Tank Girl Quotes

So it's true what they say about girls from Bama," he replied and I turned my attention to him. "What do you mean?" His eyes scanned down my body and back up to my face. A grin stretched slowly across his face. "Tight jeans, tank tops, and a gun. Damn, I've been living in the wrong fucking state.

As they roared past the streetlamps, people emerged from their houses to see what was happening. Nina tried to imagine what their wild crew must look like to these Fjerdans. What did they see as they poked their heads out of windows and doorways? A group of hooting kids clinging to a tank painted with the Fjerdan flag and charging along like some deranged float gone astray from its parade: a girl in purple silk and a boy with red-gold curls poking out from behind the guns; four soaked people holding tight to the sides for dear life—a Shu boy in prison clothes, two bedraggled drüskelle, and Nina, a half-naked girl in shreds of teal chiffon shouting, "We have a moat!

You're crazy if you think that you can run off and change your identity. This unfeeling, preppy girl thing you got going on," he motions his hand at my tank top, white frilly skirt, and curly hair, "is nothing but bull shit. You can't just change who you are on the outside and expect it to change who you are on the inside.

I've been to Australia. I've met the devil drank beer and snogged kangaroos.

Nina tried to imagine what their wild crew must look like to these Fjerdans. What did they see as they poked their heads out of windows and doorways? A group of hooting kids clinging to a tank painted with the Fjerdan flag and charging along like some deranged float gone astray from its parade; a girl in purple silk and a boy with red-gold curls poking out from behind the guns; four soaked people holding tight to the sides for dear life – a Shu boy in prison clothes, two bedraggled drüskelle, and Nina, a half-naked girl in shreds of teal chiffon shouting, “We have a moat!

If words are our weapons, we must ask ourselves, why should we use rocks and sticks when we have tanks available?

She was wearing a tank-top with torn-off sleeves. It gave an awfully generous view of her breasts for a girl worried about meeting Ted Bundy in a Ryder van.

I’ll leave you guys to get acquainted. Somebody show Leo to dinner when it’s time?” “I got it,” one of the girls said. Nyssa, Leo remembered. She wore camo pants, a tank top that showed off her buff arms, and a red bandanna over her mop of dark hair. Except for the smiley-face Band-Aid on her chin, she looked like one of those female action heroes, like any second she was going to grab a machine gun and start mowing down evil aliens. “Cool,” Leo said. “I always wanted a sister who could beat me up.

Seeing the girl that I crashed into wearing a tight hot pink workout tank top and black yoga pants turned my dick into granite.

Girl from the fifth floor, who feeds the birds every day, climbs up to the water tank and jumps off. I see her body on the road below, and feel absolutely nothing. Maybe because I expect her to get up and walk off. In a story, the birds would have joined forces in a show of gratitude and broken her fall, carried her to a faraway land of safety. As it is, they just gurgle foolishly and confer about the no-show of breakfast. I imagine myself in Pigeon girl's place - a split open bag of skin on tar.

4 million volts course like lovers through her body. Eerie rays eliminate from bulbous cathodes to caress her skin penetrating deep. Also somewhat like lovers, actually. Chemicals so secret they don't even have names and bubbles and spurts in her vein.

[Adapted and condensed Valedictorian speech:] I'm going to ask that you seriously consider modeling your life, not in the manner of the Dalai Lama or Jesus - though I'm sure they're helpful - but something a bit more hands-on, Carassius auratus auratus, commonly known as the domestic goldfish. People make fun of the goldfish. People don't think twice about swallowing it. Jonas Ornata III, Princeton class of '42, appears in the Guinness Book of World Records for swallowing the greatest number of goldfish in a fifteen-minute interval, a cruel total of thirty-nine. In his defense, though, I don't think Jonas understood the glory of the goldfish, that they have magnificent lessons to teach us. If you live like a goldfish, you can survive the harshest, most thwarting of circumstances. You can live through hardships that make your cohorts - the guppy, the neon tetra - go belly-up at the first sign of trouble. There was an infamous incident described in a journal published by the Goldfish Society of America - a sadistic five-year-old girl threw hers to the carpet, stepped on it, not once but twice - luckily she'd done it on a shag carpet and thus her heel didn't quite come down fully on the fish. After thirty harrowing seconds she tossed it back into its tank. It went on to live another forty-seven years. They can live in ice-covered ponds in the dead of winter. Bowls that haven't seen soap in a year. And they don't die from neglect, not immediately. They hold on for three, sometimes four months if they're abandoned. If you live like a goldfish, you adapt, not across hundreds of thousands of years like most species, having to go through the red tape of natural selection, but within mere months, weeks even. You give them a little tank? They give you a little body. Big tank? Big body. Indoor. Outdoor. Fish tanks, bowls. Cloudy water, clear water. Social or alone. The most incredible thing about goldfish, however, is their memory. Everyone pities them for only remembering their last three seconds, but in fact, to be so forcibly tied to the present - it's a gift. They are free. No moping over missteps, slip-ups, faux pas or disturbing childhoods. No inner demons. Their closets are light filled and skeleton free. And what could be more exhilarating than seeing the world for the very first time, in all of its beauty, almost thirty thousand times a day? How glorious to know that your Golden Age wasn't forty years ago when you still had all you hair, but only three seconds ago, and thus, very possibly it's still going on, this very moment." I counted three Mississippis in my head, though I might have rushed it, being nervous. "And this moment, too." Another three seconds. "And this moment, too." Another. "And this moment, too.

Adelaide—the girl who felt everything—had to remind herself that it was, in fact, okay to feel. That it was okay to fill her lungs with air, her tank with fuel, her brain with the chemicals it needed. It was okay to go to hell and back, to carry every ounce of light and darkness inside of her. It was okay to love herself fiercely, a little selfishly, and with intention. It was all okay.

Is growin' up always miserable?" Sonny asked. "Nobody seems to enjoy it much." "Oh, it ain't necessarily misearble," Sam replied. "About eighty percent of the time, I guess." They were silent again, Sam the Lion thinking of the lovely, spritely girl he had once led into the water, right there, where they were sitting. "We ought to go to a real fishin' tank next year," Sam said finally. "It don't do to think about things like that too much. If she were here now I'd probably be crazy again in about five minutes. Ain't that ridiculous?" A half-hour later, when they had gathered up the gear and were on the way to town, he answered his own question. "It ain't really, " he said. "Being crazy about a woman like her's always the right thing to do. Being a decrepit old bag of bones is what's ridiculous.

Mr Bott sits down and gestures gracefully to the board. "As you are clearly both fascinated by this text, would you like to explain the significance of Laertes in Hamlet?" He looks at Alexa. "Please go first, Miss Roberts." "Well..." Alexa says hesitantly. "He's Ophelia's brother, right?" "I didn't ask for his family tree, Alexa. I want to know his literary significance as a fictional character." Alexa looks uncomfortable. "Well then, his literary significance is in being Ophelia's brother, isn't it? So she has someone to hang out with." "How very kind of Shakespeare to give fictional Ophelia a fictional playmate so that she doesn't get fictionally bored. Your analytical skills astound me, Alexa. Perhaps I should send you to Set Seven with Mrs White and you can spend the rest of the lesson studying Thomas the Tank Engine. I believe he has lots of buddies too.

When you grow up the way I do, and the biggest thing in your life so far has been getting dunked in a glass tank by a man who acts like he’s mugging you but says instead he’s saving your soul, then celebrating your soul mugging at Sizzler with your parents (get the buffet by itself, not added on to a steak dinner, because the buffet already has sirloin tips), you need rules. And not their rules, not God’s rules, but mine. My own. Here’s on of Eliot’s Rules for Dating: When you first meet a girl, make sure you are accidentally conducting a chemistry experiment on your lips. OK. I didn’t say they were all good rules.

It was drizzling. As people rushed along, they began opening umbrellas over their heads, and all at once the streets were crowded, too. Arched umbrella roofs collided with one another. The men were courteous, and when passing Tereza they held their umbrellas high over their heads and gave her room to go by. But the women would not yield; each looked straight ahead, waiting for the other woman to acknowledge her inferiority and step aside. The meeting of the umbrellas was a test of strength. At first Tereza gave way, but when she realized her courtesy was not being reciprocated, she started clutching her umbrella like the other women and ramming it forcefully against the oncoming umbrellas. No one ever said "Sorry." For the most part no one said anything, though once or twice she did hear a "Fat cow!" or "Fuck you!" The women thus armed with umbrellas were both young and old, but the younger among them proved the more steeled warriors. Tereza recalled the days of the invasion and the girls in miniskirts carrying flags on long staffs. Theirs was a sexual vengeance: the Russian soldiers had been kept in enforced celibacy for several long years and must have felt they had landed on a planet invented by a science fiction writer, a planet of stunning women who paraded their scorn on beautiful long legs the likes of which had not been seen in Russia for the past five or six centuries. She had taken many pictures of those young women against a backdrop of tanks. How she had admired them! And now these same women were bumping into her, meanly and spitefully. Instead of flags, they held umbrellas, but they held them with the same pride. They were ready to fight as obstinately against a foreign army as against an umbrella that refused to move out of their way.

A group of hooting kids clinging to a tank painted with the Fjerdan flag and charging along like some deranged float gone astray from its parade: a girl in purple silk and a boy with red-gold curls poking out from behind the guns; four soaked people holding tight to the sides for dear life—a Shu boy in prison clothes, two bedraggled drüskelle, and Nina, a half-naked girl in shreds of teal chiffon shouting, “We have a moat!

Emmylou kissed her forehead. “Darlin’ girl, I’ll never make fun of you for that. But if you really want to try waxing the lady taco, I’ll do it for you at the studio. Takes, like, ten minutes to heat up the wax tank.” “Since when do you give wax jobs?” “Since always. Some of the guys who come to me for a massage are apelike hairy. The fur on their backs grosses me out and reminds me why I prefer to eat the banana split rather than the banana.

