?"
But knowing Claire, always so confident and composed, she likely already held a good, satisfying answer in reserve for just such an occasion. She lived just down the street from Jeremy Taben, and the two of them were often seen walking home from school together - much like Michelle and Hunter always did. Claire probably would have simply answered, "I like Jeremy," and magnified the awkwardness of Michelle's hesitancy.
...or worse, what if Claire had answered, "I like Hunter Tarverly" before Michelle could stake her claim?!
Until that point, she processed her world in the same way she assumed everyone else did - using the five, regular senses. But now, for the first time in her young life, she wondered if it might be possible for things...people, to be connected in more ways than what you could see, hear, taste, touch, or smell. The very concept made her head spin.
Dizzy, and with her cheeks growing warm, Michelle pushed those heavy, new thoughts to the back of her mind, which suddenly felt crowded and cluttered. She had to tell herself that there were no claims being staked. It had just been a silly, throwaway question. She didn't have to "like" anybody if she didn't want to, and she needed to just stop obsessing over it. Easier said than done.
Lifting her head slightly, she turned to her left and located her friend-recently-turned-rival. Claire was crafting her poem in her usual, neat handwriting. Her blonde hair bobbed gently as she bopped to some silent song in her head. By all signs, she was completely oblivious to the turmoil she had unintentionally touched off within her fellow classmate.
Michelle rested her cheek on her left palm and slumped into her chair to mope. In her mind, the differences between herself and the other girls had never been more pronounced. And at the center of it all was the unique living arrangement she had with Hunter and his family while her dad was living overseas. Sure, she and Claire both walked home alongside a boy after school. But Claire didn't proceed to follow him inside and live there!
That's why Claire was free to think new thoughts about someone like Jeremy Taben that were off limits to Michelle. The situation was just more...complicated.
"...How many times has Jeremey seen Claire without clothes on," she wondered, icily, suspecting the answer was zero. Then, taking a silent census of the girls around her, she guessed how many had ever been naked around any of the boys in their class. Probably none, not even once. None, except her.
Michelle made up her mind to bring her concerns to Hunter's grandmother that very evening. As ancient and set in her ways as she was, Mrs. Tarverly would surely listen and be a sympathetic advocate on her behalf. After all, Michelle had been placed under the old woman's care almost constantly over the nearly eleven years of her life. Evelyn and Pastor John loved Michelle just as much as they loved their own grandson.
With a plan of action in place, the troubled girl started to feel a little more at ease. But the butterflies did not fully go away. And by the end of the lesson, she had not finished a single stanza of her poem. A good student, she usually got all her assignments done in class, and rarely had homework. But she was confident that she could find time over the coming weekend for this small assignment.
When the bell rang, she loaded her backpack and said all the right farewells to her classmates. But as she met up with Hunter outside the school for the walk home, her feet felt heavier than usual.
The way he jabbered the whole way home, she could tell he was glad to be free from school for a couple days. Every time he said something and looked up at her with a twinkle in his eye, she couldn't help but share in his infectious excitement. But while she did chime in occasionally, where appropriate, she added little to the conversation. Her thoughts were still getting hijacked.
If someone had asked her yesterday who her best friend in the whole world was, she would have said "Hunter", without hesitating, even though he was a boy, and she was, obviously, a girl. But that was before Claire's question. Why did she have to phrase it that weird way? "Which boy do you like?" As if they were passing out lollipops on the corner and Michelle had to claim one to be hers before someone else took it.
Though she had tried to mask it, Hunter must have picked up on her internal conflict. When they reached the back door to the parsonage, he held the door for her before stepping into the small anteroom that acted as both a mudroom and a laundry.
"Hey, wanna go hang out in the treehouse?" he offered, kicking off his school shoes and nudging them in the direction of the floorboard, "we can play house, if you want."
"Uh, maybe in a little while," Michelle answered, smiling sweetly at his offer, "I have to do something else, first."
Hunter did not follow up, but simply nodded. Sometimes girls just need their space. He left then, no doubt heading for his bedroom to change into play clothes.
Michelle unbuckled and slipped out of her shiny, black school shoes. Straightening Hunter's against the wall, she placed hers neatly beside them. As she worked the long, black socks over her knobby knees and down to her ankles - her legs seemed to be longer every time she checked them - she thought about his considerate offer to play house with her...and smiled.
Over the years, that treehouse had served as the cornerstone for countless games and adventures. One day, it could be a Spanish galleon, fending off pirates on the high seas. The next, it was a space station, orbiting a newly discovered, alien planet below. That treehouse had been a castle, an outpost, a submarine, and a saloon.
Michelle loved to play along with whatever fantasy Hunter dreamed up for them. But she especially enjoyed it when he let her pick the game. And more often than not, she would choose to play the same thing: "house".
Something magical had happened the first time she suggested it. And as they both worked diligently to transform that little cube of wood and nails into a proper home, something resonated within them both.
