Helmet Girl Quotes

Beckendorf walked up with his helmet under his arm. 'She likes you, man.' 'Sure,' I muttered. 'She likes me for target practice.' 'Nah, they always do that. A girl starts trying to kill you, you know she's into you. 'Makes a lot of sense.

I am Preachers little girl. And I'm gonna be just like him when I grow up. I'm gonna have a Fatboy but I want mine to be sparkly and I want a pink helmet with skulls on it. And instead of being the club President, I'm gonna be the club Queen cuz I'm gonna marry the biggest, scariest biker in the whole world and he's gonna let me do whatever I want because he's gonna love me like crazy.

What's the point of obsessing over cholesterol or bike helmets or even cigarettes when the biggest threats to our children are being released back into society every day? Yes, maybe 'some' of them have reformed, but what about the ones who haven't? Doesn't anyone realize that one 'touch', one 'time' will destroy a child's life ten times faster than a pack-a-day habit?

I'm named Bella," the girl told Gendry. "For the battle. I bet I could ring your bell, too. You want to?" "No," he said gruffly. "I bet you do." She ran a hand along his arm. "I don't cost nothing to friends of Thoros and the lighting lord." "No, I said." Gendry rose abruptly and stalked away from the table out into the night. Bella turn to Arya. "Don't he like girls?" Arya shrugged. "He's just stupid. He likes to polish helmets and beat on swords with hammers.

I will not have you girls compromise my artistic integrity. I am a fangirl,’ she shouted, through the thick plastic of her helmet, ‘and I’ll come wearing whatever I want!

in my experience men are curiously blind to aggression in women. They’re the warriors, with their helmets and armour, their swords and spears, and they don’t seem to see our battles—or they prefer not to. Perhaps if they realized we’re not the gentle creatures they take us for their own peace of mind would be disturbed?

I am Preacher’s little girl. And I’m gonna be just like him when I grow up. I’m gonna have a Fatboy, but I want mine to be sparkly, and I want a pink helmet with skulls on it. And instead of being the club President, I’m gonna be the club Queen ‘cause I’m gonna marry the biggest, scariest biker in the whole world, and he’s gonna let me do whatever I want because he’s gonna love me like crazy.

And Miriam also refused to be approached. She was afraid of being set at nought, as by her own brothers. The girl was romantic in her soul. Everywhere was a Walter Scott heroine being loved by men with helmets or with plumes in their caps. She herself was something of a princess turned into a swine-girl in her own imagination. And she was afraid lest this boy, who, nevertheless, looked something like a Walter Scott hero, who could paint and speak French, and knew what algebra meant, and who went by train to Nottingham every day, might consider her simply as the swine-girl, unable to perceive the princess beneath; so she held aloof.

She stands facing me to take off the helmet. When she does, she shakes her dark hair free. It looks like something a girl in a shampoo commercial might do. I have no doubt she doesn’t have a clue how sexy she is. But she is. Holy hell, is she ever!

I mean to do something grand. I don't know what, yet; but when I'm grown up I shall find out.Perhaps,it will be rowing out in boats, and saving peoples' lives,like that girl in the book. Or perhaps I shall go and nurse in the hospital, like Miss Nightingale. Or else I'll head a crusade and ride on a white horse, with armor and a helmet on my head, and carry a sacred flag. Or if I don't do that, I'll paint pictures,or sing, or scalp – sculp – what is it? you know – make figures in marble. Anyhow it shall be something.

Kirsti sighed as Annemarie went to the breadbox in the kitchen. “I wish I could have a cupcake,” she said. “A big yellow cupcake, with pink frosting.” Her mother laughed. “For a little girl, you have a long memory,” she told Kirsti. “There hasn’t been any butter, or sugar for cupcakes, for a long time. A year, at least.” “When will there be cupcakes again?” “When the war ends,” Mrs. Johansen said. She glanced through the window, down to the street corner where the soldiers stood, their faces impassive beneath the metal helmets. “When the soldiers leave.

There are other colors, pink for instance: pink is supposed to weaken your enemies, make them go soft on you, which must be why it’s used for baby girls. It’s a wonder the military hasn’t got onto this. Pale-pink helmets, with rosettes, a whole battalion, onto the beachhead, over the top in pink. Now is the time for me to make the switch, I could use a little pink right now.

Bye, dad,” Noah says before running off to the truck. The look on Liam’s face must match mine. “Don’t worry, Jojo,” he whispers to me. He places a kiss on my cheek before walking way. “Take care of my family, Nick,” Liam says as he slips his helmet on muffling out Nick’s tirade. I watch Liam’s bike as it flies down the road. When my eyes meet Nick’s, he’s glaring at me. He shakes his head, punching his truck in the process. I think I just lost my fiancé.

Soldiers went off to fight the Nazis with pictures of girls like you in their helmets.

What’s the point of obsessing over cholesterol or bike helmets or even cigarettes when the biggest threats to our children are being released back into society every day?

The ocean hides the oyster. The oyster hides a pearl. Bright armor and heavy helmet Hid China's bravest girl.

He was was especially excited about Aguirre, the Wrath of God. 'Look at this crazy dude,' he yelled, pointing at Klaus Kinski, who on the cover is wearing a Viking helmet and looks like a psychopath.