The BBC even made a recording of it using another girl’s voice, and I began to see that the pen and the words that come from it can be much more powerful than machine guns, tanks or helicopters. We were learning how to struggle. And we were learning how powerful we are when we speak.

And of course, she wore high-waisted bike shorts, a too-cropped-for-her-age tank,

I began to see that the pen and the words that come from it can be much more powerful than machine guns, tanks or helicopters.

I had a vision. I lay half asleep in the dirt. The sunset Behind the hills and burnt my skin. And in the dream I saw a throne--my throne, Built on the tower of my life. When I woke all I could think of was my Vision, etched so clearly on my mind. I worked for three days and three nights With no food or drink, until my vision Had become a reality--perfect in every Detail. I pondered the significance of this Edifice and shook off my trance.... I felt tired, I felt lonely, I felt confused, I felt so bloody confused, I felt like a right prat!

The two women did more than resolve a major problem, they went on to form a political alliance and launch a coup. Cixi was twenty-five years old and Empress Zhen a year younger. Facing them were eight powerful men in control of the state machine. The women were well aware of the risk they were taking. A coup was treason, and if it failed the punishment would be the most painful ling-chi, death by a thousand cuts. But they were willing to take the risk. Not only were they determined to save their son and the dynasty, but they also rejected the prescribed life of imperial widows – essentially living out their future years as virtual prisoners in the harem. Choosing to change their own destiny as well as that of the empire, the two women plotted, often with their heads together leaning over a large glazed earthenware water tank, pretending to be appraising their reflections or just talking girls’ talk.

Sometimes he wished he didn’t have a sister, though he loved Deenie and still remembered the feeling he had when he caught that kid Ethan pushing her off the swing set in the school yard in fifth grade. And how time seemed to speed up until he was shoving the kid into the fence and tearing his jacket. The admiring look his sister gave him after, the way his parents pretended to be mad at him but he could tell they weren’t. These days, it was pretty different. There’d be those moments he was forced to think about her not just as Deenie but as the girl whose slender tank tops hung over the shower curtain. Like bright streamers, like the flair the cheerleaders threw at games. Sometimes he wished he didn’t have a sister.

I flap my arm out in the air but quickly drop it when I remember I’m wearing a tank top … the number one enemy of a chubby girl is the skin under her arms. I always feel like it’s just jiggling like crazy.

They stopped at one of these half-tank houses ... where they were greeted by a young girl, who herself seemed like no more than a child. - We have come to enquire after Absalom ... Have you heard nothing from him? Nothing, she said. When will he return? he asked. I do not know, she said. Will he ever return? he asked, indifferently, carelessly. I do not know she said. She said it tonelessly, hopelessly, as one who is used to waiting, to desertion. She said it as one who expects nothing from her seventy years upon the earth. No rebellion will come out of her, no demands, no fierceness. Nothing will come out of her at all save the children of men who will use her, leave her, forget her.

Barbara began to imagine the pretty girls working in Derry and Toms as beautiful tropical fish in a tank, swimming up and down, up and down, in serene disappointment, with nowhere to go and nothing to see that they hadn’t seen a million times before.

You wanna do this?” he asks, though his hands are gripping for my tank. “Speak now or forever hold your fucking peace, Little Bird.” I do what any girl would do with Kingston Axton half naked on top of them, wanting to eat you alive. I hold my fucking peace.

Beauty said. “I’ll just be in the corner reading my book.” She leaned in. “It’s about a duke and a servant girl in sixteenth-century England. Tank mocks me something fierce for reading this shit, but I can’t help it. I fucking live for all the romantic crap!

You going somewhere with that finger there, darlin’?” His lip kicked up at the side. “You’re fucking beautiful, beauty queen.” I took hold of his hand and sat up. Tank watched every movement I made. The guy had been locked up for three years. He got out two days ago. He must have been bursting for a fuck. I kissed each finger, then, when his mouth was just an inch from mine, pushed his hand to the crotch of my jeans and said, “I like having my stomach stroked as much as the next girl, darlin’, but I’d rather feel those fingers all up in my pussy.

Snake pushes me out of the way, using me like a weapon to knock Gage and Tank off balance. He runs for the door and bursts out before we get a chance to get back to our feet. The men try to keep me in the house, but I don’t listen to them. Chasing after Snake, I reach under my shirt and wrap my hand around the handle of my gun. He doesn’t have a car, but that’s not going to stop the slimy piece of shit from trying to get away from me. After jangling a few handles, he finds an unlocked door and dives behind the wheel. My shot obliterates the back window, but it doesn’t stop him from cranking the engine

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.

A girl.... AND a gamer? Whoa mama! Hummina hummina hummina bazooooooooing! *eyes pop out* AROOOOOOOOGA! *jaw drops tongue rolls out* WOOF WOOF WOOF WOOF WOOF WOOF WOOF WOOF WOOF WOOF WOOF WOOF WOOF WOOF WOOF *tongue bursts out of the mouth uncontrollably leaking face and everything in reach* WURBLWUBRLBWURblrwurblwurlbrwubrlwburlwbruwrlblwublr *tiny cupid shoots an arrow through heart* Ahhhhhhhhhhh me lady... *heart in the shape of a heart starts beating so hard you can see it through shirt* ba-bum ba-bum ba-bum ba-bum ba-bum *milk truck crashes into a bakery store in the background spiling white liquid and dough on the streets* BABY WANTS TO FUCK *inhales from the gas tank* honka honka honka honka *masturabtes furiously* ohhhh my gooooodd~

Karsen rounded my car staring at me in disbelief. “Since when do you dress like that?” She pointed at my red tank top and shorts. “Somebody is close to exposing some toe.” I looked down at my closed toed heels. “Of the camel variety,” Karsen explained pointing at my girl parts. I tried to slap her but she took off. And I wasn’t in the mood for running. I knew I’d break an ankle in the heels I wore.

Sittin’ in a café in dark glasses sippin’ coffee dunkin’ doughnuts while it’s sunny thinking guns guns guns and I’ve got pockets full of bullets and a suitcase full of money and a fuckin’ awful headache and a police rifle that fires dummies and I’m listening to Barney because she really wants to tell me all the fifty million reasons why she’s feelin’ fuckin’ funny and she wants to kill her mummy and she wants me to kill her daddy but there really is no logic to the way we’re spending Sunday because we don’t know where we’re going and we’ve been drinking since last Monday and Booga’s sharpening sticks and he’s looking like a monkey and I’m waiting for my tank and I know it will look chumly because Dobson is my man and he’s part of my fuckin’ family and when I see him next I’m gonna buy him half a shandy.

They were all waiting for a man. Men were going to scoop them up in a net and take them home and put them into an even smaller tank. Not all of them were waiting to find a man, because some of them had already found one, but it didn’t stop the waiting. A few were waiting for a man to make up his mind and fewer still, the lucky ones, were waiting for a man who’d already made up his mind to make enough money. Barbara

When they got back in the Corvette, Gretel fished around in her shopping bad. "What is this?" She had chosen a black tank suit, but somehow a pink bikini had wound up among her purchases. "Don't be mad," Margot pleaded. "I'm not wearing this." Gretel tossed the bikini back in the bag. All the same, she couldn't help but notice the fabric was the same exact shade as the palest climbing roses. The tint of seashells on a deserted beach, or the mouth of someone you might want to kiss.

When I’m not with Trish, I go to the stores in the neighborhood to steal cute clothes for her. A tank top with a bedazzled Playboy bunny, a Von Dutch hat, bell-bottom jeans with suede ties on the front. I teach her how to steal so she can be self-sufficient and take better care of herself. The goal is to blend in with the private school girls. If people assume we’re rich, they won’t suspect us of stealing. I understand the power of appearance, and I see how rich people are regarded.

Epitaph. Not next year, not the next one, Not the year after that. But ages From here, Clad in love stained sleeping bags, Dying with feet wrapped in endless Shirts and pillow cases, Crumbling with 99 flakes clutched Between thumb and palm, dripping Yellow cream from twig fingers, Basking our white haired chests on Green grassed parks under purple Skies. Laughing over coffee after Bath tubs of coffee have passed Through our guts. Huddled, lonely, Under heaped clothes, here lay us...

We all lie. We all guard secrets—sometimes terrible ones—a side to us so dark, so shameful, that we quickly avert our own eyes from the shadow we might glimpse in the mirror. Instead we lock our dark halves deep in the basement of our souls. And on the surface of our lives, we work industriously to shape the public story of our selves. We say, “Look, world, this is me.” We craft posts on social media . . . See this wonderful lunch I’m eating at this trendy restaurant with my besties, see my sexy shoes, my cute puppy, boyfriend, tight ass in a bikini. See my gloriously perfect life . . . see what a fucking fabulous time I’m having drunk and at this party with my boobs swelling out of my sparkly tank top. Just look at those hot guys draped all over me. Aren’t you jealous . . . And then you wait to see how many people LIKE this fabricated version of yourself, your mood hinging on the number of clicks. Comments. Who commented. But darkness has a way of seeping through the cracks. It seeks the light . . .

You're walking down Fool's Street, Laura used to say when he was drinking, and she had been right. He had known even then that she was right, but knowing had made no difference; he had simply laughed at her fears and gone on walking down it, till finally he had stumbled and fell. Then, for a long time, he stayed away, and if he had stayed away long enough he would have been all right; but one night he began walking down it again - and met the girl. It was inevitable that on Fool's Street there should be women as well as wine. He had walked down it many times in many different towns, and now he was walking down it once again in yet another town. Fool's Street never changed, no matter where you went, and this one was no different from the others. The same skeletonic signs bled beer names in vacant windows; the same winos sat in doorways nursing muscatel; the same drunk tank awaited you when at last your reeling footsteps failed. And if the sky was darker than usual, it was only because of the rain which had begun falling early that morning and been falling steadily ever since.

