26) Sticks And Stones
In spite of the remarkably different personalities, Myra could somehow see parts of herself in all her three oldest daughters, and she was certain that she'd also come to recognise some similarities as the youngest ones would get older.
Jacqui had certainly inherited her courage and her sense of family responsibility. Maybe she hadn't really volunteered to look after her siblings, but the fact she hadn't run away from it, said it all.
Like Myra, Mercedes had always been good at making friends and she'd been the most popular girl in her class ever since the first day at school.
However, it was Tina who Myra identified with the most.
Like Myra, Tina had always loved school, even if she often had a hard time with kids who teased her for being different. To Tina, the joy of learning had always made up for all the taunts and the harsh words from ignorant children who couldn't see past the fact that her colour of skin being different from her older sisters. As a child, Myra had sometimes been teased by her less-achieving classmates, but she had always been able to give back one better, and they'd soon learned not to mess with her. Sadly, Tina had not inherited her mum's sassiness and even if she tried to put on a brave face, the words always hurt.
Jacqui tried her best to look after her little sister and she couldn't count how many times she'd had to give someone a taste of their own medicine. Still, things hadn't changed much for the better for Tina and with Jacqui more and more busy with the youngest ones, things soon started turning worse.
To some extent, Myra had been aware of those taunts since they'd started, and she'd repeatedly been in touch with Tina's teacher to try and put an end to this. In spite of that, she'd never expected that things could go so wrong.
It was the day after Michaela started teething. She'd been up crying all night and neither Myra nor Jacqui had slept a wink so Myra phoned the school and told them that Jacqui was a bit under the weather. This meant that Mercedes and Tina had to walk to school by themselves and then were supposed to walk back home together. But when one of her classmates asked her to come to her place after school, Mercy completely forgot about it and went off with her.
Tina didn't return home that afternoon which worried Jacqui right away, but Myra who hadn't really been told the extend of Tina's hassles, didn't start to get worried until two hours had passed. She then left John Paul and Carmel with Jacqui and went out to look for her daughter and after forty-five minutes, she found her hiding behind a shed near the school. Tina's lower lib was cut, her nose was bleeding, her left eye was swollen and she had a big cut on her forehead. Her school uniform was also torn and after Myra had held her sobbing in her arms trying to sooth her for what seemed like forever, she told her that two boys in Mercy's class had attacked her, one of them hitting her with a stick with a small nail at the end.
Tina stayed home for a week after the attack. When she finally went back to school, Myra insisted that the parents of both boys would be there with their sons. She decided not to press charges, but she wanted them and everyone in Tina's class to know that no one could ever hurt her daughter again – or they'd have her on their case. After this confrontation, Tina was never bullied by her schoolmates again and Myra was always convinced it was because of her actions. After all, she never heard anything about Jacqui and her mates beating the crap out of the two boys the following day.