The Booby Trap and Other Bits and Boobs

by Dawn O'Porter

  Phoebe shuddered inside. She looked into the nurse’s eyes and blinked.

  ‘Try and relax,’ said the nurse. ‘I’ve seen all shapes and sizes, sweetheart, believe me.’

  Phoebe tried to smile but she felt her heart thudding loudly. The nurse was trying to be reassuring, but she had never seen breasts like Phoebe’s. No one had seen Phoebe’s breasts. She made sure of that.

  She’d only come to see the nurse to give a urine sample. Her cystitis was back again. But apparently you had to be subjected to a thorough examination these days. Trapped in a small white-walled office where a bed framed by a plastic curtain taunted you. Not to mention the posters on the walls, illustrating every possible disease a woman could be suffering from.

  This was Phoebe’s idea of hell.

  On the desk behind them, the phone rang, loudly. Phoebe stepped back from the woman, hoping for a reprieve. But the nurse was still staring at her, unmoving, even though the phone kept on ringing behind her.

  ‘Aren’t you going to answer that?’ Phoebe was breathless now. She stared at the phone. ‘It might be an emergency … ’

  The nurse cocked her head to one side. So she wasn’t stupid, Phoebe thought. She knew what Phoebe was up to. The moment seemed to go on for ever; the woman and the girl staring each other out. An impasse. Eventually, the nurse sighed and turned back to her desk and the phone. She moved towards it and picked up the receiver.

  ‘Sandra Taylor,’ she answered briskly, a little impatiently.

  While Sandra’s back was turned, Phoebe took the opportunity to look down at her shirt. A sheer drop, perhaps the hint of two small mounds. She glared at the view. Loathing herself.

  The nurse was still talking, and lowering herself on to the chair in front of the desk.

  ‘I see,’ she was saying, her voice dropping a little. ‘Well, put her down on the list, I’ll see her when I’ve finished with this one.’

  Phoebe felt the prick of tears coming. Somehow being referred to this way just compounded the horror of this whole ordeal. On one level she knew she was being silly and weak. But she felt sick at the thought of anyone touching her. Feeling for themselves what a weird freak of nature she was.

  Phoebe thought of Anna, her best friend. Anna had a strange-shaped bottom, and wide hips, no definition in her ankles. But her boobs. Her boobs were perfect. Evenly sized, round, bouncy. Womanly. Anna would be aghast if she could see Phoebe’s terror now. Anna never wasted an opportunity to show off her tits. But Anna didn’t, couldn’t ever know, what it was like to have such hideous pockets of fat just sitting, useless on her chest. Anna would never know the shame that Phoebe felt every day.

  Phoebe was approaching a panic attack. She was starting to sweat now. When she looked down at herself again, damp patches were spreading, under her arms, then spattering the midriff of her cotton shirt. Her neck was damp too. Her hairline. She concentrated on breathing out, keeping her eyes on Sandra’s back. Sandra was still talking, scratching her head now. She seemed stressed. Phoebe felt hopeful. She slowly bent to pick up her jacket and eased it on. She buttoned it up over her damp shirt, already feeling calmer as she covered herself up. Phoebe picked up her bag and put it over her shoulder. It was heavy with all her school coursework. She breathed out. And in. And out again.

  ‘Look, I’m with a patient now.’ Sandra’s voice was getting louder. ‘I’ll see Mrs Evans when I’ve finished my booked appointments –’ She sighed loudly, clearly interrupted by the voice on the other end of the call.

  Phoebe cleared her throat and Sandra turned at the sound. She frowned and cupped her hand over the receiver.

  ‘One moment,’ she mouthed at Phoebe.

  But Phoebe was already out of there. In her mind she was at the bus stop, waiting joyfully for the bus, ecstatic to be free.

  ‘I’m sorry, I really have to go,’ she said quickly, forcefully. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Just a minute,’ Sandra said firmly into the phone. ‘I’ll be with you in half a minute,’ she told Phoebe.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Phoebe, already opening the door. ‘I’ll come back another time.’

  And without waiting for Sandra’s response, Phoebe fled.

  Her mother was marking papers at the kitchen table when Phoebe arrived home. Phoebe’s mum lectured in Politics at the university. She was deep in concentration, which suited Phoebe. She didn’t want any questions. Not even about the cystitis.

