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Show 100 planes on the airport approach, and wished he'd left home sooner. Parker entered the short term parking area and slowed, looking for a slot. Like a little kid, he found himself wondering what his folks brought him. A lei, no doubt, knowing his mom! Hey, that wouldn't be too bad. He'd take it to school tomorrow and give the flowers to the girls-orchids in exchange for breakfast. All right! Now, grinning, he hopes his mother did the predictable thing. Dyna's hands shook as she opened the army-issue dufflebag and set it on the eating bar in Parker's kitchen. She was glad he'd left a lamp on in the family room when he went off to his slide show: the soft light which eerily distorted the ceiling beams streamed into the kitchen as well. Even in the half-light, she was plenty nervous. In the dark she'd be petrified. Dyna stripped off her gloves and took a deep breath. Why was she so scared? Parker was out, his folks gone. For awhile she simply stood there, peering into the darkest corner of the kitchen, trying to calm herself. It had taken all her nerve to get on that city bus in the first place.- Now that she was here . . . now that she'd got in so slick and easy through Parker's ground floor window . . . she wasn't absolutely sure she could go through with it. She had coached herself the entire half mile from where the bus let her off. You're not a thief! she had said repeatedly. So what am I doing here then? You're borrowing. You're going to borrow some groceries. People do it all the time. If I steal, I'm a thief. You're not stealing. I told you! It just happens you can't ask this time. You can't say "please" or "could you spare" or any of that nice crap! "Oh God," she had ended up praying into the clear, star-filled sky, "what am I supposed to do?" She was hungry. She'd been hungry for five days, living mostly on apricot juice from the cellar and the bread Gram left on her hospital tray. Snitching crackers from the bin in the school, sitting with Jeff Glotz at lunch-for the cookie he sometimes offered her-she'd become a |