“I thanked him and he asked me if my cape got caught on stuff when I was running and jumping, and I said, "Sometimes.”

“I'd stood my ground against him. I wasn't going to jump when he said jump. I was more likely to give him the finger.”

“When I was a kid I used to drink from the tap all the time. I'd run back into the flat all hot and sweaty from playing and didn't even bother putting it in a glass, just turned the tap on and stuck my mouth underneath it. If my mom caught me doing it she used to scold me, but my dad just said that I had to be careful. 'What if a fish jumped out?' he used to say. 'You'd swallow it before you knew it was there.' Dad was always saying stuff like that and it wasn't until I was seventeen that I realised it was because he was stoned all the time.”

“One time I was standing on a corner in Chicago & a man stopped his car & asked for directions to a place I knew & I said that's too easy, ask me something harder & he yelled & said he wasn't playing games kid & then he drove off & I think about him sometimes & wonder if he ever got there.”

“I've decided this is all your fault, Ms. Leone. I've run away before, you know, but stowed away or jumped trains or broke into buildings, I just ran away and got caught. But I think all that stuff you told us about the Underground Railroad got lodged in my subconscious, and somewhere inside it gave me the strength or courage or insanity to really get away. So see? This is all your fault.”

“Will you marry me?”I was in shock for a full ten seconds before I realized what was happening. I threw my arms around him and kissed him as hard as I could. “Is that a yes?” he asked, when I pulled away.“Yes! Yes, yes, yes!” I shrieked.His face broke into a wide smile. “Thank God,” he said then.”