Adam Rex

“The Boov frowned. 'Everybodies always is wanting to make a clone for to doing their work. If you are not wanting to do your work, why would a clone of you want to do your work?”

“For you time-capsule types, MoPo was something called a convenience store, as in, 'The soda is conveniently located right next to the doughnuts and lottery tickets.' People who want to understand better how the human race was conquered so easily need to study those stores. Almost everything inside was filled with sugar, cheese, or weight-loss tips”

“You heard my name was Chief Shouting Bear," he said. "It doesn't matter. You can call me whatever you want, Stupidlegs.”

“I'm half white," I said, folding my arms."Hrrm. Which half?"I blinked. "Uh...dunno. Let's just say it's from the waist down." Chief Shouting Bear nodded. "Deal. I only hate your legs.”

“Look," I said halfheartedly. "Another one of those tumbleweeds made out of old hair weaves.""Tumbleweave," said J.Lo.”

“The fog was mysterious. The lights were mysterious. The music was "A-Tisket, A-Tasket".”

“I felt a stack of shelves, and these were filled with plastic bottles and maybe buckets, and one object that felt like the worst thing in the world but which turned out later to be a sandwich.”

“you know what doesn’t work when people are tasering you? It’s shouting ‘Stop tasering me.’ If they’re tasering you already, they won’t stop because you ask them to.”

“Told you," said Mick. "Things comin' together. We set off lookin' for the Utz kids an' find a tree full o' everybody. That's magic, too.""It's like a story.""Same thing. The universe don't like plot. Story is magic's way o' telling the universe to sod off.""That's good then, right?" said Scott. After this episode with Emily, he was ready for some optimism. "Magic wants us all to live happily ever after.""Not necessarily," Mick answered. "Magic likes a good tragedy, too.”

“Archimedes was a mathematician," blurted Ethan from the back of the room. "And he was Greek. And he invented things." Ethan was the sort of student who was always keeping score--if he couldn't be the first to declare his knowledge of something, he would make certain you understood that he'd known it already. One day he would be declared the winner, and there would be a Smartest Boy trophy and a parade.”

“You can do terrible things when you don't know who you are...”

“The Freemen have 987 levels of membership, the first three of which are achieved merely by filling out an application. The 8th level is granted upon full acceptance into the local lodge, the 13th following Initiation, the 21st at the end of the Initiate's second week, and the 89th the first time he brings snacks.”

“Sneaky would be a lime-green Volkswagen. Nobody would suspect the assassins in the lime-green Volkswagen.”

“This is where you all live?" Asked John as they ascended the stairs. "It's small.""This is just our Thanksgiving house," Scott muttered. "We have a house for every day of the year.”

“Scottish Play Doe was born at 4:13 a.m. on September 6th. The ink was barely dry on his father's new tattoo.”

“Polly Esther Doe was born at 8:03 a.m. on August 14.”

“Stealing is good, honest work," Said the theif, puffing out his chest. "Well, not honest, strictly speaking," he admitted after a moment. "Or actually good.”

“He spun out enough toilet paper to vandalize a house and carefully cleaned the seat.”

“Project: Potential was a separate class that the gifted students went to for an hour each day. The name was supposed to make it exciting, like Code Name: Cursive or Mission: State Capitals.”

“I spy, with my little eye, something that starts with ... G.""Sausages.”

“Sorry I'm late," Ms. Egami said to the class. She dropped her papers, which scattered in that special way papers do when one is running late.”

“Then it suddenly and theatrically began to clean itself in the way cats do when they want you to know what a big deal you aren't.”

“There's a little bit of magic in every box!”

“Why would a vampire create a younger vampire if there was a possibility the young one might end up destroying the old one?'Stephin stared. 'If you can explain to me how this is different from parenting in general I might know how to answer that.”

“Sejal had not thought of her home, or of India as a whole, as cool. She was dimly aware, however, of a white Westerner habit of wearing other cultures like T-shirts—the sticker bindis on club kids, sindoor in the hair of an unmarried pop star, Hindi characters inked carelessly on tight tank tops and pale flesh. She knew Americans liked to flash a little Indian or Japanese or African. They were always looking for a little pepper to put in their dish.”

“For the gentle werelibrarian,who's strictly vegetarian,there's nothing like Tofillagerthe MEATLESS TOFU VILLAGER”

“Is there a short-eared koobish, then?'Mmmyes ...' said J.Lo. 'But it is technically not really a koobish. Is more alike a kind of singing pumpkin.'We had conversations like these all the time, where I just eventually gave up.”

“YOU have no room to laugh, that's all. I'm not doing any worse with Boovish than you did with English.'Get off of the car,' J.Lo huffed. 'I am an English superstar.'Uh-uh. There's no comparison. 'Gratuity' in written Boovish has seventeen different bubbles that all have to be the right size and in the right place. 'J.Lo' in written English only has three letters, and you still spelled it 'M-smiley face-pound sign.”

