They're on their way to the foreign-language wing. That's no surprise. The foreign kids are always here, like they need to breathe air scented with their native language a couple times a day or they'll choke to death on too much American.

Gossip is the foul smell from the Devil's backside.

So, she tells me, the words dribbling out with the cranberry muffin crumbs, commas dunked in her coffee.

Nothing is perfect. Flaws are interesting. Be the tree.

This girl shivers and crawls under the covers with all her clothes on and falls into an overdue library book, a faerie story with rats and marrow and burning curses. The sentences build a fence around her, a Times Roman 10-point barricade, to keep the thorny voices in her head from getting too close.

I am getting better at smiling when people expect it.

You’re not dead, but you’re not alive, either. You’re a wintergirl.