“Fiona says that I have trouble moving on. That I cling to the past...I knew that I would miss it. I'd miss the way my life used to be when I worked there. I always miss the way my life used to be, and the best way to prevent that is to not change my life very much.”

“I've spent most of my life perfecting the craft of living history. I have no practice at living in the present.”

“What do you mean, 'what happened to my Redcoat boy'?" Fiona asked, swirling her spoon around her dish."I mean, where did he go?""He went..." Fiona gazed off into the distance and shook her head slightly." He went the way of all things.""You mean he died?"Her focus snapped back to me. "No.""Well, you made it sound like he died.""I just meant that he went wherever it is that boys go when they go." She waved a hand. "Into the ether. Into the great beyond.""It's still sounding like he died. Did you at least get his number?”

“Don't get me wrong, I love my parents and all. But my father and I have the sort of loving relationship in which, whenever he says more than one sentence in a a row to me, I want to stab myself in the heart with a a recently formed silver knife.”

“I glared at him. “You came all the way to Essex just to spy on us?”“Yeah.” He smirked. “I crossed the street. It was really rough.”

“The next time some desperate parents beg me to take care of their children," I raged, sawing at my slice of chicken breast, "I will ask them for a full accounting of all the boxes of cereal in their pantry. And if they don't have at least three types of sugary cereal, then I will say no. No, I will not babysit for your whiny children in your cereal-deprived sham of a household.”

“Also, he was kind of cute. Not really, of course, since he was the enemy, and the enemy cannot possibly be cute. He was only cute enough to make me wish I could free my hands so that I could fix my hair. I mean, fix my hair, then punch him in the face, and then run.”