Tianna the Terrible (Anika Scott Series) (8 page)

The way she said that made me mad. "You don't know anything about it!" I almost yelled. "Daddy does not think women are less than human, and neither does God!"

"So why did Jesus pick only men disciples, then?" she asked. But before I could answer, she gave an impatient sigh. "Sorry. I'm letting my mouth get away from me again. Come on, let's get off of this hill."

I was quiet the rest of the way down. Aunt Doreen's question bugged me. Why
didn't
Jesus pick any women disciples? I decided to ask Daddy as soon as I could. Until then, I'd just shove the question out of my head.

It felt really good to reach the bottom of the run. And I'd never tasted anything half as good as the hamburger Aunt Doreen bought me back at the lodge. She had a cup of coffee and sat with me while I ate. I watched her, munching slowly so I could enjoy every bit of my burger. She was kind of nice.
If only she'd be nice to Tianna,
I thought.

"You know, Tianna was sad and mad when you didn't come shopping with us." I said. "Don't you like her?"

She gave me a hard look, and I held my breath. I'd really put my foot in it this time. I could almost see her thinking,
Who do you think you are?

Then she laughed.

"You really do have a lot of jam. I'll bet you have as much trouble with your mouth as I do," she said.

I squirmed, but said, "Well?"

Aunt Doreen shrugged and sighed, "I love Tianna, but it seems like she sets out to antagonize me. She's always either fighting with me, or running away from me, or trying to avoid me. She's been having trouble at school, too, skipping school and fighting. She won't talk to me. She'd probably be better off without me." She was looking down into her coffee cup, and she looked very sad. She shook her head and looked up. "Enough of true confessions for one day. I'm going skiing. You coming?"

I grinned and nodded. I was tired and sore, but I wasn't about to quit.

Uncle Kurt was at the lift. I was a ways behind Aunt Doreen, so he didn't see me.

"Where have you been all day, Doreen?" he demanded. "Off having fun while I'm stuck with the kids?" He glared at her.

"If that's what you think, I'm sure you're correct," she snapped back. "After all, you're the boss." She went straight past him.

I took a deep breath, touched his jacket, and tried to explain how Aunt Doreen had helped me. He just grunted, still glaring after Aunt Doreen over my head.

Two days later, I was still sore and tired.

"Good news!" Daddy said as soon as he and Mom walked in after lunch. "My liver is fine."

Sandy and I both came running. "We can go home then, right?" Sandy asked.

Sandy was clutching Jake with both arms. He mewed loudly in protest. Sandy said, "Oh, sorry, Jake," and put the kitten down. She and Jake were together all the time.

"Well?" I demanded.

"The doctors want to do more tests," Mom said, "but yes, we probably cab go hobe."

It was like joy started at my belly button and zoomed up through the top of my head. Sandy and I both yelled and danced around.

"We cab go hobe! We cab go hobe!" I said, laughing at how Mom had muddled the words. Sandy joined in, and we danced around the room yelling, "We cab go hobe!"

Mom and Daddy were laughing, too. Then Sandy ran to Daddy and hugged him, and we ended up with everybody in a great big family hug.

I leaned back, looked up at Daddy's face, and asked, "But why have you been so tired if you're not sick?"

He laughed. "Apparently it's just a persistent infection. The doctor said that a course of antibiotics should clear it up, and then I'll be good as new."

"Let's pack!" I said, heading for our room.

"Not so fast," Daddy said. "The doctors want me to stay until they're sure the infection is cleared up. Besides, we want to visit some of our churches."

Tianna came home right after school that day.

"We get to go back to Kenya," I said, following her into her room.

"You're lucky," she said. "I wish I could leave. Today was the pits. I got sent to the principal for swearing at Mr. Pack, but the jerk deserved it. Sharra won't talk to me, and I don't know why." She flopped onto her bed with her hair straggling into her face.

