increasingly violent, insecure modern world. The quiet residential area, whose inhabitants

traditionally left their doors unlocked and spent the summers attending one another's cookout, was

rocked by the news that 12-year-old Boyd Ellison had been raped and murdered, his body

behind the local mall. While shaken residents organized a neighborhood watch program and clued

detectives in on anyone's suspicious behavior, the inhabitants of at least one house were distracted

by a tragedy of their own: 10-year-old Marsha Eberhardt's father, Larry, had run off with his

sister-in-law, leaving his wife and three children to manage on their own. Marsha, stunned by her

father's abandonment and having broken her ankle, spends the summer witnessing her mother's

desperate attempts to cope, the neighborhood's paranoid response to the murder and even the

country's disorientation over the unfolding Watergate scandal. The tension proves too great when

the Eberhardts' shy bachelor neighbor, Mr. Green, takes interest in Marsha's mother. Though

murder is the most visible crime in Marsha's neig

Marsha didn't like the idea of her mother flirting with another man besides her father. Marsha's

about how everyone thinks he's weird and that she saw him hiding in the bushes near the Ellisons'

human pain and cruelty than in how to avoid them."(283) She is admitting to have fabricated a story

anyone ever gave me. Pain is always about to happen somewhere to someone I know and at times

mother would make a point of waving to Mr. Green if she happened to be in the yard just to be

been at the scene shortly before Boyd Ellison was murdered and coincidentally, Mr. Green drove a

so far as to keeping track of Mr. Green's daily routines. It could be that Marsha needed to get her

knows about Mr. Green. Marsha tells Lois that she thinks he is Boyd's killer. At this point in the

neighborly. They would also exchange gardening advice since Mr. Green kept his yard immaculate.

Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1464
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)