One of the perks of being home-schooled for Lettie was the time she’d have alone. Even if she was diligent about working during that time (and she was, sometimes), there was still the chance to have a little time without her parents.

By spring, Lettie’s folks were talking about getting her back into the public schools for the fall term. She’d kept up well enough she could probably advance with her class, although she’d have to test in. And she’d gained enough control of her size-changing powers that her clothing now changed with her, although the shifts weren’t perfect. When she shrank, the clothes would reduce a little bit less than she did, getting baggy. When she grew, in either of the ways she knew her powers worked so far, the clothes grew, but not quite enough. They’d tighten, and she had a few seams give out on larger growth surges. Still, she had enough control to be able to function in public, and it wasn’t like her abilities were any secret around town, at least to people who knew her.

Lettie was taking a break from work at around noon. Her dad was planning to come home on his lunch break, but she was alone for the moment.

That’s when she heard tires screeching, followed by a horrific crash. It came from outside the south side of the house. Lettie ran out the back door, the side closest to where the noise had come from.

She was aghast at what she saw. A school bus was on its passenger side, off the road, with a large dent in the driver’s side toward the front. A semi, still on all four wheels, sat at an angle across the intersection, its front end bashed in. Worse, the bus had been pushed into a utility pole that Lettie knew supported electric lines. The pole was down, as were live wires.

Lettie realized that, at this hour, the bus would have been carrying kindergartners either to or from school. They were endangered now.

It would be minutes before police arrived. Lettie could hear the children screaming from inside the bus. Someone needed to act, and now -- and, with her powers, that someone was her.

Lettie grew, automatically becoming bustier and more muscular in the process. Her clothes grew with her, becoming tighter as they did, but not giving out.

Lettie stood across the road from the bus and looked down into it to get a look at the situation. The bus driver was dangling from the seat belt, still in the driver’s seat. She appeared unconscious and was bleeding from her head, but was still breathing.

The children all appeared OK, but there were a dozen of them, and they were terrified. With no adult to calm them, they were panicking. The only door they apparently knew to use was blocked by the ground, and they couldn’t reach the available windows on the high side of the bus.

Complicating things were the downed wires. They weren’t over the bus, but they were near the emergency exit at its rear. Even if the exit was open, the children couldn’t climb out that way.

Lettie glanced over at the semi. Its driver appeared all right, but was freaking out at the sight of the giantess hovering over the bus he’d just hit.

Some of the children started pointing up to Lettie.  “Look! A giant!” one girl shouted.

Lettie smiled. Knowing young children respond well to a more motherly image, Lettie enlarged her bustline slightly further.  “Hi,” she said gently, doing a finger-wave to the children. “I’m a friendly giantess. My name’s Lettie.”

“Hi, Lettie!” several children yelled. Others yelled, “Help!” One said, “Please!”

Lettie continued smiling. “I’m here to help,” she said. “Just let me figure out how to best do that, and I’ll get you all out. OK?”

“OK,” most of the kids shouted.

Lettie glanced around. The wires were positioned in such a way that she couldn’t simply grow larger and pick up the bus, and she didn’t know what would happen to the kids or the bus driver if she just turned it. She could get bigger and rip open the side that pointed up, but rending metal might hurt the bus’ occupants if she did. She had to figure out how to get the children out and help the driver, but how could she do it?

An idea occurred to Lettie. Seeing that the window immediately behind the driver was open, she pointed to it. “I’m coming in this window, kids,” she said. “Stay back for a minute, please.”

Lettie stepped up above the window, then shrank to tiny size. Her clothes now were loose, but still fit well enough to go in with her. She landed on the window, ran over to the gap and dropped in. Once inside, she grew back up to her normal height, but kept her breasts slightly enlarged, hoping that would help the kids stay calm.

Once Lettie was in, several of the children ran over to her and hugged her. She patted their backs and tried to comfort them.

After the children seemed a bit calmer, Lettie sat down beside them. “OK, kids, I need you to listen. I’m going to help you get out, but you have to do exactly what I say to stay safe, OK?”

Some of the children said, “OK.” Others nodded. All were, for the first time since she’d arrived, quiet.

“First I need to help your driver,” Lettie said.  She went up to where the driver was seated. Growing as big as she felt she safely could, Lettie tore a leg off her pants and folded it over.  She placed it as a compress on the spot from which the driver’s head was bleeding. Lettie thought the wound looked superficial, but she was no expert, and head wounds bleed profusely. The compress wasn’t much, but it was all she could do for now. Without knowing if the driver had a neck or spinal injury, she didn’t dare to anything to move her.

Lettie turned back to the children, reducing to normal size as she did. “Now, as you saw, I can change sizes. I’m going to grow just a little and open some windows up there.” She pointed to the driver’s side of the bus.  “Then I’ll lift you up, one with each hand, two at a time, you can get out the window.  Now, this is very important: Don’t try to get off the bus. There’s a power line down, and it can shock you and kill you if you get off the wrong way. Let me get out to get you down safely, OK?”

The children nodded.  One girl said, “OK, Lettie.”

Lettie moved to the bus’ center and grew to be tall enough to reach the windows. Opening the latches was a challenge; her fingers were too big to manipulate them easily, and she couldn’t break them out and try to get the children through windows with shards of broken glass. But she still got two windows within her reach open.

“Who wants to go first?” Lettie asked the children. Several hands went up immediately. After reminding them that they needed to stay on the side of the bus, she gently wrapped each of her hands around one of the children. “Here we go!” she said. She lifted the children to where they could climb the rest of the way out, then repeated the process six more times.

