March 1966, Essex, England

Theresa was a shock to her parents from the day she was born.

"There's another one to come, Margaret," Doctor Buckner said.

"Another one? What do you mean?"

"Twins, Margaret. You're having twins."

Half an hour later, an exhausted Margaret Pascoe lay in her bed, two tiny babies on her chest. Her husband, Harry, flapped uselessly around the room like a bird that had flown into the house by accident and was trying to find its way out. 

"They're both in good shape," Doctor Buckner said as he packed up his medical bag. "I'll leave Doris here with you for a little longer, but there's no need for me to stay. Good job, Margaret, well done."

"Thank you, Doctor."

"What are you going to call them?" Doris, the midwife asked her.

Margaret looked up at her husband. They'd agreed to call the boy, first out, Gavin, after Harry's father. 

"What about Theresa?" Harry said. "After your mother? Seems only fair."

"Theresa," said Margaret, looking down at the little girl on her left breast. "Theresa. Tess. That'll do, yes."

***

April 1979, Essex, England

"I just wanted to check, Doctor Buckner. You know, that there's nothing…wrong."

Doctor Buckner sat forward in his chair, studying thirteen year old Theresa's face.

"Wrong? Does anything feel wrong, Theresa?"

"No," Theresa said with a shrug. "Nothing feels wrong, no."

Doctor Buckner looked at Theresa's mother, whom he'd known for her whole life. He'd delivered Margaret just as he'd delivered her children. 

"It's just that she's twice the size of her brother all of a sudden," Margaret said. "She's growing like topsy and Gavin hasn't kept up and…"

"Stand up for me, Theresa," said Doctor Buckner, rising from his chair. "Follow me over here, my love."

Silently, Theresa did as she was told, following the doctor to a tape measure mounted on the wall.

"Five feet, eleven," the doctor said after he'd measured Theresa. "Gavin, come over, my boy."

Gavin did as he was told, passing by his sister, who was a head taller than he was.

"Five feet, one," the doctor said, rounding up slightly.

"Girls almost always reach puberty before boys," he said, reassuring the twins' mother. "It's nothing to worry about. I mean, five eleven is tall but not extraordinary, Margaret."

Margaret looked relieved.

"So, you think Gavin will catch up?" she said. 

"Gavin and Theresa are fraternal twins, Margaret. They're from two separate eggs. They're not like identical twins who share all the same genes. But as a boy, I'd expect Gavin to be taller than his sister nine times out of ten at least. Bide your time, Gavin. You'll be a strapping six footer, I'm sure."

He turned to Margaret.

"I imagine Theresa will stop growing very soon. Bring her back in six months and we'll take another look at her."

***

November 1979, Essex, England

"Bloody hell," Doctor Buckner said as Margaret Pascoe and her twins entered his consulting room.

He quickly checked himself and adopted a more professional demeanour. 

"My goodness, young lady," he said. "What have you been eating?"

He led Theresa over to the measuring tape. She appeared at first glance to be six feet, six inches tall. 

Doctor Buckner looked down at Theresa's legs. He could see the bottom six inches of leg where her tracksuit bottoms were too short for her. He could also see that her knees were bent. 

"Stand up straight my dear," he said firmly. "No point in trying to pull the wool over my eyes."

Theresa swallowed hard and straightened her legs. The tape stopped at six feet, eight inches and Doctor Buckner estimated that Theresa was an inch taller still.

"How about you, Gavin lad," the doctor said.

Gavin swapped places with his twin sister. 

"Five feet four and a half. Well, you've grown too, young man."

Theresa could do the maths. Gavin had undergone a major growth spurt but she had still grown twice as much as he had.

"You did say six months, Doctor Buckner," Margaret said nervously. "Should I have brought her in earlier?"

"I think we might need to send young Theresa for some tests."

***

November 1979, Essex, England

The northerly wind whipped across the flat expanse of the estuary, the water, mud and salt marshes doing nothing to slow it down. Alison wore a thick navy blue parka, but Theresa didn't have a coat. The old one that she'd inherited from a family friend a few months ago didn’t fit her now. It wasn't just a bit tight in the arms or too short to cover her bum. She literally couldn't get it on.

Instead, she wore two thick, grey sweatshirts over her t-shirt. Luckily, she wasn't feeling the cold so much these days. She had a pair of tracksuit bottoms that reached just low enough down her legs to fit inside her size fourteen Wellies. The boots wouldn't fit for much longer either. Her toes were already cramped up against the ends.

Alison was Theresa's best friend from school. Only friend really, nowadays. Everyone thought Alison was weird. It was an easy title to gain, and almost impossible to lose once you had it. People thought it about Alison because she had a mop of frizzy, untameable black hair and a single black eyebrow. That was all it took. The same people thought Theresa was weird because…, well.

"I've got to go to London," Theresa said as they walked along the footpath beside the river. 