What's the latest beast in your collection, I wonder?" "Me." Metal clanged as Gabriel flipped the helmet's visor. "I'm her latest beast." The Irving sisters choked on their laughter, then swallowed it hard. He took a clanking step forward, towering over them. "Let me tell you, Lady Penelope has her hands full. I'm vicious. Untamed. I won't come to heel." He leaned forward, lowering his voice to a growl. "And I bite." He turned, and- confronted with the wall of hedges- stormed through it like the Ottomans breaching the walls of Tyre. Once he'd cleared a path with his armored body, he extended a gauntlet, inviting Penny to follow. She put her gloved hand in his shining one. Rather than leading her through, he pulled her to him, slid his hand to her backside, and lifted her off her feet, keeping her slippers free of the trampled shrubs. Her beast in shining armor. As he carried her through the hedge, she waved farewell to the bug-eyed Irving sisters. "It's been lovely seeing you.

ah yes I know them well who was the first person in the universe before there was anybody that made it all who ah that they dont know neither do I so there you are they might as well try to stop the sun from rising tomorrow the sun shines for you he said the day we were lying among the rhododendrons on Howth head in the grey tweed suit and his straw hat the day I got him to propose to me yes first I gave him the bit of seedcake out of my mouth and it was leapyear like now yes 16 years ago my God after that long kiss I near lost my breath yes he said I was a flower of the mountain yes so we are flowers all a womans body yes that was one true thing he said in his life and the sun shines for you today yes that was why I liked him because I saw he understood or felt what a woman is and I knew I could always get round him and I gave him all the pleasure I could leading him on till he asked me to say yes and I wouldnt answer first only looked out over the sea and the sky I was thinking of so many things he didnt know of Mulvey and Mr Stanhope and Hester and father and old captain Groves and the sailors playing all birds fly and I say stoop and washing up dishes they called it on the pier and the sentry in front of the governors house with the thing round his white helmet poor devil half roasted and the Spanish girls laughing in their shawls and their tall combs and the auctions in the morning the Greeks and the jews and the Arabs and the devil knows who else from all the ends of Europe and Duke street and the fowl market all clucking outside Larby Sharons and the poor donkeys slipping half asleep and the vague fellows in the cloaks asleep in the shade on the steps and the big wheels of the carts of the bulls and the old castle thousands of years old yes and those handsome Moors all in white and turbans like kings asking you to sit down in their little bit of a shop and Ronda with the old windows of the posadas glancing eyes a lattice hid for her lover to kiss the iron and the wineshops half open at night and the castanets and the night we missed the boat at Algeciras the watchman going about serene with his lamp and O that awful deepdown torrent O and the sea the sea crimson sometimes like fire and the glorious sunsets and the figtrees in the Alameda gardens yes and all the queer little streets and the pink and blue and yellow houses and the rosegardens and the jessamine and geraniums and cactuses and Gibraltar as a girl where I was a Flower of the mountain yes when I put the rose in my hair like the Andalusian girls used or shall I wear a red yes and how he kissed me under the Moorish wall and I thought well as well him as another and then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes.

No helmets for the girls. No pads. No real gloves. And I’m not even going to go into the differences in what type of sticks they’re allowed because that’s just beyond messed up. No body checking. Game stopping every two seconds for some lame-ass penalty that wouldn’t ever be called in the men’s game. If you’ll excuse my language, fuck that. Girls can beat the hell out of each other with a stick just as well as the boys can. If not better, in some cases. Bitches be vicious.

Tied up and twisted; gnarled and knotted with wrinkles; haggardly firm and unyielding; his eyes glowing like coals, that still glow in the ashes of ruin; untottering Ahab stood forth in the clearness of the morn; lifting his splintered helmet of a brow to the fair girl's forehead of heaven.

Tied up and twisted; gnarled and knotted with wrinkles; haggardly firm and unyielding; his eyes glowing like coals, that still glow in the ashes of ruin; untottering Ahab stood forth in the clearness of the morn; lifting his splintered helmet of a brow to the fair girl's forehead of heaven. Oh,

I’m probably sterile. At least I can stop worrying about getting girls pregnant (if I ever get to have sex with them). Do you still get horny if your nuts are broken? My eyes open, and I find Andre standing over me, saying, “I felt your nads through my helmet!” I stop writhing for a second to give him props. “That’s gold, dude!

They’re having a march, another one, a chance for rows of them to peacock through the streets in their helmets and black boots.

He asks again. I stay silent. I don’t think a high school girl like me is visible enough, exists enough for a soldier with a rifle, a pistol, a club, a helmet, and high boots to notice.

Beckendorf walked up with his helmet under his arm. “She likes you, man.” “Sure,” I muttered. “She likes me for target practice.” “Nah, they always do that. A girl starts trying to kill you, you know she’s into you.” “Makes a lot of sense.” Beckendorf shrugged. “I know about these things. You ought to ask her to the fireworks.” I couldn’t tell if he was serious. Beckendorf was lead counselor for Hephaestus. He was this huge dude with a permanent scowl, muscles like a pro ballplayer, and hands calloused from working in the forges. He’d just turned eighteen and was on his way to NYU in the fall. Since he was older, I usually listened to him about stuff, but the idea of asking Annabeth to the Fourth of July fireworks down at the beach—like, the biggest dating event of the summer—made my stomach do somersaults. Then Silena Beauregard, the head counselor for Aphrodite, passed by. Beckendorf had had a not-so-secret crush on her for three years. She had long black hair and big brown eyes, and when she walked, the guys tended to watch. She said, “Good luck, Charlie.” (Nobody ever calls Beckendorf by his first name.) She flashed him a brilliant smile and went to join Annabeth on the red team. “Uh . . .” Beckendorf swallowed like he’d forgotten how to breathe. I patted him on the shoulder. “Thanks for the advice, dude. Glad you’re so wise about girls and all. Come on. Let’s get to the woods.

