“Conor wasn’t stupid. When they’d had the “little talk” the next day, he knew what his mum had done and why she had done it. But that didn’t take away from how much fun that night had been. How hard they’d laughed. How anything had seemed possible. How anything good could have happened to them right then and there and they wouldn’t have been surprised.”

“There was once an invisible man, the monster continued, though Conor kept his eyes firmly on Harry, who had grown tired of being unseen.Conor set himself into a walk.A walk after Harry.It was not that he was actually invisible, the monster said, following Conor, the room volume dropping as they passed. It was that the people had become used to not seeing him."Hey!" Conor called. Harry didn't turn around. Neither did Sully nor Anton, though thet were still sniggering as Conor picked up his pace.And if no one sees you, the monster said, picking up its pace, too, are you really there at all?"HEY!" Conor called loudly.The dining hall had fallen silent now, as Conor and the monster moved faster after Harry.Harry who had still not turned around.Conor reached him and grabbed him by the shoulder, twisting him round. Harry pretended to question what had happened, looking hard at Sully, acting like he was the one who'd done it. "Quit messing about," Harry said and turned away again.Turned away from Conor.And then one day the invisible man decided, the monster said, its voice ringing in Conor's ears, I will make them see me."How?" Conor asked, breathing heavily again, not turning back to see the monster standing there, not looking at the reaction of the room to the huge monster now in the midst, though he was aware of nervous murmurs and a strange anticipation in the air. "How did the man do it?"Conor could feel the monster close behind him, knew that it was kneeling, knew that it was putting its face up to his ear to whisper into in, to tell him the rest of the story.He called, it said for a monster.”

“But you can’t make war personal,” I say, “or you’ll never make the right decisions.”“And if you didn’t make personal decisions, you wouldn’t be a person. All war is personal somehow, isn’t it? For somebody? Except it’s usually hate.”“Lee—”“I’m just saying how lucky he is to have someone love him so much they’d take on the whole world.” His Noise is uncomfortable, wondering what I’m looking like, how I’m responding. “That’s all I’m saying.”“He’d do it for me,” I say quietly.I’d do it for you too, Lee’s Noise says.And I know he would.But those people who die because we do it, don’t they have people who’d kill for them?So who’s right?”

“Cept for Ben, who I can’t describe much further without seeming soft and stupid and like a boy, so I won’t, just to say that I never knew my pa, but if you woke up one day and had a choice of picking one from a selecshun, if someone said, here, then, boy, pick who you want, then Ben wouldn’t be the worst choice you could make that morning.”

“When the monster struck a blow, Conor felt the sting of it in his own fist. When the monster held Harry's arm behind his back, Conor had felt Harry's muscles resisting. Resisting, but not winning. Because how could a boy beat a monster?”

“Now that, said the monster, is how destruction is properly done.”

“He knew it would come, and soon, maybe even this 12:07. The moment she would slip from his grasp, no matter how tightly he held on.”