Mace, you never read Smoky the Cowhorse,did you? No. Well,ol' Smoky, he had somebad things happen to him,had the heart knocked clean out of him.But he hung on and came out of it okay.I've been bashed up pretty good,Mason, but I'm going to make it.

I was desperate for something to read that dealt realistically with teenage life, and I thought others might be, too.

They shouldn't hate each other . . . I don't hate the Socs any more . . . they shouldn't hate . . .

It seemed funny that the sunset she saw from her patio and the one I saw from the back steps was the same one. Maybe the two worlds we lived in weren’t so different. We saw the same sunset.

Things are rough all over.

The difference is that was then, this is now.

Get smart and nothing can touch you.