How recently have the sharks been fed?" the guy next to me asked. Alex and I were in a small room with a dry-erase board, a perky blonde aquarium emplyee, and three guys from Rutgers who'd won their fraternity Christmas prize. True to Alex's promise, no one had seen me in my miniscule jungle print. Another perky girl had handed me a wet suit and pointed me into a changing room. So as I listened to the basics of shark tank etiquette, I was fully encased in blue neoprene from ankle to jaw. The frat boys kept sneaking looks at me when they thought I-and Alex-wasn't looking. It made me feel just a little bit better. Alex's promise that I didn't have to get into the water if I really didn't want to helped, too. It had gotten me out of the car and into the aquarium. "You can do it," he'd coaxed. "Yes," I'd answered, thinking of the skateboarder a little and "fake it til you make it" more. "I can do it." "Yesterday." Perky Girl answered the feeding question. "Believe me. They're not hungry." I wanted to know exactly how she knew that.Did she ask the sharks? "Okay," she chirped. "Let's get snorkeling.

And not just beautiful, but hot, too, with her breasts straining against her tight tank top, her curved legs swinging back and forth beneath the swing, flip-flops dangling from her electric-blue-painted toes. It was right then, between when I asked about the labyrinth and when she answered me, that I realized the importance of curves, of the thousand places where girls’ bodies ease from one place to another, from arc of the foot to ankle to calf, from calf to hip to waist to breast to neck to ski-slope nose to forehead to shoulder to the concave arch of the back to the butt to the etc. I’d noticed curves before, of course, but I had never quite apprehended their significance.

Do you know”—she began to wheeze between the words—“that I begged your mother not to have you. I begged . . . and pleaded . . . to scramble you up and pull you out . . . before you ruined her life.” Her grandmother took a hit from the oxygen tank. “You were a disgrace to this family before you even popped out . . . and if I could change one thing in my life . . . I’d go back . . . and pull you out with my bare hands . . . before you were able to kill my baby girl.” She heaved into the mask. “You killed my baby . . . ruined what was left of my life . . . and I will never . . . forgive you.” She gripped the wheels of her chair and began to scoot away. “I should’ve left you . . . in a dumpster.” Even

We didn’t talk any more about Boris’s love interest, at least not that day, but then a few days later when I came out of math I saw him looming over this girl by the lockers. While Boris wasn’t especially tall for his age, the girl was tiny, despite how much older than us she seemed: flat-chested, scrawny-hipped, with high cheekbones and a shiny forehead and a sharp, shiny, triangle-shaped face. Pierced nose. Black tank top. Chipped black fingernail polish; streaked orange-and-black hair; flat, bright, chlorine-blue eyes, outlined hard, in black pencil. Definitely she was cute – hot, even; but the glance she slid over me was anxiety-provoking, something about her of a bitchy fast-food clerk or maybe a mean babysitter.

She had the kind of eyes that predisposed you to supporting her every endeavor. And not just beautiful, but hot, too, with her breasts straining against her tight tank top, her curved legs swinging back and forth beneath the swing, flip-flops dangling from her electric-blue-painted toes. It was right then, between when I asked about the labyrinth and when she answered me, that I realized the importance of curves, of the thousand places where girls’ bodies ease from one place to another, from arc of the foot to ankle to calf, from calf to hip to waist to breast to neck to ski-slope nose to forehead to shoulder to the concave arch of the back to the butt to the etc. I’d noticed curves before, of course, but I had never quite apprehended their significance.

It truly is a team sport, and we have the best team in town. But it’s my relationship with Ilana that I cherish most. We have such a strong partnership and have learned how we work most efficiently: I need coffee, she needs tea. When we’re stressed, I pace around and use a weird neck massager I bought online that everyone makes fun of me for, and she knits. When we’re writing together she types, because she’s faster and better at grammar. We actually FaceTime when we’re not in the same city and are constantly texting each other ideas for jokes or observations to potentially use (I recently texted her from Asheville: girl with flip-flops tucked into one strap of tank top). Looking back now at over ten years of doing comedy and running a business with her I can see how our collaboration has expanded and contracted. But it’s the problem-solving aspect of this industry, the producing, the strategy, the realizing that we could put our heads together and figure out the best solution, that has made our relationship and friendship what it is. Because that spills into everything. We both have individual careers now, but those other projects have only been motivating and inspiring to each other and the show. We bring back what we’ve learned on the other sets, in the other negotiations, in the other writers’ rooms or press situations. I’m very lucky to have jumped into this with Ilana Rose Glazer, the ballsy, curly-haired, openhearted, nineteen-year-old girl that cracked me up that night at the corner of the bar at McManus. So many wonderful things have happened since we began working together, but there are a lot of confusing, life-altering things in there too, and it’s such a relief to have someone who completely understands the good and the bad.

THE JELLIES EXHIBIT, BELOW THE TOUCH TANK, where the rest of my seventh-grade class flicked water at one another, was nearly empty. It was quiet down there, which was a relief. The room was filled with tanks of jellyfish. I saw jellies whose tentacles were finer than hair; the aquarium must have projected lights into the tank, because the animals kept changing color. Nearby, in a different tank, I looked at jellies whose tentacles swirled the way wisps of a girl’s hair might if she floated underwater. In a third tank, the jellies’ tentacles were so thick and straight it seemed like the animals had created their own prison. There was even a tank filled with brand-new baby jellies; they looked like tiny, delicate white flowers. Such strange creatures, all of them—they looked like aliens, almost. Graceful aliens. Silent ones. Like alien ballerinas who danced without needing any music. Near

By 1949, both the United States and the Soviet Union had withdrawn their troops and turned the peninsula over to the new puppet leaders. It did not go well. Kim Il Sung was a Stalinist and an ultranationalist dictator who decided to reunify the country in the summer of 1950 by invading the South with Russian tanks and thousands of troops. In North Korea, we were taught that the Yankee imperialists started the war, and our soldiers gallantly fought off their evil invasion. In fact, the United States military returned to Korea for the express purpose of defending the South—bolstered by an official United Nations force—and quickly drove Kim Il Sung’s army all the way to the Yalu River, nearly taking over the country. They were stopped only when Chinese soldiers surged across the border and fought the Americans back to the 38th parallel. By the end of this senseless war, at least three million Koreans had been killed or wounded, millions were refugees, and most of the country was in ruins. In 1953, both sides agreed to end the fighting, but they never signed a peace treaty. To this day we are still officially at war, and both the governments of the North and South believe that they are the legitimate representatives of all Koreans.

Is that who you are, that vaguely criminal face on your ID card, its soul snatched by the government camera as the guillotine shutter fell—or maybe just left behind with your heart, at the Stage Door Canteen, where they’re counting the night’s take, the NAAFI girls, the girls named Eileen, carefully sorting into refrigerated compartments the rubbery maroon organs with their yellow garnishes of fat—oh Linda come here feel this one, put your finger down in the ventricle here, isn’t it swoony, it’s still going. . . . Everybody you don’t suspect is in on this, everybody but you: the chaplain, the doctor, your mother hoping to hang that Gold Star, the vapid soprano last night on the Home Service programme, let’s not forget Mr. Noel Coward so stylish and cute about death and the afterlife, packing them into the Duchess for the fourth year running, the lads in Hollywood telling us how grand it all is over here, how much fun, Walt Disney causing Dumbo the elephant to clutch to that feather like how many carcasses under the snow tonight among the white-painted tanks, how many hands each frozen around a Miraculous Medal, lucky piece of worn bone, half-dollar with the grinning sun peering up under Liberty’s wispy gown, clutching, dumb, when the 88 fell—what do you think, it’s a children’s story?

It's hard to form a lasting connection when your permanent address is an eight-inch mailbox in the UPS store. Still,as I inch my way closer, I can't help the way my breath hitches, the way my insides thrum and swirl. And when he turns,flashing me that slow, languorous smile that's about to make him world famous,his eyes meeting mine when he says, "Hey,Daire-Happy Sweet Sixteen," I can't help but think of the millions of girls who would do just about anything to stand in my pointy blue babouches. I return the smile, flick a little wave of my hand, then bury it in the side pocket of the olive-green army jacket I always wear. Pretending not to notice the way his gaze roams over me, straying from my waist-length brown hair peeking out from my scarf, to the tie-dyed tank top that clings under my jacket,to the skinny dark denim jeans,all the way down to the brand-new slippers I wear on my feet. "Nice." He places his foot beside mine, providing me with a view of the his-and-hers version of the very same shoe. Laughing when he adds, "Maybe we can start a trend when we head back to the States.What do you think?" We. There is no we. I know it.He knows it.And it bugs me that he tries to pretend otherwise. The cameras stopped rolling hours ago, and yet here he is,still playing a role. Acting as though our brief, on-location hookup means something more. Acting like we won't really end long before our passports are stamped RETURN. And that's all it takes for those annoyingly soft girly feelings to vanish as quickly as a flame in the rain. Allowing the Daire I know,the Daire I've honed myself to be, to stand in her palce. "Doubtful." I smirk,kicking his shoe with mine.A little harder then necessary, but then again,he deserves it for thinking I'm lame enough to fall for his act. "So,what do you say-food? I'm dying for one of those beef brochettes,maybe even a sausage one too.Oh-and some fries would be good!" I make for the food stalls,but Vane has another idea. His hand reaches for mine,fingers entwining until they're laced nice and tight. "In a minute," he says,pulling me so close my hip bumps against his. "I thought we might do something special-in honor of your birthday and all.What do you think about matching tattoos?" I gape.Surely he's joking. "Yeah,you know,mehndi. Nothing permanent.Still,I thought it could be kinda cool." He arcs his left brow in his trademark Vane Wick wau,and I have to fight not to frown in return. Nothing permanent. That's my theme song-my mission statement,if you will. Still,mehndi's not quite the same as a press-on. It has its own life span. One that will linger long after Vane's studio-financed, private jet lifts him high into the sky and right out of my life. Though I don't mention any of that, instead I just say, "You know the director will kill you if you show up on set tomorrow covered in henna." Vane shrugs. Shrugs in a way I've seen too many times, on too many young actors before him.He's in full-on star-power mode.Think he's indispensable. That he's the only seventeen-year-old guy with a hint of talent,golden skin, wavy blond hair, and piercing blue eyes that can light up a screen and make the girls (and most of their moms) swoon. It's a dangerous way to see yourself-especially when you make your living in Hollywood. It's the kind of thinking that leads straight to multiple rehab stints, trashy reality TV shows, desperate ghostwritten memoirs, and low-budget movies that go straight to DVD.

