Judy Budnitz

“You have to stop this. I don't want to lose you too. If you have to make a revolution, Make a small revolution.”

“Couldn't help it, he insisted. My dad would bell me to draw a flower and it would turn into a Venus flytrap chewing on a hand.”

“What about your mum? She got taken away. Mine too, I said. There was nothing special about that. It happened all the time.”

“What's your dad do? I said. Designs new and better wings for new and better sing nuts, he said proudly. It sounded like he was repeating something a sarcastic adult had said.”

“I stayed indoors most of the time, which kept my skin very white. And my hair was as black as Ilana's. I wore black clothes all the time, just as she did.When I was in elementary school the other girls had called me a witch, scratched me with their nails, giggled behind their notebooks. But now I was in high school and suddenly everyone wore black and had pale skin and cultivated a disheveled haunted look.Now I blended in.”

“I looked at his eyes. I was thinking: they are bluer than the sea.But then the sea is not blue at all, is it?”

“He was a man who always gave the impression of wearing a top hat, even when he was not.”