Sandy had followed us in. Jake jumped off her shoulder and onto the bed. Tianna shoved the kitten away from her, and he fell off the bed.

"Hey!" Sandy objected.

Tianna kicked at Jake in a halfhearted way. "Go on!" she said. "Even you don't like me. Mom hates me, Dad hates me, my friends hate me. You were supposed to be my cat, and even you hate me."

The kitten jumped back with his front feet in the air and pounced on her shoe.

"He does not hate you!" Sandy insisted.

Tianna just made a face at her and said, "Be real! You've completely stolen Jake from me." She reached down and grabbed him by the neck. "Here, get him out of here," she said, shoving the mewing kitten at Sandy.

Sandy grabbed him and left. Tianna just sat there staring at the floor.

I shifted uneasily and said, "When we go, Jake will like you best. Especially if you feed him and stuff."

"You sound like Dad—'Don't forget to feed the cat.'"

I bit my lip. "I don't think your mom and dad really hate you," I said. "Anyway, your mom told me she loves you."

"She sure has a weird way of showing it," Tianna said, shuffling her feet on the rug.

"Maybe if you didn't keep trying to bug her so much?" I said.

Tianna flipped over onto her stomach and started bawling. She half yelled through her sobs, "I can't help it! I can't! She hates me anyway. Everybody hates me. I wish I could just stop being alive."

She buried her face in her pillow and kept sobbing really loud. I stared at her with my mouth open. What could I say? I thought about just sneaking out of the room.

"Please help, God," I whispered. Then it hit me.
Of
course!
You love her!

OK, Anika, tell her, I thought. She was crying a little bit quieter now. I swallowed and said, "God loves you." It was kind of hard to get the words out, but I kept talking. "At boarding school, I was all by myself—you know, kind of sad and scared. I used to sing 'Jesus Loves Me.' I know that's a little kids' song, but it really helped."

Tianna looked up at me from under her shaggy bangs. Her nose was running.

I swallowed and kept on. "Jesus really does care, you know. He sent your mom to keep me safe when we were skiing. She showed up just before I almost accidentally went down a black diamond run. God made Daddy's medical tests turn out right, too."

She looked down and didn't answer. In spite of everything that I was saying, I couldn't stop myself from thinking that Jesus sure hadn't answered our prayers about Tianna's family. Things just kept getting worse.

"He does love you," I insisted.

She sniffed loudly. "Maybe if I could get out of here things would be OK. Maybe if I was at your house?"

"I don't know," I said.

"I can come if I want, right?" she asked, looking hopeful.

I couldn't tell her I didn't really know, not now, so I just nodded. I knew I'd better hurry up and talk to Mom and Daddy about it.

That night it was just our family and Tianna. Uncle Kurt was away on a business trip. We waited for ages, but Aunt Doreen didn't come home. Finally we sat down to eat the stew and chapaties Mom had made. It was the best meal yet because nobody yelled at anyone else. Nobody even acted tense or nervous until Sandy wrecked it.

"How come your mom didn't come home?" she asked Tianna.

Tianna just shrugged. I tried to kick Sandy, but couldn't reach her. She wouldn't quit. "How come she never cooks supper or anything? My mom always cooks supper for our visitors—"

Mom and Daddy both interrupted at once.

"Sandy, that's enough!" Daddy said.

"Don't be so quick to judge, Sandy!" Mom said. She looked at Daddy, then went on. "We can't see into Aunt Doreen's life, so we can't really know why she does things the way she does. Anyway, you're wrong about me cooking. Atanas usually cooks for both us and our guests."

"Not on Sunday!" Sandy blurted, and everybody laughed.

"You would never just not come home, or let your guests cook the whole time like Aunt Doreen," Sandy insisted.

"That's enough!" Daddy said again. "Now drop it, or I'll send you from the table."

Just then the phone rang, and Tianna ran to get it. I think she was glad to get away from the table.

"Uncle Kevin," she called, "it's for you, and it sounds like it's long distance."

