Jenny Downham

“She needed food. Diets didn't count in a crisis.”

“If I could buck, I would. If I could howl at the moon, then I would. To feel this, when I’d thought it wasover, when my body’s closing down and I thought I’d have no pleasure from it again.I am blessed.”

“this mad psycho tells everyone to get into a field and says I’m going to pick one of you just one of youout of all of you to die and everyone’s looking around thinking it’s so unlikely to be me because there’sthousands of us so statistically it’s completely unlikely and the psycho walks up and down looking ateveryone and when he gets near me he hesitates and he smiles and then he points right at me and saysyou’re the one and the shock that it’s me and yet of course it’s me why wouldn’t it be I knew all along”

“Črčkarije želja.”

“Sklupčam se u podnožju stubišta. To je mjesto gdje mačka sjedi kad hoće da se ljudi spotaknu preko nje. Uvijek sam htjela biti mačka. Topla i pripitomljena kad to želiš, divlja kad ne.”

“Možda će u vrtu biti nešto drugačije - divlji bizoni, svemirski brod, brda crvenih ruža. Otvaram stražnja vrata vrlo polako, moleći svijet da mi donese nešto novo i iznenađujuće. Ali sve je zastrašujuće poznato - prazne gredice cvijeća, mokra trava i niski sivi oblaci.”

“Gotovo da osjećam nadu, što je ludost. Želim živjeti prije nego što umrem. To je jedino što ima smisla.”

“Zatvaram oči i zamišljam da sam drvo okupano sunčevim svjetlom, da ne želim ništa osim kiše.”

“Instructions for Dad. I don't want to go into a fridge at an undertaker's. I want you to keep me at home until the funeral. Please can someone sit with me in case I got lonely? I promise not to scare you.I want to be buried in my butterfly dress, my lilac bra and knicker set and my black zip boots (all still in the suitcase that I packed for Sicily). I also want to wear the bracelet Adam gave me.Don't put make-up on me. It looks stupid on dead people.I do NOT want to be cremated. Cremations pollute the atmosphere with dioxins,k hydrochloric acid, hydrofluoric acid, sulphur dioxide and carbon dioxide. They also have those spooky curtains in crematoriums.I want a biodegradable willow coffin and a woodland burial. The people at the Natural Death Centre helped me pick a site not for from where we live, and they'll help you with all the arrangements.I want a native tree planted on or near my grave. I'd like an oak, but I don't mind a sweet chestnut or even a willow. I want a wooden plaque with my name on. I want wild plants and flowers growing on my grave.I want the service to be simple. Tell Zoey to bring Lauren (if she's born by then). Invite Philippa and her husband Andy (if he wants to come), also James from the hospital (though he might be busy).I don't want anyone who doesn't know my saying anything about me. THe Natural Death Centre people will stay with you, but should also stay out of it. I want the people I love to get up and speak about me, and even if you cry it'll be OK. I want you to say honest things. Say I was a monster if you like, say how I made you all run around after me. If you can think of anything good, say that too! Write it down first, because apparently people often forget what they mean to say at funerals.Don't under any circumstances read that poem by Auden. It's been done to death (ha, ha) and it's too sad. Get someone to read Sonnet 12 by Shakespeare.Music- "Blackbird" by the Beatles. "Plainsong" by The Cure. "Live Like You Were Dying" by Tim McGraw. "All the Trees of the Field Will Clap Their Hands" by Sufian Stevens. There may not be time for all of them, but make sure you play the last one. Zoey helped me choose them and she's got them all on her iPod (it's got speakers if you need to borrow it).Afterwards, go to a pub for lunch. I've got £260 in my savings account and I really want you to use it for that. Really, I mean it-lunch is on me. Make sure you have pudding-sticky toffee, chocolate fudge cake, ice-cream sundae, something really bad for you. Get drunk too if you like (but don't scare Cal). Spend all the money.And after that, when days have gone by, keep an eye out for me. I might write on the steam in the mirror when you're having a bath, or play with the leaves on the apple tree when you're out in the garden. I might slip into a dream.Visit my grave when you can, but don't kick yourself if you can't, or if you move house and it's suddenly too far away. It looks pretty there in the summer (check out the website). You could bring a picnic and sit with me. I'd like that.OK. That's it.I love you.Tessa xxx”

“Hey, listen,' I say. " Fascinating as this is, we've got to go now. I have to collect the invites for my funeral."That shuts them up. Fiona looks astonished." Really? " Yeah." I grab Zoey's arm. "It's a shame i can't be there myself - i like parties. Text me if you think of any good hymns!”

