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Show Why We Cry Butch and Fenn Stories 163 "I hate tests!" I've never really talked to girls before except to lend them an assignment or a pencil, and I'm finding that this is the hardest swinging in the park I've ever done. The three of us are just barely swinging, back and forth. Now I'm making a design in the smooth area I paved with my foot: when I see it's my initial I start all over again, consciously this time, on a star. Linda looks beautiful. She's wearing a white shirt with no sleeves. Her arms are brown and shiny. Her hair is clipped up by a couple of red keepers. I think to myself: I've kissed her, but I look at her and I don't believe it. At all. I reach Linda's tennis racket and sift the sand a little bit, finding two popsicle sticks and then the dime. When the sand dissolves, there is a bright silver dime left on the strings. "Look," I say, and she looks right in my face, starting my heart all over again. "It's for you." "How sweet," Carol says. "Yes, it is!" Linda says. She's defended me. As she picks the dime off the racket, I catch a movement behind us and turn to see Cling walking slowly our way. He's come up out of the darkness like the Creature from the Black Lagoon. He is exactly what I don't want to see. My heart which has just started, stops. I suddenly don't feel like bringing up the subject of my brother. I don't feel |