Once again, her parents' problems had run through her life like a piece of heavy equipment, smashing everything in their way.

Welsh is an actual, currently used language and our next-door neighbors Angela and Gaenor spoke it. It sounds like Wizard.

You don't know me yet," I said. "Rory was telling me she lives in a swamp," Charlotte said. "That's right," I said, turning up my accent a little. "These are the very first shoes I've ever owned. They sure do pinch my feet." Jerome gave a little snort.

I'm Keith," he said, "and you're . . . clearly mad, but what's your name?

A pause while my mother made high-pitched sisterly devotions of gratitude.

One of them hung a pink bra from our lighting fixture. I left it there. It was a nice bra

The essay I had to read was called, "An Essay on Criticism" by Alexander Pope. The first challenge was that the essay was, in fact, a very long poem in "heroic couplets". If something is called an essay, it should be an essay.