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Show 32 they write about juvenile crime-being an authority on the subject-but the class didn't go for that. "Nah," Tiedemann dismissed the entire area of crime and drugs. "It's overdone." Suddenly, Glotz leaped to his feet. "Athletics! How about athletes who are homosexuals? Now there's an idea!" "Sit down, Glotz!" Sanelli moaned, unimpressed. "No kidding, why not?" When Amy Debbenham brought up child abuse, everyone pounced on the idea and that became the favored topic. At one point Mrs. Simpson cut into their horror stories to remind them that neglect was also a form of abuse. "You don't have to beat a kid to ruin his life," she said. "Try ignoring a child and see what happens. Neglect can be as bad as a cigarette burn in the long run." Dyna shivered under her wet towel, though the sun had grown warm on her back. Neglect was abuse? Since when? If that was the case, maybe she qualified. From the time she was three, her own parents had gone off fruit-picking to Oregon every summer, leaving her with Grandma Suggs, and she wasn't abused. Not so you could notice it* Later on, of course, they'd gone away for good* Her dad still wrote to her, once in awhile, and sometimes even sent a little money. His letters always had the same P.S. these days. "Stay in school, you hear?" He and Gram were a broken record when it came to school and graduation. The Big G was more important than baptism or confirmation or getting-out-the-vote. Gram harped on it every chance she got. A little neglect on that subject might be a good thing! Downstairs, Dyna had to wait for her turn in the bathroom. Too bad 1 had to lag behind Tiffany, she thought, as the smells of perfume and lotion seeped out from under the door. She didn't mind, really. She wanted to look around. She supposed this was the most elegant house she'd ever been in, on the basis of an invitation. Dyna stuck her head in the door of a room and knew immediately it was Parker's. All over one wall were posters of mountains and cliffs with climbers roped into hairy positions, sunshine glinting off their helmets. Everyone in the writing class knew how Parker got his kicks |
