“I was in the middle of a dream about garbage cans and frogs - don't ask, and I won't tell.”

“Are you going to tell me what that was about?” Adam asked as we went back upstairs.“Sometime,” I told him. “When we're telling ghost stories around a campfire, and I want to scare you.”

“I'm not threatening to kill myself. But you need to know this about me because—if you want to be my mate—I won't be like Leo. I won't let you sleep around with anyone else. I won't be forced either. I've had enough. If that makes me a dog in the manger, so be it. But if I am yours, then you damned well are going to be mine." - Anna to Charles”

“Mercy?”“Just a minute,” I told Adam. “I'm in the middle of a revelation.”

“I can turn into a coyote," I said. "My mom tells me I must get it from my father."Calvin's jaw dropped, then his face froze. "Your mother was a white woman," he said urgently. "You can't turn into a coyote.""Can, too," I said indignantly. It was one thing for me to tell him he was lying--I knew I was right. It was an entirely different matter for him to tell me I was lying."Can't.""Can.""Can't""Can, too.""Mercy," Adam said with an exaggerated patience tinged with humor. He knew I was doing it on purpose. That was okay but he wasn't angry anymore."Cannot," said Calvin."Knock it off, both of you. Neither of you is five.”

“Mine," he said.Adam's eyes narrowed. "I don't think so. She is mine."It would have been flattering, I thought, except that at least one of them was talking about dinner and I wasn't certain about the other.”

“I narrowed my eyes at him. "Stuff that. I'll write a doctoral thesis. Then I can go do what most of the other people with doctoral degrees in anthropology do." "What's that?" asked Calvin."You don't need to encourage her," said Adam seriously, but his eyes laughed at me."The same thing that people with degrees in history do," I said. "Fix cars or serve frnech fries and bad hamburgers.”