Sawtooth slumps into his deck chair and stares up at the sky. It's a drunken sky, the stars hiccupping light. Great gusty clouds go spinning past the moon. The bright planets feel like pinpricks to Sa...
Even as a young man, Sawtooth had a hard time talking to women. Since moving to Out-to-Sea, he's become tight-lipped as an oyster. But he can feel the worlds pearling on his tongue: Girl, you are my m...
The girl has a funny way of romanticizing things.
He looks me to pieces … I realize now that I have been glimpsed and corner-of-the-eyed before, by the Chief and my sister and the yawning tourists. But I have never actually been looked at. Not like t...
He feels flattered by the attention. Most people look anywhere but his lower body. They pretend not to notice when he limps down the docks. It makes it worse, somehow, everyone pretending that he's st...
The game lasts twenty seconds, tops. You don't want to come all that way and miss the game.
The Avalanche, peacemaker Rachel recites, is . It's a privilege to sing it. It's a celebration of our past. Everybody around the table smiles at her.Yeah? Well, I've seen how easily the past can get r...
She was still loping around on all fours, her fists blue-white from the strain. As if she were holding a secret tight to the ground. Sister Maria de la Guardia would sigh every time she saw her. She'...
Rutherford arches his neck toward her outstretched hand. Freckles of light float across his patchy hindquarters. He licks the girl’s palm according to a code that he’s worked out: - - - -, which means...
Raffy has this magical, abracadabrical ability to transform all his ifs into whens.
Could we betray our parents by going back to them?
The baby turtles are turning away from the ocean. It's easy to see why. The black waves lap up the moonbeams, and the starlight on the inky surface of the water gives off such a pale glow when you com...
It's unclear whether Brauser was trying to hit Franz Josef or Rangi. I hope it was the former. There's one difference between a bully and a hero, I guess: good aim.
I had an ear for languages, and I could read before I could adequately wash myself. I probably could have vied with Jeanette for the number one spot, but I'd seen what happened if you gave in to your...
Far away, I can hear Mouflon, our last sheep, bleating in the dark. I wonder if Annie is still out to protect her, still scouring the woods in barefoot pursuit of those dogs. I feel sorry for Annie, a...
Unless an object is acted on by friction from an outside force, it will spiral through space, in the same direction at the same speed - indefinitely!
That's one difference between a bully and a hero, I guess: good aim.
She used to suffer these intense bouts of homesickness in her own bedroom. When she was very small, she would wake up tearing at her bedspread and shrieking, I wanna go home! I wanna go home! Which wa...
Just about everybody I've ever wanted to impress, I've now outlived.
There is a rustle of dead leaves. Dried sap, a branch crack, the whirring teeth of Mr. Omaru's saw. My father--my real father--is a limb that got axed off the family tree a long time ago now. My mothe...