I wasn't there that day to get on the three forty-seven to Yass", he says. "I was there to throw myself in front of it.

What kind of freak is this kid who's giggling hysterically with the girls in the neighbouring beds, each with a crush on the other for being the same age when the rest of the world seems so old?

I watch Raffy as she removes the pickles from her hamburger and hands them over to Santangelo without them exchanging a word and I realize again there is more to that relationship than spelling bees and being enemies. These people have history and I crave history. I crave someone knowing me so well that they can tell what I'm thinking.

It's like geographical humor. You just don't get it unless you were there.

Froi heard Zabat's voice echo over and over again throughout the gorge. Wonderful. The gods had found a way of multiplying the idiot's voice.

And then you came along and you spoke to me and nobody had looked me in the eye for years. (...) But I remember you that day and you looked at peace with yourself and it made me reconsider everything I had planned to do. Because I thought to myself, you can't do this to her, not after the Hermit thing." "Do what to me? I don't think leaving me on that platform would have changed my life, Griggs," I lie. "You being on that platform changed mine.

What were you doing with her?" I ask quietly. "Apart from questioning her about your whereabouts, I was listening to the most intriguing story about my life moonlighting as a kidnapper.