“I will hear a noise, like a fish jumping, and when I look I'll see Lizzy coming to the surface, shaking off her pink scales, finding her new arms to do the breaststroke to shore.”

“Connor tries to hold her arm to give her support, but she shakes him off and throws him a nasty gaze. "If I want your help, I'll ask. Do I look feeble to you?" "Actually, yes.""Looks are deceiving." she says. " After all, when I saw you, I thought you looked reasonably intelligent." "Very funny.”

“Scared by the noise, Millie looked down at her brothers. Then she held out both arms and Tom's stomach turned cold. She was going to jump to him, like she did from the back of the sofa. She was going to jump, confident that he'd catch her, like he always did.”

“But I really wanted to find it for you. And when it looked in the end like it wasn't going to turn up, I just said to myself, one day I'll go to Norfolk and I'll find it there for her.''The lost corner of England,' I said.”

“I do not see as well without her. I do not hear as well without her. I do not feel as well without her. I would be better off without a hand or a leg than without my sister.”

“Usually while I lay in bed, I liked to think of new things I could do for Lynnie. Maybe I could let her try my pillow to see if she liked it better. Or I could bring her a new cracker she'd never tried. Or maybe I could even find a new book that she'd never heard of and read it to her, even though she had heard of every book in the world. That night I knew that nothing I could do would make her feel better. So I lay in bed and listened to her mournful noise and didn't feel love or hate or anger or anything at all except despair.”