conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Give me a description for a story titled Fast Sam, Cool Clyde, and Stuff about Alternately, [and], School with the genre: Teen & Young Adult, Literature & Fiction.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Alternately funny [and] sad, but always very natural and appealing. (School Library Journal)
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Give me the first paragraph for this story.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Fast Sam, Cool Clyde, and Stuff
  But, like I said, I was really shocked to find out that Gloria was married. I tried to imagine her married and I just couldn't. You know, you picture somebody in your mind and try to imagine them doing something different. It's hard. Like a guy who couldn't play any ball at all, all of a sudden becoming a professional ballplayer and signing up for a hundred thousand dollars or something. Not that Gloria wasn't okay or anything—it was just that when I thought of her I always thought of her just hanging out on the block and being fourteen. I said to myself, now how could she be married? Dig? Then I started thinking and I realized that Gloria was fourteen when I first knew her and that was a little over five years ago so she must be going on twenty now. And when I started thinking about Gloria I started thinking about the rest of the people—I'm going to call them kids—that I grew up with. I mean, they were a good bunch of people. Sometimes I think back on them and realize that I haven't come across a whole group of people like that since.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Give me two more paragraphs.. End with the sentence ' I was going to ask her to be my girl friend, but I was afraid she might say no and tell everybody so I didn't ask her.'.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: But I didn't mind. I had found out that there was a lot of things that I didn't understand. And even though it was better if I knew what was going on all the time and understood everything, I found out that if I didn't know everything it was okay, too. I really felt close to Kitty, and I asked her, after a while, how she felt about it. I told her that I liked her, too. I wanted to tell her that I liked her a whole lot but I got ashamed. She told me that she was real mad at her mother for going out with that guy even though she didn't feel that her mother was doing wrong or anything like that. I asked her why and she didn't know. I kind of think it was because she felt her father might not be her father any more if her mother was going out with somebody else. Everybody seemed to feel one way but couldn't go along with the way they felt because it didn't seem right. Nobody felt that Clyde's mother should go out with another man, but they knew it was really okay.
  Anyway, I was falling in love with Kitty all over again. She told me that she liked me a lot, too. I was going to ask her to be my girl friend, but I was afraid she might say no and tell everybody so I didn't ask her.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Give me the last four paragraphs.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: He went on into the living room and turned on the television without saying anything else. Later my mother came into my room and said thanks. I asked her for what and she said for whatever it was I said to my father. She can be cool when she wants to, too.
  Another thing that happened that same summer was that they tore down some buildings in the next block and made new projects. This didn't seem like much but it was really an important thing. The neighborhood started to change. When all the new people moved in we ended up going to school about a half mile away. We had to take a bus to get there. And slowly the things that made the neighborhood changed and it wasn't the same. I think it had something to do with the new buildings and the fact that new people replaced Clyde and Sam and them in my life. Oh, I still see Clyde when he comes in from school. He dropped out a year and then went back because of money troubles. Sam I see in the summer and sometimes at track meets. He plays baseball in school and runs track. He thinks he's going to play with the major leagues someday. I haven't seen Gloria but, as I told you, I found out that she got married.
  The one thing I won't forget is how close we all were. How much we cared for each other. I just hope I'll always have people to care for like that and be close to. And I'd like to be able to teach somebody else that feeling.
  Do you know what I wonder? I wonder if sometimes any of the Good People sit around, wherever they are, and say, "Hey, remember old Stuff?" I bet they do.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Delete the last sentence.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: He went on into the living room and turned on the television without saying anything else. Later my mother came into my room and said thanks. I asked her for what and she said for whatever it was I said to my father. She can be cool when she wants to, too.
  Another thing that happened that same summer was that they tore down some buildings in the next block and made new projects. This didn't seem like much but it was really an important thing. The neighborhood started to change. When all the new people moved in we ended up going to school about a half mile away. We had to take a bus to get there. And slowly the things that made the neighborhood changed and it wasn't the same. I think it had something to do with the new buildings and the fact that new people replaced Clyde and Sam and them in my life. Oh, I still see Clyde when he comes in from school. He dropped out a year and then went back because of money troubles. Sam I see in the summer and sometimes at track meets. He plays baseball in school and runs track. He thinks he's going to play with the major leagues someday. I haven't seen Gloria but, as I told you, I found out that she got married.
  The one thing I won't forget is how close we all were. How much we cared for each other. I just hope I'll always have people to care for like that and be close to. And I'd like to be able to teach somebody else that feeling.