“Eighth grade's a distant rumor, a tabled issue, and Dylan knows from experience that the summer between might change anything, everything. He and Mingus Rude too and even Arthur Lomb for that matter are released from the paint-by-numbers page of their schooldays, from their preformatted roles as truant or victim, freed to an unspoiled summer, that inviting medium for doodling in self-transformation. ”

“Mingus Rude, Arthur Lomb, Gabriel Stern and Tim Vandertooth, even Aaron K. Doily: Dylan never met anyone who wasn't about to change immediately into someone else. His was a special talent for encountering persons about to shed one identity or disguise for another. He took it in stride by now.”

“Did he ever--try?'Mingus shrugged. 'He was like you.'What's that mean?'Means he tried.'Of course. The ring was not a neutral tool. It judged its wearer: Aaron Doily flew drunkenly, and Dylan flew like a coward, only when it didn't matter, at the Windles' pond. So if had attuned to Robert Woolfolk's chaos.Don't tell me,' said Dylan. 'He flew sideways.'Mingus left it vague. He'd always made it his habit to protect their honor against one another--Dylan, Arthur, Robert. To say nothing.”

“If. If Mingus Rude could be kept in this place, kept somehow in Dylan's pocket, in his stinging, smudgy hands, then summer wouldn't give way to whatever came after. If. If. Fat chance. Summer on Dean Street had lasted one day and that day was over, it was dark out, had been for hours. The Williamsburg Savings Bank tower clock read nine-thirty in red-and-blue neon. Final score, a million to nothing. The million-dollar kid.Your school wasn't on fire, you were.”

“Even so, everything was ever so slightly off, as if little by little the tracing paper had slipped irretrievably from the lines of summers past.”

“He was no more, freed frombeing, entering into nowhere without even knowing it. Just as he'd feared from the start.”