  Phoebe hung up her coat and filled the kettle. In its shiny metal she saw a distorted view of her shirt, creased now. The reflection made her chest look bigger. Like it might look if only she wasn’t her. Phoebe. She looked away. The sound of the water boiling roused her mother.

  ‘Sorry, Phoebs,’ she said, sounding tired. ‘How was your day?’

  With her back to her mother, Phoebe smiled, glad of her mum’s absentmindedness.

  ‘Fine,’ she said quite happily. ‘Same as usual really.’

  She poured water into two mugs and added teabags. When she had made the drinks she turned and put a mug down in front of her mum.Her mother was yawning now, stretching.

  ‘Thanks.’ She picked up her tea and blew on it.

  Phoebe shut her eyes, relaxing.

  ‘Oh. What did the doctor say?’ her mother asked, remembering.

  Phoebe’s eyes opened and she shrugged. ‘I just gave a sample,’ she said easily. ‘I’ll get the results back in a week or so.’

  Her mum nodded, satisfied with the answer.

  Phoebe looked momentarily at her mum’s breasts. They were normal. She felt a surge of anger. Why were her mum’s breasts normal-sized when hers were so pathetic and ugly?

  ‘Mum?’ she said, sitting down across from her. ‘I want a breast enlargement.’

  Her mother’s eyes widened and she swallowed a mouthful of tea, putting her mug down carefully.

  ‘I’m … Sorry, darling. Did you just say you wanted a breast enlargement?’

  Phoebe nodded. She managed to keep the colour coming to her cheeks. Just saying that out loud felt shameful. Admitting the problem. But also shallow and ridiculous. Like a minor celebrity in Heat magazine. Phoebe’s mother was staunchly progressive. A feminist. This would not go well. It would take all Phoebe’s powers of persuasion. It would take a giant effort of manipulation.

  But it would be worth it.

  Her mother was studying her. She didn’t look angry. A bit shocked, perhaps.

  ‘Are you serious?’ she said. She raised an eyebrow.

  ‘I hate my breasts.’ Phoebe’s voice was remarkably calm. Saying it out loud had also brought more weight to her problem too.

  Now she just needed to bring more weight to her pitiful mammary glands.

  Her mother was shaking her head.

  ‘But you have beautiful breasts,’ she told Phoebe. ‘You’re a beautiful young woman.’

  ‘You don’t know,’ Phoebe said quickly, panicked at being talked out of it now that she had decided. ‘You haven’t seen me naked in .… in, like six years.’

  Her mother looked amused, and Phoebe felt annoyance ripple through her.

  ‘Don’t laugh, Mum. It’s not funny.’

  Her mother stopped smiling. She reached out and tried to take Phoebe’s hand.

  ‘Phoebe. You’re seventeen. You’re so young.’

  But Phoebe put her hands in her lap, pushing them down through the gap in her thighs.

  ‘Exactly. I should have the perfect body, shouldn’t I, by now? I’ve stopped growing. I’m never going to have bigger tits.’

  Her mother winced at the word ‘tits’. She withdrew her hand, and stood up from the table. Then she walked out of the kitchen.

  Phoebe slumped in her chair. Her mother had signalled the end of the conversation. Phoebe should never have said ‘tits’. She’d gone about this all wrong. Silly and weak. Like her silly weak tits.

  But then her mum returned, and she was holding an album. It was old. One Phoebe remembered from when she was small. She hadn’t
looked at it in years.

  Her mum sat down. She pushed away her laptop and her papers and opened the album.

  ‘Come over here,’ she told Phoebe, quite gently.

  Phoebe was in no mood to go down memory lane, but she rose and sat down on the chair next to her mother. She sighed heavily. Petulantly. Her mother pretended not to notice the moody teenager beside her. She leafed through a couple of the spreads in the album, but stopped at one, holding the album up so that they could both see it properly. She pointed at a picture of a girl in a bikini, sitting on the end of a jetty. Her blonde hair pulled back, wet from swimming. The girl was skinny, broad shouldered but pretty much flat-chested.

