"Come on Mercy. You don't want to be late to your first day school, now do you?" Mary asked as she pulled her daughter from Dean's crib. It was much harder than needed, but Mercy had really set her mind on this.
"Yes I do." She said it plainly. Like her mother really should have already known that she didn't want to start school. It sounded boring and she just wanted to stay with Dean.
Mary almost growled in frustration. It was times like these where she hated the stubbornness her daughter had inherited from her and John. Her little girl just did not want to leave Dean, but it really wasn't an option. Her baby girl needed to learn and make other friends, not just stick by her little brother her whole life.
"School will be fun and will be over before you know it. Just try it today, for me?" The dark haired girl thought on it for a second before replying.
"No, school is stupid. I want to stay here." The small girl squirmed out of her mother's arms and peered over the crib again.
Dean smiled the second her caught sight of his sister. Which was becoming a rarity as the poor baby was teething and crying all the time. Mercy didn't want to leave him when he was in pain, that wasn't a good sister, thing to do.
He reached up in a grabby motion, showing off those new pearly whites. He laughed when Mercy gave her best funny look.
"Mercy, baby, if you don't go to school then you won't be able to play with Dean anymore. You'll have to stay on the Naughty Step."
Mary knew it was a very low blow, but she was running out of choices. School started soon and Mercy was still in her nighty.
She hated school. She decided it was the worst place to be, full of screaming and crying kids. The teacher smiling just made her scowl stronger. What was the point in coming to this place?
Mercy was stood to the back of the class, looking on with slight curiosity. There were a lot of other kids around her age and she didn't really know what to do. The only person around her age that she knew was Connah, but he moved away a few months ago.
The room was so bright and colourful with numbers crawling along the walls in order. She swore the alphabet hanging on the board at the front was mocking her. It had taken so long before she had memorised it. Even now those stupid few letters kept messing her up.
The tables were just the right size for her and set in groups with lots of paper and pencils, and the little sections were filled with toys that looked really fun. She knew Dean would love all the cuddly teddies. He had developed a fascination with the things.
"All right then, I think we should all sit down and one at a time tell the others about ourselves."
That simple sentence wouldn't get that herd of little monsters to do as told. The teacher would have to do much better than that; she couldn't hear herself over the screams of the excited children.
But to her surprise, most kids did as told. The few that kept playing were guided by the helpers to any empty seats. Her included it would seem.
The other kids on her table were all wide eyed but looked so shy. Mercy stared at them, three boys and two other girls. Each looked completely different but equally uncomfortable.
The boy next to her was a short red head with so many freckles he was almost a giant human shaped freckle. He had murky blue eyes and fairly dull look about him. Even his dinosaur t-shirt looked plain. Mercy already felt like he wouldn't be that important.
The girl on the other side of her was so blonde it was almost white. Her skin was strangely tanned compared to the paleness of her hair and light chocolate eyes added to the sweet child look. She was in a pink frilly dress that just looked itchy.
The boy next to ginger was dark skinned and curly haired, the one of very few in the class, almost everything about him was dark, apart from the blinding smile that reminded Mercy of her Dad before he tickle attacked her. He looked like someone worth getting to know.
The last boy at the table had light brown hair, she was half convinced it would fly away it looked to feathery. He was so very pale and had a smudge of mud on his chin. He was taller than the other boys from what she could tell and his eyes darted out of the window.
The next girl had similar looking hair to feather head but had more colour in her cheeks and where he had green eyes, she had hazel. She looked much more plain than the first girl and was dressed in pretty much the same dress but in blue. She stared at the teacher with concentration, soaking every word.
All in all, Mercy figured she could get along with them.
"Right, we'll go one by one and tell the class our names and what we like to do. Hopefully we will make many friends in school, yes?" The teacher started. Mercy didn't really pay much attention to the woman; she was more interested in looking at her 'Classmates'.
"I'll start then, my name is Miss Caulfield. I like making lots of cupcakes!"
It went much like that until it finally reached the table near the back. It started with blue dress, who clearly said,
"My name is Lucy, and I like drawing." Much like most others in the class,
"My name is Callum, and I like playing outside!" As do the other three boys in the front, feather head.
"I'm Rebecca and I like playing dress up." Nothing new there Blondie,
"I'm Harry, and I like building things!" Curly hair, she had such hopes for you.
"I'm Edward, a-and I like painting." What did she say, plain?
The class looked at Mercy expectantly, she was the last one and most of the children were nearing the end of their attention spans.
"I'm Mercy. I like reading, jigsaws and looking after Dean." There, a few new things added to the mix. She felt strangely proud of her self for being a bit different from the others.
"Oh, and who is Dean dear?" The teacher asked. A kind smile stretched her face and long brown hair was slipped into a bun.
"Dean is my little brother." Who else was it going to be? The teacher was a bit silly for not figuring it out herself.
"You have a silly name." Mercy couldn't help but stare at the speaker. Michael if she remembered right. What did he mean?
She was just simply drawing a picture of the teddy for Dean and didn't do anything to catch the attention of the five year old boy.
"What?" She demanded. She wasn't sure how to handle this; she thought her name was perfectly normal.
"Your name is stupid." He repeated. Mercy very nearly smacked the boy for being mean, but remembered what her mum had said.
"Hurting others means you're not any better than the people who were mean first. So you need to ignore them; that is worse than hitting."
She did just that. She hated it when people ignored her, it felt lonely and boring, like she wasn't really there; the best punishment for naughty boys.
"Hey, Stupid Name, listen to me!" The nuisance pulled her pigtails hard. It hurt and made her want to cry, but she did what her mummy had told her.
The boy's face quickly went redder and redder to the point where Mercy thought he would explode like the cartoon characters on TV. He picked up the drawing of Dean's teddy and threw it on the floor before stomping it frustration.
Tears were crawling down her face before she even knew what was going on. One minute she was colouring the bow and the next it was all muddy.
Loud cries were tearing their way out her mouth before she gave them permission. Very quickly her face was covered in tears and snot, she wanted to go home. It was nicer at home and her family didn't tear her drawings when she made them. Her daddy stuck them on the fridge and along the walls.
Michael looked shocked at her reaction, like he expected her to fight back and not just cry. But now she was crying and he didn't know what to do.
"What did you do Michael?" Miss Caulfield's voice called from behind the boy. He was in big trouble and they all knew it.
Mercy felt very silly. She was the tough big sister; she was supposed to fight back. Instead she cried long enough to make her face and head hurt.
Her mummy wouldn't have cried. She would've made sure to move away the second it seemed like there was a problem.
Her mummy was clever like that, but Mercy didn't want to be smart. She was smart enough as she was; her parents had always said that. No, she needed to be strong like her daddy.
Her daddy was a big softie to her and mummy and would act so very silly at home or when he was with the family. However, one time there was a mean man. He smelled funny and wouldn't leave her alone. He wanted to show her something in his car on the other side of the street, opposite of the park in which she had been playing.
Her daddy didn't like him very much. He looked so much bigger and scarier than she had ever seen him. He pushed the big man and told him to go away. Even daddy's voice got scary, it went deep and rumbly. Something about his face was scary enough to send the mean man running away from the park.
She decided there and then that she would be like her dad and become very strong.