My phone started to vibrate and I flipped it open. Yes, I'm the only person that doesn't have an iPhone. The phone talked to me. "Jackson, how’s it going?" "Hi, Echo. Veeva Stackpoole’s here." Silence. "What does she want?" "Well, at first she wa...
The whiskey was a good start. I got the idea from Dylan Thomas. He's this poet who drank twenty-one straight whiskeys at the White Horse Tavern in New York and then died on the spot from alcohol poisoning. I've always wanted to hear the bartender's s...
Det var nästan som att upptäcka en författare man inte läst, fast man stöter i och för sig hela tiden på författare som man inte har läst medan det är mycket sällsynt, åtminstone i vuxen ålder, att man plötsligt hittar en stor popartist...
She waited with Billy Slick while Carrot went on the errand, and for something to say, she said, ‘Billy Slick doesn’t sound much like a goblin name?’ Billy made a face. ‘Too right! Granny calls me Of the Wind Regretfully Blown. What kind of n...
We have all lived through that shriveling moment when a parent walks into a room and repeats, with sardonic disbelief, a couplet picked up from the stereo or the TV. 'What does that mean, then?' my mother asked me during Top of the Pops. "Get it on /...
Percy and Reyna occupied matching praeters' chairs on the dais, which made Percy self-conscious. It wasn't easy looking dignified wearing a bedsheet and a purple cape. "The camp is safe," Octavian continued. " I'll be the first to congragulate our he...
[Ava] had always thought the main relationship in the family was the one between Nancy and her daughters. To have a family, you needed a father, of course, and Jimmy had played that role perfectly well, if you were okay with an old-fashioned interpre...
They saw me. Milton's smile curled off his face like unsticky tape. And I knew immediately, I was a boy band, a boondoggle, born fool. He was going to pull a Danny Zuko in when Sandy says hello to him in front of the T-Birds, a Mrs. Robinson when she...
Building a museum case and filling it with types of mussels is one way of knowing mussels; but on the shore, a mussel leads to a crab or a curious stone, which leads to another thing and eventually leads back to mussels, which is another and perhaps ...
[John] watched the flames for a while. "I would have to say that I find God in serving His children. 'When I was hungry and you fed me, I was thirsty and you gave me to drink, I was a stanger and you welcomed me, naked and you clothed me, sick and yo...
What branch do you want to go in?” “I don’ give a god-damn,” said Pilon jauntily. “I guess we need men like you in the infantry.” And Pilon was written so. He turned then to Big Joe, and the Portagee was getting sober. “Where do you wan...
As the wine went down in the bottles, patriotism arose in the three men. And when the wine was gone they went down the hill arm in arm for comradeship and safety, and they walked into Monterey. In front of an enlistment station they cheered loudly fo...
WE do try to eat," Raoul called back to her [Kel]. I go all faint if I don't get fed regularly. Only think of the disgrace to the King's Own if I fell from the saddle." "But there was that time in Fanwood," a voice behind them said. "That wedding in ...
The exhausted earth groaned and quivered under the monotonous glare of the sun. Spirals of heat rose from the ground as if from molten lava. A panting lizard crawled painfully over the fevered rock in search of a shady crevice. Cattle and dogs cringe...
He moved on down the alley, his feet walking forward and his brain swimming backward through a sea of time. It was a dark sea, much darker than the alley. The tide was slow and there were no waves, just tiny ripples that murmured very softly. Telling...
What if a pair of us head off on our own?" Nollin proposed, panting. "A small detachment might avoid detection." "It's a gamble," Ferrin said. "If the duo gets noticed, they'll be defenseless. Who'd you have in mind?" "Some key delegates," Nollin sai...
Do you think me horselike, my lord?" Realizing the threat to his personage, Blackmoor wiped the smile from his face and replied, "Not at all. I said I think you charming." "A fine start." "And I appreciate your exuberance." His eyes glitered with bar...
We'll know we've got it right when they choose for themselves," he used to say. That doesn't make sense. 'That's what I thought too. I asked him what he meant, but he just shrugged. I don't think he knew himself. But I keep thinking maybe that stray ...
She especially liked my bedside lamp, which had a five-sided porcelain shade. Unlit, the shade seemed like bumpy ivory. Lit, each panel came to life with the image of a bird: a blue jay, a cardinal, wrens, an oriole, and a dove. Kathleen turned it of...
I must be in love with this woman, Sumire realized with a start. No mistake about it. Ice is cold; roses are red; I'm in love. And this love is about to carry me off somewhere. This current's too overpowering; I don't have any choice. It may very wel...
When I pretended to be precocious, people started the rumor that I was precocious. When I acted like an idler, rumor had it I was an idler. When I pretended I couldn't write a novel, people said I couldn't write. When I acted like a liar, they called...
