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Show 112 NINETEEN The next morning Parker found himself pulling out of the school parking lot just as other students began to arrive. Like a seventh-grader playing hooky for the first time, he fleetingly considered various disguises he could affect. His ski mask and goggles were under the dashboard- that would do it. However, there was no way his old blue Ford could pass for a school bus, so he wisely gave up the idea of camouflage and concentrated on the early morning traffic instead. He was going to skip school today, that's all there was to it. If Kelly would go along with him . . . and maybe even if he wouldn't. For two weeks Parker had waited for clear skies and higher temperatures. Today promised to be a honey. Besides, he didn't want to see Dyna this morning. It was enough to have fallen asleep with her on his mind and awakened with his own complicity on his conscience. He'd not only aided and abetted, he'd proposed and provided the means of her "escape." What would his dad say to that? Up before anyone else was awake, Parker left his mom a note about a meeting at school and slipped out with his climbing gear on the seat beside him. The note was half true, anyway. He had an early job to do and it was at school. First, though, he'd had to buy enough groceries to fill Dyna's dufflebag. He hoped she liked instant mashed potatoes and canned ham. He wasn't the greatest shopper, so he kept to the lightweight nonperishables he usually bought for backpacking. Surprisingly, all of it fit into the dufflebag, even the candy mints he was planning to eat himself if there wasn't room for them. Parker chuckled now, wishing he could see her face when she opened her locker. "What are friends for?" he'd scrawled on a sheet of notebook paper along with a smiling likeness of himself labeled "friend." Parker realized he was breaking rules all over the place. The head custodian's log on locker combinations was always available, but it wasn't for him to use. "See how easily one crime leads to another?" his conscience nagged as he rang Kelly's doorbell. All he knew for sure was that he had to climb today. |