“What about Melissa?” I ask. “She’s angry at you for ending things with her. Maybe this is her way of teaching you a lesson.”“A total possibility. I’m definitely sweet and studly enough to drive a girl literally insane, wouldn’t you say?” He flexes his biceps to be funny.“Can we please try to be serious here?”

“I’m Angelina,” she says. “Are you here to save us?” I can see a tiny spark of hope awaken in her eyes.“You’re right, Angelina - I’m here to save you.”“Can you? Really?”“I’ll try,” I say and the girl smiles.”

“Look, I didn’t ask for any of this, but I’m here now. I get that it’s dangerous. I get that I’m fat. I get that I’m about as far from prepared for this insanity as you can get. But I’ll tell you something about me: I don’t quit. So enough with the let’s-scare-the-fat-girl routine, okay?”

“But remember in tenth grade, when I wanted to go out with that junior and you said, ‘Eh. I don’t think she’s the right girl for you’?”“She wasn’t.”“Because she was setting things on fire!” Ric announced loudly, making Gwen burst out laughing and Lock roll his eyes. “I’m serious, Gwen.” Ric went on. “And when I say setting things on fire, I mean entire buildings. Mostly schools. She’d been setting them on fire or trying to, for weeks. I didn’t find out until the cops came and arrested her during gym class. But does he say to me, ‘She’s setting things on fire! She’s crazy! Stay away from her!’ No. He says, ‘Eh. I don’t think she’s the right girl for you.’ And he’s all calm about it over our chocolate pudding in the cafeteria.”“I don’t see the point of getting hysterical.”

“Here's one way that we try to actively and immediately bring in kindness in our meetings and camps: we ask our girls to stop before they speak and reevaluate what they're going to say based on this acronym:TrueHonestImportantNecessaryKindIs what they're out to say True? Is it Honest? Is it Important? Necessary Kind?We ask the to T.H.I.N.K. before they speak text, or type, and try to incorporate it into their daily lives -- especially within their interactions with their friends and classmates -- as much as possible. It's a choice girls can make: Do they want to encourage others with their words, or bring others down?You might think this won't resonate with your middle school girl, but I promise that it works. It's not about self-editing or asking her not to speak her truth, of course; it's about thinking of others too.”

“I just want to know...if I am special,’ finished September, halfway between a whisper and a squeak. ‘In stories, when someone appears in a poof of green clouds and asks a girl to go away on an adventure, it’s because she’s special, because she’s smart and strong and can solve riddles and fight with swords and give really good speeches, and . . . I don’t know that I’m any of those things. I don’t even know that I’m as ill-tempered as all that. I’m not dull or anything, I know about geography and chess, and I can fix the boiler when my mother has to work. But what I mean to say is: Maybe you meant to go to another girl’s house and let her ride on the Leopard. Maybe you didn’t mean to choose me at all, because I’m not like storybook girls. I’m short and my father ran away with the army and I wouldn’t even be able to keep a dog from eating a bird.”