“Ohh,' said the girl with a sad tilt of her head.It was a response Sejal would hear a lot in the following weeks and which she would eventully come to understand meant, 'Ohh, India, that must be so hard for you, and I know because I read this book over the summer called The Fig Tree (which is actually set in Pakistan but I don't realize there's a difference) about a girl whose parents sell her to a sandal maker because everyone's poor and they don't care about girls there, and I bet that's why you're in our country even, and now everyone's probably being mean to you just because of 9/11, but not me although I'll still be watching you a little too closely on the bus later because what if you're just here to kill Americans?'There was a lot of information encoded in that one vowel sound, so Sejal missed most of it at first.”

“Can I come into the out now? - Jlo”

“Allo!" he shouted as he drifted away."there is no to fear! The Boov have stopped eating you people!”

“The Boov frowned. 'Now you sound like sheep.”

“...Almost everything inside was filled with sugar, cheese, and weight-loss tips.”

“By the time we stopped for the night, Billy Milsap was as big as an ocean liner.”

“I scattered J.Lo's tools around the car, searching for some kind of rope, or something that could be used like a rope. I should have paid more attention to anything that looked like a pencil sharpener made of lemon Jell-O that, when cranked, would spit out superstrong yarn that smelled like ginger ale. I only mention this because J.Lo really did have such a thing.”

“What part of Canada are you from, honey?""THE LEFT PART," said Jay.”

“Can I see some ID?" "WE DON'T HAVE ID," said Jay, loudly. "'CAUSE WE'RE CANADIAN. WE DON'T USE ID...THERE. AND THAT'S WHY WE LOOK SO YOUNG. 'CAUSE WE'RE CANADIAN." Doug stiffened. Jay sounded crazy. Doug tried looking extra sane to even things out.”

“There you go. Perfect. And can you still throw up at will like you could in sixth grade? That would be good.”

“...a row of tables manned by seated, serious women. Each woman looked like she could be someone's least-favourite aunt.”

“They can't expect anyone to actually pay for a shirt that says, 'I (picture of an elephant) the San Diego Zoo.' What does that even mean?”

“it smelled the way a garage would smell if you left a bear inside it for too long.”

“Jay lurched in one direction, jerked back, lurched in another, tripped for no reason. He finally made it through a gauntlet of invisible obstacles and crouched behind a water fountain shaped like a hippopotamous throwing up.”

“We could have made it to the Arizona border in a few more hours if we hadn't been distracting each other with stupid little arguments. Don't get me wrong; I liked J.Lo fine. I've made that bed. But I'm not sure there's a person in the world I could be with twenty-four hours a day for three weeks without getting a little snippy. If I ever meet such a person, I'm marrying them.”

“[J.Lo] found us a police car. Sort of.'It's not a police car,' I said.'It is,' said J.Lo. 'Looknow. Lights for flashing.''That's true.''Writing on the sides.''Yeah, but the writing? It says ''BullShake Party Patrol.''Yes. Whatnow?”

“I'm sorry, but -I'm sorry!' I yelped and skipped backward as Gorg advanced on me. 'You were given bad information. Probably some human's fault.' I AM PRINCIPAL ANGER COORDINATOR ASSOCIATE-OF-THE-MONTH GORG FOUR-GORG! HUMANS WILL GIVE ME BAD INFORMATION AT THEIR PERIL!'He didn't look like a principal. He looked like something Hercules ought to be wrestling on the side of a vase.”

“We found the bathrooms, which were labeled 'Aliens' and 'Femaliens.''Finally,' I said to J.Lo. 'Here's a bathroom you're allowed to use.”

“When I was a little girl,' I said, sitting down, 'the wallpaper in my room had pictures of Noah's story.' [...]You know what's weird though? It's weird that the ark would be such a kids' story, you know? I mean, it's...really a story about death. Every person who isn't in Noah's family? They die. Every animal, apart from two of each on the boat? They die. They all die in the flood. Billions of creatures. It's the worst tragedy ever,' I finished, my voice tied off by a knot in my chest.[...] 'What the hell,'I said, 'pardon my language, was that doing on my wallpaper?”

“Captain Smek himself appeared on television for an official speech to humankind. [...] 'Noble Savages of Earth,' he said. 'Long time we have tried to live together in peace.' (It had been five months.) 'Long time have the Boov suffered under the hostileness and intolerableness of you people. With sad hearts I now concede that Boov and humans will never to exist as one.' I remember being really excited at this point. Could I possibly be hearing right? Were the Boov about to leave? I was so stupid.'And so now I generously grant you Human Preserves - gifts of land that will be for humans forever, never to be taken away again, now.' [...] So that's when we Americans were given Florida. One state for three hundred million people. There were going to be some serious lines for the bathrooms.”

“Woah,' I said, blocking the doorway. 'You can't come in here. This is the girls' room.' Even as it came out of my mouth, I knew it sounded dumb. Dumb, I thought and maybe even wrong.You...are a boy, aren't you?' I asked. 'I mean, don't take that the wrong way or anything -' J.Lo is a boy, yes.' I let that go.So...you Boov have boys and girls...just like us?' Of course,' said J.Lo. 'Do not be ridicumlous.' I smiled a wan little smile. 'Sorry.' The Boov have seven magnificent genders. There is boy, girl, girlboy, boygirl, boyboy, boyboygirl, and boyboyboyboy.' I had absolutely no response to this.”

“Regarding stickyfish teams, I favor the Bigfield Fighting Koobish.”