“Adam blows smoke at the town below. Says, ‘Anything could be happening down there, but up here you just wouldn’t know it.”

“I want a big dark room you can barely move in, with bodies grinding close together. I want to hear a thousand songs played incredibly loud. I want to dance so fast that my hair grows long enough to trample on. I want my voice to be thunderous above the throb of bass. I want to get so hot that I have to crunch ice in my mouth.”

“I miss him as soon as he goes. When he isn't with me, I think I made him up.”

“I didn't understand that when you make love, you actually do MAKE love. Stir things. Affect each other. The breath that escapes from me is dazzled. He breathes it in with a gasp.”

“I want you to be with me in the dark. To hold me. To keep loving me. To help me when I get scared. To come right to the edge and see what's there.”

“He falls asleep quickly. I lie awake and listen to lights being switched off all over the town. Whisperedgoodnights. The drowsy creak of bedsprings.I find Adam’s hand and hold it tight.I’m glad that night porters and nurses and long-distance lorry drivers exist. It comforts me to know thatin other countries with different time zones, women are washing clothes in rivers and children are filing toschool. Somewhere in the world right now, a boy is listening to the merry chink of a goat’s bell as hewalks up a mountain. I’m very glad about that.”

“Maybe I’ll come back as somebody else.I’ll be the wild-haired girl Adam meets in his first week at university. ‘Hi, are you on the horticulturalcourse as well?”

“Help me, Mikey, she wanted to say. I’m afraid. More afraid than you’d ever believe.’ And he’d take her hand and they’d fly across the rooftops and up into space and sit on some planet and watch a double sunrise or maybe a star being born or some other event that no human had ever seen, her head on his shoulder, his arm around her. And she’d tell him everything.”

“The last few weeks, it was as if someone had taken his life to pieces and let him see the way it worked.”

“When I first saw Ellie, I knew it was her-- she was my fantasy. I didn't want it to be true, but every time I met her it was obvious, and the funny thing was that she was better than the fantasy, like I got more stuff than I'd imagined.”

“Is this how it is for everyone?' she whispered.'No.''How do you know?''I just do. I've never felt this with anyone before.''Serious?''Serious. That isn't a line.''Kiss me,' she said.He did. Everywhere.”

“If you want a girl to like you, you have to listen like a woman and love like a man.”

“I'm here. Soon I won't be. Zoey's baby is here. Its pulse tick-ticking. Soon it won't be. And when Zoey comes out of that room, having signed on the dotted line, she'll be different. She'll understand what I already know- that death surrounds us all.And it tastes like metal between you teeth.”

“I sit up in bed and watch her fiddle about in the back of my wardrobe. I think she's got a plan. That's what's good about Zoey. She'd better hurry up though, because I'm starting to think of things like carrots. And air. And ducks. And pear trees. Velvet and silk. Lakes. I'm going to miss ice. And the sofa. And the lounge. And the way Cal loves magic tricks. And white things- milk, snow, swans.”

“There's a gang of boys on bikes blocking the road ahead. They've got their hoods up, cigarettes shielded. The sky's a really strange colour and there's hardly anyone else about. I slow right down."What shall I do?""Reverse," Zoey says. "They're not going to move."I wind down the window. "Oi!" I yell "Move your arses!"They turn languid, shift lazily to the edge of the road and grin as I blow kisses at them.Zoey looks stunned, "What's got into you?""Nothing- I just haven't learned reversing yet.”

