Sibling Saga

Timmy had spent most of his life feeling like the yellow crayon nobody ever picked from the box. Claire used to play Go Fish with him and help him with his math homework. Now she just stomped around with her phone glued to her face, calling him "twerp" whenever Mom wasn't listening. It wasn't fair.

That's how he found himself one Thursday afternoon hunched over his old Chromebook, the one with the sticky 'J' key, looking for cool pranks. He clicked through boring water-bucket-over-the-door stuff until a pop-up ad with sparkly letters caught his eye: "MAGIC SPELLS THAT REALLY WORK!" He giggled at first—magic wasn't real, duh—but by the time he reached page seventeen, his eyes got big and round. Body swapping! Like in that movie where the mom and daughter switched places and learned important lessons!

The spell was right there for free, surrounded by blinking red text he skipped over. Timmy copied it carefully, letter by letter, into a secret document titled "HOMEWORK.doc" so nobody would look. He practiced the funny words in the bathroom mirror until they rolled off his tongue like his multiplication tables. The forum said you didn't need special candles or chalk circles—just really, really wanting it. And boy, did Timmy want it! He'd show Claire what it was like to be ignored all the time.

That night, he couldn't sleep. His legs kicked under the covers as he imagined all the cool stuff he could do as Claire. He could text her boyfriend something super embarrassing! Or maybe post silly pictures on her Instagram! He tucked his baseball bat under the bed—just in case she got mad and tried to punch him when they switched back. The only thing that made his tummy feel fluttery was wondering: what if it actually works?

He did it anyway.

They both got home at three. Claire breezed past him in the hallway, dropping her stuff like she expected the house-cleaning fairy to pick it up. Timmy stood outside her door, the spell paper crumpled in his sweaty hand, his heart going thump-thump-thump like when it was his turn for a book report. He counted to thirty Mississippi, took a big breath, and knocked twice.

Claire didn't look up from her phone, "What."

"Can I borrow your charger?"

"Go away."

Timmy smiled and whispered the funny words, his heart doing jumping jacks.

No explosion happened like in cartoons. Instead, everything got sparkly and wobbly, like looking through the bottom of a juice glass. His whole body felt like when you fold up a camping tent—all collapsing and swooshy. Then suddenly he was across the room. His own body was nowhere to be found.

"Whoa," he tried to say, but the voice came out all wrong—like Claire's!

He stumbled to the mirror, his legs all noodly like he was walking on stilts. His arms kept swinging in the wrong places. In the mirror was Claire's face, but with his own surprised eyes and a huge smile that Claire never used.

He had a GIRL BODY! Not just any girl body—Claire’s body—his very own sister’s body. Just like that movie where the mom and daughter switched and learned about being nice to each other!

He looked at his hands—well, Claire’s hands—and flexed the fingers, noticing that they moved in delicate, careful ways. The nails were painted a chipped lavender, and he tried to imagine how it would feel to paint each one, the brush tickling across the nail, the slow satisfaction of seeing the color fill in. He flexed the wrists, finding them bendy and weirdly strong at the same time. He made fists, then released them, then tried to snap his fingers, and was amazed when it actually worked—first try, both hands.

The weirdest part was having bumps on his chest. He poked one with his finger like testing if a water balloon would pop. It just squished a little, like the stress ball his teacher let him use when he couldn't sit still. He giggled—the sound all high and tinkly—and poked the other one.

"I'm Claire!" he whispered, pressing both pointer fingers into them and watching them spring back. He jumped up and down, amazed at how everything bounced differently.

Curious what else was different, he pulled the shirt up over his head, getting stuck for a moment when he forgot to unbutton the top. Free at last, he looked down at the strange new map of his body. He was wearing a bra!

His tummy had no outie belly button like his real one—just a tiny dip like someone had pressed a thumb into clay. He ran his fingers across it, then squeezed his legs together, noticing a weird empty feeling where his normal parts should be.

He ran his hands down the line of his—her—ribs, over the tummy, down to the belly button, which looked smaller and neater than his original one.

His hands moved lower, touching the top of the shorts until his thumbs found the button. Pop! Like opening a treasure chest in his video games. The underwear underneath had tiny pink flowers.

