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Show 157 Somehow, mercifully, the "almost" triggered the lecture she'd been waiting for, the advice on building one's character, "brick at a time cemented with self-reliance and responsibility." Beginning with the individual, his needs, his obligations, the lecture went on to cover the whole network of community interdependence. It ended, as she knew it would, with the supremacy of law and order. Only this time, with his expanded audience, the judge was lots more eloquent than before. Finally, the generalities expounded upon, he returned to her in particular. "Dyna, you've been held in the detention facility over a week now because your record and your past actions justify detention. At your informal hearing last Tuesday, it was decided, because of these illicit activities, that you constitute a danger to society, and as such, that your freedom is a threat to others. Do you fully understand what a serious judgment that is?" "Yes, Sir." "Are you going to be able to control these impulses to take what isn't yours?" "Yes, Sir, I am." "Why should I believe you this time when your promises meant nothing before?" Dyna felt the glistening in her eyes. This was a hearing, her hearing, but all she'd done so far was listen and answer questions. She had something to say, too. She needed to be heard! Suddenly outraged, Dyna sat straight up, her spine a rod of steel. "I want you to know, your Honor, and I want Mrs. Simpson and all my friends to know . . . I am not a thief! I was. But a person can change. I've changed. Gram knows it and . . . and . . . Parker knows it. I intend to pay back everything Frog ever gave me, all hundred and eighty-five dollars. And if I have to help with that $3,600. and some, I'll do that besides. I am no longer a danger to society. I'm not a danger to anyone!" Judge Kranes, too, pulled himself up to his full seated height. Their eyes held for the longest time, surpassing anything Lydia Greenaway had in mind. Finally, Dyna lowered hers and loosened her clenched fists. "I'm not a criminal, Sir," she repeated, retreating into respectful silence. |