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p class="MsoTitle"span style="text-decoration: underline;"span style="font-size: 28pt;"Beth Please Stay!/span/span/p
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p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.3in;""Beth, do you really have to leave? You're my only friend at school," I whined to Beth while she was putting her bags in the truck./p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.3in;""I'm really sorry. I really don't want to move. I want to stay in New York with you. Not Arkansas, not a new school.''/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.3in;""Can you come over on New Year's so we can count down for the new year?" I asked./p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.3in;""I don't know. I really want to, but my mom might get friends and – you know what I mean, right?" Beth a target="1"cut off her words and didn't look at me as she continued to load her bags./aspan class="MsoCommentReference"span style="font-size: 8pt;"a id="_anchor_1" class="msocomanchor" href=" access. .us/iwc_ #_msocom_1" name="_msoanchor_1"[KR1]/a/span/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.3in;""Yeah, I know what you're trying to say. I wish you could stay. Why Arkansas? It's so big and there are a lot of people," I begged Beth./p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.3in;"She started to cry. "We have to stay in touch."/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.3in;""I promise," I said./p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.3in;"Beth's mom came out of the house and asked her if she was ready to go. My mom went to say bye to Beth's mom./p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.3in;"Beth shouted, "I hate Arkansas already! There are a lot of rich people acting like they're so cool when they're not!"/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.3in;""Beth!" shouted her mom. "Don't say that. I got a job; we're not moving for fun. I don't want to move either, but I got a job." She turned to talk to my mom, asking her how she liked being a school teacher and ignoring the rude comments that Beth keep on saying about Arkansas./p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.3in;""Arkansas," Beth mumbled to herself./p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.3in;""I'm going to really miss you, Eve. Let's stay in touch." Beth's mom told my mom./p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.3in;""Same thing we said," I mumbled./p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.3in;""Of course we will," my mom said./p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.3in;"I turned back to Beth. "Do you think Nicky will change and stop hanging out with Emily?"/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.3in;""I don't know. Maybe she just wants to be mean," Beth said, looking at the ground a target="1"and avoiding my eyes/aspan class="MsoCommentReference"span style="font-size: 8pt;"a id="_anchor_2" class="msocomanchor" href=" access. .us/iwc_ #_msocom_2" name="_msoanchor_2"[KR2]/a/span/span./p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.3in;"Beth's mom broke into our conversation. "Beth, we have to go now. Goodbye, Eve." Beth's mom repeated the word bye several more times./p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.3in;""Bye-bye, Beth. I'm going to miss you." My words caught in my throat./p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.3in;""You too. Arkansas sucks like my mom's new job!" Beth yelled, loud enough for other people to hear./p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.3in;""Beth!" her mom yelled. "You're going to keep on saying that, aren't you?"/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.3in;""Yes!" Beth said proudly./p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.3in;""We really have to go," Beth's mom said, staring pointedly at Beth and pushing into the van./p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.3in;"As we watched them leave, my mom said, "Let's go back inside."/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.3in;"I sighed and watched their huge red van leave. I sighed louder. /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.3in;""Kelly, we get it," my mom said./p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.3in;"But I continued watching that van a target="1"leave as I felt my heart sinking further down into my chest./aspan class="MsoCommentReference"span style="font-size: 8pt;"a id="_anchor_3" class="msocomanchor" href=" access. .us/iwc_ #_msocom_3" name="_msoanchor_3"[KR3]/a/span/span I just knew Nicky would say something mean when I got to the room. Why wouldn't she?/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.3in;"She drove me crazy. And it's not just at home that she acted that way. She used curse words and even got into a fight at school. Some people were scared of her. She's a really nasty person to everyone, and she didn't care. She even cussed at the teacher, saying, "I don't give a shit."/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.3in;"But my mom didn't seem to notice what she was doing all the time. Sometimes I blame mom for Nicky being like this. a target="1"She had given Nicky up for adoption at birth, and the person who adopted her must have been really bad/aspan class="MsoCommentReference"span style="font-size: 8pt;"a id="_anchor_4" class="msocomanchor" href=" access. .us/iwc_ #_msocom_4" name="_msoanchor_4"[KR4]/a/span/span. Even Nicky said so./p
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