"Yes, sweetheart?"

"I bet you can't make me say 'uncle!'"

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My niece Hannah - technically, my wife's niece, her older sister's daughter - had finally picked our little game up where we had long since left it off. The last time she had stayed with us - two years earlier - we'd played variations of the chase-catch-tickle game under the approving eye of both my wife, her aunt, and my sister-in-law, her mother, for the entire two-week visit.

At the time, we'd all thought it especially cute that as Hannah's ACTUAL uncle, I always made her "say 'uncle'," the classic American good-humored expression of submission, before I would let her go.

Two summers ago, when Hannah had been an immature twelve years old, she was always up for a round. I'd no sooner catch her, tickle her playfully, obtain the "uncle!" and release her, but she'd be back within a quarter-hour with her challenge, "I bet you can't make me say 'uncle!'"

This year, I had expected things to be different. And I suppose they were in some important ways.

First of all, at fourteen, a much more "serious" Hannah was supposed to no longer be entertained by "kid stuff" like the "just say 'uncle'" game. That's why instead of fifteen minutes, it took her almost twenty-four hours before she issued the first challenge and started it all up again.

Secondly, this time, the visit was going to last much longer than two weeks. Hannah's mom was with the State Department and had just been posted to Egypt. With all the turmoil in that part of the world, it was decided that Hannah would be better off living with us, here in Pennsylvania, for the next two years. So our little game, which had successfully whiled away a brief vacation visit in the past, would probably grow old pretty fast now that we were, for all intents and purposes, a full-time family.

Thirdly, the last time I had seen Hanna in person, she had been a rail-thin, cute little kid. Today, she was still thin - svelte might be a better term now - and she certainly was a cutie, although now in a distinctly sassy, post-pubescent sort of way - but "little kid" was no longer an apt descriptor.

Her waist was still narrow, as a fourteen-year-old's can so easily be, but her hips had widened. Her pelvis had reached that "sweet spot" in the maturation trajectory, distinctly mid-way between child and woman.

Her rump had always shelved out a bit in back - I remember that even as a little girl, her cousins had teased her, saying that she looked and walked like a duck. Now it had grown even more outthrust, tauntingly, and had further swelled in roundness and nubility. Don't get me wrong; she still had a tight little ass; it's just that it now had a more pronounced shape, especially in profile.

Her attitudes had grown up, too - maybe a little too fast, in fact. When my wife and I picked her up at the airport, she was wearing a little bit of make-up. My wife hadn't said anything, but I could tell she thought Hannah was too young for that just yet. Hannah must have picked up on that wavelength, since she wasn't wearing any the next day. Personally, I didn't see any harm in it, and neither had her own mother, I presume, since she had sent her off that way, but never mind. Hannah had plenty of time yet to grow up, with or without makeup.

On the other hand,...there was the little matter of her breasts. Well, not TOO little a matter, if you see what I mean. The former rail-thin twelve-year-old was now a relatively well-endowed fourteener. I would have to guess her ta-tas, displayed unashamedly in a low-necked, skin-tight top, had swelled from the walnuts I remembered into an impressively full B-cup. That might not seem like such a big deal, but if you can picture those breasts jutting out from their high perch on a very petite eighty-pound frame, I think you'll call them impressive, too.

One thing was not debatable: Hannah at fourteen already had bigger tits than either her own mother or my wife, her aunt. Hannah's mom had always kept the details of Hanna's paternity to herself, but she conceived our niece while posted as a junior consular officer in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. It had always been obvious that this mystery father must have been of a slightly darker complexion than my wife's family, because while Hannah's mom was blonde-haired, blue-eyed, and fair-skinned, Hannah herself had big, dark brown eyes, beautiful black hair (worn straight and long), and a perpetual tan. Now, from the evidence of her straining top, I concluded that this biological father also came from a family of busty women. If Hannah had this rack at fourteen, I could only imagine what the women of her father's side sported when full grown. Wow.

So between her specious new sophistication, the more permanent nature of her stay, and her obvious physical development, I had pretty much assumed that the days of the "just say 'uncle'" game were long gone. That assumption survived for less than twenty-four hours.

"Uncle Tim?"

"Yes, sweetheart?"

"I bet you can't make me say 'uncle!'" ......(cont)