“Something without the cello,” she muttered.“If I have to do it, you have to do it,” Sarah said with a smirk.Iris glared at her with all the fury of a misunderstood artist. “Youdon’t understand.”“Oh, believe me, I do,” Sarah said with great feeling. “I playedlast year, if you recall. I’ve had an entire year to understand.”

“I could not resist the temptation to ask: Tell me something, Damiana: what do you recall? I wasn't recalling anything, she said, but your question makes me remember. I felt a weight in my chest. I've never fallen in love, I told her. She replied without hesitation: I have. And she concluded, not interrupting her work: I cried over you for twenty-two years. My heart skipped a beat. Looking for a dignified way out, I said: We would have made a good team. Well, it's wrong of you to say so now, she said, because you're no good to me anymore even as a consolation. As she was leaving the house, she said in the most natural way: You won't believe me but thanks be to God, I'm still a virgin.”

“Why is everyone complaining?” Daisy asked impatiently. “Thisis exciting! We get to perform. Do you know how long I have beenwaiting for this day?”“Unfortunately, yes,” Sarah said flatly.“About as long as I have been dreading it,” Iris muttered.”

“Great Mother!I can't believe it!Now I understand."(Mamut)"I do not understand," Ayla said”

“Oh dear," said Sarah anxiously, "I do wish he wouldn't do these silly things."I'm sure we all wish that, Sarah," said Marcia sternly. "But unfortunately he has progressed rather further than the silly stage. Evil-minded-scheming stage is more what I would call it.”

“You don’t know where west is?” Sarah asked with disbelief.I wasn’t going to drop her to the ground. I was going to throw her. “Do I look like I have a compass on me?”Sarah waved a hand at the sky. “Can’t you use the stars to navigate?”“I ’m twenty-nine years old, not two hundred and twenty-nine. I navigate by GPS, MapQuest, or TomTom. Not the fucking stars, ’k?”