"It was under Caleb's bed." Someone shouted.
"That's Hank's favorite victim" another added.
"Hank is the only one who would try such a prank."
Any lie Hank had died in her thoughts. She could lie, but what would the point be. The pubertyaway was leaking maturity. She could see it still leaking in the hands of the camp councilor. She could cover her butt and lie, or she could save what maturity that was left and hope she could fix this.
"Yes I put it there." She pointed at the device in the councilors hands. "Do you mind putting that in a bucket? We need that to go back to normal."
He looked at her confused. "What?"
"The liquid is our maturity. It turns into a gel after 24 hours, and we use it to go back to normal."
"Wait!" Someone shouted. "Are you saying the key to fixing this is draining all over the floor?"
"Uh....yeah. we are going to want to collect as much of this as possible. Maybe with a mop?"
Panic had temporarily kept the rest of the cabin from venting their anger at Hank. A couple girls ran off to get a bucket, while Hank was allowed to touch his machine in order to stop the flow.
Opening it up, she looked at the tank that would hold the maturity. It had several large cracks, probably due to the pressure of 12 different teen's maturity being pooled into it. She had grabbed some duck tape on of the girls handed her. She had brought it just in case she needed to fix something. Hank didn't bother asking what she thought she would need to fix. She put all her effort into stemming the flow of liquid.
The camp counselor went to the front office to make a call. He had gotten the number for the manufacturer from the side of puberty away.
A couple other camp councilors arrived to see what they could do to help.
The cabin collected as much as they could, but some of the maturity that had soaked into Caleb's cloths didn't come out. Over time it seemed to evaporate.
A couple of the girls had tried to soak up the liquid before the mop had to arrive. While a lot of it was rung out, the towels seems damp, meaning it too hadn't released all the stored up years it had absorbed.
Afterwards they were escorted to the administration cabin, which sat between the boy's and girl's side. One of the woman who oversaw the girl's side arrived.
Since they were too small for their own clothes, it was decided that they would be given temporary outfits. The camp had held on to various items left behind, including the clothes that people had left behind. Over time the camp had collected a large assortment of outfits.
Apparently the camp also kept unopened underwear for boys and girls of all ages that attended the camp. "People forget to bring underwear more often than you would expect."
Several councilors arrived to helped the young girls find the appropriate bra sizes and panties were passed out. It was then time to get dressed in the forgotten clothes.
Hank found herself blocked off from each box with cloths. Finally someone threw a pink shirt at her with the glittery golden word "Princess" on it. The I was dotted with a star. "That should fit you Hana!" One of the girls shouted at her.
Finally, her cabin mates had a chance to retaliate. While they were dressing in tomboy outfits, she was only allowed access to girly clothing, and they had already decided to rename Hank, Hana.
She could deal with it. Hank ended up with the princess shirt and Jean shorts that didn't quite reach her mid-thighs. While Hank knew girl's cloths were tighter than boys, experiencing it was very different.
None of the other girls sat near her. Finally the councilor who had been on hold with the manufacturers of puberty away arrived.
"So they said the liquid needs to stay in the tank in the puberty away because it can evaporate. "
"We noticed." An annoyed girl responded.
"It also is possible that not all of the maturity we gathered off of the floor is viable. We won't know for 24 hours." He continued. There were groans and angry shouts. The councilor blew his whistle to get everyone's attention. "They did tell us how to measure the gel to make sure we give you the right amount of maturity so we shouldn't have to worry about aging you up too much. We also can tell you exactly how many years was lost tomorrow. It is possible that you will end up a little younger."
After a moment of silence Caleb asked a question. "Did they say whether or not we will still turn back into boys if there isn't enough maturity to get us back to 16?"
The councilor seemed awkward as he thought how to respond. "The device doesn't store gender. Since you can use the device to turn a girl into a boy as well, they didn't see a point in storing your masculinity."
"So we have to use it again?"
"Well not that one. With the tank broken its too likely that it would leak the maturity by the next day and you would end up even younger. We are seeing about buying another puberty away to fix this. Until then....