Kill her for me," she said in that whiny little-girl voice. Diego took a step toward me, wearing an expression that told me he was only too happy to oblige his lady love. "Oh, what?" I said. I wasn't even scared. I didn't care anymore. The numbness in my heart had pretty much taken over my whole body. "You always do what she tells you? You know, we have a word for that now. It's called being whipped.

But then I remembered something Grandmere had once assured me of: No one has ever died of embarrassment-never, not once in the whole history of time.

I think if I hadn't been a writer, I'd have been a teacher like my dad. He was a college professor, and one of my greatest regrets is that he passed away before I was able to prove to him that I wasn't going to be stuck working at Rax Roast Beef for the rest of my life!

And the truth is, I’d felt kind of a thrill about wearing Jason’s Big Boy pants. I was a sick kid, even way back then.

Of course. I was on the run from evil spirits that wanted to kill me and now, according to the local paper, the law. Yet Richard Smith, cemetery sexton and death deity scholar, had a book for me to read in all my copious spare time.

I get accused all the time of having a big mouth. But if you ask me, guys gossip way more than girls do.

No one wants to pursue anything creative anymore, because that's too risky. They may not get the kind of return on the financial investment they've made in their education that they think they should.