Jedd's youngest daughter Sunny, in contrast to her mother, was no belle. She had no interest in feminism and was oblivious to politics. Entirely obsessed with horses, she soon became known throughout the county for her ability to ride and care for them, easily finding after school or summer work in area stables. A natural gymnast despite her size, Sunny leapt through life from limb to limb, rarely looking at her destination, always certain of her footing, but not as adept at hanging on once she landed and took a look around. Easily bored by anything but equestrian interests, she was a technically perfect but uninspired student, well liked by her masculine peers.
At an age where most girls had cooties, the eight-year-old Sunny easily joined the ranks of the boys in her class as a buddy, running half wild through the town in a rowdy pack she subtly led, letting the boys both take credit for achievements, and punishment for misbehavior. She excelled in math and science to the consternation of her teachers who believed these were not provinces natural to a girl. She was hated by the girls, having an "in" with the boys that they could not touch and did not understand, and suffered cruel taunts from the upcoming young ladies which appeared to roll off her back, but instead fell in a corner of her heart for her to prove wrong when she was older.
One girl was brave enough to be her friend, and the two spent lazy days fishing or romping the woods, her friend being afraid of horses and Sunny sensitive enough not to press the issue. On a buzzing summer day the two girls stripped to skinny-dip, and Sunny found herself fascinated with the budding curves on her little friend's body, watching the girl's honey hair shine in the sun. She lost herself in the vision and was abruptly brought back to reality when her friend, uncomfortable with the scrutiny, asked her why she was staring.
A child who always had the answer, Sunny was helplessly speechless, and her friend snatched up her clothes, scrambled into them and ran off, yelling "weirdo" and "stay away from me" over her shoulder. That was the last time the two played together, and Sunny threw herself into excursions with the boys, often finding herself distracted by the memory of that bathing beauty and feeling a pain in her heart she couldn't explain. A child herself, her heart seemed to race ahead of her age, and she anguished over being lonely when the other girls her age were still playing with dolls or baby sisters.
This threw Sunny into an exploration of the facts of life, sneaking peeks at the transparencies in the encyclopedia that revealed the minute details of the human body, comparing the "Man" figure with the "Woman" figure, intensely curious as to the differences. She lovingly traced the soft curves of the woman, wishing she too had those curves while chewing on a tootsie roll. The man figure puzzled her, for she couldn't understand how the boys could walk with that thing between their legs, and promised herself to ask them next time she had a chance. A few days later a laughing friend gleefully flashed her when she innocently asked about the dilemma of male form, and a shocked and repulsed Sunny ran blushing home in the shimmering summer heat, while her pal simply shook his head and decided she was unfortunately becoming a girl now and wouldn't be as much fun as she had been.
In hopes of researching more, Sunny stealthily slid her father's Playboy magazines from under his boxers, releasing a whiff of bleach and detergent, where he thought he had them hidden, not realizing that the girls did the laundry and would discover them in the natural course of housework. She scampered back to her room to further study the issue of the difference of gender, carefully turning the glossy pages trying to avoid leaving fingerprints on them, noting with amusement, though largely clueless as to the meaning of the content, her father's underlining in an article about oral sex. She unconsciously spent more time admiring the scantily clad female models than the occasional partially revealed male, disappointed the magazine did not show a man from the front, since that was the great mystery she didn't understand.
Jedd and Victory were unaware of their daughter's interest in sexuality, and if they had been, would have done nothing about it. Jedd became befuddled just discussing it with his wife, preferring just to show her the articles he'd highlighted in his magazines, let alone discuss it with his daughters. Victory was completely incapable of discussing the topic, having it drilled into her head when she was young that it was an improper topic for a lady.
For Dinah they had relied on the infamous school movie about puberty to answer all of her questions, which left the girl more in the dark than enlightened, as it was couched in so many euphemisms it made no sense to the literal Dinah. When Dinah raised her hand in the movie and asked, "but what is this 'flow,' what color is it?" and received a vague, "you'll know dear," from the gym teacher and derisive laughter from her more advanced friends, she ran out the door and straight home to hide in her room, mortified and completely confused. She told her mother she'd been sent home sick, but Victory knew the school would have called her and hauled the trembling Dinah back to school to apologize to the teacher, never finding out the reason for Dinah's escape. The rest of the year Dinah waited in fear for this curse the bible condemned to appear, wearing an extra pair of summer pants under her dresses and tight tee shirts to hide her blooming chest, hoping that would delay things further, not knowing she would wait another two years before her body's change would make its presence known.
Not being old enough for the movie yet, and maturing much faster than her peers, Sunny was entirely on her own in this pursuit of knowledge, and went about it in her usual methodical way, reading all she could find, though she had to sneak a marriage manual out of the library from the "adult" section, leaving her feeling both guilty and delighted with her conquest. After several hours of absorbing a wife's role and a husband's role and poring over vague engravings of positions, a second trip to the book stacks allowed her to slip the book into the return between two chapter books, and she released a sigh of relief she had not been caught.
On the other side of the glass, the librarian collected the books, looking up in time to see the child dashing off on her bike, and just shook her head, this being the fourth time this month that book had mysteriously disappeared only to reappear in the hands of a kid. She never told the parents, figuring if the kid was driven to that extreme, it was time for the child to have the knowledge. Besides, the book was forty years out of date, and essentially harmless despite its tempting title, "Manual of Marriage and Intimacy for Newlyweds."