Daddy went to the phone, then returned to the table a few minutes later. "Well, that was Paul Stewart calling from Kenya. He said we're needed back in Kenya urgently. One of the other Bible school teachers had to leave unexpectedly, and term starts in two weeks."

"What about the other tests?" Mom asked.

"I'm booked for tomorrow morning," Daddy said.

"I'll get some done then and ask if the rest are necessary or could be done in Kenya."

"We're going back right away!" I yelled and jumped up from the table.

Sandy was up, too. She started yelling, "We cab go hope! We cab go hobe!" and dancing around the table.

"Not before you finish your supper," Daddy said with a grin. "Sit down."

Tianna stayed sitting at the table with her head down. She slowly shoved the food around her plate.

The next couple of days were crazy. We spent hours shopping with Mom for stuff we couldn't get in Kenya, and for stuff other people had asked us to bring back. Sandy never did get the money from Uncle Kurt for clothes. I guess he forgot, and Mom and Daddy said we weren't allowed to ask.

Tianna acted kind of weird. Half of the time she acted like I was her best friend, and then she wouldn't even talk to me.

She acted weird with the kitten, Jake, too. Sometimes she carried him all over the house and wouldn't put him down, and other times she completely ignored him. Mostly she forgot to feed him. Sandy didn't mind, though. That way Jake was more like her own kitten.

In fact, now that we were leaving, Sandy begged and begged to take the kitten with us. "Tianna doesn't like Jake, and nobody feeds him but me," she pleaded.

"Sandy, he isn't your cat," Mom said.

"He is!" Sandy insisted. "He'll starve here."

"Tianna won't let Jake starve, and neither will her parents," Daddy said.

"They will," Sandy insisted, crying.

"We can't take a kitten back with us, and that's final," Daddy said.

The day before we left Tianna didn't come home until after supper, and she reeked with the smell of cigarette smoke.

"That's it!" bellowed Uncle Kurt. "Get to your room. You deserve a whipping, and this time you're going to get it."

"Don't you dare whip that child," said Aunt Doreen as soon as Tianna slammed her door.

"
You
won't discipline her. She's going to end up just like you, completely self-centered, with no discipline or sense of responsibility. I intend to pound some sense into her."

"If you so much as leave a welt on that child, I'll report you for child abuse!" Aunt Doreen yelled as Uncle Kurt stamped out of the room after Tianna.

He whirled at her words. "Child abuse! Right!" he bellowed. "I'd like to report you for family destruction, but the stupid law doesn't recognize the kind of damage you cause!" He kept arguing and seemed to forget about Tianna.

I went into Tianna's room. She was sitting on her bed, her head down.

"I wish I was going with you tomorrow," she said. I couldn't tell if her voice was full of tears or anger.

"Why don't you ask?" I said. I still hadn't talked to Mom and Daddy about it. To be honest, I was scared to, but there was no way they could say no, was there? Then I remembered how they refused to take the kitten.

"Mom and Dad would just fight again," she said. "They'd never let me go."

We just sat there for a minute.

"Is your dad really going to spank you?" I asked.

"He usually forgets," she answered. "I don't think he really cares. It's just something to fight with Mom about. Dad isn't so bad, only he's gone so much of the time." She shifted and looked up at me through her hair. "You're so lucky! You aren't stuck with parents because you get to go to boarding school. Besides, your parents are halfway decent."

I swallowed and said, "Just remember, God really does love you."

"How come such bad things happen to me, then?" she demanded.

"I don't know. Because of other people's sins, I guess. Mom says that sin always hurts. It hurts the people who do it and people around them, too."

"You mean, like Dad and Mom fighting hurts me?" she asked.

"I guess. I don't really get it all. I just know when I do something wrong, and I ask Jesus to forgive me, I feel way better inside. We had to learn this verse that says, 'The blood of Jesus Christ washes away all sin.'"