When she slept, she looked peaceful, beautiful. Not Lena's kind of beautiful, something different. She looked content - like a sunny day, a cold glass of milk, an unopened book before you cracked the binding.

In history, she wasn't there while we reenacted the Lincoln-Douglas Debate, and Mr. Lee tried to make me argue the Pro-Slavery side, most likely as punishment for some future liberally minded paper I was bound to write.

Everything in Gatlin was rigged. Why would the carnival games be any different?

Yeah, right. The things that I'm afraid of? You wouldn't even believe." "You're afraid to trust me.

It smelled like aging wood and creosote, plastic book covers, and old paper. Old paper, which my mom used to say was the smell of time itself.

There were two kinds of people in our town. The stupid, and the stuck.

the whole way down, I was only thinking one thing . . . L E N A