R.O.TC. kept me away from sports while the other guys practiced every day. They made the school teams, won their letters and got the girls. My days were spent mostly marching around in the sun. All you ever saw were the backs of some guy's ears and his buttocks. I quickly became disenchanted with military proceedings. The others shined their shoes brightly and seemed to go through maneuvers with relish. I couldn't see any sense in it. They were just getting shaped up in order to get their balls blown off later. On the other hand, I couldn't see myself crouched down in a football helmet, shoulder pads laced on, decked out in Blue and White, #69, trying to move out some brute with tacos on his breath so that the son of the district attorney could slant off left tackle for six yards. The problem was you had to keep choosing between on evil or another, and no matter what you chose, they sliced a little bit more off you, until there was nothing left. At the age of 25, most people were finished. A whole god-damned nation of assholes driving automobiles, eating, having babies, doing everything in the worst way possible, like voting for the presidential candidate who reminded them most of themselves.

Shadow loved Emma. She was an innocent. She was a girl without a crack in her heart. He wore the space helmet. He wore the red lipstick. Largely, the lipstick was scrawled onto his old teeth, for Emma had not yet learned to color inside the lines.

She knows I hate that name, mostly because I never have a good comeback. She’s the daughter of Athena, which doesn’t give me a lot of ammunition. I mean, “Owl-head” and “Wise Girl” are kind of lame insults. “You know you love it.” She bumped me with her shoulder, which I guess was supposed to be friendly, but she was wearing full Greek armor, so it kind of hurt. Her gray eyes sparkled under her helmet. Her blond ponytail curled around one shoulder. It was hard for anyone to look cute in combat armor, but Annabeth pulled it off.

She scanned the shadows again, bracing herself for more assailants. Nearby, a young woman watched her, and she flashed Celaena a conspirator’s grin. Celaena tried not to look too interested, though the girl was one of the most stunning people she’d ever beheld. It wasn’t just her wine-red hair or the color of her eyes, a red-brown Celaena had never seen before. No, it was the girl’s armor that initially caught her interest: ornate to the point of probably being useless, but still a work of art. The right shoulder was fashioned into a snarling wolf’s head, and her helmet, tucked into the crook of her arm, featured a wolf hunched over the noseguard. Another wolf’s head had been molded into the pommel of her broadsword. On anyone else, the armor might have looked flamboyant and ridiculous, but on the girl … There was a strange, boyish sort of carelessness to her.

There are other colors, pink for instance: pink is supposed to weaken your enemies, make them go soft on you, which must be why it’s used for baby girls. It’s a wonder the military hasn’t got onto this. Pale-pink helmets, with rosettes, a whole battalion, onto the beachhead, over the top in pink.

...in my experience, men are curiously blind to aggression in women. They're the warriors, with their helmets and armor, their swords and spears, and they don't seem to see our battles - or they prefer not to. Perhaps if they realised we're not the gentle creatures they take us for, their own peace of mind would be disturbed?

I started falling for you as soon as you bumped into me. I knew I could be a goner so easily.” “Really?” “Oh, yeah. And when I pictured you in shoulder pads and a helmet--” I shoved his shoulder. “You did not!” “Oh, yeah, I did. And I thought, of all the girls in this town, she is the one that I absolutely can’t find fascinating.

He was especially excited about Aguirre, the Wrath of God. "Look at this crazy dude," he yelled, point at Klaus Kinski, who on the cover is wearing a Viking helmet and looks like a psychopath. So--with Dad's permission--we put the film in and watched it. This would turn out to be the single most important thing ever to happen in our lives.

People marvel that we’re not out in the streets, decking the monstrous, khaki tanks with roses and jasmine. They wonder why we don’t crown the hard, ugly helmets of the troops with wreaths of laurel. They question why we mourn our dead instead of gratefully offering them as sacrifices to the Gods of Democracy and Liberty. They wonder why we’re bitter.

The dust was starting to settle from all the horse galloping action.   Finally, I could see my rescuer a bit more clearly.   I got up slowly and limped over to the powerful warrior.   "W-who are you?" I asked weakly.   The warrior turned around and looked at me. He then took off his iron helmet and revealed a girl with beautiful green eyes.   "My name is Alex."  

So if you knew about me already, why did you act so surprised when I took my helmet off the other day. Ty pulls his tie the rest of the way off. "Um...I admit I knew you were a girl..." "And?" "I, uh, just wasn't expecting you to be...so...not butch?' "What does that mean?" Ty leans toward me and runs a hand through his hair. "It means...I didn't expact you'd be so gorgeous.

Help," the working Account Representative called, feeling the stir of a tinily remembered humid wind and pausing, again, to look behind him, past the Brougham's black hood and the carelessly dropped safety helmet beside the white cycle, at the Ramp that spiraled up and out of sight toward a street, empty and bright, before the Building, empty and bright, dispossessed, autonomous and autonomic. Bent to what two lives required, below everything, he called for help again and again.

The Account Representative bent back to the involved removal of his securely clamped helmet. He was preparing to feel that male and special feeling associated with the conversational imperative faced by any two men with some professional connection who meet in nighttime across an otherwise empty and silent but fragilely silent underground space far below the tall and vaguely pulsing site of a long and weary day for both: the obligation of conversation without the conversational prerequisites of intimacy or interests or concerns to share. They shared pain, though of course neither knew.

