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"They better not pick on you anymore," he said, his eyes blazing with anger,

I closed mine and looked away. Was I going to get everyone in some trouble? Was that my destiny?

Mama was upset, of course, but she was more concerned about my being attacked than she was about my being suspended.

"It isn't safe here for any of us," she muttered. She complained to Ken, but there was little he could do or would do. He didn't even have a new job yet, much less any options for moving the family.

Three days later, Mama accompanied me to school and met with Mr. Morgan. She lost two hours of pay, but she was feisty, demanding that the school do more to protect me. In the end there wasn't much the school could do. What happened to me next, happened off school grounds.

Nicole was too afraid to bother me in school. Mr. Morgan had threatened to have her expelled next time she got into trouble, but she wanted her revenge so badly, I could see the longing in her eyes whenever she gazed at me. I should have been more cautious, but I was almost indifferent to my own fate.

Nicole and her friends waited for their opportunity. They followed me home one afternoon about a week later. I didn't hear them coming after me until they were right upon me. All I heard was my name and I turned to be splashed with a small canful of gasoline.

I screamed and then Nicole nonchalantly walked to me and threw a lit match at my dress.

"Let's make you darker, Miss Prissy," she cried.

My dress caught on fire and I ran, hysterical. It drew everyone's attention and a security guard at an office building across the street shouted at me to roll on a small patch of lawn. I did what he instructed, but my thighs were burned enough for me to have to go to the emergency room. The hospital called Mama at work and by the time she arrived, I was bandaged and lying comfortably on a gurney in one of the

examination rooms. They had given me something for the pain.

The policeman outside told her what had happened and the emergency room doctor explained my injuries. There was a possibility my legs would be scarred.

When she came in to see me, she was crying. She rushed to my side and held my hand.

"I'm all right, Mama. I'm fine."

"You could have been killed!" she cried. She shook her head. "They aren't going to stop. I know them. They run on hate." She pulled herself upright and made her lips firm. "I'm not losing you to the streets, too," she declared. "They aren't going to get any more chances to hurt you."

"What do you mean, Mama?" I asked.

"I lost one child here. I'm not losing two. No ma'am, no sir. No."

"You won't lose me, Mama," I said.

Her expression didn't change. I had never seen her look as determined. Her eyes were cold gray stone. She brushed my hair out of my face and stared down at me, shaking her head softly.

"I know you won't ever stop blaming yourself, Rain. You aren't ever going to be safe here now, child. And you aren't-ever going to look at yourself in the mirror and feel good about what you see as long as you're here."

"Well... what are we going to do, Mama?" I asked, my heart thumping.

"It's not what we're going to do, Rain. It's what you're going to do."

"Me? What am I going to do?"

"You're returning to your blood. You're going back to a safer world. I'm going to see to it," she asserted.

I was sure my heart stopped and started again. I shook my head.

But no was not in Mama's vocabulary anymore. She had been to hell and back with the loss of Beni. She was determined not to travel the same highway again, no matter what the cost, even if it meant losing me. She was like the mother in the Bible when King Solomon threatened to cut the child in half. She would rather lose me than see me harmed.

I wanted to hate her for even thinking about it, but deep in my heart I knew her thoughts were like flowers springing out of a bed of love.

I could hate this place. I could hate the girls who had done this to me. I could even hate myself.

But I could never, ever hate Mama.

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