What makes a girl a girl? What makes a guy a guy? Do you have to be what they want you to be? Or do you stop and listen to that voice inside you? I know who I am. I'm Petra West. And I'm a girl. You w...
What frightens you? What makes the hair on your arms rise, your palms sweat, the breath catch in your chest like a wild thing caged?
What do you feel? I’ve never been asked this question once. None of us has. We aren’t supposed to feel. We’re British.
We’re all looking glasses, we girls, existing only to reflect their images back to them as they’d like to be seen.
We've left the moment. It's gone. We're somewhere else now, and that's okay. We've still got that moment with us somewhere, deep in our memory, seeping into our DNA. And when our cells get scattered ,...
We have traveled through space and time. We have been many places. Visited many worlds. And there is good news: the acoustics everywhere are terrific.
We abandon our backboards along with our decorum, racing for the stairs and the promise of freedom, however temporary it may be.Walk! Mrs. Nightwing shouts. When we cannot seem to heed her advice, she...
Things aren't good or bad in and of themselves. It's what we do with them that makes them so.
They wish, too, that they could warn them about the gray man in the stovepipe hat, about the King of Crows. For not all ghosts remember, and the citizens have need of warning.
Theta’s hand slid just slightly toward Memphis’s. He inched his forward, too, just grazing the tips of her fingers with his.
Theta crashed next to them on the thick zebra-skin rug. I’m embalmed. Potted and splificated? Ossified to the gills. Time for night-night.
There’s a moment of profound sadness that can be dispelled only by summoning my anger.
There is no greater power on this earth than story. Will paced the length of the room. People think boundaries and borders build nations. Nonsense—words do. Beliefs, declarations, constitutions—words....
There is no greater power on this earth than story. People think boundaries and borders build nations. Nonsense--words do.
There is a particular circle of hell not mentioned in Dante's famous book. It is called comportment, and it exists in schools for young ladies across the empire. I do not know how it feels to be throw...
The wolf was at the door. His shadow spilled into the room, taking it over.
The wind picks up. It sends leaves scurrying for cover until a softer breeze blows through, settling them down again as if to say, Shhh, there, there, it's all right. One leaf still dances in the air....
The glow dies down, and she's standing at the end of my bed--the one who's been following me around leaving feather messages. I take in the torn fishnets, plaid mini-kilt, shiny, riveted breastplate w...
The best day of my life happened when I was five and almost died at Disney World. I'm sixteen now, so you can imagine that's left me with quite a few days of major suckage.
Spare a copper for our cause? the girl with the coin cup asks, her voice weary. I can spare more than that, I say. I reach into my purse and giver her what real coins I have, and then I press my hand...