LITMIR.BIZ

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the street from me, I should speak like a native. Her father’s always standing in the doorway and calling things to her.”

      “Is Clara’s father Spanish?” Lynn was surprised. “I mean, I knew she had a Spanish name, but I thought it was from way back. I didn’t know her father actually spoke the language.”

      “He and Mrs. Marivella, too,” Anne replied. “Clara says they never speak anything but Spanish at home. Sometimes she’ll be chatting away with us girls and she’ll throw in a Spanish phrase without even knowing it. She’s so used to speaking it at home that she forgets where Spanish starts and English begins.”

      “How fascinating!” Lynn found, to her surprise, that she was really enjoying the conversation. “Why, think how simple Spanish class must be to her! She probably sits there and—”

      “Well, hi.” The voice came from close behind her. “Hi, there! Don’t tell me the Princess of the Hill deigns to sit here talking to my little sister!”

      Dirk Masters stepped around the side of the bench and stood grinning down at them.

      Anne glanced up with a flash of anger.

      “Dirk, behave yourself! If you can’t say something polite to my friends, I’d rather you didn’t speak to them at all.”

      Lynn’s eyes widened in surprise. It was amazing to hear this sweet-faced little girl speaking up without an instant’s hesitation to the tough, insolent Dirk Masters. She waited breathlessly for his answering burst of anger, but, to her further surprise, none came. Instead, he grinned at his sister with a kind of pride.

      “Simmer down, Sis. Regular spitfire, isn’t she?” He turned to Lynn. “I hear you’re not making your entrance into society. My sister here isn’t going to be a debutante either, you know, but not because she doesn’t want to. She wasn’t invited. Of course, you don’t know what it’s like not to be invited to something. When you turn something down, it’s because you don’t want it, not because it doesn’t want you.”

      His voice was hard, with a deep bitterness.

      Anne said, “Dirk, this is ridiculous. There is no reason for you to make a scene like this about nothing.”

      “You think you’re so great,” Dirk continued harshly. “You and your superior Hill crowd. My sister would make a classier debutante than any of you.”

      Lynn drew back, feeling her own anger rising to the surface. “You don’t have to make your rude, nasty remarks to me, Dirk Masters! If you want to talk about the debutante parties, go talk to Brenda Peterson. Her mother is running them, not mine. I don’t have a single thing to do with it.”

      “And if she did,” Anne put in quickly, “it wouldn’t be any of your business, Dirk. Why do you always have to be so rude to people?”

      Dirk retorted, “I’m not being rude. I’m just being friendly. I’ve never had a chance to talk to the Princess of the Hill before. It’s a shock to see her mixing it up at our level.” He turned back to Lynn, a mocking light in his eyes. “Well, Princess, since you won’t be going to the debutante party this Saturday, how about you and I painting the town together? Or do you think your Hill crowd would ever speak to you again?”

      He was laughing at her, baiting her, putting her in a position where she would have to be rude to him in reply.

      How bitter he is, Lynn thought.

      She raised her eyes and looked Dirk full in the face. It was a handsome face, in a lean, arrogant sort of way. Like Anne, he was thin, and his features were very much like hers, but there was something else too, a kind of hardness that was completely lacking in Anne. His eyes were dark and mocking, and his hair fell forward over his forehead in a careless, rakish way, as though he did not care enough to push it back.

      To Lynn’s surprise, she felt her heart begin to beat a little faster.

      He is handsome, she thought but so tough and insolent and cocky! How I’d love to take him down a peg or two . . . and I know how to do it.

      If she had thought, she would never have done it—not really. It was the kind of thing that was fun to think about and to laugh about with the girls, but never, never actually to do. It was with real surprise that Lynn heard her voice saying, coolly and easily, as though it were the least important thing in the world:

      “Why, thank you, Dirk, that would be very nice. I’d love to go out with you Saturday night.”

       4

      When she thought back upon it later, Lynn decided it was worth it, worth every minute of it, just to see the look of shock upon Dirk’s face. He had been standing there grinning at her, waiting to see her wriggle and squirm in an effort to be polite and still refuse his left-handed invitation. Her simple words of acceptance took him completely off guard and left him staring at her in bewilderment.

      “What?”

      “I said thank you, I’d love to go out with you Saturday. What time will you be by for me?”

      “Why, I—I—” Dirk’s smile was gone now. “I didn’t mean—that is, you—you don’t really want to go?”

      “Of course, I want to go.” Lynn said sweetly. She knew she should back out now; it was the perfect moment for it but she was too amused by Dirk’s discomfort to let the situation drop. “How about eight o’clock? Do you know where I live?”

      “Sure,” Dirk said, “I know where you live. But your folks. What will they say? They don’t even know me.”

      “They’ll meet you,” Lynn said, “Saturday night.”

      The bell rang, announcing the end of lunch hour and the beginning of afternoon classes. Lynn got to her feet for she knew she could not have continued the conversation a single moment longer without bursting into laughter and ruining the whole effect. Seeing Dirk embarrassed was so completely out of character!

      Now she gave him her brightest smile and joined the crowd moving into the building.

      It was funny. Terrifically funny then—and it would have been even more so if there had been someone to share it with, but she could think of no one to tell. Nancy, Joan, Holly—they would all be horrified. A date with Dirk Masters! Why, it was as far out of the question as dating Satan himself.

      And the more Lynn thought about it, the less amusing it began to seem to her. Yes, she had succeeded in disconcerting Dirk. The last thing in the world he had ever expected was that he would find himself dating Lynn. But a boy like Dirk would resent being put on a spot. If he had been bitter and resentful of her before, what would he be like now?

      The question was not a comforting one.

      I never should have gone on with it, Lynn thought. Why didn’t I slip out while I could? Now I’m committed, and there’s not much I can do about it.

      She had not meant to mention the date much beforehand at home, but she was forced to because of Dodie who, for the first time in her live, asked her if she wanted to go to the movies.

      “It’s a good show,” she said, “a Western. Good reviews and everything.”

      Lynn could not believe her ears.

      “You want to go to a Western? How come? You never liked them before. And if you do want to go, why aren’t you going with Janie?”

      Dodie shrugged. “I don’t mind a Western once in a while, and I thought you—well, I just thought maybe you’d like to go. It really doesn’t matter to me one way or the other.”

      Lynn thought, did Mother ask her to go to the movies with me Saturday, in order to give me something to do to keep me from thinking about the dinner dance? It was not like something her mother would do. And yet there did not seem to be any other answer. She and Dodie never went to the movies together.

      “Thanks,”

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