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.

While walking toward them, I dropped my backpack, then pulled my tank top off over my head to reveal my bikini. And just balled up my tank top in one hand as if it were nothing, and threw it into the boat. “Heeeeeey!” I said in a high girl-voice as I hugged Cameron, whom I hadn’t seen since he’d come home from college for the summer a few days ago. He hugged me back and kept glancing at my boobs and trying not to. My brother had that look on his face like he was going to ask Dad to take me to the shrink again. I bent over with my butt toward them, dropped my shorts, and threw those in the boat, too. When I straightened and turned toward the boys, I was in for a shock. I had thought I wanted Sean to stare at me. I did want him to stare. But now that Sean and Cameron and Adam were all staring at me, speechless, I wondered whether there was chicken salad on my bikini, or-somewhat worse-an exposed nipple. I didn’t feel a breeze down there, though. And even I, with my limited understanding of grand entrances and seducing boys, understood that if I glanced in the direction they were staring and there were no nipple, the effect of the grand entrance would be lost. So I snapped my fingers and asked, “Zone much?” Translation: I’m hot? Really? Hmph. Adam blinked and turned to Sean. “Bikini or what?” Sean still stared at my boobs. Slowly he brought his strange pale eyes up to meet my eyes. “This does a lot for you,” he said, gesturing to the bikini with the hand flourish of Clinton from What Not to Wear. Surely this was my imagination. He didn’t really know I’d been studying how to be a girl for the past year! “Sean,” I said without missing a beat, “I do a lot for the bikini.” Cameron snorted and shoved Sean. Adam shoved him in the other direction. Sean smiled and seemed perplexed, like he was trying to think of a comeback but couldn’t, for once. Off to the side, my brother still looked very uncomfortable. I hadn’t thought through how he’d react to the unveiling of the swan. I hadn’t thought through any of their reactions very well, in case you weren’t getting this. I wanted Sean to ask me out, but I didn’t want to lose my relationship, such as it was, with everybody else.

Early in the boob-emerging years, I had no boobs, and I was touchy about it. Remember in middle school algebra class, you’d type 55378008 on your calculator, turn it upside down, and hand it to the flat-chested girl across the aisle? I was that girl, you bi-yotch. I would have died twice if any of the boys had mentioned my booblets. Last year, I thought my boobs had progressed quite nicely. And I progressed from the one-piece into a tankini. But I wasn’t quite ready for any more exposure. I didn’t want the boys to treat me like a girl. Now I did. So today I’d worn a cute little bikini. Over that, I still wore Adam’s cutoff jeans. Amazingly, they looked sexy, riding low on my hips, when I traded the football T-shirt for a pink tank that ended above my belly button and hugged my figure. I even had a little cleavage. I was so proud. Sean was going to love it. Mrs. Vader stared at my chest, perplexed. Finally she said, “Oh, I get it. You’re trying to look hot.” “Thank you!” Mission accomplished. “Here’s a hint. Close your legs.” I snapped my thighs together on the stool. People always scolded me for sitting like a boy. Then I slid off the stool and stomped to the door in a huff. “Where do you want me?” She’d turned back to the computer. “You’ve got gas.” Oh, goody. I headed out the office door, toward the front dock to man the gas pumps. This meant at some point during the day, one of the boys would look around the marina office and ask, “Who has gas?” and another boy would answer, “Lori has gas.” If I were really lucky, Sean would be in on the joke. The office door squeaked open behind me. “Lori,” Mrs. Vader called. “Did you want to talk?” Noooooooo. Nothing like that. I’d only gone into her office and tried to start a conversation. Mrs. Vader had three sons. She didn’t know how to talk to a girl. My mother had died in a boating accident alone on the lake when I was four. I didn’t know how to talk to a woman. Any convo between Mrs. Vader and me was doomed from the start. “No, why?” I asked without turning around. I’d been galloping down the wooden steps, but now I stepped very carefully, looking down, as if I needed to examine every footfall so I wouldn’t trip. “Watch out around the boys,” she warned me. I raised my hand and wiggled my fingers, toodle-dee-doo, dismissing her. Those boys were harmless. Those boys had better watch out for me.

Suddenly I realized I was standing on the hot wood of the dock, still touching elbows with Adam, staring at the skull-and-crossbones pendant. And when I looked up into his light blue eyes, I saw that he was staring at my neck. No. Down lower. “What’cha staring at?” I asked. He cleared his throat. “Tank top or what?” This was his seal of approval, as in, Last day of school or what? or, Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders or what? Hooray! He wasn’t Sean, but he was built of the same material. This was a good sign. I pumped him for more info, to make sure. “What about my tank top?” “You’re wearing it.” He looked out across the lake, showing me his profile. His cheek had turned bright red under his tan. I had embarrassed the wrong boy. Damn, it was back to the football T-shirt for me. No it wasn’t, either. I couldn’t abandon my plan. I had a fish to catch. “Look,” I told Adam, as if he hadn’t already looked. “Sean’s leaving at the end of the summer. Yeah, yeah, he’ll be back next summer, but I’m afraid I won’t be able to compete once he’s had a taste of college life and sorority girls. It’s now or never, and desperate times call for desperate tank tops.” Adam opened his mouth to say something. I shut him up by raising my hand. Imitating his deep boy-voice, I said, “I don’t know why you want to hook up with that jerk.” We’d had this conversation whenever we saw each other lately. I said in my normal voice, “I just do, okay? Let me do it, and don’t get in my way. Stay out of my net, little dolphin.” I bumped his hip with my hip. Or tried to, but he was a lot taller than me. I actually hit somewhere around his mid-thigh. He folded his arms, stared me down, and pressed his lips together. He tried to look grim. I could tell he was struggling not to laugh. “Don’t call me that.” “Why not?” “Dolphins don’t live in the lake,” he said matter-of-factly, as if this were the real reason. The real reason was that the man-child within him did not want to be called “little” anything. Boys were like that. I shrugged. “Fine, little brim. Little bass.” He walked toward the stairs. “Little striper.” He turned. “What if Sean actually asked you out?” I didn’t want to be teased about this. It could happen! “You act like it’s the most remote poss-“ “He has to ride around with the sunroof open just so he can fit his big head in the truck. Where would you sit?” “In his lap?” A look of disgust flashed across Adam’s face before he jogged up the stairs, his weight making the weathered planks creaked with every step.

Slothrop is just settling down next to a girl in a prewar Worth frock and with a face like Tenniel’s Alice, same forehead, nose, hair, when from outside comes this most godawful clanking, snarling, crunching of wood, girls come running terrified out of the eucalyptus trees and into the house and right behind them what comes crashing now into the pallid lights of the garden but—why the Sherman Tank itself! headlights burning like the eyes of King Kong, treads spewing grass and pieces of flagstone as it manoeuvres around and comes to a halt. Its 75 mm cannon swivels until it’s pointing through the French windows right down into the room. “Antoine!” a young lady focusing in on the gigantic muzzle, “for heaven’s sake, not now. . . .” A hatch flies open and Tamara—Slothrop guesses: wasn’t Italo supposed to have the tank?—uh—emerges shrieking to denounce Raoul, Waxwing, Italo, Theophile, and the middleman on the opium deal. “But now,” she screams, “I have you all! One coup de foudre!” The hatch drops—oh, Jesus—there’s the sound of a 3-inch shell being loaded into its breech. Girls start to scream and make for the exits. Dopers are looking around, blinking, smiling, saying yes in a number of ways. Raoul tries to mount his horse and make his escape, but misses the saddle and slides all the way over, falling into a tub of black-market Jell-o, raspberry flavor, with whipped cream on top. “Aw, no . . .” Slothrop having about decided to make a flanking run for the tank when YYYBLAAANNNGGG! the cannon lets loose an enormous roar, flame shooting three feet into the room, shock wave driving eardrums in to middle of brain, blowing everybody against the far walls. A drape has caught fire. Slothrop, tripping over partygoers, can’t hear anything, knows his head hurts, keeps running through the smoke at the tank—leaps on, goes to undog the hatch and is nearly knocked off by Tamara popping up to holler at everybody again. After a struggle which shouldn’t be without its erotic moments, for Tamara is a swell enough looking twist with some fine moves, Slothrop manages to get her in a come-along and drag her down off of the tank. But loud noise and all, look—he doesn’t seem to have an erection. Hmm. This is a datum London never got, because nobody was looking. Turns out the projectile, a dud, has only torn holes in several walls, and demolished a large allegorical painting of Virtue and Vice in an unnatural act. Virtue had one of those dim faraway smiles. Vice was scratching his shaggy head, a little bewildered. The burning drape’s been put out with champagne. Raoul is in tears, thankful for his life, wringing Slothrop’s hands and kissing his cheeks, leaving trails of Jell-o wherever he touches. Tamara is escorted away by Raoul’s bodyguards. Slothrop has just disengaged himself and is wiping the Jell-o off of his suit when there is a heavy touch on his shoulder. “You were right. You are the man.” “That’s nothing.” Errol Flynn frisks his mustache. “I saved a dame from an octopus not so long ago, how about that?” “With one difference,” sez Blodgett Waxwing. “This really happened tonight. But that octopus didn’t.