  ‘That was taken in the south of France,’ said her mother, wistfully. ‘I was eighteen, and it was the first holiday I’d had without my parents.’

  ‘Oh. Yes,’ Phoebe didn’t want to be pulled in to whatever trick this was, but she stared at the picture. Her mum looked very pretty, tanned and all limbs. Long legs, slender arms, slightly boyish, but undeniably attractive.

  ‘So,’ said Phoebe obtusely, after a pause. ‘It’s a nice picture, Mum.’

  Her mother lowered the album.

  ‘I didn’t wear a bra in those days. I never felt I needed to. I was quite convinced my breasts were never going to grow any bigger than they were then.’

  Phoebe twitched. She didn’t want to hear this.

  ‘And then, a few years later, I was working as a teacher. It was my first year out of training and I wasn’t having a very good time. School was difficult, I didn’t feel I fitted in. The headteacher was strange around me. Awkward. I had no idea why, until one of the other teachers, Lynne – haven’t seen her for years now – told me there were a few comments about me going around amongst the staff. Comments about my general “free and easy” way of dressing. Lynne told me … ’ Phoebe noticed her mother blushing. ‘Barbara told me that my nipples were a particular source of interest. Or more accurately, disapproval. She told me I should think about buying a “decent” bra or two … ’

  Phoebe shared her mother’s embarrassment. She bit her lip, cringing slightly.

  ‘So,’ her mother went on. ‘I took myself off to Marks and Spencer and did a rather ill-informed dash around the underwear department. It was such an alien environment to me that I just took whatever bra looked about my size and put it in my basket. I knew nothing about measurements … I just assumed they would more or less do the job. But then I was cornered by a sales assistant. An older woman with a tape measure slung around her neck. She took one look at my basket and took charge of the situation.’

  Phoebe was interested, despite herself.

  ‘She measured you?’

  Her mother nodded. ‘I was mortified. I had never revealed my breasts to anyone other than my reflection, in the mirror at home. To have a perfect stranger … ’ She shook her head.

  Phoebe nodded in recognition. She felt a sense of calm descending.

  ‘This woman … she was very matter of fact, though. She muttered something about one breast being slightly bigger than the other, but in a way that suggested this was not a surprise to her. She measured my back and then she disappeared for about ten minutes. When she came back she handed me four enormous-looking bras and told me to get dressed again.’

  Phoebe stared at her mother, who turned to face her. She was smiling again.

  ‘I was twenty-four. In the time since that picture in the south of France was taken, I had become a 34C. I must have grown three-and-a-half cup sizes in six years. I hadn’t noticed. I saw myself in one way, you see. Flat chested. And that was that.

  Phoebe felt herself flopping. As though her whole body was easing off on itself.

  ‘So,’ her mother said, stroking Phoebe’s hair away from her face. ‘What I’m trying to tell you, Phoebe – you impatient girl – is that your body does change. Sometimes in ways you don’t like very much, but sometimes … in a way that is a pleasant surprise.’

  Phoebe was silent. She felt suddenly foolish. But, relieved, of course.

  ‘OK,’ she said gruffly. ‘Perhaps I will wait on that breast enlargement.’

  ‘Good.’ Her mother’s eyes remained on her for a moment, before she lifted her gaze to the clock on the kitchen wall.

  ‘Good Lord, is that the time,’ she said, a little agitated. ‘I completely forgot about my appointment with Doctor Seberg at six.’

  She got up quickly, picking up her handbag and throwing in her car keys. ‘I shouldn’t be too long. It normally only takes twenty minutes. I’ll make dinner when I get home.’

  ‘Who’s Doctor Seberg?’ said Phoebe, already thinking about phoning Anna and spending an evening watching DVDs instead of studying.

  Her mother was wrestling with her coat and moving out into the hall.

  ‘My little magician,’ she called in a comical tone, opening the front door. ‘Non-invasive cosmetic procedures are his speciality … ’ But her voice was swallowed up by the sounds of the outside world.

  Phoebe took a moment to register her mother’s parting words, before the front door slammed, leaving the house in silence.

  Except for the ticking clock on the wall.

  CAITLIN MORAN

  Perfectly normal to draw a face on your

  belly, then get your daughter to stand on

  a chair and take your picture. Perfectly

  normal.