It begins with light which seeps into those ready vessels, marigold and dandelion, rises with the sap to richen forsynthia and veiled acacia. The heads of girls bending over bowls of lemons are silkened with that corn- silk color or helmeted with sun, and all that maiden hair is braided with the burn of wheatfields rippling in a wind. Gold is hammered out of yellow orchards and out of August noons, enough to feed the fur of lions or gild a tree of orioles. Enough to ransom princes of the sun god's lineage and fashion for the boy king's somber journey, a treasure house of toys, a bright death mask." - Gold

Before I knew what I was doing, I was out of my seat and rushing up toward the railing that divided the seats from the field. I had to make sure he was okay. I couldn’t just sit here and watch him lie there in pain. I heard my name called, but I ignored it as I flung my leg over the top railing and prepared to hoist myself over. One of the guys working security happened to see me and he rushed over and ordered me to stop. “I can’t. That’s my…” My voice broke. I couldn’t force the word boyfriend between my lips. It just wasn’t enough. It just didn’t describe how desperate I was to get to him. “He’s my everything,” I finished. The security guard gave me a grim look. “You can’t come on the field.” A lone tear tracked its way down my cheek, and I craned my neck. Frustrated, I glanced up at the big screen to see if it was showing a different angle. But they weren’t playing Romeo. They were focused on me. I blinked at the site of me half straddling the railing and the security guard standing there with a grim look on his face as he stared me down. My cheeks were red, behind my glasses, my eyes wild. I turned away from the screen, irritated that they weren’t focused on Romeo. I glanced at the guard. “I’m coming over.” He crossed his arms over his chest as if to say, I dare you. I flung my other leg over so I was balanced on the bottom rung. “This is your last warning,” the guard shouted. The crowd started to cheer and go wild. Romeo’s number started filling the air. I looked up. He was okay! He was on his feet, helmet in hand, and laughing at something Braeden was saying. Beside him, the coach looked relieved, and all the Wolves were clapping. The guy who’d mowed him down was being escorted off the field. Jackass. Relief made me weak and a sob caught in my throat. I sagged back against the cold metal of the rails. The guard gestured for backup, and a few others that were dressed just like him started my way. I mean, really. He was being a bit dramatic. I was only one girl. And a small one at that.

At the high school a pretty girl strolled across the parking lot to her black stallion, let her cigarette dangle from her lips while she put on her helmet, adjusted her goggles. Throwing a slender white leg over the side she jacked her little backside up and down a few times, exciting the steed. Now she came down on his back and he squatted, moaning to the soft squeeze of her hand, then at her sudden clutch shot out fast between the press of her knees. Claude looked down at his shoes as they passed, having seen nothing. But he glanced up in time to watch them glide off under the next streetlamp, the gleaming beast appearing almost languid with release, very pleased with himself and with the girl who clung to his back, small and stiff and unsatisfied. She had been noticed: everywhere along the way the leaning people looked after her as though wondering if the new week had finally begun, then they looked at one another, then back at nothing.

We talked about the speed trials, which were starting today. I said I was running in them, but not that it was about art. It wasn’t a lie. I was a Nevada girl and a motorcycle rider. I had always been interested in land speed records. I was bringing to that a New York deliberateness, abstract ideas about traces and speed, which wasn’t something Stretch needed to know about. It would make me seem like a tourist. Stretch said the motel owner’s son had a Corvette running but that he could not so much as check the oil or tire pressure, that mechanics worked on it and a driver raced it for him. “I have to fill out his racing form because he doesn’t know what ‘displacement’ means.” He laughed and then went quiet. “I never met a girl who rides Italian motorcycles,” he said. “It’s like you aren’t real.” He looked at my helmet, gloves, my motorcycle key, on his bureau. The room seemed to hold its breath, the motel curtain sucked against the glass by the draft of a partly opened window, a strip of sun wavering underneath the curtain’s hem, the light-blocking fabric holding back the outside world.

I’m going to miss all the takeout,” Jason said later, after dinner, when I walked him out to his car. “Coach said his wife cooks their meals every night.” “That’s really why you’re leaving, isn’t it?” I asked. “For real home-cooked meals?” He put his hands on my waist, drew me near. “If you knew how hard I found it to stay on my side of the hall last night after we finished watching the movie…” He shook his head. “Your parents absolutely wouldn’t approve of the direction that my thoughts are going. With or without your mom’s contract, I’d move out.” “I can’t believe she did that.” He grinned. “Yeah, it was that first night, after she came out of your room.” “Weren’t you offended?” “How could I be? I started falling for you as soon as you bumped into me. I knew I could be a goner so easily.” “Really?” “Oh, yeah. And when I pictured you in shoulder pads and a helmet--” I shoved his shoulder. “You did not!” “Oh, yeah, I did. And I thought, of all the girls in this town, she is the one that I absolutely can’t find fascinating.” “Is that the reason you sounded like you really didn’t want to take me home after that first night of pizza?” “Yep. I wanted to limit contact. I was trying so hard not to fall for you.” “Well, that’s why I knocked you over,” I said. He laughed. “Will you still come play ball with Dad?” “Sure. But you have to play, too.” I smiled. “Okay.” It was so, so hard--a dozen kisses later--watching him leave. But at least I knew he’d be back.

