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The lawn of Boston Common, the low sloping part from the merry-go-round and the frog pond to the road that cut between the Common and the Public Garden, was a crowd. Of all sorts of people, old and young, black and Asian and white and brown, skinny and fat and short and tall, and they were all in costume, and because they were all in costume, it was like looking straight into their hearts at what they loved or who they wanted to be. There were Poes and ghosts and cats and ravens and Spider-Men and mermaids and fairies and grim reapers and Leatherfaces and a freaky good Jason Voorhees—he was huge, scary huge; when he passed Dorry, she was eye to belly button—a bat, an Uno card, Dracula vampires, Twilight vampires, their faces brushed with glitter, some Red Sox, some Bruins, a Celtic who could have been Kevin Garnett, but she couldn’t get close enough to tell for sure. Someone was dressed as Mayor Menino. Someone was dressed as Kermit the Frog. Someone, a guy, Dorry thought—he had big shoulders and an Adam’s apple—was dressed as Cher, which Dorry got only after Cher came up to Ned and said, “Prince!” and Ned said, “Cher!” and they hugged, because even though they were strangers, they knew each other.
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