Universal Dependencies - English - GUM

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Stranger Things Happen -

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Water Off a Black Dog’s Back

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Rachel Rook took Carroll home to meet her parents two months after she first slept with him.

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For a generous girl, a girl who took off her clothes with abandon, she was remarkably close-mouthed about some things.

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In two months Carroll had learned that her parents lived on a farm several miles outside of town; that they sold strawberries in summer, and Christmas trees in the winter.

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He knew that they never left the farm; instead, the world came to them in the shape of weekend picnickers and driveby tourists.

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Do you think your parents will like me?' he said.

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He had spent the afternoon preparing for this visit as carefully as if he were preparing for an exam.

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He had gotten his hair cut, trimmed his nails, washed his neck and behind his ears.

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The outfit he had chosen, khaki pants and a blue button-down shirt -- no tie -- lay neatly folded on the bed.

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He stood before Rachel in his plain white underwear and white socks, gazing at her as if she were a mirror.

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'No,' she said.

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It was the first time she had been to his apartment, and she stood square in the center of his bedroom, her arms folded against her body as if she was afraid to sit down, to touch something.

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'Why?'

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'My father will like you,' she said.

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'But he likes everyone.

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My mother's more particular --

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she thinks that you lack a serious nature.'

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Carroll put on his pants, admiring the crease.

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'So you've talked to her about me.'

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'Yes.'

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'But you haven't talked about her to me.'

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'No.'

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'Are you ashamed of her?'

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Rachel snorted.

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Then she sighed in a way that seemed to suggest she was regretting her decision to take him home.

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'You're ashamed of me,' he guessed, and Rachel kissed him and smiled and didn't say anything.

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Rachel still lived on her parents' farm, which made it all the more remarkable that she had kept Carroll and her parents apart for so long.

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It suggested a talent for daily organization that filled Carroll's heart with admiration and lust.

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She was nineteen, two years younger than Carroll; she was a student at Jellicoh College and every weekday she rose at seven and biked four miles into town, and then back again on her bike, four miles uphill to the farm.

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Carroll met Rachel in the Jellicoh College library, where he had a part-time job.

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He sat at the checkout desk, stamping books and reading Tristram Shandy for a graduate class; he was almost asleep when someone said, 'Excuse me.'

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He looked up.

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The girl who stood before the tall desk was red-headed.

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Sunlight streaming in through a high window opposite her lit up the fine hairs on her arm, the embroidered flowers on the collar of her white shirt.

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The sunlight turned her hair to fire and Carroll found it difficult to look directly at her.

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'Can I help you?' he said.

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She placed a shredded rectangle on the desk, and Carroll picked it up between his thumb and forefinger.

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Pages hung in tatters from the sodden blue spine.

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Title, binding, and covers had been gnawed away.

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'I need to pay for a damaged book,' she said.

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'What happened? Did your dog eat it?' he said, making a joke.

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'Yes,' she said, and smiled.

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'What's your name?' Carroll said.

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Already, he thought he might be in love.