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to pay the clerk before she pumped the gas. The clerk looked surprised at the change on the counter. “Honey, dis won’t even buy you a gallon of gasoline. What are you trying to do, wean dat old van of yours?” Celese blushed, and told her the story. The clerk smiled. “Well, den, when you get paid tomorrow, you come on back and give dat van a real good drink before it up and dies of dehydration.” Celese embarrassedly pumped the $2.47 worth of gas. She only had the nozzle connected to her van for a short time, and other customers stared. At least, she imagined they did. But, finally, she was on her way. She looked at her watch and realized that school had started over an hour earlier. She didn’t have anything to write a note with, so she told Violatte to just tell the teacher that they had problems. “Tell her I will explain it all tomorrow when I come to help, and maybe she won’t mark you tardy today.” As often happens when a day starts out wrong, the rest of the day was chaotic as well. But, eventually, they had picked Violatte up from school, and were all 27