When Svetka was born, her mother cried and her father went on a bender for a week. The girl was pretty, healthy, except for one thing. There was a birth defect on her face, a developmental abnormality.

It happens quite often. The girl’s upper lip was kind of split in half, it’s called a harelip. Doctors reassured the parents and said that this is not a problem at all, that now they do such operations and then almost nothing will be visible.

But Svetka was not lucky. Either the doctor was inexperienced, or just such is her fate. But the stitch turned out crooked and rough, the upper lip was very swollen, as if bloated.

But the girl was very pretty, with blond curls and mischievous eyes. And her face was beautiful, even in spite of the scar above her lip, which with time became almost invisible. Only the lip was a little bigger, as if a little swollen, but it did not spoil it at all.

Her parents loved their daughter very much and tried to protect her from everything. But from child cruelty can not protect? If in kindergarten kids almost did not pay attention to this feature, then at school Svetka was full of bread because of cruel classmates. When she grew up, her father found a good job in the city.

They sold the house in the village, said goodbye to the neighbors and moved into a city apartment. Not only was Svetka uncomfortable in the city, but she was not received very kindly at school. The townspeople tried to humiliate the village girl, and Svetka quickly found an additional reason for her classmates’ cruel jokes.

She tried to ignore them and cried into her pillow at night. Her parents were busy with work and a little brother, who had recently been born into the family. From Svetochka they expected help with the baby and good grades at school.

About their daughter’s problems they did not even guess at first. And then Svetochka couldn’t stand it and beat up her abusers. They fought her hard, trying to hit her in the face.

In the end, when the principal urgently called all the parents to the school, it turned out that the other brawlers only had some torn clothes and a couple of scratches. And Svetka’s face was smashed all over. Her lip was terribly swollen and bleeding, pouring scarlet blood all over her school uniform.

Classmates proved that Svetka was the first to attack them, to which her father reasonably asked: “Did she attack four boys at once? And if she attacked you all at once, why was she beaten up and not you?” The scandal was hushed up. Svetka was demanded to apologize to the boys, but she flatly refused.

She said that she would not go to school anymore. Her parents defended their daughter, but did not know how to help her. She never went to school again.

When the bruises came off and her face healed, her father took her to another school, which was much farther away from home. Svetka was transferred right in the middle of the school year, and she was luckier here. Either the children in the class were kinder, or Svetka felt more confident, but no one openly teased her or confronted her.

She became more eager to learn. She even made a couple of friends who liked her for helping her with her homework and giving her hints in class. Only the other girls were already starting to fall in love with boys…..