"I know you are not a thief"

Darren Nelson

When I was in the fourth grade my friend Neal and I went everywhere together. We rode bikes up Morningside Road. We climbed the cherry trees beside my house, and we picked cherries too—the ones we could reach before the birds got to them. On Saturdays we built forts and ships in the woods between our houses.

Neal had good ideas about things to do, usually. But one time he had an idea that wasn't very good. We had ridden bikes down the hill to Morton's corner store. That's where we bought everything—notebooks, ice-cream sodas, combs, and toothpaste. Mr. Morton was a friendly man; his daughter Barbara was even in our class at school.

Well, Neal and I were there looking through the comic books when he whispered to me, "I dare you to steal a candy bar."

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