The phone was snatched from her grasp. She let out a screech, her fingers clasping at air. “Hey! Give that back.” Gracie slipped it down the V of her tank and into her ample cleavage. “Come and get it.” Billy plopped down on a vacant stool, eyes bugging out of his head. Maddie stared at Gracie’s chest and contemplated. She could stick her hand down a woman’s top. It was no big deal—just skin, for God’s sake. She jumped off the stool and straightened to her full five-foot-three inches. “What is wrong with calling him?” “It’s a girlfriend’s responsibility to stop her friend from the dreaded drunk dial.” Maddie scowled. She was not drunk dialing! “Telling him where I am isn’t a crime.” Gracie planted her hands on her hips. “Sorry, honey. I’m doing this for your own good.” “You don’t understand.” Maddie picked up her drink and took a slow sip. Her gaze was fixed on the stretch of fabric across Gracie’s ample chest. She wanted that phone, and with way too many margaritas in her system, she wasn’t above groping another woman to get it. “I’m getting that phone.” Billy’s mouth dropped open, and Maddie was surprised no drool hung down his chin like a rabid dog’s. “You’ll thank me later.” Gracie didn’t appear the least bit threatened. If anything, she thrust her breasts out farther, as though daring Maddie to come and get it. “Give it to me!” Maddie stomped her foot. “Like I said, come and get it.” Gracie batted her thick lashes, cornflower-blue eyes sparkling. She tucked her hand into her top and shoved it lower into her bra. “All right, but remember, I know how to fight.” Gracie laughed and Billy whooped like he’d hit the jackpot. Maddie charged. Gracie’s eyes widened in surprise, and she let out a holler, crossing her arms over her chest for protection. Maddie refused to be thwarted. She squeezed her lids together so she wouldn’t have to look and flung her hands out, praying she’d get hold of something. When her palm brushed against soft, pillowy cotton, she squealed. Pay dirt. “Maddie!” Gracie grabbed her hand, twisting her body to block Maddie’s progress. “That’s my boob!” Maddie reached again and this time her hand curled around the cotton neckline. She pulled, squirming down the deep V of the top. Her fingers brushed the phone and a surge of adrenaline pounded through her. “Now, why doesn’t this surprise me?” Mitch’s voice made her knees go weak. Before she could swing around, she was hauled against his warm, strong body. She sagged in relief. He’d come for her after all. “You girls are giving everyone quite a show.” Charlie stood next to Mitch, looking lethal in all black. Maddie could picture him with an FBI armband over his bicep. Wait . . . was that the FBI? Or was it SWAT? “With all these disappointed faces, I’m sorry we broke them up.” Mitch’s tone rang with amusement, and Maddie realized it had been too long since she’d heard him sound like that. “I wanted to call you, but she wouldn’t let me.” Her pulse raced from her girl fight and the buzz of tequila. His palm spread wide over the expanse of her stomach, his thumb brushing the bottom of her breast. “Well, here I am.” “See!” Gracie pointed and shook her hips in a little booty dance. “I told you so!” Yes,

We’re anarchists, you motherfuckers!

White guilt, that nasty little creature who rested on my left shoulder, prevented me from challenging Mrs. Brown on this or any other point. At this time of my life a black man could probably have handed me a bucket of cow piss, commanded me to drink it in order that I might rid my soul of the stench of racism, and I would have only asked for a straw. Blacks who have gone through the civil rights struggle have met a hundred white boys and girls who would dive head first in a septic tank to prove their liberation from the sins of their fathers.

Brie’s eyes wandered to my shoulder. I’d already changed into Casey’s last clean pair of pajamas. I was wearing a light purple tank top and a pair of matching shorts. I

As if on cue, Roo strolled out of the bakery, carrying a huge cinnamon roll in one hand and a giant cappuccino in the other. She wore a black taffeta miniskirt, black tights, black ballet slippers, and a black tank top over a purple T-shirt. Watching her a moment, Parker turned to the others and sighed. “Look at her. Fashion Goddess of the Dark Realm.” “She’s creative,” Ashley emphasized. “And her realm isn’t always a bad place to be.” “Neither is hell. If you’re the Antichrist.” This earned Parker a slug on the arm. Grinning, he pulled Ashley close and kissed her. “Don’t even ask,” Roo announced as she joined them. “These are mine, and I’m not sharing.” Gage promptly tore off a fourth of the cinnamon roll and popped it in his mouth. Etienne took a third of what was left. Roo stood there looking down at her practically empty napkin. “You didn’t need that, anyway,” Ashley insisted. “All those calories.” Parker gave Roo a serious once-over. “Since when has Roo cared about calories? No, wait. Since when has Roo cared about clothes? No, wait. Since when has Roo cared about how she looks?” He stared at Gage. Gage stared at Etienne. Etienne stared at Parker. “Since when has Roo cared about anything?” they all asked in unison. Feeling a little envious, Miranda observed the good-natured teasing. The kids back home hadn’t shared this kind of camaraderie. Not that they hadn’t been close--their own special group of girls and guys--but what Miranda saw here was different. Stronger, somehow. Like a real family. Miranda refocused on the three boys. Roo didn’t seem the least bit bothered by their comments. As Gage reached for the last bite of cinnamon roll, Roo stuffed it quickly into her mouth. Etienne just as quickly snatched the cappuccino from her other hand.

RULES TO TEACH YOUR SON 1. Never shake a man’s hand sitting down. 2. Don’t enter a pool by the stairs. 3. The man at the BBQ Grill is the closest thing to a king. 4. In a negotiation, never make the first offer. 5. Request the late check-out. 6. When entrusted with a secret, keep it. 7. Hold your heroes to a higher standard. 8. Return a borrowed car with a full tank of gas. 9. Play with passion or don’t play at all… 10. When shaking hands, grip firmly and look them in the eye. 11. Don’t let a wishbone grow where a backbone should be. 12. If you need music on the beach, you’re missing the point. 13. Carry two handkerchiefs. The one in your back pocket is for you. The one in your breast pocket is for her. 14. You marry the girl, you marry her family. 15. Be like a duck. Remain calm on the surface and paddle like crazy underneath. 16. Experience the serenity of traveling alone. 17. Never be afraid to ask out the best looking girl in the room. 18. Never turn down a breath mint. 19. A sport coat is worth 1000 words. 20. Try writing your own eulogy. Never stop revising. 21. Thank a veteran. Then make it up to him. 22. Eat lunch with the new kid. 23. After writing an angry email, read it carefully. Then delete it. 24. Ask your mom to play. She won’t let you win. 25. Manners maketh the man. 26. Give credit. Take the blame. 27. Stand up to Bullies. Protect those bullied. 28. Write down your dreams. 29. Take time to snuggle your pets, they love you so much and are always happy to see you. 30. Be confident and humble at the same time. 31. If ever in doubt, remember whose son you are and REFUSE to just be ordinary! 32. In all things, give glory to God.

thin glasses that seemed to get lost on his wide red face. His balding forehead glared in the overhead lights. He reminded Bryan a little of that Muppet—the puffy-faced science guy with glasses but no eyeballs on his melon head. “For example, the next time that bell rings, all of you will immediately forget everything I’ve told you. You will scramble for your backpacks, and you will rush out that door without so much as a simple thank-you for all the mind-blowing knowledge I bestowed upon you today. You will do so mindlessly, as you have for the last several weeks of school, because it is a conditioned response. The bell is a stimulus and you are conditioned to act a certain way when you hear it.” Like ducking behind someone taller as soon as you spot Tank Wattly coming down the hall, Bryan thought. Or losing your ability to say anything witty or intelligent whenever this one girl in particular so much as looks at you. “We are all conditioned by our environment. We are all creatures of instinct, driven by our need to survive, but capable of learning through experience. In that way we are actually no different,” Tomlins said, reaching beneath him and pulling up a wire cage from under the table, “from mice.” Susan Onesacker screamed, but the rest of the class bent forward to get a better look at the tufts of white fur huddled against one another in the cage. There had to be at least a dozen of them in there. Beady little red eyes. Twitching noses. Some of the mice lifted their snouts to the air. Others started clawing to find an exit. They didn’t

A deep voice behind me makes me jump. I quickly turn around to see a tanned, tall man, about my age, in a pair of khaki shorts, tank top, tennis shoes, and dark shades. He has about two days’ growth of stubble on his face. He smiles broadly when I ask, “What?” “Can I help you with that? It looks like you’re wrestling an octopus.” I nervously giggle and step back, giving him room to try to wrangle the bike into the back of the SUV. After a few attempts, he turns to me. “If you want, we can put it in the back of my truck, and I can take it home for you.” Warning signs immediately start flashing in my brain. I am not at all comfortable talking to men. I’ve been with one man my entire life; as in comfortable with, talked with, been friends with. Before him, it was my Dad. Every other male makes me nervous. I feel like I’m being judged. I’m not comfortable in my own skin, much less around a man. I start stammering as I quickly try to think of a response that isn’t rude or make me sound like an idiot or an inexperienced school girl. “Um, you don’t have to do that. Thank you though.” Geez girl! He doesn’t give up. “I don’t mind. Do you live on Coronado? If so, no place is too far. If you tell me you live in Rancho Bernardo, I might have to think twice about it.” He offers me a huge smile. He removes his shades, placing them on top of his head. The brightest blue eyes look at me with such warmth that I feel like a fool for thinking he may be a serial killer. I think for a moment and finally agree.

Several times I hit the brake as two boys and a girl on bicycles weave on and off the main drive through hard-packed dirt yards. The girl is 6 years old at most, and wears a camouflage tank top. The boys might be a couple years older, but one of them is wearing flip-flops, and the idea of having bare feet makes me shiver a little right now. The three of them look like they're racing to the beach even though it's been overcast and in the 50s again the past few days. I wonder where their parents are. I never saw the backside of 8:30 p.m. until I was in junior high. Don't these kids have a bedtime?

Tate: "What's taking Ren so long to forgive you? Your epic reunions usually happen fairly fast." Wyatt: "She's dragging it out this time. She went out with some meathead from her gym last night and sent me a selfie of them watching The Bachelorette together because she knew it'd piss me off." I raise an eyebrow. Cooper: "Why would that piss you off?" Wyatt: "Because it's our favorite show, dickhead. She's goddamn TV-cheating on me with a guy who wears mesh tank tops.

