A couple of days before the school year started, Bill and Susan took Tom and Cindy clothes shopping. Tom was easy to buy for. His natural rate of growth meant that clothes could be bought at a slightly larger size, and he would grow into them and be able to finish out the school year without buying anything else.

Cindy would be a different story. Her growth spurts during the year meant frequent trips to the store to buy new outfits. When Bill and Susan attended meetings before her treatment, they lab recommended buying clothes in 3-4 different sizes, and they were working with the city to build a section in which houses and shops would be built to accommodate the children as they grew. But for now, they had set up a mail order catalog business that could quickly send out clothes should the older stores be unable to meet their needs.

And then school started. Tom and Cindy got on the bus, and sat with their own friends. Cindy’s friends were basically like her, quiet, liked to read and listen to music and watch tv, whereas Tom and his friends loved to play sports, watch westerns, ride bikes.

And they reached the Avondale City school. Tom and his friends made their way to the 7th grade classroom, while Cindy and her friends went to the 2nd grade.

And the school year was kind of uneventful, except everyone noticed that the girls in the second grade were taller, a lot taller. In fact, they were taller than most of the boys in 6th grade. This caused Cindy and her friends to chuckle among themselves. They had been quiet bookworms, they never gave any thought to being taller than boys four years older than them. 

And as Christmas break approached, it became obvious that Cindy was now taller than Tom by three inches, standing 5’5”. In fact all of her friends were taller than Tom and his friends. This caused some tension at home.

Tom was becoming more upset by what was happening. And he was being disrespectful to both his parents and his sister. It was their fault that this was happening. They were being unfair to him. And he hated having to look up to his little sister. 

But one day during the break, when their parents were off on one of their excursions in the country, Cindy had her friends over. Tom had wanted to listen to music on the record player, but Cindy had gotten to it first. In the past, Tom would have just grabbed an album he liked and replaced her record with his. And despite her protests and complaints, there was nothing she could do about it.

Tom thought it was a good time to do it again. He got his record, and replaced hers with his. But this time, when Cindy complained, she stood up and stepped towards him. Tom looked up at her, but he wasn’t budging. Cindy told him that she and her friends were listening to her record, and she wanted him to put it back on. Tom refused. Cindy grabbed for the record in his left hand, and Tom tried to move his arm out of the way, but he wasn’t fast enough. Cindy had taken his arm. Tom could feel how strong she was, which took him by surprise. Cindy told him again that she wanted her record, and as she was talking, he grip was becoming tighter, causing Tom to drop the record.

She releases his arm, and said thank you. Tom rubbed the area where she had grabbed him and star rubbing it, as it was a little sore. More than that, he ran to his room and locked the door, and started to cry. He had just been embarrassed by his sister in front of her friends. Was this the new life that he was going to have to live? But he calmed down enough to finally realize that he had been very tough on his sister when they were growing up. And he realized that he was rude to her now, in front of her friends, and that if he was in her shoes, he would have done the same thing. 

He hated to admit it, but he had been a terrible brother to her, and he could see why his parents had made the decision to let Cindy receive the formula. All those years of him picking on her, and they never once corrected him, never stood up for her. He had it made, while she was forced to endure his behavior.

So, Tom made a decision. He swallowed his pride. He came out of his room. Cindy and her friends were standing in the kitchen, having a drink of water and talking.

Tom approached Cindy, and in front of her friends, apologized for his rude behavior today, and for all the times he treated her poorly in the past, and that he hoped she could forgive him.

Cindy didn’t know what to say. At first, she thought he was joking, but she saw his eyes, and knew he meant it. She started to cry and hugged him. All those years of being picked on suddenly went out the window. She was as happy as she had ever been. She told Tom that she did forgive him.