Free At Risk of Being a Fool by Jeanette Cottrell Page A

lonely by himself at home, but if you guys don’t like him, I won’t do it again.”
    “No, bring him, bring him,” said Quinto. “I never had no dog.”
    “ Germany ?” said Rosalie, as if she’d heard the word on a game show, and couldn’t quite remember what it meant.
    “He looks deformed,” said Sorrel. “Like he got caught in a door and stretched out.”
    Jeanie nodded. “My sister took him through a revolving door once. His front end wound up in one section, and his tail two sections back. It took forever to get him out of the works.”
    Five faces showed identical looks of shock and even Dillon gave her a measuring look. Rosalie frowned. “Boy, that must have hurt him, poor baby.”
    “Actually,” Jeanie said, “my sister is known to exaggerate, on occasion.”
    Over the next hour, Corrigan trotted from one student to the other. Jeanie made her own rounds, soothed by the counterpoint of the dog’s travels. Rosalie, regrettably, was delighted to have yet another legitimate distraction.
    “Come on, Rosalie,” Jeanie said, removing Corrigan from the girl’s encircling arms. “Essay time. Pick a topic. Close your eyes and point.”
    With a rippling laugh, Rosalie stabbed her finger onto the sheet and read the words under her finger. “‘Should laws be enacted to prevent the sale of handguns in the United States ? Explain your reasoning.’” Rosalie blinked. “Gee, I don’t know. Who cares? Everybody’s got guns. My Dad, he’s got guns. He goes hunting every year, gets deer mostly. He got an elk one time. They got big horns.”
    Guns were not Jeanie’s favorite topic. “So your Dad has rifles, right? The long ones,” she added, seeing Rosalie’s bewilderment. “Handguns are the little ones, like you see on TV.”
    “For holding up liquor stores,” said Dillon unexpectedly.
    Jeanie forced herself to relax and shifted her chair to include Dillon in the conversation. He’d have to take the same test. All of them would, and the Lord only knew what topics they’d have. “Among other things,” she agreed. “Though homeowners buy them, to protect themselves. What do you think, Rosalie? Is it a good thing for people to buy handguns, if they want them?” Rosalie looked wary, perhaps from too many talks with police and parole officers. “The test graders don’t care what your opinion is. They just want you to explain your opinion.”
    Jeanie cast a glance at Corrigan, presently engaged in sniffing Dillon’s boots. As she watched, Corrigan leaned against Dillon’s leg briefly, and wandered off again. Dillon, he’d concluded, was not a wolf, regardless of Jeanie’s opinion.
    “What do you think, Dillon? Should ordinary citizens be able to buy handguns, as they do now?” At his sardonic look, she replayed the sentence from his viewpoint, and answered it . Should a regular guy be able to steal a gun if he wanted one? Damned straight.
    “Who needs guns?” he said. His fists clenched a time or two, pocked scars standing out livid white against the dark tan.
    Corrigan stretched across Brynna’s feet, and yawned. Perhaps he knew Dillon was no threat, but perhaps he was being as perverse as Shelley contended when she’d named him for the rebellious pilot, Wrong-Way Corrigan.
    “You’re doing that on purpose, to scare me,” she accused, pointing to Dillon’s flexing biceps.
    He grinned at her, white teeth flashing like summer lightning, and as quickly gone. For one instant, he looked like a normal kid, the kid he might have been, raised in different circumstances. Brynna moistened her lips. Sorrel angled herself a bit, displaying her ripe figure.
    Jeanie cleared her throat. “So, what do the rest of you think? It’s a topic you may well see when you take the Writing test. On handguns, Brynna.”
    After a moment, Brynna dragged her eyes from Dillon. “I don’t see what all the fuss is about. I know a guy, he’s got all kinds of guns. I don’t think he ever uses them, he just