The tide was out and the air smelled of farts and sulphur from the black mud all around them. 

"For tests."

"What sort of tests?" Alison asked her.

"Tests to see why I'm so bloody enormous, obviously," Theresa said.

"D'uh," Alison said. "I get that. I meant, how are they actually going to find out? Blood tests? Bone marrow samples? What?"

"Oh. Dunno."

Alison was weird, but very clever. Too clever, which added to her weirdness. Her parents both worked as lecturers at the university.

"I expect they'll start with blood tests."

"I expect so," Theresa said.

They walked on until they came back to the outskirts of the village. Somebody had dumped a washing machine on the patch of wasteland between the estuary and the first few houses. 

"It's not just that I'm really big either," Theresa said, stopping to look at the white metal box.

Because she loved her and wanted to protect Theresa's feelings, her mother called her tall, but that didn't capture how Theresa had grown. She hadn't sprouted like a beanstalk, all long and gangly. She had grown larger in every dimension, not just upwards. 'Giant Tess', they called her at school. Bloody hilarious.

"What do you mean?" Alison said.

"Promise not to tell?"

"Of course. Who would I tell? You’re the only person who ever talks to me."

That was true.

"Watch," said Theresa. 

She stood over the washing machine and felt for the right places to put her hands. With a grunt, Theresa lifted it out of the mud, resting it on her shoulder. 

"Bloody hell," Alison said.

Theresa straightened her arms and pressed the hefty lump of metal over her head.

"Bloody actual hell," Alison said.

Theresa tossed the washing machine a few feet through the air and it landed with a crash on the muddy ground.

"Jesus, you're like the 'Bionic Woman' or something," Alison said. 

"I've just been getting really strong," Theresa said. "But don't tell anyone. They'll think I'm even more of a freak than they already do."

"If I was that strong, nobody would ever take the mickey out of me again," Alison said.

She was small and scrawny like a feral cat. 

"Yes they would," said Theresa. 

***

December 1979, London, England

"I still don't get why I have to come," Gavin said as they climbed onto the train. "There's nothing wrong with me."

"There's nothing wrong with your sister, either," said Margaret Pascoe, scowling at her son.

"It's because we're twins," Theresa said. "And doctors like experimenting on twins."

Theresa hadn't measured herself since she'd been to the doctor three weeks ago, but she knew she was still growing. She could feel it in her bones, literally. She and her brother had been the same height until their thirteenth birthday. Today, Gavin reached halfway up her arm. She couldn't work out how much heavier she was than him, but it was a lot. She was definitely more than twice his weight. Much more.

All the seats had been in fours, with a table in between them, and her legs didn't fit underneath. She'd ended up sitting sideways with her legs sticking out into the gangway. 

The other passengers had stared, of course. One of the only good things about living in a small village on the edge of civilisation was that people soon got used to you, and the novelty wore off. Out in the rest of the world, she was still an oddity. 

The inspector looked at Theresa's child's ticket then at her, filling two seats and spilling over the sides with her long limbs. 

"She's thirteen," Margaret said firmly. "Just like her twin brother. It's not her fault she's had a growth spurt."

The inspector handed the ticket back without saying a word.

They arrived at The Royal London Hospital. It had been a half hour walk from the station, but Theresa refused to go on the tube and her mum didn't push it. The train had been bad enough. 

"Hello?" said a middle-aged woman on the reception desk. "You must be here for the growth clinic."

She smiled up at Theresa, not at all bothered by seeing such a large young girl, it seemed. Theresa supposed she must see all sorts working in a hospital, and to be trained not to react. 

The receptionist sent them to a clinic down the corridor. The doctor waiting for them there was much younger than Doctor Buckner. He was called Doctor Harvey.

"You're our first twins," he said, smiling. "Excellent."

"Your…first?" Theresa's mum said. "Your first to do with what, exactly?"

"You'll see, Mrs Pascoe," Doctor Harvey said. "But first we need to do a few preliminaries. I'm going to do you first, okay, Gavin?"

Gavin was still five feet four and he weighed one hundred and eleven pounds. After he'd weighed him and measured his height, Doctor Harvey handed Gavin a piece of equipment that looked like a bicycle brake had been welded to a kitchen scale. 

"Squeeze as hard as you can, Gavin," Doctor Harvey said. 

The doctor took the machine from Gavin and wrote something down on his pad.

"Was that okay?" Gavin said.

"Sure. Very good."

Theresa was next. The doctor needed a stepladder to measure her properly.

"Six feet, eleven inches," he said as he read the tape.

He made it sound as if he was always measuring thirteen and a half year old girls who were nearly seven feet tall.

"Okay, step on the scales, my dear," he said.

Theresa wasn't looking forward to this bit. She hadn't weighed herself for a very long time, and she had more than a sneaking suspicion that she was too heavy for the scales at home. These ones looked sturdier at least. 

"Three hundred and thirteen pounds," Doctor Harvey said casually, again making it sound perfectly ordinary.

