Pumping Up Napoleon Read Free

good in a tutu. ‘It’s all right for you, Natalie No-Tits,’ said Carole. ‘At least boys don’t recognise you by looking at the front of your blouse.’
    She was right, but then, they didn’t seem to recognise me at all. What’s the point of being able to pirouette if nobody asks you to dance?
    We were close when we were younger, my cousin Carole and I; our mothers are sisters. We bobbed side by side in their wombs; we shared a midwife and delivery room at the local hospital; we were practically twins.
    Carole was born just a few minutes before me, but in our early years on the outside, she didn’t develop as fast as I did.
    â€˜Carole was the first to smile,’ said my aunt.
    â€˜Ah, but my Natalie was the first to speak real words,’ said my mother.
    â€˜Carole was the first to crawl.’
    â€˜Yes, your Carole was so good at crawling she didn’t bother to walk until she was two. My Natalie had to keep stepping over her.’ It was true. I was always ahead.
    Carole had a lovely nature though. We all agreed on that. My mother said we should call her Treacle because she was thick, slow moving and really very sweet. But we never called her this to her face, or so my aunt could hear. Nobody wanted to hurt Carole’s feelings. And nobody wanted to upset my aunt.
    My mother and my aunt were devoted – to each other and to saying what was on their minds. This sometimes led to rows. But, as my mother reasoned, at least with Aunt Susan you could always rely on getting the truth. When she said she didn’t want a second cup of tea she wasn’t being polite, she meant it. When she said a dress made you look flat chested and anyway you didn’t have the legs for short skirts, she wasn’t being unkind, she was being honest.
    Carole didn’t have much to say about anything. She let me decide what games we’d play. Sometimes it was hard always having to be the one with the ideas. It was a big responsibility and it got me into big trouble at times, like the afternoon when we played hostage, and I forgot to untie Carole from the apple tree by teatime. She was crying and my aunt shouted at me, calling me a bully and a terrorist. My mother looked serious and sent me up to my room. But when I got a chance I told Carole I was sorry and in the end her mum made her buy me an ice-lolly to show that there were ‘no hard feelings’.
    So, yes, we were close – until Carole changed.
    Carole’s breasts, non-existent until our first year of secondary school, seemed to sprout, not overnight, but one September lunchtime in the playground. We were shivering under a lukewarm sun pretending that the summer wasn’t over when her nipples just popped up under her shirt. I checked my own chest. Nothing. Carole saw me looking and glanced down at herself. We didn’t say anything; we both put on our jumpers and looked the other way.
    That Saturday we went on a group outing to the lingerie department. My aunt bought Carole her first bra; my mother bought me something labelled a ‘skin-tone chemise’. It was a beige vest; we all knew. Carole looked at it, looked at what she was getting, looked at me. A new light dawned in her eyes. It was almost intelligence. She stood up taller. It made her tiny tits stick out.
    Everyone thought it mattered to me, but it didn’t. Not then. I wasn’t in a hurry; the thought of acquiring body hair was too frightening. I’d seen my mother’s inexpertly shaven armpits, the winter hairs she let grow on her legs to keep out the cold. They made me shudder.
    But six months later Carole required cups. It was hard for me not to be overawed by her lace trims, her adjustable straps. I begged my mother to buy me something relatively bra-shaped, even if I didn’t have anything to hide. ‘But it doesn’t matter,’ said my mother. ‘Don’t be in such a hurry to grow up.’
    She didn’t