“Statement: A girl and a boy jump into a river. The boy swims over to the girl and says, "God, it's cold."Question: What's the probability they will kiss?”

“She'd never in her whole life bunked school, smoked dope, or kissed a boy whose name she didn't know, and yet in the last few days, she'd done all these things.”

“There's a gang of boys on bikes blocking the road ahead. They've got their hoods up, cigarettes shielded. The sky's a really strange colour and there's hardly anyone else about. I slow right down."What shall I do?""Reverse," Zoey says. "They're not going to move."I wind down the window. "Oi!" I yell "Move your arses!"They turn languid, shift lazily to the edge of the road and grin as I blow kisses at them.Zoey looks stunned, "What's got into you?""Nothing- I just haven't learned reversing yet.”

“He falls asleep quickly. I lie awake and listen to lights being switched off all over the town. Whisperedgoodnights. The drowsy creak of bedsprings.I find Adam’s hand and hold it tight.I’m glad that night porters and nurses and long-distance lorry drivers exist. It comforts me to know thatin other countries with different time zones, women are washing clothes in rivers and children are filing toschool. Somewhere in the world right now, a boy is listening to the merry chink of a goat’s bell as hewalks up a mountain. I’m very glad about that.”

“If you want a girl to like you, you have to listen like a woman and love like a man.”

“Maybe I’ll come back as somebody else.I’ll be the wild-haired girl Adam meets in his first week at university. ‘Hi, are you on the horticulturalcourse as well?”

“I wish I had a boyfriend. I wish he lived in the wardrobe on a coat hanger. Whenever I wanted, I could get him out and he'd look at me the way boys do in films, as if I'm beautiful.”