Top Dog" If I could, I would take your grief, dig it up out of the horseradish field and grate it into something red and hot to sauce the shellfish. I would take the lock of hair you put in the locket and carry it in my hand, I would make the light strike everything the way it hit the Bay Bridge, turning the ironwork at sunset into waffles. If I could, I would blow your socks off, they would travel far, always in unison, past the dead men running, past the cranes standing in snow, beyond the roads we rode, so small in our little car, it was like riding in a miner's helmet. If I could I would make everyone vote and call their public servants to say, “No one was meant for this.” I would go back to the afternoon we made love in the tall grass under the full sun not far from the ravine where the old owner had flung hundreds of mink cages. I would memorize gateways to the afterworld, the electric third rail, the blond braid our girl has hanging down her back, the black guppy we killed at our friends’ when we unplugged the bubbler and the fish floated to the top, one eye up at the ceiling, the other at the blue gravel on the bottom of the tank. I would beg an audience with Sister Lucia, the last living of the children visited by Our Lady of Fatima, I would ask her about the weight of secrets, if they let her sleep or if she woke at night with a body on her body, if the body said, “Let's play top dog, first I'll lie on you, then you lie on me.” I would ask how she lived with revelation, the normal state of affairs amplified beyond God, bumped up to the Virgin Mother, who no doubt knew a few things, passed them on, quietly, and I would ask Lucia how she lived with knowing, how she could keep it under her hat, under wraps, button up, zip her lip, play it close to the vest, never telling, never using truth as a weapon.

earnest held their hats on their heads. Or at least, one of them did. The other had a sturdy looking tall helmet. A military man? It was odd that the two visitors were at the side of the house, not the front where they

from, The Siamese Collectors: He needed a jolt. A drastic change. An explosion of old habits. He wanted to drop a hot grenade into his broken life. So he cooked up Barcelona and Madrid, Paris, Hong Kong and sent flurries of e-mails with resumes. And finally, when the only offer arrived in a beaten yellow envelope bearing exotic stamps, his father insisted he take it. At first he refused. Thailand to him was third rate, tainted by ideas of the Golden Triangle, white slavery, sleazy tourists and terrorism. But he only had two choices and neither he nor his father lingered when action was needed. So they said a quick goodbye on the porch, blinking at the crisp noon sun and sweating as the taxi idled. His father said, “Don’t worry. I won’t tell them anything.” His plane arrived sometime in the middle of the night. A lone policeman dipped in leather boots and wearing a motorcycle helmet with a loose chinstrap stood guard in the Bangkok airport. Treece slipped his passport into a pocket and watched a dark-eyed Thai girl half-asleep on her arm inside a little glass money exchange booth. A moment later in the open lobby, he nodded to a man behind a walrus tooth moustache holding a piece of cardboard that said: Mike Treece.

It had been often commented upon that Vibe offspring tended to be crazy as bedbugs. ‘Fax’s brother Cragmont had run away with a trapeze girl, then brought her back to New York to get married, the wedding being actually performed on trapezes, groom and best man, dressed in tails and silk opera hats held on with elastic, swinging upside down by their knees in perfect synchrony across the perilous Æther to meet the bride and her father, a carnival “jointee” or concessionaire, in matched excursion from their own side of the ring, bridesmaids observed at every hand up twirling by their chins in billows of spangling, forty feet above the faces of the guests, feathers dyed a deep acid green sweeping and stirring the cigar smoke rising from the crowd. Cragmont Vibe was but thirteen that circus summer he became a husband and began what would become, even for the day, an enormous family. The third brother, Fleetwood, best man at this ceremony, had also got out of the house early, fast-talking his way onto an expedition heading for Africa. He kept as clear of political games as of any real scientific inquiry, preferring to take the title of “Explorer” literally, and do nothing but explore. It did not hurt Fleetwood’s chances that a hefty Vibe trust fund was there to pick up the bills for bespoke pith helmets and meat lozenges and so forth. Kit met him one spring weekend out at the Vibe manor on Long Island. “Say, but you’ve never seen our cottage,” ‘Fax said one day after classes. “What are you doing this weekend? Unless there’s another factory girl or pizza princess or something in the works.” “Do I use that tone of voice about the Seven Sisters material you specialize in?” “I’ve nothing against the newer races,” ‘Fax protested. “But you might like to meet Cousin Dittany anyway.” “The one at Smith.” “Mount Holyoke, actually.” “Can’t wait.” They arrived under a dourly overcast sky. Even in cheerier illumination, the Vibe mansion would have registered as a place best kept clear of—four stories tall, square, unadorned, dark stone facing looking much older than the known date of construction. Despite its aspect of abandonment, an uneasy tenancy was still pursued within, perhaps by some collateral branch of Vibes . . . it was unclear. There was the matter of the second floor. Only the servants were allowed there. It “belonged,” in some way nobody was eager to specify, to previous occupants. “Someone’s living there?” “Someone’s there.” . . . from time to time, a door swinging shut on a glimpse of back stairway, a muffled footfall . . . an ambiguous movement across a distant doorframe . . . a threat of somehow being obliged to perform a daily search through the forbidden level, just at dusk, so detailed that contact with the unseen occupants, in some form, at some unannounced moment, would be inevitable . . . all dustless and tidy, shadows in permanent possession, window-drapes and upholstery in deep hues of green, claret, and indigo, servants who did not speak, who would or could not meet one’s gaze . . . and in the next room, the next instant, waiting . . . “Real nice of you to have me here, folks,” chirped Kit at breakfast. “Fellow sleeps like a top. Well, except . . .” Pause in the orderly gobbling and scarfing. Interest from all around the table. “I mean, who came in the room in the middle of the night like that?” “You’re sure,” said Scarsdale, “it wasn’t just the wind, or the place settling.” “They were walking around, like they were looking for something.” Glances were exchanged, failed to be exchanged, were sent out but not returned. “Kit, you haven’t seen the stables yet,” Cousin Dittany offered at last. “Wouldn’t you like to go riding?

Kevin watched as Rydell removed the helmet and wrote an address and telephone number on the back of last week’s People. The magazine belonged to Monica, the Chinese girl in the garage; she always got hers printed out so there was never any mention of scandal or disaster, but with a triple helping of celebrity romance, particularly anything to do with the British royal family.

