“Sassy had worked in El Paso, Texas as a waitress in a small café, a toll-booth cashier in Houston, Texas, posed nude for magazine photos in Reno, Nevada and even was a ski instructor in Granby, Colorado for a few years. Sassy was always looking. She was looking for something that she couldn’t find. Sassy wanted to go where the road led. She walked past other people’s dreams and security and followed the twisting snake through deserts and mountains, big cities and cow towns. Sassy was on a quest and she didn’t even know it. She would take her small earnings and saddle-up, following fate or hope or desire into new horizons with new promises--a skinny green-eyed girl carrying a backpack full of her life, down the roads of America.”

“Hippos are the very definition of Disney cute. There is no way you could look at a big, fat, squishy, huggable hippo and not think, "Id she could talk like a human, she would sound just like Jada Pinkett Smith and be oh so sassy." You would totally name her Sassy-baskets, and she would be your tutu-wearing, ballet-dancing, strut-walking pal for life. Just you and Sassy-baskets against the world!”

“Doe eye sparkling in her elfin face, and a sassy hairstyle I can only dream would make me look adorable instead of mannish. She is a traditional bea.uty that time cannot diminish”

“What are you doing?”“What does it look like? I’m getting down on my knees.”His head butted against her stomach. Her muscles clenched, shocked at the touch, even through the layer of cotton.“I’ve never begged a woman for anything before. Enjoy this.”She tried to think of something sufficiently sassy. “Enjoy it? I can’t even see it.”“It’s symbolic.”

“When we move apart, she looks at me again, till a small tear lifts itself up in her eye. It trips out to find a wrinkle and follows it down.”

“She slid a sideways glance in his direction, trying to figure out just what it was that was making her so . . . so painfully self-conscious all of a sudden.He was looking right at her. Grinning. A big, stupid, self-satisfied grin, as if he had been eavesdropping on her all-too-embarrassing thoughts.“What?” She tried to defend herself, wishing she’d never looked his way as she felt her cheeks burning with shame. “What?” she asked again when he just laughed at her.“Were you planning to ditch school today, or should we turn around?”She looked up and realized that she’d just driven past the road that led to the school. “Why didn’t you say something?” she accused as she pulled a quick, and probably illegal, U-turn. The tops of her ears felt they were on fire now.“I just wanted to see where you were heading.” He shrugged. “I didn’t say I wouldn’t skip school. You just have to ask me first.” His new grown-up voice seemed to fill all the space of the small car, and Violet found even that annoying.“Shut up,” she insisted, even though she couldn’t help smiling now too. She couldn’t believe she’d passed the entrance to her own school. “Now we really are going to be late.”