“It was strange how words meant something when they came out of your mouth. Inside your head they were safe and silent, but once they were outside, people grabbed hold of them.”

“Was this love? Because it hurt. It was like a bit of glass stuck somewhere important--his heart or his head, and it was throbbing.”

“She'd never in her whole life bunked school, smoked dope, or kissed a boy whose name she didn't know, and yet in the last few days, she'd done all these things.”

“Don't think you have to be good because you're the only one left. Be as bad as you like.”

“How late is it? How long have we been sitting here? I look at my watch – three thirty and theday is almost ending. It’s October. All those kids recently returned to classrooms with new bags andpencil cases will be looking forward to half term already. How quickly it goes. Halloween soon, thenfirework night. Christmas. Spring. Easter. Then there’s my birthday in May. I’ll be seventeen.How long can I stave it off? I don’t know. All I know is that I have two choices – stay wrapped inblankets and get on with dying, or get the list back together and get on with living.”

“I'm going because my life was crap until I met you. I'm going because I don't want to be here when you're not, still living with my mum and nothing being any different. I wouldn't even be thinking about going if it hadn't been for you.”

“Sometimes if you want something badly enough, you can make it happen. If you miss someone so desperately that it wrecks your insides, you say their name over and over until you conjure then. It's called sympathetic magic and you just have to believe in it to make it work.”

“I lean back on the pillows and look at the corners of the room. When I was a kid, I always wanted to live on the ceiling - it looked so clean and uncluttered, like the top of a cake.”

“I've always wanted to be a cat. Warm and domesticated when you want to be, wild when you don't.”

“Her skin tasted expensive.”

“Maybe you should say goodbye, Cal.''No.''It might be important.''It might make her die.”

“It's all right, Tessa, you can go. We love you. You can go now.''Why are you saying that?''She might need permission to die, Cal.''I don't want her to. She doesn't have my permission.”

“I'm me and you're you, and all of them out there are them. And we're all so different and equally unimportant.”

“I don't want to go into a fridge at an undertaker's. I want you to keep me at home until the funeral. Please can someone sit with me in case I get lonely? I promise not to scare you.”

“Cal says, "Do you want to see my Megazord? You'll have to come to my room because it's defending a city and if I move it, everyone will die.”

“Death straps me to the hospital bed, claws its way onto my chest and sits there.I didn't know it would hurt this much. I didn't know that everything good that's ever happened in my life would be emptied out by it.”

“But all that is warm will go cold. My ears will fall off and my eyes will melt. My mouth will be clamped shut. My lips will turn to glue....No taste or smell or touch or sound.Nothing to look at. Total emptiness for ever.”

“It's really going to happen. I really won't ever go back to school. Not ever. I'll never be famous or leave anything worthwhile behind. I'll never go to college or have a job. I won't see my brother grow up. I won't travel, never earn money, never drive, never fall in love or leave home or get my own house.It's really, really true.A thought stabs up, growing from my toes and ripping through me, until it stifles everything else and becomes the only thing I'm thinking. It fills me up like a silent scream.”

“All I know is that I have two choices – stay wrapped in blankets and get on with dying, or get the list back together and get on with living.”

“Then she says, ‘I love you.’ Like three drops of blood falling onto snow.”

“Like a tree losing its leaves. I forget even the thing I was thinking.”

“Should we say something?’ Cal asks.‘Goodbye, bird?’ I suggest.He nods. ‘Goodbye, bird. Thank you for coming. And good luck.”

“Cal says that humans are made from the nuclear ash of dead stars. He says that when I die, I'll return to dust, glitter,rain. If thats true, I want to be buried right here under this tree. Its roots will reach into the soft mess of my body and suck me dry. I'll be re-formed as apple blossom. I'll drift down in the spring like confetti and cling to my family's shoes. They'll carry me in their pockets to help them sleep. What dreams will they have then?”

“Every seven years our bodies change, every cell. Every seven years, we disappear.”

“Statement: A girl and a boy jump into a river. The boy swims over to the girl and says, "God, it's cold."Question: What's the probability they will kiss?”