Well," Peter Van Houten said, extending his hand to me. "It is at any rate a pleasure to meet such ontologically improbable creatures." I shook his swollen hand, and then he shook hands with Augustus. I was wondering what ontologically meant. Regardless, I liked it. Augustus and I were together in the Improbable Creatures Club: us and duck-billed platypuses.

And yet still I worried. I like being a person. I wanted to keep at it. Worry is yet another side effect of dying.

Look, let me just say it: He was hot. A nonhot boy stares at you relentlessly and it is, at best, awkward and, at worst, a form of assault. But a hot boy . . . well.

I hated cranberry sauce, but for some reason my mom persisted in her lifelong belief that it was my very favorite food, even though every single Thanksgiving I politely declined to include it on my plate.

Can I ask you about Caroline Mathers?" "And you say there's no afterlife.

i wanted more time so we could fall in love.

dating you would be like a series of unnecessary root canals interspersed with occasional makeout sessions.