it's not called the Rusty Ruins because some guy called Rusty found them.

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.

Apparently textbooks were an endangered species here in Bixby, Oklahoma.

That was the whole point of being special: You existed to make sure everyone else behaved, but that didn't mean YOU had to.

She looked at David closely, and the feeling was still there. She could see that his forehead was too high, that a small scar cut a white stroke through his eyebrow. And his smile was pretty crooked, really. But it was as if something had changed inside Tally's head, something that had turned his face pretty to her.

Hard work's a good distraction.

The early summer sky was the color of cat vomit.