Finely Aged Muscle
I liked to keep in shape. Nothing crazy, but I would go through a small routine of pushups, situps, and a few different lifts with some free weights. Occassionally I would hop on the bench press we had in the basement. I wasn't very strong, but I was fairly lean with a decent six pack showing through. My little sister was a couple years younger than me. At the time she had discovered my working out habits, she was in a mode of trying to copy whatever I did. Not to be annoying, but because she thought I was cool. She wanted to be like me. It was flattering. I tried my best to help her in most cases, and in this case, to make sure she didn't get hurt. She was small for a ten year old, standing just under four feet tall.
I showed her how to do a full pushup and the modified version. But she wasn't having any of the "sissy" version. She wanted to go full out. I knelt down next to her, just in case I needed to give her a little assist back up. She got in position and went down, touching her chest to the floor, before pushing herself back up with hardly any effort at all! Before I could say anything, she started pumping out reps with crazy speed, flying past forty in no time, with absolutely perfect form!
"This is easy, Caleb! Can we make it harder?" she said, a huge smile on her face as she kept burning through the exercise, without a drop of sweat on her.
As she approached 90, I had to take a minute before replying.
"Ummm. You can try popping yourself off the floor and clapping your hands before you go back down."
"Ok!"
Before I was able to show her, she started doing them just as easily as a regular push up! In fact, she was popping her upper body up further with each clap!
"This is still too easy!" she said, frustrated, but still not stopping. She was nearing 160 in a row! Good grief! How was this possible?
"I don't know Krissy. All you could do now is add some weight on your back to add some resistance."
"Yes! Get on my back Caleb!" Krissy yelled, hitting the 180 mark.
"I don't think that's a good idea, Krissy. You're doing amazing, but we shouldn't push this too far." I couldn't believe what I was seeing, but I still didn't want her to get hurt. I wasn't huge by any means, but with how tiny she was, something could happen.
"Please Caleb! It's too easy! I need it to be harder!"
Did she just hit 200 pushups? My arms would've fallen off at a hundred! With much hesitation, I stood over her, and sat down, my feet on either side of her back. She had paused just long enough for me to get situated, and then continued like I didn't even exist! How strong was she? She started to pop herself off the floor again, causing my butt to get airborne with every rep, until finally she pushed so hard, she flung me off and flipped herself up in the air, landing on top of me!
"Did you see that Caleb?! I'm strong!" Krissy said, that huge smile somehow getting bigger.
"That's great, Krissy." I croaked. I was still trying to get my breath back. Having a ten year old girl land on your chest was not fun.
She clambered off of me and stood up. Wait a minute. Why was her shirt so tight on her? Wasn't it loose when she came downstairs? Are... are those pecs I'm seeing? And... is that a tear on the sleeve over her bicep? What bicep?! She didn't have any biceps! My mouth must've been hanging open.
"What's wrong Caleb?"
All I could do was point. She looked down and gasped.
"I have muscles!"
Those were the last words I would hear from my little sister for eight years. Apparently my mom and dad had some sort of huge fight. My mom came down and grabbed my sister, briefly giving me a kiss on the forehead, and left without another word. I was left in stunned silence, not knowing what to do. My parents got divorced and my mom and sister moved away to who knows where. I lived with my dad until I was nineteen. I got an awesome deal on an apartment through a friend at work and officially moved out. I had some vacation time, so I took advantage of it. It had been a bit hectic the last couple weeks with moving and such. All I wanted to do was just laze around and pretty much do nothing for about a week and a half. Little did I know, that a knock on my door would turn my world upside down.
