You can't think for other people. Nor can you feel for them or be them. They have to do that for themselves.

But then Froi looked back to where his work lay unfinished and it made him sad because there had been something about the touch of earth in his hands that made him feel worthwhile.

A piece of me is gone," she told me once while we were bra shopping. "I think we're made up of all these different pieces and every time someone goes, you're left with less of yourself.

If you weren't driving, I'd kiss you senseless," I tell him. He swerves to the side of the road and stops the car abruptly. "Not driving any more.

This is the best night of my life," Raffy says, crying. "Raffy, half our House has burnt down," I say wearily. "We don't have a kitchen." "Why do you always have to be so pessimistic?" she asks. "We can double up in our rooms and have a barbecue every night like the Cadets." Silently I vow to keep Raffy around for the rest of my life.

Someone asked us later, "Didn't you wonder why no one came across you sooner?" Did I wonder? When you see your parents zipped up in black body bags on the Jellicoe Road like they're some kind of garbage, don't you know? Wonder dies.

He bursts out laughing. It's short, as if he regretted allowing me to make him laugh, but the satisfaction's already mine.