He wiggled out of the shorts, then sat on the bed, legs swinging like at the doctor's office. These legs were different—no scratches from climbing trees, no bruises from soccer.

He bent over and pulled the underwear down to his ankles in one quick motion.

Now he could see the weird part that girls had instead of a penis —all foldy and pink. He poked at it. He pushed the folds together, then apart.

"Huh," he whispered to himself.

He sat there, legs dangling, suddenly thinking about all the times he’d teased Claire about her “dorky” swim team uniform—the stretchy blue one-piece with the high cut sides and racerback straps. Timmy had always thought the thing looked like a costume or a superhero’s outfit, not something a real person wore to swim practice. It made him laugh, but he never understood why Claire always slammed her door when he joked about it. Now, with her body, her memories hovered like background music, and the idea of actually wearing it suddenly felt…exciting? Terrifying? He wasn’t sure.

He kept glancing at the open closet, where Claire’s clothes hung like strangers at a party. The blue swimsuit peeked out from behind a neon green soccer jersey, its logo reading "GATORS" in giant white letters. He imagined himself—herself—at the next swim meet, strutting around with the other girls, all of them blending into a stripey, shivering pack. What would it feel like to pull it over this new skin?

He tiptoed across the unfamiliar span of carpet, brushing past the hamper and Claire’s ballet flats, reaching up for the hanger and blinking at how easily he could grab things from a higher shelf than before.

It was a one-piece, just like he remembered, with GATORS in big bold letters and racing stripes down the side, the same as the one Claire had worn in the picture on the fridge.

He stood in front of the closet for a few seconds, turning the swimsuit over and over in his hands, stretching it slightly to watch the fabric snap back. He wondered how something so small and tight could fit around a body, much less this body.

He knew he had to take off the bra first, and for a weird moment, the idea almost undid him—unclasping it in a giggly little-brother way. He fumbled behind his back like Claire probably did, fingers searching along the band, finding the hooks and squeezing until they popped apart. The straps peeled off his shoulders and the cups slid away, leaving Claire’s chest exposed, and Timmy just stared. He’d seen them only by accident before, in half-glimpses or as a vague shape under a shirt, but now they were right there, the nipples darker and bigger than he’d ever imagined. He poked one, barely touching it, and felt the whole thing rise up in little goosebumps.

His palms were sweaty but he pressed on. Timmy tried to imagine Claire wriggling into this thing after school, maybe in the backseat on the way to swimming. He sat down and stuck his feet through the holes, then stood, shimmied, and pulled with both hands, the suit creeping up his thighs.

Then it met the hips, which were softer and rounder than he was used to. Getting it over the butt was honestly the hardest part, and he almost had to sit down to wriggle the fabric past the widest part of Claire’s hips.

Once it was up to the waist, he hesitated. There was only a thin line of blue between his thighs, barely covering the new private part, and he had to reach down and push it into place, smoothing it over. The sensation was weird, not bad, just different—like his whole center of gravity had shifted.

He pulled the straps up, but not before getting one twisted. The first try, the strap slithered off his shoulder and snapped him in the cheek. He winced, then giggled, then tried again, this time using both hands to guide it into place. The straps settled over his shoulders, squeezing his collarbone and making the neckline ride up. It felt like a gentle harness, holding everything together.

The suit gathered the chest into two neat bumps, flattening but also shaping them, and he realized the suit must have padding or something inside. He turned a little, watching the fabric compress everything, accentuating his new figure.

He did a little jump in place and felt the whole suit hug him, squeezing in all the right and wrong places. The way the fabric pulled at his shoulders and pressed against his chest made him acutely aware of every inch of skin.

At first, it was just the novelty of seeing his sister’s face staring back at him in the glass, but the longer he looked, the more uncanny the resemblance became, until it didn’t feel like pretending anymore. The person in the mirror wasn’t a costume or a Halloween prank—it was Claire, through and through, down to the faint freckle on the right cheek, the awkward bend at the bridge of her nose, the way one eyebrow arched just a little higher than the other. The suit made the illusion so complete that Timmy half-expected his new reflection to scowl at him and tell him to get lost.

