Miss Clark's A Good Ideas

“Mom stood fifteen feet away. She had tied rags around her shoulders to keep out the spring chill and was picking through the trash while her dog, a black-and-white terrier mix, played at her feet. Mom’s gestures were all familiar --- the ways she tilted her head and thrust out her lower lip when studying items of potential value that she’d hoisted out of the dumpster.”

When her husband came home she helped him take off his coat and talked to him about going

In trying to find out who murdered Wellington, Christopher uncovers a box containing letters from his mother addressed to him. Prior to this incident, Christopher’s father, Mr. Boone, told him that his mother passed away due to a heart attack while in the hospital. In addition, Christopher was unable to visit her. The date of the supposed death did not match up with the recent inscription on the letters, indicating his father lying about her death. Mr. Boone soon finds out about Christopher’s discovery, struggling to explain the situation: “I did it for your good, Christopher. Honestly, I did. I never meant to lie...I just thought

Jerry seems to be a typical freshman, in a period of experimentation—trying out for the team, dreaming about girls, reading “girlie magazines,” but he also appears to be a dazed and confused one. He is “stunned by his mother’s recent death and by the way his father sleepwalks through life.”

5. The narrator’s conversation with Miss Clark at the end of the story reveals that Jerry did not really have a mother and that

Chapter 1 • Jerry Renault gets tackled multiple times on the football field, but he keeps getting back up to play • For a moment Jerry doubts his ability to be on the football team but the coach tells him to come back the next day • As Jerry goes to the locker room and feels his pain, he remembered his mother and the of her life •Jerry makes it back to school to get cleaned up but he vomits instead Chapter 2 •Obie and Archie argue about an assignment that list ten people •Archie is unable to be defeated in an arguements due to his "fast comebacks" •Archie is the leader of the vigils •Archie writes down Jerry's name to work for the chocolates Chapter 3 •Jerry feels nervous seeing/ reading a playboy magazine.

After he came out of the alley, Mrs. Harland went to reach for his hand. He was quick and denied her by shoving it into the pocket of his grey slacks. Nearly sixteen-years of age, he was much too old to be holding his mother’s hand. Was that her way of punishing him, or something?

Jerry drove a small truck, which had the bed covered with a camper shell, so Jerry and Kate could leave the instant Officer Ruthless told them to leave. On the other hand, Susie informed the officer that she wished to

....’ you listen to me,’ he said, his voice deadly calm. ‘The truth is, your sorry mother ran off and left you. The day she died, she’d come back to get her things, that’s all. You can hate me all you want, but she’s the one who left you.’” (39)

He had thought his self in a bad mood, he decided to go lay down. He kissed both ladies good night before retreating down the hall. Jackie saw the sad look on her son's face "What’s on your mind True?" he looked at his mother and said "Nothing." She knew that something was wrong with him, but she left it alone. When he was ready, he would talk.

Julian was a college graduate who wants to be a writer after college. He is taking his mother to her appointment at the YMCA. Julian's mother reminisced about how “Your great-grandfather had a plantation and two hundred slaves.” (O’Connor 2) Julian's mother dislikes blacks however she loves black children, whenever she sees a child she would hand them a nickel for whatever they want to do with it. The bus stops and a black woman and her young son step on. They ride for a bit but at the end of the stop Julian's mom has no nickel so she offers the boy a penny, in which the boys mom claimed

Mrs. Meekway interrupted Mrs. Selfwill’s insensitive rambling. “Mrs. Selfwill, I don’t know what you saw, but my son was NOT speeding. He had a brake light out and the officer advised him to have it fixed. He just got a warning. Now does that answer your question?”

In a small desert town where nothing is as it seems, an old woman lives with angels (though, of course, we all know angels do not legally exist…shhh). A well-meaning community radio host helps citizens accept that nothing will ever make any sense as they hurtle toward the inevitable expiration date waiting for us all, well except perhaps for eternally-19-year-old Jackie Fierro, you know, she runs the pawnshop, whose doors she inexplicably detaches and buries come closing time.

Susie’s mother opened the door to let Molly, Susie’s babysitter, inside. Ten-month old Susie seemed happy to see Molly. Susie then observed her mother put her jacket on and Susie’s face turned from smiling to sad as she realized that her mother was going out. Molly had sat for Susie many times in the past month, and Susie had never reacted like this before. When Susie’s mother returned home, the sitter told her that Susie had cried until she knew that her mother had left and then they had a nice time playing with toys until she heard her mother’s key in the door. Then Susie began crying once again.

As he neared the donut shop he noticed just the slightest bit of movement on the far corner of the seemingly dead store, then he saw them, Kevin, Rose and Amanda and he knew exactly how all of them would get out of this junkyard. He immediately called to them to come over. They were hesitant to but they did slowly make their way to him. As they introduced themselves he told them about how he wanted to leave. Kevin was a very tall masculine