School had only been out a few days when Tom had some friends over. And Cindy was walking towards the kitchen, when she noticed they were watching a movie on the TV. 

She stopped and asked him what were they watching. Tom told her is was nothing that a little girl would watch. It was a western, Cowboys and Indians, that sort of stuff, and that she should go play with dolls in her bedroom.

Cindy was very hurt by what her brother had said. She ran off in tears to her room and locked her door. A small smile formed on Tom’s face. He had shown her who the boss was between the two of them. But he was also angry that she got the formula and was getting bigger, a lot bigger. He was jealous, and it affected how he treated his younger sister.

When their parents got home from one of their many day trips to the country, Cindy told them what had happened. They told her that it was normal big brother, little sister stuff that all families have. Cindy was hurt as much by their reaction as she was by Tom’s words. Her parents never stepped in to stop her brother from picking on her. They were always too busy taking trips, or doing dinners at a friend’s house. 

She had heard stories about when her parents were in high school. Her mom was the top academic student in the whole school, but when she applied for scholarships, she didn’t get them. The school always said that she had impressive academic records, but they only had a limited amount of scholarships, and they always went to the star athletes. 

Both her parents had become disillusioned by this. Bill inherited a nice fortune from his parents after they died in a car accident when he was in high school. So he and Susan got married right after graduation, and spent years abroad, traveling the continent, hooking up with the avant-garde crowd. And they learned about life, how men conspire to keep women pregnant and in the home, and how women need to work three times as hard to get the same recognition as a man who just got hired out of high school.

So, because of their experiences, they were missing from the house while Tom and Cindy grew up. Tom was in charge because he was the oldest, and he let his sister know about it every chance he got.

So Cindy spent the next few weeks staying in her room, away from her brother. They were going to have birthdays a week apart just before school started. 

But Cindy noticed that Tom was picking on her less and less. In fact, She rarely saw Tom, as he was hanging out with his friends for most of the summer. And that meant that she could have her friends over without her brother picking on her.

And then it was time for Cindy’s birthday, and some of Bill’s cousins came, as well as Susan’s parents, and her sister, plus some of Cindy’s friends. It was then the effects of the formula were clearly visible. Tom had grown to 5’2” by the time August came. Cindy was nearly as tall as her brother, standing 5’, and it looked like her shoulders were almost as wide as her brothers.  In fact, Cindy’s friends were just as tall as her. This really made Tom uncomfortable and resentful. To him, it still wasn’t fair that his parents had let his little sister get the treatment. And he spent most of her birthday in his room being upset about how unfair life was becoming.

And Cindy wasn’t the only family member to have received the treatment. Her two cousins on her dad’s side, twins Betsy and David, had received the shot. Betsy was as tall as she was, while David was about 5’4”. She wondered how they were handling it.

And when Tom had his birthday, it was a low key gathering. His parents, sister and a couple of friends helped him celebrate. Tom’s friends weren’t as shocked by Cindy’s height. In fact, they were in the same situation as Tom. There parents had made the same decision. And the boys, like Tom, hated the idea of their little sisters becoming bigger and stronger than them. 

But here they were, watching it happen, and their was nothing that they could do about it, other than accept it.