Free Crystal by Walter Dean Myers

curly hair and dimples, then he’s okay.”
    “I think my heart just stopped,” Pat said.
    “I enjoy that kind of thing, but I don’t let it get to me,” Crystal said. “Not really.”
    “I’d let it get to me,” Pat said. “I showed Donald your picture in the paper and you know what he said?”
    “What?”
    “He said it wasn’t no big thing, because his picture was in the paper once. I asked him what his picture was in the paper for, and he come telling me about how he saved some kid from being bit by a dog, and it turned out the dog belonged to the guy that owned the newspaper.”
    “I don’t see why you even talk to him,” Crystal said.
    “He’s okay,” Pat said. “He’s so cute, and he knocks me out with his corny little love poems.”
    “Love poems?”
    “Uh-huh. The other day he come up with something about ‘Violets are blue, daisies are yellow/My love’s in bloom, since I been your fellow.’”
    “And you like that childish stuff?”
    “Love it to death, child,” Pat said. “Here he come now with Charlie Harris from the tennis team.”
    The two boys, Donald and Charlie, brought their trays and sat down with Crystal and Pat.
    “Yo, I got a new poem for you.” Donald had a wide, toothy smile.
    “Crystal doesn’t want to hear your poems,” Pat said.
    “She don’t have to listen,” Donald said. “But the world needs this poem.”
    “I heard it,” Charlie said. “It’s pretty good.”
    “‘My Love for You Is Like a Fire Hydrant, by Donald Evans.’” Donald was reading from a piece of theme paper.
    “‘My love for you is like a fire hydrant, gushing out to save you from the fire of time/It is steady, despite the dogs of war/And will last, now and forevermore.’”
    “That’s nice,” Pat said, glancing at Crystal, who looked up at the ceiling.
    “‘My love for you is like a fire hydrant,’” Donald wenton. “‘Waiting on the sidewalk of your life/Marking off the No-Parking Zone of my feelings.’ The end.”
     
     
    “He wrote a poem about a fire hydrant?” Rowena was doing stretching exercises in front of the mirror.
    “They’re so silly it’s unbelievable,” Crystal said. She was waiting for Jerry to finish mounting a photo montage of her that they were going to take to Marc Everby’s office.
    “I had this boyfriend once that was just so together,” Rowena said. “I think I must have loved him more than anyone or anything else in the world.”
    “You broke up with him?”
    “Yeah, sort of.” Rowena sat up and rested her head on her knee. “Actually, I think he broke up with me. I used to get these real deep depressions. You know, like everything is just awful and you hate yourself. I don’t suppose you ever get that way, but I do.”
    “I think I know what you mean,” Crystal said. “You’re talking and no one seems to understand what you’re talking about.”
    “Yeah, that’s it,” Rowena said.
    “Your boyfriend didn’t like that?”
    “Steve—his name’s Steve, and he’s this really big lawyer,” Rowena went on. “When I got really down, he didn’t have the time to deal with me. You know what I mean? At first I was hurt and everything, but then I figured that it takes a lot of time to deal with a person when they’re depressed. He said he didn’t have time.”
    “I think that’s lousy, Rowena,” Crystal said.
    “No, because most people don’t have a lot of time. Most people have to hustle around to make it and everything andthey really can’t help you. If you want to be loved and everything, you got to be happy. You can’t come on to people sad and depressed all the time. They can’t handle it.”
    “Hey.” Crystal put her arm around Rowena’s shoulders.
    “Don’t touch me, I’m all sweaty,” Rowena said. “You have to be perfect for Everby.”
    “I’m trying not to be nervous,” Crystal said.
    “No, it’s okay, you can be nervous,” Rowena said. “Men like that. It makes them feel good if you’re a