4
" On the black earth on which the ice plants bloomed, hundreds of black stink bugs crawled. And many of them stuck their tails up in the air. " Look at all them stink bugs," Hazel remarked, grateful to the bugs for being there. " They're interesting," said Doc. " Well, what they got their asses up in the air for?" Doc rolled up his wool socks and put them in the rubber boots and from his pocket he brought out dry socks and a pair of thin moccasins. " I don't know why," he said. " I looked them up recently--they're very common animals and one of the commonest things they do is put their tails up in the air. And in all the books there isn't one mention of the fact that they put their tails up in the air or why." Hazel turned one of the stink bugs over with the toe of his wet tennis shoe and the shining black beetle strove madly with floundering legs to get upright again. " Well, why do you think they do it?" " I think they're praying," said Doc. " What!" Hazel was shocked. " The remarkable thing," said Doc, " isn't that they put their tails up in the air--the really incredibly remarkable thing is that we find it remarkable. We can only use ourselves as yardsticks. If we did something as inexplicable and strange we'd probably be praying--so maybe they're praying." " Let's get the hell out of here," said Hazel. "
9
" You will not say how you are haunted by the faces of the men you killed, how in their last gasp of life they sought your pity and you had none. You will not speak of the boys who died screaming for their mothers while you twisted a blade in their guts and snarled your scorn into their ears. You will not confess that you wake in the night, covered in sweat, heart hammering, shrinking from the memories. You will not talk of that, because that is the horror, and the horror is held in the heart’s hoard, a secret, and to admit it is to admit fear, and we are warriors.
We do not fear. We strut. We go to battle like heroes. We stink of shit. "
― Bernard Cornwell , The Flame Bearer (The Saxon Stories, #10)
10
" This night is going well." Hello there." I speak too soon.Dunstan enters, his two cronies behind him. Everyone standing around goes quiet. I flinch, but not for me; he's gazing at Ivy like a lion at a piece of meat. Ivy just keeps grinning." And may I say you are the prettiest girl I've seen all night," Dunstan says, not noticing the fact Ivy's already taken.Ivy stares down at her feet, a pale blush the color of pink roses brushed across her cheeks. " You don't mean that," she whispers, not knowing she's accidentally flirting." I really do," Dunstan continues in his oily, supposedly charming voice, and I roll my eyes. I want to pull Ivy away, but if I do, Dunstan will notice me. And without Melanie breathing down his neck, who knows what he'll try to pull?" So what's your name, beautiful?" Ivy blush deepens and i feel my nails dig into my skin. I'm the one whose supposed to tell her she's pretty, not this jerk." My name is Ivy," Ivy replies." Ivy. I like it. It suits you." I feel an arm on my shoulder and turning around, I see Aidan holding me back. Unconsciously, I've stepped forward, ready to challenge him." So what is your name?" Ivy asks, still shyly peering down at her shoeless feet.Acting all surprised he got asked this, Dunstan runs a hand through his hair. " My name is Dunstan." Ivy's flush instantly vanishes, the corners of her mouth turns down, and her eyebrows knit together." Dunstan? This is your name?" Quiet as she's being, I know there's anger there. I'd hate to be the recipient of this tone.But Dunstan the egotistical baboon butt isn't aware of the change. " Yep, that's me." " What is your last name?" I feel someone shaking. Aidan's still hanging on to me, and he's nervous, too.Dunstan still doesn't detect her malice. " Why, my last name's Lebelle. Dunstan Lebelle." He chuckles. " Perhaps you've heard of me?" " Oh yes," Ivy hisses, suddenly radiating ferocious fury. " I've heard much about the boy who nearly got Rylan Forester killed." Even with blaring music in the next room, you can hear a pin drop throughout the kitchen as everyone goes quiet, having lost all ability to talk due to flapping jaws. Someone whistles." Excuse me?" Dunstan sounds like he can't believe what he's hearing." You heard me." Ivy glares, knowing she has him caught. " You pushed Rylan into the swamp where the alligator attacked him. Sure, you can blame the alligator, but when you really think about, if you had not pushed him in, Rylan wouldn't have nearly died. Who, by the way," Ivy steps back, clasping my free hand in hers, " happens to be my friend and my date." Everyone bursts into titters—no one has ever spoken to Dustan Lebelle like that—as Dunstan stares at me wide-eyed, finally taking in my existence. But before he can do anything, Ivy pulls my hand." We're leaving," she declares, giving Dunstan one last stink eye. And with her nose in the air and me following, Ivy boldly walks right out the back door. "
16
" You've turned on us, New York. We who see your jagged-tooth skyline rise up and want to weep because we are so full of you. We who know that the tumbledown tenements are beautiful, that the cracked sidewalks are beautiful, that the iron and cobblestones, the soot and the stink are beautiful, that the tired old shoemakers are beautiful. That the bodega cats, the gutter rats, the endless clouds of pigeons are beautiful . . . We mourn for you, New York, because you are forgetting us, your brash and ragged children. "