We loved it. We loved how slow it was. We love that it took forever. Actually, we never wanted it to end. We loved the jungle, the rafts, the ridiculous armor and helmets. . .I think most of all we loved that it didn't have a happy ending for anyone. The whole time we were sort of expecting that someone would survive because that's how stories work: Even if everything is a total disaster, someone lives to tell the tale. But not with Aguirre, the Wrath of God. Hell no. Everyone dies. That's awesome.

I draw in a long breath, and then it catches in my throat as his hand closes over mine, still wrapped around his waist. “Siamo arrivati,” he says gently. I have to get off first, I realize. And I’m embarrassed that it takes me a while to unwind my arms. Luca starts to turn and I realize with horror that my skirt is practically up around my waist: this galvanizes me and I jump off so fast I nearly fall over, dragging down my skirt so he can’t see my thighs. I’m wobbling, shaken up by the ride, and I hear him huff a little laugh of amusement as he swings his leg over to sit on the seat facing me, unbuckling his helmet. “You like to ride on a Vespa?” I take my helmet off and hand it back to him. “Well, it’s bumpy,” I say. I can’t really see his face, it’s so dark out here. There are a couple of lights on the villa walls, one over the main door, but that’s higher up; the parking lot is around the side, barely illuminated. He stands up, towering over me, and puts the helmets down on the seat. “And loud,” he says. “You know what ‘vespa’ means?” I shake my head, my mouth suddenly dry, because he’s taken a step toward me, and his legs are so long that one step means he’s already standing in front of me, close enough to touch. “It means ‘wasp,’” he says softly. “Because it makes a sound like a wasp. How do you say that?” “Buzzing,” I manage. “It buzzes.” “Buzzes,” Luca says, and his accent makes the word sound so funny that I can’t help laughing. “You laugh at me?” he asks, and though he’s put on a serious voice, as if he’s annoyed, somehow I know he isn’t. “Girls never laugh at me. You are the only one.” “Well, maybe they should,” I say without thinking. “No,” he says firmly. “Only you can laugh at me.

Android Girl Just Wants to Have a Baby! The first thing I do when I wake up is run my hands over my body. I like to make sure all my wires are in place. I lotion my silicone shell and snap my hair helmet over my head. I once had a dream I was a real girl, but when I woke up I was still myself in my paleness under the halogen light. The saliva of androids emits a spectral resonance, barely sticky between freshly-gapped teeth. After they made me, the first thing they did was peel the cellophane from my eyes. I blinked once, twice, and cried because that's how you say you are alive before you are given language. They named each of my heartbeats on the oceanic monitor: Guanyin, Yama, Nuwa, Fuxi, Chang'e, Zao-Shen. I listened to them blur into one. The fetus carves for itself a hollowed vector, a fragile wetness. In utero, extension cords are umbilical. Before puberty, I did not know there was such a thing as dishonor. Diss-on- her. This is what they said when I began to drip petrol between my legs. A tension exists between ritual and proof, a fantasy and its execution. Since then, I have been to the emergency room twice. The first time for a suicide attempt, and the second time because my earring was swallowed up by my newly pierced earlobe overnight, and when I woke up, it was tangled in a helix of wires. The idea of dying doesn't scare me but the ocean does. I was once told that fish will swim up my orifices if I am no longer a virgin. Is anyone thinking about erotic magazines when they are not aroused, pubes parted harshly down the center like red seas? My body carries the weight of four hundred eggs. I rise from a weird slumber, let them drip into the bath. This is what I'll leave behind - tiny shards purer than me. I have always been afraid of pregnant women because of their power, and because I don't yet understand what it means to carry something stubborn and blossoming inside of me, screeching towards an exit. The ectoplasm is the telos for the wound. A trance state is induced when salt is poured on it, pixel by pixel. I wish they had made me into an octopus instead, because octopuses die after their eggs hatch and crawl out into the sea, and I want to know what it's like to set something free into the dark unknown and trust it to choose mercy. If you can generate aura in a non-place, then there is no such thing as an authentic origin. In Chinese, the word for mercy translates to my heart hurts for you. They say my heart continues beating even after it is dislocated from my body. The sound of its beating comes from the valves opening and closing like a portal - Guanyin, Yama, Nuwa, Fuxi, Chang'e, Zao-Shen. I first learned about love by watching a sex tape where a girl looks up from performing fellatio and says, show them the sunset. Her boyfriend pans the camera to the sky, which is tinged violet like a bruise. In this moment, the sky displaces her, all digital and hyped, and saturates the scene until it collapses on me too, its transient witness. I move in the space between belly ring and catharsis. That night I have a dream where I am a camgirl, but all I do on screen is wash my laundry. Everybody loves me because I am a real girl doing real girl things. What lives on the border between meditation and oblivion, static and flux, a pomegranate seed and an embryo? I set up my webcam in the corner of the room and play ambient music while I scrub my underwear, letting soap bubbles rise up from the sink, laughing when they overflow on the linoleum floor - my frizzy hair, my pockmarked skin, my face slick with sweat. A body with exit wounds. I ride the bright rails of an animal forgetting. And when I wake up, the sky is a mess of blue.

