“I’m not her daughter! She married my father two years ago. She’s got a boyfriend. She was with him while my father was dying in the hospital!”

The man stared at Michelle for a long moment, turned to Roberta, snapped the check out of her hands and tore it into shreds.

“But...we had a deal,” Roberta stammered.

The man gave her a look that made her move back a step. “Madam, if you were kin to me, I would disown you,” he said harshly. “I have no wish to purchase a collection stolen from a child.”

“I’ll sue you!” Roberta raged.

“By all means. Attempt it.”

He turned to Michelle. “I am very sorry,” he said gently. “For your loss and for the situation in which you find yourself.” He turned to Roberta. “Good day.”

He walked out.

Roberta gave him just enough time to get to his car. Then she turned to Michelle and slapped her so hard that her teeth felt as if they’d come loose on that side of her face.

“You little brat!” she yelled. “He was going to give me five thousand dollars for that stamp collection! It took me weeks to find a buyer!”

Michelle just stared at her, cold pride crackling around her. She lifted her chin. “Go ahead. Hit me again. And see what happens.”

Roberta drew back her hand. She meant to do it. The child was a horror. She hated her! But she kept remembering the look that minister had given her. She put her hand down and grabbed her purse.

“I’m going to see Bert,” she said icily. “And you’ll get no lunch money from me from now on. You can mop floors for your food, for all I care!”

She stormed out the door, got into her car and roared away.

Michelle picked up the precious stamp collection and took it into her room. She had a hiding place that, hopefully, Roberta wouldn’t be able to find. There was a loose baseboard in her closet. She pulled it out, slid the stamp book inside and pushed it back into the wall.

She went to the mirror. Her face looked almost blistered where Roberta had hit her. She didn’t care. She had the stamp collection. It was a memento of happy times when she’d sat on her father’s lap and carefully tucked stamps into place while he taught her about them. If Roberta killed her, she wasn’t giving the stamps up.

But she was in a hard place, with no real way out. The months until graduation seemed like years. Roberta would make her life a living hell from now on because she’d opposed her. She was so tired of it. Tired of Roberta. Tired of Bert and his innuendoes. Tired of having to be a slave to her stepmother. It seemed so hopeless.