“How could a mother who boils water for pasta leave two little girls behind?”

“At night,when we were little,we tented Bailey's covers,crawled underneath with our flashlightsand played cards: Hearts,Whist, Crazy Eights, and our favourite: Bloody Knuckles.The competition was vicious,All day, every day,we were the Walker Girls -two peas in a podthick as thieves -but when Gram closed the doorfor the night,we bared our teeth.We played for chores,for slave duty,for truths and dares and money.We played to be better, brighter,to be more beautiful,more,just more.But it was all a ruse -we playedso we could fall asleepin the same bedwithout having to ask,so we could wrap togetherlike a braid,so while we sleptour dreams could switch bodies.(Found written on the inside cover of Wuthering Heights, Lennie's room)”

“She's a sun-kissed beach girl who goes gothgrungepunkhippierockeremocoremetalfreakfashionistabraingeekboycrazyhiphoprastagirl to keep it under wraps.”

“This is it--what all the hoopla is about, what Wuthering Heights is about--it all boils down to this feeling rushing through me in this moment with Joe as our mouths refuse to part. Who knew all this time I was one kiss away from being Cathy and Juliet and Elizabeth Bennet and Lady Chatterley!?”

“[Lennie meets Joe - he works out that she was named after John Lennon]I nod. "Mom was a hippie." This is northern Northern California after all - the final frontier of freakerdom. Just in the eleventh grade we have a girl named Electricity, a guy named Magic Bus, and countless flowers: Tulip, Begonia, and Poppy - all parent-given-on-the-birth-certificate names. Tulip is a two-ton bruiser of a guy who would be the star of out football team if we were the kind of school that has optional morning meditation in the gym”

“There were once two sisterswho were not afriad of the darkbecause the dark was full of the other's voiceacross the room,because even when the night was thickand starlessthey walked home together from the riverseeing who could last the longestwithout turning on her flashlight,not afraidbecause sometimes in the pitch of nightthey'd lie on their backsin the middle of the pathand look up until the stars came backand when they did,they'd reach their arms up to touch themand did.”

“But then I think about my sister and what a shell-less turtle she was and how she wanted me to be one too. C'mon, Lennie, she used to say to me at least ten times a day. C'mon Len. And that makes me feel better, like it's her life rather than her death that is now teaching me how to be, who to be.”