He leaned closer, narrowing his eyes, checking for seams or mistakes, but there were none. The long, straight hair—freshly brushed, still smelling of some fruity shampoo—curtained over the narrow shoulders. The blue and green of the GATORS lettering popped against the tan, the suit clinging in ways he’d only noticed from a distance. He remembered times he’d watched Claire at the swim meets, her legs flicking through the pool, the suit slicing through the water, but he’d never realized how much it showed off or how it made her look older, tougher, even when she was shivering at the edge of the pool.

Timmy struck a pose, one hand on hip, jutting the side out like he’d seen Claire do when she talked back to Mom. He tried the sulky Claire-face, then grinned, watching the lips stretch in a way that made him giggle all over again.

He did slow spins, watching the way the swimsuit wrapped around his own—her own—body, every curve and dip mapped by the shiny fabric. When he twisted his hips, the suit pulled tight across the butt, the blue bands on the side squeezing in like racing stripes on a race car. He ran his hands down the sides, feeling the firm, elastic stretch of the lycra and the gentle pressure of the suit holding everything in place. It squeezed a little too tight in certain places, but it didn’t hurt; it just made him stand up straighter, shoulders pulled back, tummy tucked in.

What felt even weirder was how the suit made the chest look rounder and more pronounced—two neat domes, squished but not hidden. He poked them again, more gently this time, and turned to the side to see the profile. They were real, all right, and they jiggled a little even inside the suit when he hopped up and down.

Timmy’s heart thudded as he looked at his reflection: Claire’s body, Claire’s swimsuit, Claire’s entire posture even. He WAS Claire.

If she ever found out he’d opened her underwear drawer, much less wriggled into her championship swim suit, she’d probably murder him. But that was the dare, wasn’t it? To do the one thing you’re not allowed to do, and see if you can get away with it.

He shouldn’t have been in here, not in Claire’s room, not in her clothes, definitely not stretching her prized team suit over body parts that weren’t even supposed to exist on him. That was the whole dare of it, maybe, or maybe just the fact that the suit itself seemed haunted by Claire’s big, spiky energy—her scowl at the breakfast table, her shrieks when she caught him spying from the hallway, her stormy silences after a meet gone bad.

The costume wasn’t just a costume when it zipped him up inside the life of someone he wasn’t. Timmy looked in the mirror and smirked: he even stood with the same slouch.

He reached out and pressed his palm to the glass, meeting his own—her own—gaze with a kind of reckless awe. There was no trace of himself left. Even the hands splayed delicately, the fingers long and slender, unlike the stubby digits he was used to.

The idea of being able to do what Claire did—not just wear her suit, but live in it—made him giddy.

He tried walking across the room with a serious “Claire” stride, arms swinging at his sides, long hair swishing behind him. The way the hips moved was totally different from his old body.

He imagined what it must feel like to march onto the pool deck with all the other girls, every eye watching, and instead of feeling embarrassed, he felt… proud? It was a weird, secret pride, like being let into a club nobody else knew about.

He practiced a few swim meet stretches, bending to touch his toes, swinging his arms, rotating his shoulders. Each move felt slightly off-balance, as if the parts didn’t match the instructions in his head, but he liked the feeling of relearning everything from scratch. The straps dug in a little when he raised his arms, but it also made him feel held, like nothing would come loose even if he turned somersaults off the diving board.

Timmy couldn’t stop staring at the way the suit fit, the way it flattened the tummy and hugged the chest, the way it dipped into a V at the neck and bared the shoulders in a way that was both tough and girly.

With a mischievous grin—one Claire herself never used—he reached behind and grabbed a jolly handful of his sister’s perfectly round butt. It was way bigger than he ever imagined from the other side of the dinner table. Her butt was not just squishy but packed and springy underneath, like two soft loaves wrapped tight in the Lycra of the swimsuit.

He tugged the suit upwards, feeling it ride even higher, squeezing his—her—bottom. The pressure made him squirm, not just from embarrassment but a new, darting sense of pleasure and discomfort all at once. He couldn’t decide if he liked it.

The next logical thing, of course, was to fully commit to the role and put on a little show—no audience, unless you counted the stuffed animals lined up along the headboard.

He started out shy, a little self-conscious even though nobody was watching, but soon enough Timmy was pacing the bedspread, arms gesturing extravagantly at the audience of his sister’s childhood plush animals. The ones she’d never let him touch.