The other distinctive thing about them, and the reason I like to go to Hazlitt's, is that they cannot bear to admit that they don't know the location of something they feel they ought to know, like a hotel, which I think is rather sweet. to become a London cab driver you have to master something called The Knowledge--in effect, learn every street, hospital, hotel, police station, cricket ground, cemetery, and other notable landmarks in this amazingly vast and confusing city. It takes years and the cabbies are justifiably proud of their achievement. It would kill them to admit that there could exist in central London a hotel that they have never heard of. So what the cabbie does is probe. He drives in no particular direction for a block or two, then glances at you in the mirror and in an over casual voice says, “Hazlitt’s–that’s the one on Curzon Street, innit, guv? Opposite the Blue Lion?” But the instant he sees a knowing smile of demure forming on your lips, he hastily says, “No, hang on a minute, I’m thinking of Hazelbury. Yeah, Hazelbury. You want Hazlitt’s, right?” He’ll drive on a bit in a fairly random direction. “That’s this side of Shepherd’s Bush, innit?” he’ll suggest speculatively. When you tell him that it’s on Frith Street, he says, “Yeah, that’s the one. Course it is. I know it–modern place, lots of glass.” “Actually, it’s an eighteenth-century brick building.” “Course it is. I know it.” And he immediately executes a dramatic U-turn, causing a passing cyclist to steer into a lamppost (but that’s all right because he has on cycle clips and one of those geeky slip-stream helmets that all but invite you to knock him over). “Yeah you had me thinking of the Hazelbury,” the driver adds, chuckling as if to say it’s a lucky thing he sorted that one out for you, and then lunges down a little side street off the Strand called Running Sore Lane or Sphincter Passage, which, like so much else in London, you had never noticed was there before. Hazlitt’s is a nice hotel, but the thing I like about it is that it doesn’t act like a hotel. It’s been there for years, and the employees are friendly–always a novelty in a big-city hotel– but they do manage to give the slight impression that they haven’t been doing this for very long. Tell them that you have a reservation and want to check in and they get a kind of panicked look and begin a perplexed search through drawers for registration cards and room keys. It’s really quite charming. And the delightful girls who cleans the rooms–which, let me say, are always spotless and exceedingly comfortable–seldom seem to have what might be called a total command of English, so that when you ask them for a bar of soap or something you see that they are watching your mouth closely and then, pretty generally, they return after a bit with a hopeful look bearing a potted plant or a commode or something that is manifestly not soap. It’s a wonderful place. I wouldn’t go anywhere else.

Harwich, his stomach had stopped heaving. He stood at the top of the gangplank, took in deep breaths of the salt-and-oil air that rasped his throat. Where were the little kids he’d looked after on the voyage? A woman in nurse’s uniform was already steering them away. Someone pushed him gently down the gangplank. It looked different, England: the cars, dockers, buildings. People were smiling at them, even the policemen in their tall helmets and capes. One of them was holding a small girl’s hand, picking up her suitcase, snow falling on them. All very foreign. All very safe. He had to get the hell out. He turned around. He’d hide on the boat. But there was no fighting the tide of children streaming down the gangplank. Boys cursed him and girls tutted as he shoved into them. He gave up and let them push him down to dry land. Not that it was very dry. It had obviously rained here. And now it was snowing, white flakes dissolving into the black ground. Everything swayed as Benny walked along the quay. Perhaps it took a while to get used to being on land again. The English dockers were shouting in that up-and-down, up-and-down language he couldn’t understand. HARWICH, he read on a sign. Then they were on a bus, the air thick with the reek of long journeys and farewells

There is about our house a need. The running, pulsating restlessness of the four boys as they struggle to learn and grow; the world embraces them….All this wonder needs a counterpart. We need some starched crisp frocks to go with all our torn-kneed blue jeans and helmets. We need some soft blond hair to off-set those crew cuts. We need a doll house to stand firm against our forts and rackets and thousand baseball cards. We need a cut-out star to play alone while the others battle to see who’s ‘family champ.’ We even need someone…who could sing the descant to “Alouette,” while outside they scramble to catch the elusive ball aimed ever roofward, but usually thudding against the screens. We need a legitimate Christmas angel—one who doesn’t have cuffs beneath the dress. We need someone who’s afraid of frogs. We need someone to cry when I get mad—not argue. We need a little one who can kiss without leaving egg or jam or gum. We need a girl. We had one once—she’d fight and cry and play and make her way just like the rest. But there was about her a certain softness. She was patient—her hugs were just a little less wiggly. Like them, she’d climb in to sleep with me, but somehow she’d fit. She didn’t boot and flip and wake me up with pug nose and mischievous eyes a challenging quarter-inch from my sleeping face. No—she’d stand beside our bed till I felt her there. Silently and comfortable, she’d put those precious, fragrant locks against my chest and fall asleep. Her peace made me feel strong, and so very important. “My Daddy” had a caress, a certain ownership which touched a slightly different spot than the “Hi Dad” I love so much. But she is still with us. We need her and yet we have her. We can’t touch her, and yet we can feel her. We hope she’ll stay in our house for a long, long time. Love Pop

we were up in Mosul. We had to search all these villages for guns. Those villages are awful up there. So we went into this village and put the blonde girl we had on top of one of the Bradleys. We just rolled in and put her up there and took off her helmet and let her hair spill out. “So she’s standing there on top of the Bradley, blond hair and everything, and we called out on the loudspeaker, ‘This woman is for sale. Blonde woman for sale!’ And I’ll be damned if every Iraqi male in that village wasn’t gathered around the Bradley in about two minutes. You know the Iraqis are crazy for blondes. Crazy for them. They don’t have any here.” The

When we separate for air, Jamie is looking at me in a way that no other man has ever looked at me before in my entire life. And I know this is different. He’s different. He’s the one I’ve been waiting for. “I really missed you, Helmet Girl,” he whispers. Except I’m not Helmet Girl. Not anymore.

