Don't get me started on the little airplane name badges," Natalie grumbled.

I g-g-guess...I'm dead?" she heard her own voice call out, strangely high-pitched and thin. For a long time, she heard nothing else. And then: "Hi, Dead. I'm Dan.

You should climb around inside my brain, Dan. It's like this dark room surrounded by quicksand." "I know what you mean," her brother said quietly. "I hate being in my brain sometimes. I have to get out." "What do you do?" Amy asked. Dan shrugged "I go to other places. My toes. My shoulders. But mostly here." He tapped his chest and immediately reddened. "I know. It's stupid." "Not really," Amy said. "I wish I could do that, too.

Dan was heading for the blue car in the driveway. He tossed Amy the car keys. "Don't drive like you! Make it fast!

Rock star do not jump!" The launch was cutting sharply, its skipper calling out a phrase that bore no relationship to the English language as Amy knew it. "Rock star in a hurry!" Nellie replied, one foot on the boat's gunwale.

The boy smiled -- mostly at Amy. "Sorry, her heart belongs to Ian Kabra," Dan said, except that something in her expression made him realize her heart didn't belong at all to Ian right now.

This, my children," Alistair said proudly, "was barbecue pork." Dan rapped his fingers against the latch. "Been out in the sun for a long time.