2
" She needs to wake up," said Boots. " Hazard is crying. When does she wake up?" Gregor could not find it within him to give his standard reply. To pretend that in a short time Thalia would be back with them, laughing and happy. And somehow it seemed wrong to try. Boots was getting older. Very soon, she would begin to realize the truth on her own, anyway. " She's not going wake up," he told her. " She's dead." " She doesn't wake up?" said Boots." No, not this time," said Gregor. " This time, she had to go away." Boots looked around at all their faces, at Hazard crying. " Where did she go?" No one had an answer. " Where is Thalia when she doesn't wake up?" The question hung in the air for an eternity. Finally, it was Howard who spoke up. " Why, she's in your heart, Boots." " My heart?" said Boots, putting both hands on her chest." Yes. That's where she lives now," said Howard." She can fly away?" asked Boots, pressing her palms tightly against her heart as if to keep Thalia from escaping." Oh, no, she will stay there forever," said Howard. "
3
" In theory, sure, Gregor could still go home. Pack up his three-year-old sister, Boots, get his mom out of the hospital, where she was recovering from the plague, and have his bat, Ares, fly them back up to the laudry room of their appartment building in New York City. Ares, his bond, who saved his life numerous times and who had had nothing but suffering since he had met Gregor. He tried to imagine the parting. " Well, Ares, it's been great. I'm heading home now. I know by leaving I'm completely dooming to annihilation everbody who's helped me down here, but I'm really not up for this whole war thing anymore. So, fly you high, you know?" Like that would ever happen. "
7
" I haven't re-read Kafka for forty years. I had a second read-through when first teaching English at the University of Warwick in the 1970s, but since then have not been tempted to return. The reason for this, I suspect, is that he is a young person's writer, not in the sense that only the young can appreciate him, but because on first exposure he is so comprehensively and unexpectedly formative that you may never feel the need to read him again. He becomes part of you, and your mind and spirit and view of the human condition are inhabited by his stories, his views, and especially his characters: by poor persecuted Josef K., by Gregor Samsa trapped in his rotting shell, by the hunger artist, yearning to find something, anything, that is actually good to eat, by poor K., who can't get into the castle to visit the Authorities. Kafkaesque: a world incomprehensible, alienating and threatening, absurd. We visit it with incomprehension and at our peril, lost at all points, disorientated, inoculated against faith, searchers for meaning in a book - and universe that either has none, or in which it lurks inaccessibly. Once you have read Kafka, you know this. "
11
" Jonquil went by with a full plate of food, and Petunia reached out and tried to snag a small cream puff from it. Jonquil lifted it over Petunia's head before she could, and clucked her tongue. " These are for Lily," she said." Oh really?" Petunia gave her a look." And possibly some are for that Analousian duke Jacques invited," Jonquil said with a sparkle in her eye. " But none are for you." Then she flipped one to Oliver. " You can have one, my lord earl," she said, and twirled away." These are excellent," Oliver said, eating half of it in one bite. He fed Petunia the other half so she wouldn't get cream on her knitting. Oliver was just leaning in to steal a kiss - " I hope this means you're planning on marrying her, boy," barked King Gregor.Oliver leaped to his feet. " Sire! Yes! I mean ... I ... sire!" " I didn't pardon you and restore your earldom so that you could loll around my gardens flirting with my daughters," King Gregor said. Then he bent down and gave Petunia a kiss on the cheek. " I like him," he whispered loudly in her ear." Me too," she whispered back, blushing. "