They sit in companionable silence watching a man in a shiny blue jumpsuit and a helmet hurtling down a near-vertical slope crouched on carbon planks, straightening out as the curve tips him up to shoot into the air. “Who comes up with this stuff?” Kirby says. She’s right, Dan thinks. The grace and absurdity of human endeavor.

these girls

She looked starstruck, but he couldn’t blame her. The girls always flocked to smooth-talking Tim. Despite Hurricane Gerard’s powerful winds, his hair still looked perfectly groomed. Jason wondered if he used shellac as his favorite weatherproof hair product. No doubt, the board that hit Brandon and him would’ve just bounced off his helmet head.

Mom was excited to get back to the island, watching as it appeared in the distance. Her anticipation turned to dread, and she gasped, her hands on her mouth, when she saw the dock they had worked so hard on before gone. “What happened?” she asked, breaking her silence for the first time. “I’m pretty sure this was Ortho's work. He seemed to really hate villagers and destroyed every village he came across,” Dad said with a frown. Mom’s face softened. “I’m glad he can't do that anymore. This is so sad.” They pulled up to the island, stretching as they stepped from their boats. “We should probably fix up a shelter,” Dad said. “We’ll need a place for when it gets dark. Then I think we should strategize for this ocean monument trip we have to make.” “Oooh!” Kate said. “We should have turtle shell helmets!” Mom gasped. “Kate! Why would you do that to the poor turtles?” Kate giggled. “No Mom, baby turtles drop scute when they grow into big turtles, then you can collect it and make turtle shell helmets. They’re cool because they let you breathe underwater a bit longer. Plus, you can enchant them with...um. I forgot the name. But there’s an enchantment that helps you breathe longer, too.” “And one for mining underwater,” Jack added. “Why would you need that?” Dad asked. “Can’t you just mine like normal?” Jack shook his head. “Have you ever tried to swing a pickaxe underwater?” Dad blinked. “Oh. Yeah, I guess that makes sense. Sorry to dredge that up.” He wiggled his eyebrows. Mom was about to give Dad ‘The Look’ but Kate beat her to it. “No Dad, Jack already did a bunch of jokes.” “What?” Dad looked offended. “I’m supposed to do the Dad jokes!” “You are,” Jack said. “That’s why I did Jack Jokes.” Dad snorted out a laugh. “Were they punny?” Jack grinned. “Definitely. They worked great for our new villager friends when they helped us on the farm. They were real ice-breakers.” Dad laughed extra loud. “That’s it, I’m done!” Kate said. “Come on Mom, let’s go get some turtle scute.” “I’m right there with you girl. Let’s go.” Dad waved. “We’ll make sure we have shelter, and we’ll give it a nice outfit.” Dad winked. Jack cocked his head. “What does a house wear?” Dad grinned. “Address!” Jack laughed, and the girls rolled their eyes. “We’ll make sure not to build a house like a penguin though. They just igloo them together.” Kate and Mom groaned and hurried off towards the turtles. “Don’t run in front of a car!” Jack yelled. “You might get tired!” “Run faster, Mom,” Kate yelled. Dad and Jack laughed at their fleeing forms. Chapter 18 By the time Mom and Kate came back from their turtle excursion, Dad and Jack had fixed up a house

If it had been Morise, even if it hadn’t been Morise. I had to work hard to free myself from my feeling that he was the lord of the city and its shaykh, on whose crown falcons dozed, because everything in Seattle pointed to him and led toward him—each detail and sign. He did not merely dwell in this city; he was its creator, who had woven it from warp and woof. He had re-created it and then shaken the dust off it as if it were a carpet from Tabriz. Everything in the city carried his signature and his fingerprint: the joyful queues on weekends at pot stores, the empty seats in outdoor cafés sprinkled by drops of rain, girls’ colorful wool caps, tech workers’ badges dangling to their laps, the panting of elderly Asians climbing its heights… the spoons of busy restaurants clicking against the teeth of children of wealthy Indians, the helmets of cyclists who pause to look at the tranquility of the Japanese Garden, the sigh of buses as they lower a lift for an elderly white woman in a wheelchair, the roars of laughter of Saudi teens in the swimming pools of the University…all these tell his story. Everything glorifies his name.

Wanna have some fun, Evan?” A smile stretches across my face, and I nod, feeling both sick and invigorated all at once. Fun. What a foreign concept. “Atta girl.” He smirks, grabbing the helmet that dangles from his handlebars. “Keep your hands at your sides and stay still.

At a moment in history somebody says, “I was there.” I wasn’t. They were marching down to the Arc de Triomphe and I didn’t know it. All I knew is I wanted some perfume and scarves. I went to the Galerie Lafayette, a great department store. Nobody was on the street. We walked through the store, wearing boots, with the .45s on the hip and wearin’ a helmet. Great. Out from behind the counters came all those little French girls. They followed us: “Ohhh! Marvelous Américain.” We bought scarves and all of a sudden someone said, in broken English, they are firing on the Place de la Concorde. The diehards were in the eaves of the building sniping at the parade. They had to rout ’em out. But I wasn’t there. I didn’t see the parade. I wasn’t on the Place de la Concorde at this marvelous moment in history. I was in the goddamn Galerie Lafayette buying perfume and scarves. Shit.

I’m Frankie Cullen,” she said, nodding at me, Dottie, and Viv. She was barely five feet, with wide-set light-brown eyes and shiny dark-brown curls peeking out from under her helmet, but there was a toughness about her despite her childlike size. She looked around, observing the scene without a trace of fear