No one messed with the cousins after that incident; no one wanted to take the chance that the girl's might have some dirt to tell about them … and truth be known, every kid in the ghetto held some secret or other that they didn't want their peers to know.
School let out for winter break and the cousins spent most of it down in Winton Terrace with little fear of retaliation from Marcella or Kaneeja. They seemed to have more friends than ever, but they also had a type of respect born of fear. Knowledge is power and Vanessa thought often about the power that her mother had laid on her and Jalissa. It didn't end just because she now had more people sucking up to her than gunning for her. She and Jalissa kept a tight reign on what they knew in a very adult decision not to use it to just gossi
