This wasn't a position she wanted to be in. And yet . . . yet she knew that she was going to do it anyway.

We're going to die," Keith said, the moment he was gone. "This man is a serial killer. We're going to die, and he's going to bury us in his garden and build a shed on us.

The locker at the end of her bed had no lock, and one of the hinges was busted. She opened it up. There was a thing in it. The thing might have been a sandwich at some point, or an animal, or a human hand...but what it was now was fuzzy and putrid. A minute later, Ginny was down the stairs, out the door, and gone.

She couldn't take her eyes off the boxers. Mostly, she had a view of the back, but he turned halfway when he looked over. She commanded herself not to look at the front flap, which, of course, was exactly what she honed in on. He spit and put his mouth under the tap to get some water. All while just wearing underwear. All while she just stared at the crucial spot of the Action Pants.

She firmly held the theory that everyone gets at least one very stupid superpower.

The truth was that she had managed to betray everyone by doing nothing. No one in history had ever done less and yet been so wrong. Not cheating on a non-boyfriend with the non-boyfriend of a friend. The pressure of thinking that one through made her swollen body ache.

This is England," he explained. "Tell someone it's a procedure, and they'll believe you. The pointless procedure is one of our great natural resources.