“But they were all tricks.They were very dull. There were pages and pages of words that didn't say anything.Or if they did say something they took too long to say it and by the time they said it you already were too tired to have it matter at all.you al re ady we re”

“Of course you are. The tributes were necessary to the Games, too. Until they weren't," I say. "And then we were very disposable - right, Plutarch?”

“I wish she was dead,' he says. 'I wish they were all dead and we were, too. It would be best.”

“Why are there such long words in the world, Miss?’ enquires Sophie, when the mineralogy lesson is over.‘One long difficult word is the same as a whole sentence full of short easy ones, Sophie,’ says Sugar. ‘It saves time and paper.’ Seeing that the child is unconvinced, she adds, ‘If books were written in such a way that every person, no matter how young, could understand everything in them, they would be enormously long books. Would you wish to read a book that was a thousand pages long, Sophie?’Sophie answers without hesitation.‘I would read a thousand million pages, Miss, if all the words were words I could understand.”

“Why did she want to see me for 15 minutes? I guess because half an hour was twice too long to say I love you. She also used 1,000 times the amount of words that were needed.”

“But it was too early to know: there were always more pages to go, more words to be written, before the story was over.”