Of course, when we got home, we found that Dagda had peed on my down comforter. He had also eaten part of Mom's maidenhair fern and barfed it up on the carpet. Then he had apparently worked himself into a frenzy sharpening his ting by amazingly effective claws on the armrest of my dad's favorite chair. Now he was asleep on a pillow, curled up like a fuzzy little snail. "God, he's so cute," I said, shaking my head.

I feel like a fox in a henhouse full of Catholic girls.

What would it be like to care so little about what other people thought of you?

Better stupid and safe that smart and dead.

Over my dead body, I thought. Yes, even immortals use that phrase. It has extra oomph for us.

Come with me," Reyn said. "I want to show you something." Frankly, I had expected something more original. "Really?" I asked, "That's it? That's what you came up with?

Being good is something that one must choose over and over again, every day, throughout the day, for the rest of one’s life.