It doesn't take a genius to figure out why. She didn't have a mother, neither of them did - well, not one they had ever known. Michelle's had died giving birth, and Hunter's parents had that terrible car accident when he was just a baby. She still had a loving father who cared about her. But his calling kept him on the mission fields most of the time.
Hunter's grandparents stepped in and did the best they could as surrogates. But grandparents and parents are not the same thing. Like her father, Pastor Tarverly also had a divine calling. That meant he had an entire congregation to consider and lead - his flock. He was also so old that it often felt like he was from a completely different age of history as everyone else. He might have been around when the bible was being written.
Opening the washing machine lid and tossing in her knee-socks, Michelle flicked open the latch on her skirt and tugged at the zipper. Once it was loose enough, she dropped the cute, tartan wrap to the ground, baring her legs along the way, and stepped out of it. Shrugging the dark blue vest off her shoulders, she scooped up her skirt and tossed both items into the wash to join her socks.
She tugged the matching tie still cinched around her neck loose before moving on to the buttons of her white blouse. Knowing how to undress her without being told, her fingers moved down her front automatically. That freed her mind to start working out what she was going to say to Mrs. Tarverly.
Evelyn was just as old as her husband and looked even older. She had already raised, and tragically, lost a son. And while she did her best to model a household built on love and respect, like the spidery lines and creases on her sagging face, the weariness of her age was creeping up on her. With every day that passed, her interest seemed to shift more and more from household chores and Sunday potlucks to pearly gates and streets of gold.
Because she already had a pretty good idea what her response would be, Michelle dreaded bringing up the subject in the first place. Evelyn always deferred to her husband on matters of finance. And even if she could be convinced to raise the issue, Pastor John would not be easily swayed. He was not the type to spend money unless it was absolutely necessary. But surely, they could not deny a growing girl's earnest request for more clothes, could they? Maybe, if she straightened up around house before Evelyn got home, it would put her in a more agreeable mood?
Tugging her arms through the sleeves of the blouse, she stripped it the rest of the way off and tossed it into the machine before reaching for her panties. She made quick work of the small, white fabric, peeling it down her legs in one, smooth motion.
She was about to turn eleven. That's almost a teenager! Didn't that count for something? Or did they even notice? She gulped at that thought. Both of them were practically blind as bats and barely noticed anything anymore! How were they supposed to notice a little girl turning into a slightly bigger girl? She barely noticed it, and she was paying much closer attention.
Dropping her panties - the final piece of her school uniform - into the wash, she looked down at her immature body. Her slight build may have made it difficult for others to guess her age when she was younger. And while she had always trailed Hunter in weight, she didn’t feel she was alarmingly skinny. Also, he was five months older than her.
With his extra bulk, he was slightly stronger of the two. But when the occasion called for it, she made a hard target and could usually hold her own in wrestling matches - often wriggling her smaller, more flexible frame free from his grasp just when he thought he had her pinned. That's all that really mattered.
Something about her lighter carriage and an exceptional, hidden springiness in her gangly legs meant she had always been able to leap higher than him. She also ran like a deer and could usually fend him off in shorter foot races - though he would catch her at a distance. That her long, spindly legs had gotten even longer during her most recent growth spurt would surely add to her advantage in that type of contest. She grinned thinking she should challenge him to a race this very evening. Loser has to help grandma can the vegetables tomorrow?
Carefully measuring out the proper amount of detergent, she dialed the aged washing machine to "gentle cycle" and started it running. She wouldn't need her uniform again until Monday, but there was no point in putting it off. Before leaving the laundry room, the naked girl tarried in the threshold. Standing tall with her back flat against the door frame, she placed her hand on top of her head. When she stepped away to look at the impromptu measurement, she smiled.
Having already turned eleven, Hunter's most recent mark was on the frame. Michelle had yet to leave her matching mark, but judging from her hand, she was going to turn eleven at least an inch taller than him!
With elation, she eyeballed the distance to the door frame overhead about to leap up and give it a high five. But before she could, she discovered something astonishing! Instead of jumping, she strained up on her tiptoes and stretched out her right hand...and touched the frame!
She couldn't believe it. She had actually grown tall enough to touch the door frame without jumping! Even better, there's no way Hunter would be able to reach it yet. He was still too short. Immediately, she started thinking about the best way to show off her body's latest feat to him.
Squealing with joy and clapping her hands, she did a little, naked, happy dance before looking down her front in amazement. What other tricks and secrets did this growing body have in store for her as she got older? She couldn't wait to find out! She was really starting to like this growing up business! But then...her smile faded, for reasons that weren't quite clear to her.
Turning back to the task at hand, she walked through the living room and entered the kitchen, intending to get out the cleaning supplies. But seeing the empty countertop gave her a better idea.
"I should bake some cookies for her, instead," she thought, "nothing puts a person in a better mood than the smell of fresh-baked cookies."