Michael Malone - Weebly

Special Future.
Now, on the steps of that house, a fat child sat with
a sucker. His white belly drooped over his shorts. Full
of pity for her father's boyhood, Polly waved at the
child, but he was lost in a sugar daze and only stared.
She hurried along, turning left toward Dingley Falls at
the Catholic Church, and realized that she was near
where Luke Packer lived, though she wasn't certain
which door led to his home.
How strange to think of him outside the corridors of
Dixwell High, outside her territory of downtown Dingley
Falls and here in his own, where she felt like a
trespasser. Funny, she had seen Luke nearly every day
of the three years since he'd come to town, but had
never thought of him as living anywhere in particular, or
with anyone.
How strange, too, to think of him as poor. Not just
"not rich," like her and her father, but poor. "Wasn't it
awful not to have any money?" she had once asked her
father, and he had answered, "For me it wasn't too bad
because I didn't have the responsibility. For your
grandmother? It was a war that never let up. You