Pick a better verb. Most people use twenty verbs to describe everything from a run in their stocking to the explosion of an A-bomb.

Don't turn over the rocks if you don't want to see the pale creatures who live under them.

Aquamarines grew with emeralds, Claire told me. But emeralds were fragile and always broke into smaller pieces, while aquamarines were stronger, grew in huge crystals without any trouble, so they weren't worth as much. It was the emerald that didn't break that was the really valuable thing.

My house is modern, but I like my writing room to be old fashioned. I write on a little wooden secretary desk.

The stupid things you say in the rain, that can't ever be washed away.

We parked in back and walked down the stairs with their polished brass railings, past the old-fashioned kitchen. We could see the chefs cooking. It smelled like stew, or meat loaf, the way time should smell, solid and nourishing.

The cake had a trick candle that wouldn't go out, so I didn't get my wish. Which was just that it would always be like this, that my life could be a party just for me.