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"Bumps?"
"She means until her breasts started to form;' Jade said with narrow, sharp eyes. She glanced at Star who nodded and then turned back to me. "Right?"
"Yes," I said. My eyes burned with tears that welled behind my lids. I swallowed back the small scream that wanted so much to come rushing out of my mouth. "Yes," I whispered, not even sure if I had said it.
"Oh," Misty said, her lips in a small circle, her eyes bright with understanding, but shock as well.
"I don't know how it was for the rest of you, but when it began to happen to me, I was frightened. I told my mother about it and she told me to stop talking nonsense.
"'It's not nonsense, Mother. It's really happening to me!' I protested one morning at breakfast.
"My father put down his paper and looked at me with surprise, too, but he didn't say anything to help me. He just looked a little interested and then he went back to his paper.
"'You're too young for such a thing,' my mother said throwing me a hard look. 'Girls today rush everything You're imagining it.'
"'No, I'm not,' I cried, tears now building in my eyes. 'I'll show you.'
"I started to unbutton my blouse and she screamed so loud and shrilly, I felt like she had sent a lightning bolt through my body. I remember I literally froze, terrified of even moving my fingers.
"'Take it easy, Geraldine,' my father said. 'She doesn't understand.'
"I guess she realized how dramatic and horrifying she was. She became calmer and lectured me softly.
"'We don't disrobe in any other room of the house but our bedrooms and our bathrooms,' she explained.
"'I'll go up to my bathroom to show you,' I offered.
"'This isn't the time for that. It's breakfast time and you're off to school. Put this nonsense out of your mind,' she insisted.
"I gazed at my father, hoping he would speak up again, but he just shook his head at me and went back to what he was reading.
"I tried to bring it up again with my mother when I returned from school, but again, she refused to listen.
She insisted it was all part of my confused imagination.
"'They make sex such a big thing on television and in movies and books today that it infects children,' she orated. She could step up on a soapbox at a moment's notice and deliver a speech about the disgusting immorality alive in the world. She didn't accidentally use the word 'infects,' by the way. My mother thinks of it as a disease, almost something you can catch by breathing near promiscuous people. She had me thinking that way. I remember holding my breath or covering my mouth when classmates said or did things I knew my mother would disapprove of."
All three girls had their mouths slightly open, their eyes wide as they listened and gazed at me with astonishment.
"I know how stupid that sounds now, but that's the way I thought.
"Anyway, a few nights later, I heard Daddy enter my bedroom and come to the door of my bathroom while I was taking my bath. As I told you before, I was about nine years old at the time which was why I was nervous and confused. My body seemed to be racing ahead. Maybe I was freakish.
"'So what's this you've been trying to tell your mother?' he asked as he approached.
"I sat up to show him and he nodded. He studied me like a doctor for a moment and then he pressed my chest softly with those spider leg fingers.
"'Looks like you're right,' he said nodding and smiling. 'I'll speak to your mother about it. Don't be afraid,' he told me. 'It's earlier than most girls, but it's nothing bad, nothing to be afraid to see happening'
"He spoke so gently, so kindly, I felt relieved. Why couldn't my mother be this kind, this concerned and loving? I wondered.
"'I can tell you're going to be a very pretty girl, a special girl,' he continued. 'Daddy's special girl,' he added. He had never said that to me before. I was very happy about it. If this would make him love me even more, I thought, then it must be good.
"A little less than a week afterward, my mother came to my bedroom door while I was doing homework. She entered and closed it behind her.
"'All right,' she said stretching and tightening her lips until they were two pale red thin lines over her chin, let me see what you're talking about.'
"I just imagined my father had done what he had promised and spoken to her about it. No longer afraid or ashamed, I got up and unbuttoned my blouse to show her. She looked at me, but unlike my father, she looked disgusted by it. She had such an
