JENNY

She was just Jenny, but she was loved. She was--beloved. Jenny hugged herself and looked up at the starry sky. She was beloved, and she had people to love. She was happy... Tonight she was full of love--almost choking with it. She had a million things to do, a million things to learn and a million people to love. But first--but first she would go to bed."" This Whitman-esque rapture comes strangely out of the head of a small girl in a small story of household/neighborhood incidents which include a new baby brother, an eccentric family of boys moving in next door and the acquisition of a dog for Jenny. Jenny is much too self-conscious to believe in and moves through what seems to be an even rhythm of protected middle-class existence to the crescendo of happiness and love quoted above. It's instructional, inspirational and soporifically bland.