There, at the head of the bed, sat all her regulars: Marzipan, the chocolate-stained bunny; Professor Hoot, the owl with wire-rimmed glasses and a permanent look of judgment; Squeaks, a pink mouse with a lopsided bow; and, at the center, the massive, slightly flattened teddy bear that Claire used as a reading pillow.

He planted both hands on his hips and took a moment to inhale, puffing out his chest. He was the queen of the room, the star of the show. The plush toys perched along the headboard gazed back, a sea of beady eyes and expectant faces awaiting his command performance.

“Good evening,” he proclaimed in a pitch that was more falsetto than feminine, but which sounded, uncannily, like Claire’s voice in the echo of the silent room, “Thank you for assembling on such short notice. I am Claire—yes, Claire—your most beautiful and perfect leader, as you all know…”

He caught sight of his own face in the wall mirror, a faint red on the cheeks, the hair in wild disarray framing the intense, almost haughty look he was channeling. He almost cracked up, but the moment was too good. He swept across the bedspread, gathering imaginary applause from the plush assembly, then pointed a trembling finger at Marzipan, the chocolate-stained bunny.

“You, sir, are late. I expect more discipline from a rabbit of your stature,” he scolded. His voice was steady now, Claire’s cadence and sarcasm coming easily.

His audience was silent, but he could imagine their admiration. Professor Hoot, always the skeptic, was glowering, but even he seemed impressed by this new, improved version of Claire. Squeaks had toppled sideways, perhaps swooning at the spectacle.

“As you can all plainly see,” he declared, striding the length of the mattress with the purposeful stomp of a parade marshal, “I am the best, most amazing Claire you have ever known. Cooler than any big sister to ever exist. Just look at me!”

He got bolder with the act.

“I am so good at being a girl, it’s actually scary,” he boasted, hands splayed over the chest, “How do I look so flawless all the time? Gosh, it’s a burden.”

He sashayed back and forth, then stopped mid-step to admire the way the suit curved in at the waist and flared at the hips, the fabric gripping him in a way that was oddly comforting. He realized he’d been walking and standing like Claire did, a subtle sway in every movement, and the thought made him laugh for real—an unfiltered, delighted, almost maniacal laugh.

The act had become so believable, so immersive, that it took a second for the next wave of curiosity to hit him: How did the swimsuit look from the front, right up close, where the blue triangle met the skin between the legs? He stood before the mirror again, the giggles subsiding, and examined the new geometry of Claire’s body, the way the fabric cut in and sealed everything away, hiding nothing and everything at once.

He let a finger rest there, right on the mound that replaced his usual parts. It felt soft, not at all like he expected. He pressed through the swimsuit, feeling the way the fabric pressed back against him. He pressed harder and the edge of the swimsuit bent inward, molding perfectly to the shape underneath. The sensation was nothing like what he remembered from his real body.

The suit flexed, then bounced back, springy and tight. Every time he pressed, it tingled, and the tingling got stronger, spreading outwards from the spot beneath his fingers.

He pressed a fingertip against the center and felt the outline of something firmer, a kind of ridge right at the top. He poked it, and a bolt of something zippy shot up his spine. Whoa. He clapped a hand over his mouth to keep from making noise.

Timmy's heart raced. He glanced at the door. He spread his legs like he was making a snow angel and tried poking his finger into the hole again.

He leaned back on the bed, pulling the front of the swimsuit aside so he could see better. The opening seemed smaller than the tip of his finger, but when he pressed against it, the skin stretched just enough to let him in. He pushed a little deeper, curious. The inside was soft but also tight, and his finger slid in with a gentle squeeze.

His tummy did a little flip. It wasn’t a pain or even an itch, just a twisting, tickling kind of feeling that made him want to move more. He laughed, a real laugh this time, and tried turning his finger around. The funny feeling in his stomach got stronger, and he wondered if this was what girls meant when they talked about “butterflies.”

How much stuff could he actually fit up there?

He pulled his finger out, surprised by the little pop it made, then slid it back in, this time deeper. Each time he went further, the tunnel seemed to welcome him, and the funny feeling in his tummy grew stranger, more insistent.

He lay there, finger still inside, marveling at the way his new body seemed to clench and release, as if it had a little mind of its own.

Girl parts sure felt funny!