“As i thought about all that surgar running through her veins, i imagined it as a kind of liquid candy. But when i asked her if it tasted sweet, she laughed quietly and said no. It stung, she said. But she needed it. She had to have it. All i could imagine was that candied water burning inside my mother. Like an invisible fire that i could not see or taste or touch or stop.”

“So what was that all about?""I think," Jace said, "that she asked if she could touch my mango.""She said that?"Jace shrugged. "Yeah, then she gave me her number.”

“Irma, she said. But I had started to walk away. I heard her say some more things but by then I had yanked my skirt up and was running down the road away from her and begging the wind to obliterate her voice. She wanted to live with me. She missed me. She wanted me to come back home. She wanted to run away. She was yelling all this stuff and I wanted so badly for her to shut up. She was quiet for a second and I stopped running and turned around once to look at her. She was a thimble-sized girl on the road, a speck of a living thing. Her white-blond hair flew around her head like a small fire and it was all I could see because everything else about her blended in with the countryside. He offered you a what? she yelled. An espresso! I yelled back. It was like yelling at a shorting wire or a burning bush. What is it? she said. Coffee! I yelled. Irma, can I come and live--I turned around again and began to run.”

“Sometimes I thought about my future, because Lynn said I should. She said it was hard to tell at this point, but someday, if I didn't go to Africa to study animals, I might be a beautiful genius tennis player. I didn't worry about it one way or another. I didn't care if I was a genius or if I was pretty or if I was good in sports. I just liked to listen to Lynn and to talk to Bera-Bera and to eat rice candies. The lady who used to live down the street could take all of her top teeth out of her mouth. She wasn't allowed to eat chewy candy. I could eat any kind of candy I wanted because I still had my baby teeth. If they rotted, I would simply grow more teeth. That was pretty great.”

“[after Bram bit Nora at her request] It hit me then that she wasn't half as disgusted as she should be. '[Nora, a]re you … sure you're okay with it?' She pulled her sleeve back up and shrugged. She was quiet for a minute before asking, '[Bram. ]Did you enjoy it?' I decided to tell the truth. 'Yes. You wouldn't believe how good you taste. I don't think i could even describe it.' She laughed. 'Good? Like filet mignon good? Or like … candy good?”

“My mother said she already knew how I was. She could tell I was like that since I was a baby. She told me a story about when I was a toddler. She said that one day, she heard an alarm clock ringing in her room and when she went inside, she saw me bent over it. When she got closer, she could she me shaking baby powder on it!“What are you doing, Joey?” She asked me.“Baby crying,” was my reply.”