"Clear-cutting" was the word for what the Rusties had done to the old forests: felling every tree, killing every living thing, turning entire countries into grazing land. Whole rain forests had been consumed, reduced from millions of interlocking species to a bunch of cows eating grass, a vast web of life traded for cheap hamburgers. "Look, we're not clear-cutting. All we're doing is pulling out the garbage that the Rusties left behind,” David said. "It just takes a little surgery to do it."

A rat called Possible New Strain was sitting under a spaghetti strainer held down with a pile of journalism textbooks, saying rude things in rat-speak.

Becoming pretty doesn't just change the way you look," she said. "No," David said. "It changes the way you think.

I'd watched too many schoolmates graduate into mental institutions, into group homes and jails, and I knew that locking people up was paranormal - against normal, not beside it. Locks didn't cure; they strangled.

They walked with a pedatory grace.... one of them ripped off their hood and said, "my name is Tally Youngblood and is a special circumstance".

So, there was this beautiful princess. She was locked in a high tower(...)She was stuck up there(...)So the only thing was to jump.

What about a hoverboard?" "It's waiting on the roof, of course." Dr. Cable snorted. "What is it about you miscreants and those things?