“Since Troo was in her office at least once a week for doing one bad thing or another, Sister told me she's thinking of having the chair in the corner of her office engraved permanently with Troo's name. (If she bothered to look at the back, she could save a few bucks. Troo stole a penknife out of the Five and Dime last summer.)”

“Troo's a little in front of me bouncing a red rubber ball that she 'borrowed' from the playground shed. She's warming up to play that A my name is Annie and I come from Alabama with a carload of apples game. When she gets to the letter f, her name will be Fifi and she will come from where else but France. I refuse to repeat what she will have a carload of.”

“Troo hits the hay every night like a bale falling out of our old barn loft.”

“...[Joseph] and the Virgin Mary got turned away from the inn and had to go sleep in the manger. (Not with the manager, like Troo says.)”

“in the dark room she sits and in front of her is a plate and on the plate lies a black hunk of bread the size of a deck of cards. The bread has sawdust in it, and cardboard. She takes a knife and a fork, and cuts it slowly into four pieces. She eats one, chews it deliberately, pushes it with difficulty through her dry throat. eats another and another and finally the last one. She lingers especially on the last one. She knows after this piece is gone there will be no more food until tommorow morning. She wishes she could be strong enough to save half of the bread until dinner, but she isn't, she can't. When she looks up from her plate, her sister Dasha, is staring at her. Her plate is long empty. " I wish Alexander was coming back" says Dasha. " He might have food for us"I wish Alexander was coming back, thinks Tatiana.”

“She picked up the ballpoint pen lying on the table, and played with it for a few seconds, but then she looked at the clock again. It had done its job: in the five minutes since her last look, it had advanced five minutes' worth.”