“I want a room decorated with bones!" Dan said. "Where'd they come from?""Cemeteries," Amy said. "Back in the 1700s, the cemeteries were getting overcrowded, so they decided to dig up tons of old bodies–all their bones–and move them into the Catacombs. The thing is...look at the dates. See when they started moving bones into the Catacombs?"Dan squinted at the screen. He didn't see what she was talking about. "Is it my birthday?”

“She led the way. Eyeless sockets of the dead seemed to stare at them as they passed. "These are cool," Dan decided. "Maybe I could-""No, Dan," Amy said. "You can't collect human bones.""Awww.”

“Just then he noticed that Amy had that look, as though she wanted the street to buckle and split so she could fall right in. Dan saw the cool crowd from her school hanging at a table in the front. So that was why she didn't want to go in. Evan Tolliver was at the head of the table. Dan sighed. Even, the human supercomputer, was Amy's dream crush. Whenever Evan was near, she got her stutter back. "Oh, excuse me, I didn't notice Luke Skywalker," Dan said. "Or is it Darth Vader?" "Shhh," Amy said. Her cheeks were red. "He's coming." "You mean Evan Tolliver himself is about to set his foot on the sidewalk? Did you bring the rose petals?" "Cut it out, dweeb!" Amy said fiercely. "Hi, Amy," Evan said from behind her. Amy's color went from summer rose to summer tomato. She shot Dan a look that told him he was in serious trouble. "Hey, Evan," he said. "I'm Amy's little brother, Dweeb. Nice to meet you, man.”

“I hadn’t actually come out and asked him to pick us up, so when he said, “All right, give me twenty minutes, I gotta go dig out my old crutches,” I knew with every last drop of blood and every bone in my body that Mike was at least related to Jesus.”

“I wished we had milk – milk for strong bones. Dylan said he would eat the fish bones if I would quit talking about milk.”

“Part of me wanted to swoon into nothing, but the other women’s bones were talking. I didn’t see the bones but I knew they were there, under the house. The little runaway bones of skinny, hungry girls who didn’t think they were worth much—anything—so they stayed after the party was over and let Derrick Blue tell them his stories. He probable didn’t even have to use much force on most of them.”