Adelaide—the girl who felt everything—had to remind herself that it was, in fact, okay to feel. That it was okay to fill her lungs with air, her tank with fuel, her brain with the chemicals it needed. It was okay to go to hell and back, to carry every ounce of light and darkness inside of her. It was okay to love herself fiercely, a little selfishly, and with intention.

Hang on,” Darcy spoke over me and my fingers itched with the urge to punish her for that. If she’d done so in my classroom, I would have made her pay severely for it. As it was, I supposed I could be lenient this once. She’d soon learn I was not to be fucked with anyway. Of course, then my treacherous mind ran to the dangerous place where my punishments involved me pushing her down on my desk and spanking her ass raw, and I cursed myself internally. What the fuck’s the matter with me? ... “Yes. But not just any school. The best school.” It really was the fucking best. “So what do you say?” “I say you're crazy,” Darcy said and I had a vision of showing her just how crazy I could be. Not an appropriate one though. The kind where she was pinned beneath me gasping my name. Focus. ... A beat later, Darcy returned from the bathroom in tight jeans which clung to her round ass and a black tank top that hugged the hourglass curves of her body. Ah, great. Why couldn’t she have been covered in Heptian Toad skin? For some reason, her twin of the exact same figure hadn’t stirred anything in me, but this one had my cock throbbing and my mind spinning with filthy fantasies I could never, ever act on. You fucking idiot. ... I grabbed her shoulders, jerking her around to face the circle of new students in The Howling Meadow ready for their Awakening as my heart thrashed and rioted in my chest. Darcy stepped away from me and my fingers balled and unballed as I stared after her, a growl rolling low through my throat as I worked to fight against the thirst, and the other, hungry part of me which had awoken. Darcy glanced back at me in alarm. “What's going on?” she asked, her green eyes dancing with panic. I guessed this really was a mindfuck. “Did you just drug us?” Tory rounded on me. “What is it with you and drugs?” I muttered. “Remember to keep calm,” I commanded, needing them to get through this without making a complete scene. I had to know what Elements they possessed. Lionel would be waiting for me to call and give him a play by play of everything that had happened tonight, everything I’d learned about the Vegas. But there was one thing for sure I wouldn’t tell even Darius about this night. That I felt a pull to one of them that defied all logic and made my hatred for them deepen. Because of all the concerns I’d had about the Vega twins returning to Solaria, none of my imaginings had conjured up this. Maybe it was the power of their blood that called to me, but as it was only Darcy who had made me fucking burn with unwanted need, I doubted I could put it down to that. One thing was for sure, I’d be cutting these twisted urges out of me just as soon as I could. And they were not going to affect anything about what came next. Because the Vega twins would not be ascending to the throne. It was my duty to make sure of that. And no girl with blue-tipped hair in bunny pyjamas was going to fuck with my plans.(Lance Orion POV)

What’s this?” Alec said, looking baffled. “It’s a girl,” Jace said. He moved closer to the redhead, who stood with her feet braced apart, her hands on her hips, clearly with no intention of being scared away. He was vaguely aware of her loose shirt, unbuttoned over a tank top. Of the pulse at her throat and the rise of her breath. “A mundie girl,” he said. She was definitely, definitely not a demon. Her skin was lightly freckled, her eyes green mixed with gold. “And she can see us." “Of course I can see you,” she snapped. “I’m not blind.

Going to Moscow was a dream for us,' Ilich said years later. He and his younger brother started the course within weeks of Soviet tanks rolling into Czechoslovakia to crush the heady 'Prague Spring'. But they soon found that discipline at the cosmopolitan university, whose 6000 students were all selected through the Communist Party of their country of origin, was as stifling as its modernist architecture. Drab grey concrete blocks squatted around a charmless artificial pond. The only dash of colour was a map of the world painted on to the façade of one block in a valiant attempt to symbolise the ideals of the university: from an open book, symbol of learning, a torch emerges, issuing multicoloured flames that spread like waves across the planisphere. Perhaps Ilich drew some comfort from glancing up at the mural as, huddled against the rigours of the Russian winter and wearing a black beret in tribute to Che Guevara who had died riddled by bullets in October of the previous year, he trudged across the bleak square on his way to lectures. Coincidentally, the base of the flame is very close to Venezuela. Rules and regulations governed virtually every aspect of Ilich's life from the moment he started the first year's induction course, which was designed to flesh out his knowledge of the Russian language and introduce him to the delights of Marxist society before he launched into his chosen subjects, languages and chemistry. Like father, like son. Ilich rebelled against the rules, preferring to spend his time chasing girls. He would often crawl back to his room drunk. His professors at the university, some of them children of Spanish Civil War veterans who had sought refuge in Moscow, were unimpressed by his academic performance. 'His name alone, Ilich Ramírez Sánchez, was so strange that people were curious about him,' relates Kirill Privalov, a journalist on the newspaper Druzhba (Friendship) which was printed at the small university press, and an acquaintance of Ilich. The Venezuelan's escapades, wildly excessive by the standards of the university, only fanned people's interest. 'llich was not at all the typical student sent by his country's Communist Party, nothing to do with the good little soldier of Mao who laboured in the fields every summer. He was a handsome young man although his cheeks looked swollen, and he was a great bon viveur. Flush with cash sent by his parents, Ilich could afford to spend lavishly on whisky and champagne in the special stores that only accepted payment in hard currencies and which were off-limits to most people. More Russian than the Russians, the privileged student and his friends would throw over their shoulders not only empty glasses but bottles as well. The university authorities, frustrated in their attempts to impose discipline on Ilich, reasoned that his freedom of action would be drastically limited if the allowance that his father sent him were reduced. But when they asked Ramírez Navas to be less generous, the father, piqued, retorted that his son had never wanted for anything. 'The university had a sort of vice squad, and at night students were supposed either to study or sleep,' recounts Privalov. "One night the patrol entered Ilich's room and saw empty bottles of alcohol and glasses on the table, but he was apparently alone. The squad opened the cupboard door and a girl who was completely drunk fell out. She was naked and was clutching her clothes in her hands. They asked her what she was doing there and she answered: 'I feel pity for the oppressed.' She was obviously a prostitute. Another time, and with another girl, Ilich didn't bother to hide her in the cupboard. He threw her out of the window. This one was fully dressed and landed in two metres of snow a foor or two below. She got up unhurt and shouted abuse at him.

The end of the world is a fairly comforting concept, because—in theory—we wouldn’t have to survive it. Maybe what’s been fucking us up, more than anything, hasn’t been finding a way to cope with the world ending but finding a way to cope with the fact that it didn’t. An ending is easy. This terminal waking up, morning after morning, isn’t easy. Repairing and rebuilding isn’t easy either. I think that’s why I’ve been so angry, so desperate to believe Adam’s paranoid theory about purgatory, why I wanted to believe that the girl in the water tank had died for a more important reason than men’s continued violence. Instead of a conclusion, we’ve been offered nothing but more life. I don’t know how to come to terms with that.

A trader named Chuck Zion took an interest in Sam. Known as Brown Bear, Zion showed Israel how to be a “paper trader.” Following a matrix of three hundred companies, Israel learned to track the price movement of shares so that he could recognize characteristics. “Brown Bear made sure I was doing it every day, not being lazy and wasting his time,” Sam recalled. “He was giving me a gift. Once you know the price range of a share, you get a chart in your head. You know if the stock is streaking. You know if it is tanking. Each stock has characteristics in the way it trades. Knowing the price of a stock was like dating a girl. How well do you know her? What does she like to do? What’s her mood today?

She is so good, your wife.” “Yes,” said Alexander. “So fresh and young. So lovely to look at.” “Yes,” said Alexander, closing his eyes. “And she doesn’t yell at you.” “No. Though I reckon she sometimes wants to.” “Oh, to have such restraint in my Bessie. She used to be a fine woman. And the girl was such a loving girl.” More drink, more smoke. “But have you noticed since coming back,” said Nick, “that there are things that women just don’t know? Won’t know. They don’t understand what it was like. They see me like this, they think this is the worst. They don’t know. That’s the chasm. You go through something that changes you. You see things you can’t unsee. Then you are sleepwalking through your actual life, shell-shocked. Do you know, when I think of myself, I have legs? In my dreams I’m always marching. And when I wake up, I’m on the floor, I’ve fallen out of bed. I now sleep on the floor because I kept rolling over and falling while dreaming. When I dream of myself, I’m carrying my weapons, and I’m in the back of a battalion. I’m in a tank, I’m yelling, I’m always screaming in my dreams. This way! That way! Fire! Cease! Forward! March! Fire, fire, fire!” Alexander lowered his head, his arms drooping on the table. “I wake up and I don’t know where I am. And Bessie is saying, what’s the matter? You’re not paying attention to me. You haven’t said anything about my new dress. You end up living with someone who cooks your food for you and who used to open her legs for you, but you don’t know them at all. You don’t understand them, nor they you. You’re two strangers thrown together. In my dreams, with legs, after marching, I’m always leaving, wandering off, long gone. I don’t know where I am but I’m never here, never with them. Is it like that with you, too?” Alexander quietly smoked, downing another glass of whiskey, and another. “No,” he finally said. “My wife and I have the opposite problem. She carried weapons and shot at men who came to kill her. She was in hospitals, on battlefields, on frontlines. She was in DP camps and concentration camps. She starved through a frozen, blockaded city. She lost everyone she ever loved.” Alexander took half a glass of sour mash into his throat and still couldn’t keep himself from groaning. “She knows, sees, and understands everything. Perhaps less now, but that’s my fault. I haven’t been much of a—” he broke off. “Much of anything. Our problem isn’t that we don’t understand each other. Our problem is that we do. We can’t look at each other, can’t speak one innocent word, can’t touch each other without touching the cross on our backs. There is simply never any peace.” Another stiff drink went into Alexander’s throat.

Boys and girls alike need physical affection, yet young boys often receive less than young girls. There are many reasons for this, but the most common is that some parents feel that physical affection will somehow feminize a boy. Of course, this is not true. The fact is that the more parents keep the emotional tank full, the healthier the child’s self-esteem and sexual identity will be.

the pen and the words that come from it can be much more powerful than machine guns, tanks or helicopters.