  Mooby Trap

  PATRICK NESS

  Though there were, obviously, two of them and each had clearly defined voices – one deeper and harsher, the other lighter and more sneering – Stewart’s breasts tended to speak to him as a collective ‘we’.

  ‘We wouldn’t do that if we were you,’ they’d say, usually when he was about to raise his hand in class or make a joke amongst the small group he hoped were his friends or when he was looking to try a tackle on Andy Jackson during a phys ed football game. ‘Too fat,’ they’d say. ‘No one wants to hear from/laugh with/watch the fat boy run.’

  ‘I’m not fat,’ Stewart would say to them.

  ‘Well, we all know that’s a lie,’ they’d say, sniggering. ‘We’re hardly two bags of muscle, now are we?’

  And Stewart would have to silently agree with them, which was unfortunate, because they could hear that, too.

  ‘Fat, fat, fatty fat,’ they’d sing. In the shower at home. In the changing room at school. Under the shirts that had seemed to fit up until the moment his breasts started talking. Under the loose jerseys and coats Stewart wore almost exclusively now.

  ‘Boob boobity boob boob, boob boob.’

  No one else seemed able to hear them, but somehow that didn’t make it any better.

  It had all started over the summer. Stewart’s family had gone to Majorca to visit his nan and her third husband Archie. They did this every second year, and though Spain might have seemed objectively preferable to the odd-year summer trips they made to tropical Yorkshire to see his mum’s family, in reality it was fifteen days of his nan drinking too many cocktails, Archie repeatedly slapping Stewart’s inevitable sunburn, and Stewart’s mum sighing so often a waiter once offered her his asthma inhaler.

  ‘Getting to be quite a big boy,’ his nan had said as Stewart slipped off his T-shirt for a dip in the sea.

  ‘Oughta cut down on the chips,’ Archie said, rubbing oil onto Stewart’s nan’s back. Sitting next to each other on their loungers, their skins were so loose and sun-browned they looked like two melted otters.

  ‘I’ve got a bikini top you can borrow,’ his nan chortled into her fruity cocktail.

  ‘Mum, that’s enough,’ Stewart’s father said from where he was blowing up waterwings for Stewart’s completely accidental/‘delightful surprise’ of a three-year-old brother Ned, who in his toddler purview had taken to the island like a dazed native.

  ‘They’re bigger than yours, Ev,’ Archie laughed, nodding at Stewart’s chest.

  ‘I said, that’s enough,’ his dad snapped.

  Stewa
rt’s nan and Archie both made oooing sounds and retreated to their drinks, though not before she said, ‘Like father, like son,’ beneath her breath. Stewart glanced at his shirtless dad. A bit chunky, just like Stewart.

  Moobs, just like Stewart.

  Oh, my God, Stewart thought. I look like that?

  ‘Who did you think we looked like?’ his breasts had said, speaking up for the first time. ‘Cristiano Ronaldo?’

  From her own sun lounger, Stewart’s mother must have seen the look of horror on her son’s face, because she said, ‘Don’t listen to them, Stew.’

  For one awful moment, Stewart thought she meant his breasts.

  ‘Why don’t you take Ned down to the water, sweetheart?’ she said, kindly. ‘How would you like that, Neddy?’

  ‘Bueno,’ Ned said, dreamily. He slipped his hand into Stewart’s and as their dad headed off to the cabana bar to take a very, very long time getting everyone refills and as Stewart’s mum sighed and planted her earphones in so deep they were probably touching her brain and as Nan and Archie started sharing outrage about the idiocy of a friend of theirs no one here had ever met, Stewart walked his little brother down to the water, feeling like every other tanned face on the beach was watching his breasts bounce away in the sunshine.

  ‘They are watching us,’ his breasts said. ‘Every eyeball here.’

  Stewart’s skin turned a steady bright red, and it wasn’t all sunburn.

  * * *

  They named themselves. Colin and Barclay. Stewart never knew where the names had come from or, for that matter, which was Colin and which was Barclay; though really, what could it possibly have mattered? He would stare at them in the mirror, hating them, hating the way they sagged there, hating how ugly they were, hating the way they poked against his school uniform, no matter which way he wore it.