“You’ll be fine. You didn’t even break anything. You messed up your knuckles and your brain freaked out a little and basically you just fell asleep for three days. I don’t call that an injury,” he says. “I call that a god- damn vacation.”

“…I didn’t even mean to. I was half asleep and just flipping over in bed,” Rachel is saying, poking pensively at the broccoli on her plate with her fork. “And my hand accidentally brushed…over there. He just freaked out! He flung it away like—like…I don’t know. Like it was a rat or a spider. And he called me a pervert!”

“You will call me,” he said. “For the rest of your life, you will call me. I don’t give a shit whether or not you’re in the mood. I don’t care if your cause is useless or if I am too late or if you can fix the whole damn problem by yourself or if you just get scared. You will call me, Grace. You will call me.”

“You’ll call for me. You’ll be lonely in your new quarters and will feel out of sorts. I could let you pet my hair until you fell asleep.”He drew in closer and lowered his voice to ask in all seriousness, “You’re mad, aren’t you?”“As—a—hatter,” she whispered back conspiratorially.He felt a hint of sympathy for the creature. “How long have you been in here?”“For four long...interminable...days.”He glowered at her.“Which is why I want you to take me with you. I don’t eat much.”The dungeon erupted with laughter again.(Myst and Nikolai)”

“You guys didn’t try to do anything to me,” I say honestly. “You brought me to a house because you wanted to freak me out. You didn’t know that your friend would wind up getting torn in half and disemboweled.”

“Mr. McCleod: And if there’s anything I want you guys to take with you from this class, as you’re abusing your bodies over break, is three things: the heart is the body’s strongest muscle, that the brain has more cells in it than our galaxy has stars, and that the body is 72% water. So wherever you go over vacation, don’t get too dehydrated.”