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Show 140 TWENTY-FOUR "Parker, I've been waiting for you," Mrs. Simpson said when he arrived after school to clean her room. She was sitting at her desk, feet resting on an open drawer, grading papers. Swiveling around, she slid a can of pop across the desk top in his direction. "Please-" she said, "sit down." Parker wasn't surprised. He'd known all day she'd be waiting to talk to him. He pulled up a chair. Straddling it, he reached out for the Pepsi. "Do you know anything about Dyna?" she asked. "She isn't going teo California to live with her dad." "I found that hard to believe myself." Mrs. Simpson studied Parker's face for a dozen seconds. "Dyna needs help, doesn't she?" He nodded. "According to her counselor, she was picked up by the police over the weekend, so that much I know. Did Dyna tell you why?" "Yeah . . . she did." "Is it something . . . I mean . . . can you tell me?" Of course he could tell herl For once, he was dying to talk to someone, and she was one of the best listeners he knew. "So Dyna hasn't been in trouble this school year, after that first day?" Simpson asked when he finished. He shook his head. Simpson sighed. "So here we are, all of us going merrily on our way . . . while she struggles alone to straighten out her life. This makes me feel terrible." "Dyna figures she'll miss graduation," he said, "and I guess that's the worst part for her. She cried, trying to talk about it." Mrs. Simpson stared bleakly at the pile of literary magazines stacked on her desk. She lifted the top one, flipped through it to page 23. "Pomp and Circumstance," she read aloud, "An Essay by Dyna Suggs." She tossed it aside. "It was as if she knew, writing that comic satire about graduation--" That wasn't so funny when you got to the end of it. "Poor Dyna! This really breaks my heart." Mrs. Simpson picked up a pen, turned it over in her hands. "There are so many rotten kids walking |