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Show 11 tens on the seat beside Dyna. "I'll let you know if it's more," he said. Dyna screwed up her face at his profile. "You know it'll be more than that!" "Look who's complaining? It's my racket and I'm bigger than you." She glared at him. "Not bigger, just older." And so gross, she wanted to add, but she'd been hit in the mouth before. Well, what did she expect? Her "partnership" with His Ugliness had been a gyp from the beginning. What was it about Frog-back there when they'd fed the ducks together-that reminded her of her father? His red hair? The way he talked? She'd long since forgotten. "Let me off here," Dyna said when they reached Liberty Park. Frog pulled to the curb. "Suits me," he said, then thru6t an additional five at her before she got out. She took it without thanks, still wishing a pox on his head. Dyna walked toward home slowly, hands in her pockets, her tote banging its illegal freight against her leg. Gram would still be napping, she hoped. At the corner of her street Dyna checked the line-up of old brick bungalows to make sure her grandmother wasn't out sprinkling the hollyhocks or visiting on the old mums' porch. She'd have to do some fictionalizing about day one at Bonneville High when Gram asked her, but she was good at that. Noiselessly, Dyna walked up the broken sidewalk of the third house, around to the back, past the garbage cans and a row of tomato plants. She helped herself to a ripe tomato, then sat on the cement steps, listening. It was as quiet here as it was on the Avenues. She could hear the hum of the refrigerator right through the kitchen wall. The only other sound was the snapping and clacking of grasshoppers in the weeds. Dyna sucked on the warm tomato, finally biting in and eating all of it but the stem. She licked the juice off her fingers, leaned back and closed her eyes. She'd actually looked forward to this day. She'd had some crazy idea that this year would be different. She'd stay in school, stay out of trouble, and she'd graduate. Another stupid irony, she supposed. But Gram would die if she didn't graduate! "Regular attendance at Bonneville High will be mandatory," the |