“Right," Jenna said. She was sitting on a desk next to me. She spent most of the class reading those mangas she liked so much.”

“Do you like manga?" she asked after a minute. "Anime?""Anime's cool. I'm not really into it, but 1 like Japanese movies,animated or not.""Well, I'm into it. I watch the shows, read the books, chat on the boards, and all that. But this girl I know, she'scompletely into it. She spends most of her allowance on the books and DVDs. She can recite dialogue fromthem." She caught my gaze. "So would you say she belongs here?""No. Most kids are that way about something, right? With me, it'smovies. Like knowing who directed a sci-fi movie made before I was born.”

“She had her head in a book. Like me she preferred reading about travel to actually traveling; it was so much more comfortable.”

“On the outside it doesn't look like very much happened. A burned girl was in my class for a while. Once I brought her some homework. In class she said my name. Then she was gone. That's pretty much all that happened.”

“It was troubling that one of the few people she trusted was a man she spent so much time avoiding”

“Severine was a greedy, selfish person. She wanted everything. Right now, sitting here with Thayer, she wanted to keep this moment forever. Nothing gave her the right to desire it so much.”