"Okay, now the grip test."

Theresa gave the machine a cautious squeeze. She might not have been able to hide how tall she was, but she'd kept her newfound strength to herself. Her mum didn't know, and nor did Gavin. Only Alison did, after the washing machine throwing incident.

"Hmph," said Doctor Harvey when he read the score.

He handed the machine back to Theresa.

"Hard as you can, young lady," he said sternly. "I'll know if you're not trying."

Theresa squeezed harder this time, and pulled a face as if she was doing her very best. Doctor Harvey was having none of it.

"Oh come along," he said. "That's hardly better than your little brother's score."

Gavin was not her little brother. Gavin was older than she was by half an hour. He'd been really good since she'd started to grow, hardly teasing her at all, and never when there were other people around. This doctor didn't know what it was like to…

"That's better," Doctor Harvey said with a smile. "Nothing like a little bit of a prod to give a girl some motivation."

He'd done it on purpose, winding her up and tricking her into showing what she was capable of.

Doctor Harvey left them alone in the consulting room for a few minutes before he came back with a white medical gown for Theresa. He directed her to the screen in the corner of the room.

"For the next set of tests," he said. "It's okay, nothing to worry about."

For him, maybe, Theresa thought. 

"Okay, young man, your turn," Doctor Harvey said, throwing a much smaller gown to Gavin and nodding towards the screen.

"Me?"

"Yes, please."

"Twins…" Theresa whispered. "Experiments."

The doctor took all three of them down a long, quiet corridor that smelt of disinfectant. He showed Theresa's mum into a small room on the left hand side, then took Theresa and her brother to another room. 

"Make yourselves comfortable," he said, opening the door. "You'll both be seen soon."

"What the…?" Gavin said as they walked into the room. 

It was about the size of a classroom back at school, empty in the middle, with chairs tucked against all four walls.

Gavin was the only boy in the room. In addition to Theresa, there were another six girls, all in white medical gowns the same as she and her brother were wearing. The girls all looked to be about the same age as Theresa. 

"What's going on?" Gavin whispered to his sister. "They're all… like you."

"I don't know," said Theresa.

Her brother took a step closer to her as one of the girls stood up and approached them. She was at least as tall as Theresa. 

"What's this?" she asked, more interested in Gavin than she was in Theresa. "A boy."

"I'm…," Gavin said nervously as the huge girl stared down at him. "She's my sister. We're twins."

"Twins?" the big girl said with a laugh. "Yeah, I can see how alike you are."

The other girls stood up one by one until they were all surrounding Theresa and Gavin. Every one of them was similar in height to Theresa. None of them were what her mother would have called a 'skinny rabbit' either. Gavin was a skinny rabbit. Theresa and the other girls were more like Shire horses. 

Gavin was almost glued to Theresa's side now, with these towering girls crowding around him.

"I thought it was just me," Theresa said. "I didn't know there were others."

"There are lots of us," the first girl said. "My dad works for the BBC. He says that there are girls like us appearing everywhere. All over the world."

"And we're all still growing," said a second girl. "Nobody knows how big we'll get. It's a mystery."

"No boys, though," said another of them, looking down at Gavin. "Just girls."

***

“What else did they do to you?” Theresa’s mum asked her as they walked back to Liverpool Street.

“They listened to my heart and my lungs and they took my blood pressure and took a blood sample as well,” Theresa said. “And then put me through an X-ray machine.”

“And they did exactly the same to me,” Gavin said. “And then they sat us all down in a circle and asked us loads of questions about how we were feeling and stuff and it was so embarrassing because I was the only boy there and the only normal one and…ouch.”

Gavin rubbed his arm where Theresa had given him a poke. She’d tried to be careful not to prod him too hard but it was difficult to know how strong she was sometimes. It seemed to change every day.

“Don’t use that word, Gavin,” their mum said. “Theresa isn’t abnormal.”

“Alright then,” Gavin said. “I was the only ordinary one there. That makes you extraordinary, Tree. Is that better?”

He was actually trying to be okay about it, Theresa knew, even if he was pretending to be sarcastic.

“I like it better than abnormal.”

“What did they tell you, mum?” Gavin said. “They wouldn’t tell us bloomin’ anything.”

“Not a lot, sweetheart. The doctor said there was nothing to worry about and they’re sure they’ll get to the bottom of it, and find a way of stopping you girls from getting any taller. But as long as you’re fit and healthy, Theresa, that’s all that matters.”

Theresa did feel fit and healthy. And strong. 

“Oh, and we all have to go back in the new year for a check-up. Maybe by then they’ll have worked out what to do for you.”

If she grew another inch by then, which was likely, Theresa would be seven feet tall. A couple of the other girls had already reached that milestone. Even if they stopped her from getting any bigger, she’d spend the rest of her life as a seven foot woman. Maybe she could take up basketball or something.