It wasn’t hard to track Stevie down in the crowd. Lizzie found the girl in the purple tank fairly easily then scanned a twenty-yard radius looking for the boy. Sure enough, there he was, skulking behind a shortcake booth, eyes huge as he watched the purple tank girl enjoying a strawberry ice cream cone. Not wanting to embarrass the kid, she told Finn she’d round Stevie up then meet him and Annie back at the minivan. She surreptitiously circled the booth until she came up behind Stevie. In her best secret-agent voice, while pretending she didn’t see him, she whispered, “Psst, the eagle takes flight in five minutes. I repeat, the eagle takes flight in five minutes.” She saw Stevie’s body grow rigid, then relax. “Roger that,” he said under his breath.

made her stand out like rosebud in a weed patch next to the other girls in their skimpy tank tops and tight jeans.

Now our chance had come. Destroying the fourolds was a new battle, and an important one: It would keep China from losing her Communist ideals. Though we were not facing real guns or real tanks, this battle would be even harder, because our enemies, the rotten ideas and customs we were so used to, were inside ourselves.

Dirty Freds... I love this filthy old place. I love the dust and the dirt, the crappy old books and the objects of art.

She stepped over two small girls (she wasn't certain who they belonged to) playing with tanks in the middle of the hall and snuck past a sort of possible second cousin carrying two lit candles. The Gray Man lifted his arms above his head to avoid being ignited by the second cousin, who clucked at him. "Life's short." "And getting shorter every day." "So you see my point." "I never disputed it.

Justineau doesn’t have any answer. She watches with an eerie sense of dislocation as Caldwell crosses to another part of the lab, comes back with a glass fish tank in which she’s set up one of her tissue cultures. It’s an older one, with several years of growth. The tank is about eighteen inches by twelve by ten inches high, and its interior is completely filled with a dense mass of fine, dark grey strands. Like plague-flavoured candy floss, Justineau thinks. It’s impossible even to tell what the original substrate was; it’s just lost in the toxic froth that has sprouted from it. “This

Not a morning person, is she?” a lazy voice drawled. Maddie dropped her hand to stare into Sam Roberts’s amused face. He sat across from Mitch, long, denim-clad legs stretched out, one hand hugging a coffee cup. Of course. What was breakfast with Mitch if not another new humiliation? This town was custom-made to put her in awkward situations. She glared at Mitch, who grinned like the cat who ate the canary. “Do you ever have breakfast alone?” He shrugged. “They’re big fans of the drop-in.” “From the looks of her, she should be in a much better mood,” Sam said, clearly entertained. Maddie crossed her arms over her breasts. She might as well be naked in her skimpy tank top and cotton shorts. “No need to be shy.” Sam winked at her. “I saw you last night, although you were considerably less rumpled.” She rolled her eyes. “Isn’t it polite to allow a girl some dignity?” “What do you mean, last night?” Mitch asked at the same time, eyes narrowed on Sam. A muscle jumped in his forearm as his fingers tightened around his mug. “Don’t even tell me that’s what you were wearing.” “I was sitting on the front porch when he came home.” She ran her hand through her disheveled hair, getting caught in the wild mass of tangles. Sam gave Mitch a sly, devious smile. “Not my fault you left her alone for just anyone to come take a peek.” Mitch’s attention snapped to Maddie. She refused to fidget under his scrutiny. One golden brow rose. Maddie huffed. “I don’t need to explain myself to you.” “Hmmmm . . .” Mitch gave her a through once-over. Maddie’s chin shot up. “This is your fault, not mine!” Sam scrubbed his blond, stubbled jaw. “She’s got a point.” “I suppose she does,” Mitch said, but his tone spoke of a different story. Those amber eyes told her without words that she’d be paying later with his own delicious brand of torture. She

I grab my old black fleece to pull impatiently on over my black tank top, tugging it down over my butt encased in black leggings, and I dream of a day when I’m not constantly cold. Yeah, I like a lot of black. Does it make me Goth? According to my mom and half the girls at my high school, yes, it does. It might even make me a witch.

Her face lit up in welcome as she saw me, and taking prompt, if cowardly, action in the face of emergency I smiled, waved and ducked out through a side door. As I hurried around the side of the building into a handy patch of deep shadow (Briar being a persistent sort of girl), I tripped over someone’s legs stretched across the path. I lurched forward, and a big hand grasped me firmly by the jersey and heaved me back upright. ‘Thank you,’ I said breathlessly. ‘Helen?’ Briar called, and I shrank back into the shadows beside the owner of the legs. ‘Avoiding someone?’ he asked. ‘Shh!’ I hissed, and he was obediently quiet. There was a short silence, happily unbroken by approaching footsteps, and I sighed with relief. ‘Not very sociable, are you?’ ‘You can hardly talk,’ I pointed out. ‘True,’ he said. ‘Who are you hiding from?’ ‘Everyone,’ he said morosely. ‘Fair enough. I’ll leave you to it.’ ‘Better give it a minute,’ he advised. ‘She might still be lying in wait.’ That was a good point, and I leant back against the brick wall beside him. ‘You don’t have to talk to me,’ I said. ‘Thank you.’ There was another silence, but it felt friendly rather than uncomfortable. There’s nothing like lurking together in the shadows for giving you a sense of comradeship. I looked sideways at the stranger and discovered that he was about twice as big as any normal person. He was at least a foot taller than me, and built like a tank. But he had a nice voice, so with any luck he was a gentle giant rather than the sort who would tear you limb from limb as soon as look at you. ‘So,’ asked the giant, ‘why are you hiding from this girl?’ ‘She’s the most boring person on the surface of the planet,’ I said. ‘That’s a big call. There’s some serious competition for that spot.’ ‘I may be exaggerating. But she’d definitely make the top fifty. Why did you come to a party to skulk around a corner?’ ‘I was dragged,’ he said. ‘Kicking and screaming.’ He turned his head to look at me, smiling. ‘Ah,’ I said wisely. ‘That’d be how you got the black eye.’ Even in the near-darkness it was a beauty – tight and shiny and purple. There was also a row of butterfly tapes holding together a split through his right eyebrow, and it occurred to me suddenly that chatting in dark corners to large unsociable strangers with black eyes probably wasn’t all that clever. ‘Nah,’ he said. ‘I collided with a big hairy Tongan knee.’ ‘That was careless.’ ‘It was, wasn’t it?’ I pushed myself off the wall to stand straight. ‘I’ll leave you in peace. Nice to meet you.’ ‘You too,’ he said, and held out a hand. ‘I’m Mark.’ I took it and we shook solemnly. ‘Helen.’ ‘What do you do when you’re not hiding from the most boring girl on the planet?’ he asked. ‘I’m a vet,’ I said. ‘What about you?’ ‘I play rugby.’ ‘Oh!’ That was a nice, legitimate reason for running into a Tongan knee – I had assumed it was the type of injury sustained during a pub fight.

I knew I was going to fall out of the tree. Girls as athletically challenged as I was should never climb trees. At the very least, I was going to snag my underwear on a branch and be stuck wearing only a tank top high up in the tree. I shuddered in horror. I was NOT that kind of girl. I had a decent rear-end, but I don’t think anyone’s butt looks good climbing trees. At the very worst, I would impale myself on a sharp branch like a pig on a spit. Knowing me, both would happen, and I would soon be pantiless and impaled. I could just see the story in the local newspaper: “Local Woman Found Dead and Half Naked in Tree.

With just one departure daily, the station is mostly empty. But Mr. Shiekhly says that in his mind’s eye he can still see the girl, and everything else that once made the station such a special place to him: a nice restaurant over there; groups of men playing backgammon and dominoes; the officers’ lounge that was, he recalls, “beautiful and full of wood.” The station itself is a time capsule. The ticket booths in the circular room are identified by destinations long out of reach to passenger trains. One sign reads, “Booking for Mosul Train.” Another booth is where passengers once bought tickets to Turkey, Syria and Anbar Province. “Now you have to take tanks or jet fighters to get to these places,” said Ahmed Abdulrahman, 50, who has worked at the station since the late 1970s.

Why did you draw the chick in the ocean so fat and ugly?" asked a guy in a black tank top. "Where?" Kayla said. "Right there by the sandcastle. There on the right." "It's not a girl. It's a manatee.

A sports bra is basically a tank top that comes just below your breasts and fits snug so your breasts stay in place and are pain-free when you’re on the go. Some girls feel so comfortable in sports bras that they wear them all the time. ZOOEY: When I do finally get a

Nomi asked, “When did you know? When did you know that Lila was the one, and nobody else?” “People always ask themselves that question,” he said as he watched a small child fascinated by the poodle. “Still,” Nomi persisted, as if Elias was in possession of some secret formula. “It was all in the breathing,” he said. “What do you mean?” “When I realized she was in every breath I took,” he said. Nomi tried to understand what he was saying: How many breaths did a person take during the course of a day, maybe a hundred thousand? And she was there in every one? “When you find it, you just know. It’s as simple as that child running after the dog.” Nomi gazed at him without comprehending. “When you forget yourself,” he explained. “When your own wishes shrink. Forgetting yourself is a wonderful feeling, and with Lila, I forgot myself all the time. “Once,” he said, continuing, “we were meeting in Ein Karem. This is when we were already in our fifties. Lila arrived by taxi, and at a traffic light we found ourselves next to each other. When I saw her, I don’t know what happened to me. It was like my chest was bursting, I had to say it. I leaned out my window and said to the driver, ‘Tell her that I love her.’ He did. She blushed like a girl. Then the driver called back to me: ‘She loves the way you love her.’ “With her, I saw everything I did in a wonderful light that was sweet and bright: going to the market, filling the tank with gas, sitting in a movie theater. Whenever we came out of the long narrow hallway they always make you exit cinemas from, I would think that with her I’m forgiving; I always want the heroes of the film to fall in love and overcome their challenges and continue their love story. With her I was prepared to be taken anywhere and everywhere.

