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1 " blur in my memory.” She wagged her head and clucked her tongue sadly, which I found very annoying. “Well, at least you’re better now. That’s what counts, right?” She shuffled through my file. “I see your doctor has filed a medical certificate for gym.” “Yeah.” “Okay, no problem. I’ll see that the nurse and Coach Procter get copies. And you have a prescription request, which has been approved. The nurse has to dispense medicine to you, but you probably already know that.” “Uh, yeah,” I said dryly. She seemed "
― Tom Upton , Plague House
2 " I do say so myself.” I wondered at the fact that Jon had photo-shopped anything. I couldn’t even imagine him using a computer—or a microwave oven, for that matter. After he put the money and IDs back into the safe, he dug "
3 " strawberries, an unknown allergy. He was always taking pills, and he had an array of colorful inhalers, each for some specific purpose, all designed to ensure that air would flow in and out of his lungs. Whenever I thought of Bobby, I didn’t feel so bad about having to take a bunch of huge gel caps every day. I didn’t know what was wrong with Angie. She never talked about it. All I knew was that there had been a couple times an ambulance was called to the school to rush her to the hospital. Afterward, she would miss a few days of school, and when she returned, she pretended nothing at all "
4 " was a miracle or due to the lucky ministrations of a doddering old doctor, I had no place in this reality. All I should have been by now was a name on a headstone, lost in rows of other headstones stretching as far as the eye could see in some faraway cemetery. That first morning, my mother dropped me off at Willowbrook High. That, like many other things these days, didn’t feel right. I should have walked. I should have ridden a bike, like so many other kids, pedaling along the roadside, their backpacks giving them a happy hunchbacked look. But my mother had "
5 " Just then Angie rushed back into the kitchen. I was stunned at how she was dressed. She had on a dressy long-sleeved blouse and a pair of cut-off jeans. The jeans were more of a shock, because until that very moment I had never seen her bare legs. She always wore ratty pants, and the most I had ever seen of her legs were flashes of skin when she had holes around the knees in her pant legs. Now the jeans she wore weren’t cut really high, but high enough. Her legs were still somewhat tanned from Florida, and they were in good shape, which caused something good to stir in my stomach. "
6 " unreality, like somebody who has just won the lottery. This just couldn’t be happening. Something was terribly, strangely wrong. I should have died in seventh grade, and whether my survival was a miracle or due to the lucky ministrations of a doddering "
