61
" Black snowflakes creep down from the sky, advancing slowly, methodically. All the money in the world, which my father seems to have, can’t keep the demons from chasing me ⎯ Aishling Morrighan Delaney, a.k.a. princess of Clan Delaney. Everything is messed up. I’m wearing the “Happy Birthday” sash across my chest that my best friend, Claire, had always insisted I wear for my special day, but this is not that day. My twentieth birthday was over a month ago, on October 31, the night of Samhain, the Celtic New Year’s Eve.This is December 7th, and the Ten Colds Moon is rising. My fate stalks me. Doesn’t look like I’m going to make it to my belated birthday party. I lean into my horse, Kheelan, as he tears across the bracken and bramble moor, and beyond through the amethyst fields of devil’s bit, for a moment outrunning the faerie’s freak show. The spiky shrubs of the moor bite my legs as we attempt to outrun the Fates and the black snow that comes like a gathering sandstorm, trailing me. This princess thing in Ireland can get a girl killed fast, or maybe it’s just me. I am the faerie slayer of the seventh order and the 28th generation, the prophesied Gael Siridean, the Searcher. As such, my head is crowned with a supernatural bounty, and the price is high…The thread of my life frays rapidly, as does the hem of this black velvet medieval-style dress I borrowed from my best friend, Claire. She’s throwing me a themed party this year. If I make it out of this alive tonight, she’s going to kill me for ruining her dress and causing her more worry. Maybe she’ll grant me mercy when she takes in my drenched, haggard appearance with thistle strewn throughout my hair and dark eyeliner no doubt leaving claw marks down my cheeks. I can’t tell her what really happened here tonight. I can’t tell anyone. "
67
" I look at the world and through these innocent eyes, all I see is hatred and anger. Corrupting everything, ruining everything, but not preserving anything. What I should be seeing is respect, acceptance and love. But, if that was what these innocent eyes witnessed, they would be seeing and observing a lie. The people in this world are not respectful, theres barely any acceptance in this day and age, and love is an almost silent whisper, slowly fading. These innocent eyes, are now corrupted. No longer innocent as they should be. "
69
" Hey, have you heard that one about the difference between me, Wit, and my loutish cousin, Hilarity? No? Okay, so I walk into a bar, you see, very unassuming, and order a martini. Then the bartender, Hilarity, hauls off and squirts me in the face with a seltzer bottle, ruining my n ice new camel hair suit, dousing my monocle and my watch fob, soaking my cravat. So, do I let him have what for, and blow my top? I do not. I simply say:
Sorry, I believe I said 'very dry'. "
― Chip Kidd , The Learners
70
" Things I Used to Get Hit For: Talking back. Being smart. Acting stupid. Not listening. Not answering the first time. Not doing what I’m told. Not doing it the second time I’m told. Running, jumping, yelling, laughing, falling down, skipping stairs, lying in the snow, rolling in the grass, playing in the dirt, walking in mud, not wiping my feet, not taking my shoes off. Sliding down the banister, acting like a wild Indian in the hallway. Making a mess and leaving it. Pissing my pants, just a little. Peeing the bed, hardly at all. Sleeping with a butter knife under my pillow.
Shitting the bed because I was sick and it just ran out of me, but still my fault because I’m old enough to know better. Saying shit instead of crap or poop or number two. Not knowing better. Knowing something and doing it wrong anyway. Lying. Not confessing the truth even when I don’t know it. Telling white lies, even little ones, because fibbing isn’t fooling and not the least bit funny. Laughing at anything that’s not funny, especially cripples and retards. Covering up my white lies with more lies, black lies. Not coming the exact second I’m called. Getting out of bed too early, sometimes before the birds, and turning on the TV, which is one reason the picture tube died. Wearing out the cheap plastic hole on the channel selector by turning it so fast it sounds like a machine gun. Playing flip-and-catch with the TV’s volume button then losing it down the hole next to the radiator pipe. Vomiting. Gagging like I’m going to vomit. Saying puke instead of vomit. Throwing up anyplace but in the toilet or in a designated throw-up bucket. Using scissors on my hair. Cutting Kelly’s doll’s hair really short. Pinching Kelly. Punching Kelly even though she kicked me first. Tickling her too hard. Taking food without asking. Eating sugar from the sugar bowl. Not sharing. Not remembering to say please and thank you. Mumbling like an idiot. Using the emergency flashlight to read a comic book in bed because batteries don’t grow on trees. Splashing in puddles, even the puddles I don’t see until it’s too late. Giving my mother’s good rhinestone earrings to the teacher for Valentine’s Day. Splashing in the bathtub and getting the floor wet. Using the good towels. Leaving the good towels on the floor, though sometimes they fall all by themselves. Eating crackers in bed. Staining my shirt, tearing the knee in my pants, ruining my good clothes. Not changing into old clothes that don’t fit the minute I get home. Wasting food. Not eating everything on my plate. Hiding lumpy mashed potatoes and butternut squash and rubbery string beans or any food I don’t like under the vinyl seat cushions Mom bought for the wooden kitchen chairs. Leaving the butter dish out in summer and ruining the tablecloth. Making bubbles in my milk. Using a straw like a pee shooter. Throwing tooth picks at my sister. Wasting toothpicks and glue making junky little things that no one wants. School papers. Notes from the teacher. Report cards. Whispering in church. Sleeping in church. Notes from the assistant principal. Being late for anything. Walking out of Woolworth’s eating a candy bar I didn’t pay for. Riding my bike in the street. Leaving my bike out in the rain. Getting my bike stolen while visiting Grandpa Rudy at the hospital because I didn’t put a lock on it. Not washing my feet. Spitting. Getting a nosebleed in church. Embarrassing my mother in any way, anywhere, anytime, especially in public. Being a jerk. Acting shy. Being impolite. Forgetting what good manners are for. Being alive in all the wrong places with all the wrong people at all the wrong times. "
― Bob Thurber , Paperboy: A Dysfunctional Novel
