“The baby went without a name for weeks. Mom said she wanted to study it first, the way she would the subject of a painting. We had a lot of arguments over what the name should be. I wanted to call her Rosita, after the prettiest girl in my class, but Mom said the name was too Mexican."I thought we weren't supposed to be prejudiced," I said."It's not being prejudiced," Mom said. "It's a matter of accuracy in labeling.”

“[Mom] said she didn't want her youngest daughter dressed in the thrift-store clothes the rest of us wore. Mom told us we would have to go shoplifting. "Isn't that a sin?" I asked Mom. "Not exactly," Mom said. "God doesn't mind you bending the rules a little if you have good reason. It's sort of like justifiable homicide. This is justifiable pilfering.”

“My mom said she learned how to swim when someone took her out in the lake and threw her off the boat. I said, 'Mom, they weren't trying to teach you how to swim.”

“What's yer name?" he demanded.The girl searched for a name. "Stella," she said at last, because she had the stars at her fingertips and she had been studying maps of the sky and she was someone else now, not the girl she had been in Ballarat where her grandfather had pointed out the planets and named them, and not the girl she had been in Melbourne, and she certainly didn't want to be the girl she was at her Brisbane school. She was reinventing herself."No it's not," the boy said. "You're new. Where're ya from?""I'm Stella," she said stubbornly. "I'm from the moon. You wanna look?”

“I actually prefer Abby," she said."I'm sorry?""Nobody calls me Abigail unless it's my mom and she's mad.”

“I suppose you want me to stand out here on the street and tell you all about me and Mom's conversation?""Psh, no," she said. "I listened at the door.""That's my girl.”