At the end of that first year at secondary school the ceremonies held on the anniversary of the Korean War affected me deeply and made me very emotional. The day began at school with outdoor speeches from our teachers and headmaster. They opened with the solemn words, spoken into a microphone: ‘On the morning of 25 June 1950, at 3 a.m., the South Korean enemy attacked our country while our people slept, and killed many innocents …’ The images conjured for us of tanks

The physical, wholly sensual pleasure that comes with the drop from the tower down to the tank is a pleasure totally lacking in psychological or philosophical meaning. It’s the sheer exhilaration of being entirely free of the earth as well as everything human; to me no other physical sensation can be so acute, so deeply intoxicating.

Other skaters came to our dorm room to suck balloons inflated from his nitrous tank or sit on the floor clipping their toenails while a skate VHS with a Dinosaur Jr. soundtrack juddered away. Tim was kind to everyone and unimpressed by the university. He never washed his bedsheets. I took to Scotch-taping a sheet of Bounce to an electric fan to deodorize the room. We listened to the Pharcyde and mix tapes from Beat Non Stop, the DJ shop on Melrose Avenue. When Tim went home for the weekend or stayed out late with a girl, I lay in the dark and played Barbra Streisand’s cover of ‘Somewhere,’ in which astral synthesizers evoke outer space. Alone in the dark, I felt comforted, embarrassed and duplicitous.

My Syria is collapsed buildings and destructive tanks. A stream of blood trickling from a bullet wound. A hospital of corpses with no doctor in sight. Where her Syria is family, mine is death. Where hers is freedom, mine is a prison. Where hers breathes, mine suffocates.

The images conjured for us of tanks rolling across the border and slaughtering our people in their homes moved us all to floods of tears. The South Koreans had made victims of us. I burned with thoughts of vengeance and righting injustice. All the children felt the same. We talked afterwards of what we would do to a South Korean if we ever saw one.

Chocolate is a girl's best friend.' 'Consequently, I am going to polish off this entire chocolate pie, as well as sit here and cry, yes just sitting in my white tank top, and light pink comfy old short shorts, with the black drawstring in the fronts, tied, into a big floppy bow.' 'I sit looking at the TV, hugging my teddy bear. Tonight's movie lineup is 'Shawshank,' 'Misery,' 'The Notebook,' and 'A Walk to Remember.' While my black mascara from the day runs down my cheeks.' 'Life is not a fairytale, so maybe I can go next year. I know the prom is not going to happen either, yet I want to go at least once in my life. Yet, some get to go to prom, and dance for five years running. They go all four high school years.' 'Plus, they get asked for their date, which is still in school after they're out, even though they have gone many times before.' 'Then someone like me never gets the chance; that is not fair! I am not jealous; I just want to have the same opportunities, the photos, and the involvements.' 'I could envision in my mind the couples swaying to the music.' 'I could picture the bodies pressed against one another. With their hands laced with desire, all the girls having their poofy dresses pushed down by their partner's closeness, as they look so in love.' 'I know is just dumb dances, but I want to go. Why am I such a hopeless romantic? I could visualize the passionate kissing.' 'I can see the room and how it would be decorated, but all I have is the vision of it. That is all I have! Yeah, I think I know how Carrie White feels too, well maybe not like that, but close. I might get through that one tonight too because I am not going to sleep anywise.' 'So why not be scared shitless! Ha, that reminds me of another one, he- he.' 'I am sure that this night, which they had, would never be forgotten about! I will not forget it either. It must have- been an amazing night which is shared, with that one special person.' 'That singular someone, who only wants to be with you! I think about all the photographs I will never have. All the memories that can never be completed and all the time lost that can never be regained.' 'The next morning, I have to go through the same repetition over again. Something's changed slightly but not much; I must ride on the yellow wagon of pain and misery. Yet do I want to today?' 'I do not want to go after the night that I put in. I was feeling vulnerable, moody, and a little twitchy.' 'I do not feel like listening to the ramblings of my educators. Yet knowing if I do not show up at the hellhole doors, I would be asked a million questions, like why I did not show up, the next day I arrived there.

He and Volnay are two shades of the same color, her deep auburn a complement to his brighter, brasher cinnamon. He has light hazel eyes, squished-up floppy ears, and a large square head atop a body that is built like a little tank. He looks a lot like a miniature orange mastiff. His paws are enormous. Not to mention some other obvious parts of his anatomy. This isn't going to be some elegant little thirty-pound girl. This is a serious BOY dog. And he's going to be HUGE. But he does have the advantage of being a puppy, and all puppies are adorable so that you don't kill them. He's curled up in Benji's arms, licking his ear, and I can't help it, he is pretty goddamned cute. I'm in real trouble.

It was about here,” said Ron, recovering himself to walk a few paces past Filch’s chair and pointing. “Level with this door.” He reached for the brass doorknob but suddenly withdrew his hand as though he’d been burned. “What’s the matter?” said Harry. “Can’t go in there,” said Ron gruffly. “That’s a girls’ toilet.” “Oh, Ron, there won’t be anyone in there,” said Hermione, standing up and coming over. “That’s Moaning Myrtle’s place. Come on, let’s have a look.” And ignoring the large OUT OF ORDER sign, she opened the door. It was the gloomiest, most depressing bathroom Harry had ever set foot in. Under a large, cracked, and spotted mirror were a row of chipped sinks. The floor was damp and reflected the dull light given off by the stubs of a few candles, burning low in their holders; the wooden doors to the stalls were flaking and scratched and one of them was dangling off its hinges. Hermione put her fingers to her lips and set off toward the end stall. When she reached it she said, “Hello, Myrtle, how are you?” Harry and Ron went to look. Moaning Myrtle was floating above the tank of the toilet, picking a spot on her chin. “This is a girls’ bathroom,” she said, eyeing Ron and Harry suspiciously. “They’re not girls.” “No,” Hermione agreed. “I just wanted to show them how — er — nice it is in here.” She waved vaguely at the dirty old mirror and the damp floor. “Ask her if she saw anything,” Harry mouthed at Hermione. “What are you whispering?” said

Do you think your dad—” “Not yet, and no. But the sheriff and some state troopers were over. I heard some stuff. They think the body’s been in there at least ten or fifteen years.” Excited as she was by all the action, it also made her sad. “Can you believe that? Not knowing where your kid has been for the last fifteen years. Not knowing if she’s still alive or dead.” When Laura Lynn and Marcus exchanged a look, she frowned. “What?” “Do you know how many kids die around here? Or go missing?” When Mandy shook her head, Marcus continued. “A lot. Like, a lot a lot.” “How?” she asked. “Why?” “Lots of reasons,” Laura Lynn said. “Cancer. Running away. Murder. There are lots of stories like that. Kids going crazy and sent to insane asylums.” Marcus sat straighter in his chair. “I don’t believe all of them. Jake used to try to freak me out by telling me if I didn’t clean my room, all the kids from the mental hospital would escape and eat me alive.” He glanced to the side and shook his head. “What an asshat.” “Who’s Jake?” Mandy asked. “My older brother. He’s in college now.” Marcus started in on his sandwich, talking through a mouthful of food. “But he said his friend’s brother died that way. Some rare disease or something. Totally incurable.” “That’s pretty weird,” Mandy said. “Maybe that’s what happened to the girl in the septic tank,” Laura Lynn offered. “Maybe she went crazy and fell in.” “And what?” Marcus asked. “Her parents just closed it up and forgot about her? I doubt it.” “Then it was probably murder,” Mandy said. Another thrill went through her, but a twinge of fear followed this one. “We should look into it. Do our own investigation.” Laura Lynn and Marcus both looked down at their plates. Marcus was the first to answer. “I don’t know about that.” “What?” Mandy felt confused. She had figured at least Marcus would be into the idea, even if Laura Lynn wasn’t. “Aren’t you a computer genius? You could help me solve the case! We’d be heroes.” “It’s not worth it.” When he looked up again, he was deadly serious. “A lot of people have gone missing over the years, Mandy. Not just kids. It’s better to just keep your head down. Don’t cause any trouble.” Mandy blanched. When she looked at Laura Lynn for support, she saw her friend nodding in agreement. Mandy sat back in her chair with a huff, the turkey and cheese sandwich untouched. So much for showing Bear she could take care of herself by solving this on her own. 9 Bear pulled his truck next to McKinnon’s cruiser and put it in park. He hopped out and met her around the side of her car. “A graveyard? This is about to get real interesting, or real weird.” “Let’s hope it gets interesting,” McKinnon said. The slam of her door echoed through the surrounding trees, and the two of them trudged their way up a set of steps to the cemetery. Bear had passed it a few times as he’d driven around town. It was the biggest within a twenty-mile radius, but it wasn’t huge. The gravestones were crammed near each other, filling the entire plot of land to the brim. There was a short wrought-iron fence around the perimeter and a plaque that read “April Meadows Cemetery” in block letters. A few trees were scattered around, along with a couple of larger headstones, but most of the markers were small and modest. The paths were skinny and winding, as though they had been an afterthought. “What’re we doing here?” Bear

Magician's Girl You’ll know when. My gossamer singlet flushes to its ends in fire. The black hats, too, begin to hate you. One wrong word & they curl their brims to reveal knives. By Thursday, the floor translates your footfalls as Morse code. At your slow soft shoe, the oubliette opens. Another narrow not-death & the curtains become girls again. They leave you again. They don’t love you like Mother does, bound to the velvet board, febrile Mother willing your water-tank, your white-gloved touch, the part of her night where she is finally a half of you. Despite the involvement of blades. Despite my holding-down hands, their quiver. She knows about your knob-kneed bedmates, their soft white hair. Girls lost in the long warren of your arms. Big-toothed girls, girls who disappear & disappear. You blame yourself. Why? You don’t know that what you do in the dark of your room—I do it too? Watch closely. Here are my man’s hands. Here is my girl’s mouth, speaking—