“Come with me," Reyn said. "I want to show you something." Frankly, I had expected something more original. "Really?" I asked, "That's it? That's what you came up with?”

“But something magical happened to me when I went to Reardan.Overnight I became a good player.I suppose it had something to do with confidence. I mean, I'd always been the lowest Indian on the reservation totem pole - I wasn't expected to be good so I wasn't. But in Reardan, my coach and the other players wanted me to be good. They needed me to be good. They expected me to be good. And so I became good.I wanted to live up to the expectations.I guess that's what it comes down to.The power of expectations.And as they expected more of me, I expected more of myself, and it just grew and grew.”

“You don't seem to understand me,' she said. 'The last thing I want is to start over. You can't wake up something that's dead and buried.”

“Look, I need to tell you something,' I continued. The words came stumbling out of me. 'I couldnt stand it if...I dont want you to---'Percy?' she said. 'You look like you're going to be sick.'And that's how I felt.”

“I'll write this all down for you," I said. "I'll put it in a story." I don't know if that's what he wanted to ask me, but it's something everybody wants--for someone to see the hurt done to them and set it down like it matters.”

“Fat Charlie blew his nose. "I never knew I had a brother," he said."I did," said Spider. "I always meant to look you up, but I got distracted. You know how it is.""Not really.""Things came up.""What kind of things?""Things. They came up. That's what things do. They come up. I can't be expected to keep track of them all.""Well, give me a f'rinstance."Spider drank more wine. "Okay. The last time I decided that you and I should meet, I, well, I spent days planning it. Wanted it to go perfectly. I had to choose my wardrobe. Then I had to decide what I'd say to you when we met. I knew that the meeting of two brothers, well, it's the subject of epics, isn't it? I decided that the only way to treat it with the appropriate gravity would be to do it in verse. But what kind of verse? Am I going to rap it? Declaim it? I mean, I'm not going to greet you with a limerick. So. It had to be something dark, something powerful, rhythmic, epic. And then I had it. The perfect line: Blood calls to blood like sirens in the night. It says so much. I knew I'd be able to get everything in there - people dying in alleys, sweat and nightmares, the power of free spirits uncrushable. Everything was going to be there. And then I had to come up with a second line, and the whole thing completely fell apart. The best I could come up with was Tum-tumpty-tumpty-tumpty got a fright."Fat Charlie blinked. "Who exactly is Tum-tumpty-tumpty-tumpty?""It's not anybody. It's just there to show you where the words ought to be. But I never really got any futher on it than that, and I couldn't turn up with just a first line, some tumpties and three words of an epic poem, could I? That would have been disrespecting you.""Well....""Exactly. So I went to Hawaii for the week instead. Like I said, something came up.”