Once the children all were outside the bus, Lettie grabbed a single window, then shrank and hauled herself out before regrowing. She found the kids atop the bus. Some were huddled together. Three looked excited; they were clearly starting to have fun with the friendly, helpful giantess who had shown up.

“All right, kids, you’ve done great so far,” Lettie said. “Now, I’m going to get off the side of the bus where the tires are and grow really big, and you can get on my hands and get down. OK?”

Most of the kids shouted, “OK!” One boy shouted, “How big?”

Lettie thought for a second. “How big should I get?” she asked.

“A million billion feet tall!” the same boy said.

Lettie laughed. “I can’t get that big,” she said. “How about a hundred feet? I think I can do that. Shall we find out?”

The kids all answered in the affirmative, either by nodding or saying, “Yes!”

Lettie turned and stepped off the bus, growing as she did. She heard seams giving out as she neared 100 feet tall, but her clothing remained intact enough to keep her decent.

Lettie bent down and offered her right hand to the children.  “You’ll all fit on here,” she said, placing it by the bus’ tires. “Climb on.”

The children ran onto Lettie’s hand. She lowered them to the ground. Once they were off, she shrank to normal height, keeping her breasts slightly inflated.

“Don’t go Lettie,” said a girl, who clung to the teen.

Lettie returned the hug. “Don’t worry,” she said. “I’ll wait here with you until help comes.”

It wasn’t long before emergency workers arrived.

“How did you kids get out of the bus?” one of the Emergency Medical Technicians asked.

“Lettie got us out,” said the girl who’d clung to Lettie once they were on the ground. “She’s a giantess.”

“She’s a superhero,” said one of the boys.

The EMT looked at Lettie. “She doesn’t look like a giantess or a superhero,” he said.

“Never mind that,” said the incident commander. “How do we get into the driver?”

Lettie shot up to 20 feet tall. “I can give you a lift to get you in the window,” she said.

The EMT looked at the kids. “I take what I said back,” he said. “She is a giantess and a superhero.”

Lettie felt an odd sensation, as if a new power was about to awaken within her. She quickly lifted the EMT and one of his partners onto the side of the bus, then stepped back.

Suddenly Lettie was growing again, but this was different than her normal growth.  It wasn’t triggered by anger, nor by her control. And she was growing proportionately, not becoming more muscular nor bustier.

Lettie realized she’d been proud of what she’d done -- not in the sense of vanity, but in the sense of accomplishing something worth accomplishing and doing it well. So this was the fourth power, simple growth; and it manifested itself when she felt proud of what she’d done.

Lettie managed to stop growing at about 60 feet tall.

Nearby, the children were cheering.  “Yay!” Lettie’s getting big again!” the girl who’d clung to her said. “You are a superhero!” shouted the boy who‘d called her one earlier. The one who’d said, “Please,” earlier now said, “Thank you, Lettie!”

A happy tear ran down Lettie’s cheek. “You’re welcome,” she said.

Just then Lettie saw her dad’s car pull up. He had barely stopped and parked it when he flung open the door and ran out to her.  “Lettie! He shouted, sounding concerned, not angry. He looked around at the accident scene.

Lettie told him the whole story. A nearby officer corroborated her account from that the semi driver and children had told him, and what he’d seen himself. The officer also reported that the bus driver’s life might have been saved by Lettie’s actions to prevent blood loss, and that she also prevented the children from panicking and contacting the electrical lines as she rescued them. The officer called her a hero.

Her dad grinned up at Lettie. “Pick me up, girl, so I can hug you.”

Lettie put her hand down. Her father climbed on. She lifted him to her cheek, and he pressed himself against it.

“You’ve done such a good thing today,” he said. “Your Grandma Vi would be so proud of you.”

“Daddy, don’t!” Lettie said. But it was too late. Now she was feeling even prouder of her accomplishment, and grew even larger. She finally stopped at about 180 feet tall, with her clothes partially ripped, but still covering what needed to be covered.

“I grow this way from feeling justifiably proud,” Lettie said.

“Then don’t be ashamed of it,” her dad said.

“But I’m kind of stuck this way,” Lettie said. “It’ll take me awhile to get control of these powers.”

“It’s not like your abilities were a secret to start with,” Dad said.

“They’re a lot less secret now,” Lettie said.

“So we deal with it,” Dad said.

“Does this mean I can’t go back to the public school next year?” Lettie asked.

“I’ll have to talk that over with your mom, but I don’t see why it would,” her dad said. “You’ve shown you know how to use your powers well. By August you should have a grip on this power, too. And we’ve seen you use this bizarre situation to blossom into a confident young woman, something today’s actions reflect. Why would you saving a life and protecting children make us hold you back?”

Suddenly Lettie was growing again.  She only doubled in size, and her clothing became more tattered, but still covered the key parts.

Dad smiled. “It was the ‘blossoming into a confident young woman,’ line that got you growing again, wasn’t it?” he said.

Lettie nodded. “But I don’t know how long it’ll take me to shrink down from this height. With so little control right now of this new power, it may take days.”

Her dad smiled. “Take your time,” he said. “You’ve earned it.”

Lettie looked down at the children. Their parents were starting to arrive to pick them up. They were pointing at Lettie, animatedly telling their stories. As they went to leave, one by one, each waved up at the giantess who’d rescued them.

Lettie waved back to each child with the hand not holding her father. “You’re right, Dad,” she said just after the last child left. “I have earned the time.”