While her schoolfriends discussed bra sizes and tucked their blouses into their tight skirts to accentuate their busts, Sylvia wore long cardigans that hid her stubbornly flat chest. Occasionally she stood naked and wet from the bath in front of the mirror and she wondered if she would ever be a woman. Or maybe her gender was as uncertain as the colour of her skin. When her schoolfriends talked of boys and exaggerated what they'd done and underestimated what they'd be prepared to do, Sylvia sat quietly and pretended she understood what all the fuss was about.