Taking Back the Day

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 Part Four

     Later, when Jon and Emma Tilssen were settled in front of the television, Stacy walked with Dane back to the tenant house on the pretext of borrowing some sheet music.  "Is it just my imagination, or are Mom and Dad kind of out of touch with reality?" she asked him.
     "They've been lucky," her brother said.  As they walked out of the lighted yard he switched on his flashlight to illuminate the pasture path.  "Dad's had a pretty peaceful life and Mom, nobody has ever tried to hurt Mom.  You know, the world shows a different face to each one of us.  Mom and Dad have seen a more civilized world than you've  known, and one about a thousand miles nicer than what I've seen.  They're acting rationally according to what they know."
     Although one wouldn't have thought a composer would lead a rough-and-tumble sort of life, Stacy knew that Dane had been as unlucky as their parents had been lucky.  He had traveled widely and trouble seemed to seek him out, as though trouble knew that in her brother, it had found a worthy opponent.  She said, "I want you to teach me to fight."
     "No problem.  I'll give you rides home from school, too."
     That was very tempting, but Stacy shook her head.  "No, you know those ‘Take Back the Night' things that women's liberation groups used do in big cities?  We read about it in Social Studies.  Well, I'm not giving up the day."

     Three weeks later, Stacy left school with trouble on her mind.  She felt out of sorts all the time these days.  She was up half the night imagining how big and powerful she was going to be, somehow or other, and how she was going to put those boys in their place.  Then her imagination would turn against her and show her what they might do to her.  Her stomach was upset a lot of the time.  She kept checking behind her when she walked home from school.  Things had actually been getting better, though, until today.  Roger and his friends had been laying low.  The big sandy-haired one hadn't been around school and maybe the other three weren't so brave without him.  She'd started to think that maybe she had gotten lucky like her father.  But today the big sandy-haired one had come back to school and the "Lunch Club" was collecting dues again.  At least she now knew a few self-defense moves, though she was getting the idea that actually becoming proficient in kung fu would take a long, long time.  Dane said she had a good strong kick though.  It was those big butt muscles.  She smiled at the thought.
     There was a convenience store on the corner where the county road crossed the highway.  She stopped there and bought two cold cans of Dr. Pepper, opening one right away and slipping the other into her book bag for the long, sunny walk up the county road.
     "Do you always walk home from school?"
     Stacy looked up in surprise as she walked across the parking lot.  It was Nick Petersen, one of Roger's crowd, the boy she knew from Sunday School.  "None of your business," she said grimly.
     He held up his hands in an "I surrender" gesture.  "Hey, I'm not looking for any trouble.  Just being friendly."
     She hesitated.  Maybe her father was right.  "Why?"
     "I don't know."  He shrugged and smiled.  "It's a nice day.  I've got nothing to do.  I'm going to walk you home."
     "No you're not," she said.  Nick was sort of cute if you liked boys with pony tails, but even if he actually liked her, she couldn't feel interested in somebody who went around intimidating boys that were almost a foot shorter than he was.  "Go away."
     "I don't mean any harm," he said, falling into step next to her on the sidewalk.
     "I don't like you."
     "You might change your mind once you get to know me."
     "I don't think so."

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