“I like to talk. Talking is kind of my thing. If talking had been a sport option at Wexford, I would have been captain. But sports always have to involve running, jumping, or swinging your arms around. You don’t get PE points for the smooth and rapid movement of the jaw.”

“No one hid their interest when I walked into the room. I'm not sure if it was the news about Boo or my general appearance. At home, people would have asked. People would have been crawling all over me for information. At Wexford, they seemed to extract what they wanted to know by covert staring.”

“People were freaked out, but they showed it in weird ways. Back home, people would have been weeping and doing a lot of very public group hugs. At Wexford people just aggressively pretended nothing had happened.”

“I had always assumed the weekend was a holy tradition, respected by good people everywhere. Not so at Wexford.”

“He's been in love with Miss Gina since high school, but he doesn't really know how to talk to girls, so he's just been...staying around her since then. He just tends to go where she goes.""Isn't that stalking?" Jazza said."Legally, no," I replied. "I asked my parents this when I was little. What he does is creepy and socially awkward, but it's not actually stalking.”

“Just then, my phone started ringing. The ring must have been damaged by the water as well, so now it had a high, keening note - kind of the sound I imagine a mermaid might make if you punched her in the face.”

“People would say that it's impossible to have a private pool in the city, unless you were some sort of rich mogul and had it on the roof of your penthouse or something. But it's not illegal to have a really clean dumpster, and if you want to fill it with water, and if you want to get in it... well, that's your prerogative. People always say they can't do things, that they're impossible. They just haven't been creative enough. This pool is a triumph of imagination. That's how you win at life, Gin. You have to imagine your way through. Never say something can't be done. There's always a solution, even if it's weird.”