“A few minutes later, Miss Charming gasped. But then, Miss Charming gasped a lot. She gasped when someone shut a door too loudly; she gasped when there were sausages for breakfast. She sometimes gasped and then coughed, as if she'd meant to cough from the beginning and gotten the two confused.”

“Sometimes ..." Miss Charming's voice dropped lower, and she looked Charlotte in the eye. "Sometimes my boobs kill." Charlotte's eyes wideened, her mouth agape. It wasn't until Miss Charming followed her shocking statement by rubbing her chest in discomfort that Charlotte realized " my boobs kill" meant "my boobs ache" rather than " my boobs fatally maim people." It was a natural mistake to make. After all they really were large enough to suffocate a grown man.”

“You forgot to cough!” he said.“Sorry.” She coughed.“Your sneakiness is dangerous. Next time that chisel will lodge itself in my head.”“Now, Peder, there’s plenty of stone around here for carving. No need to practice on your own face.”He stroked his chin. “You’re right, my jaw is already chiseled to perfection.”She agreed, but she felt too silly to say so aloud.”

“Once she'd thought all the knowledge in the world was contained in the princess academy's thirteen books. Now she faced thousands. She wondered if she should curtsy as if she were entering a chapel.”

“She was not who she'd thought she was. No one was.”

“We found it!" Charlotte yelled, as they ran back through the house. "We found it, we found it!"Eddie, Mr. Mallery, and Colonel Andrews came from separate directions, converging in the front hall. Miss Charming was hopping up and down, her bosom nearly rising to slap her own forehead.”

“But when she turned her back to the lights, she saw that the night was so dark...She could not see the stars. The world felt as high as the depthless night sky and deeper than she could know. She understood, suddenly and keenly, that she was too small to run away, and she sat on the damp ground and cried.”