Michael Malone - Weebly

Dixwell High School. The beginning of time when
anything, everything could happen. She pulled on the
jeans and T-shirt that she had thrown last night over her
wicker chair. Perhaps she would ride her bike alone up
to the marshlands.
Perhaps she would walk along the Rampage,
though not up as far as Sidney Blossom's little house on
the old train depot. The thought of Mr. Blossom was
still embarrassing. Perhaps Miss Dingley, who had
asked to see her today, would be like Miss Haversham
in Great Expectations and tell her a horrible tale of
blighted love.
Polly was slicing bananas onto a bacon and
mayonnaise sandwich when her father stumbled
downstairs into the kitchen. Clumsy and snappish with
sleep, Cecil Hedgerow squeezed his tie tighter around
his neck as if he were trying to hang himself. He looked
healthier than he felt. Because his weekdays were spent
selling houses in the sun, and his weekends spent
chasing the smallmouth bass, Hedgerow's face, neck,
hands, and arms to the edge of his short-sleeved shirt
were a leathery brown; the rest of his body was gray-