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6a5522e
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am spinning the silk threads of my story, weaving the fabric of my world. The tiny elf dancer became a wooden doll whose strings were jerked by people not paying attention. I spun out of control. Eating was hard. Breathing was hard. Living was hardest.
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Laurie Halse Anderson |
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926d3e7
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I can never tell with moments of silence. They're so... silent. Empty.
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Laurie Halse Anderson |
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6505b14
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It doesn't matter where I go, I don't want to be there. And then I get to the next place, and I don't want to be there either.
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travel
love
sad
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Laurie Halse Anderson |
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6662c16
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I was in a race to see if I would die from the outside in or the inside out.
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rape
survivor
substance-abuse
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Laurie Halse Anderson |
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2684a10
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Flames curled out of all the windows next door. The rooftop beyond that was a lake of fire. Every building in sight was burning. The air was filled with crackling and popping sounds, with shrieks and screams coming from the street below.
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Laurie Halse Anderson |
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4968ab2
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The girl reflected back from the window in front of me has poinsettias growing out of her belly and head. She's the shape of a breakfast-link sausage standing on broomstick legs, her arms made from twigs, her face blurred with an eraser. I know that this is me, but it's not me, not really. I don't know what I look like. I can't remember how to look.
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Laurie Halse Anderson |
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1b52b89
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The best time to talk to ghosts is just before the sun comes up. That's when they can hear us true.
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Laurie Halse Anderson |
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e00389c
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the only thing that helped me breathe was opening a book
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Laurie Halse Anderson |
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f2b92ae
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Did he rape my head, too?
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Laurie Halse Anderson |
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cf5692e
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So why does everyone make such a big hairy deal about me not talking? Maybe I don't want to incriminate myself. Maybe I don't like the sound of my voice. Maybe I don't have anything to say.
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Laurie Halse Anderson |
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f9d29fc
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If the president was back, then the fever was truly over. If the president was back, we were safe. I threw my arms around Nathaniel and planted a big kiss on his cheek. He pulled back in surprise. "Do you always do that when the president rides by? If so, I'll take a job working for him." I blushed and looked down at my feet."
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Laurie Halse Anderson |
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99cce5f
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Cubism. Seeing beyond what is on the surface. Moving both eyes and a nose to the side of the face. Dicing bodies and tables and guitars as if they were celery sticks, and rearranging them so that you have to really see them to see them.
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Laurie Halse Anderson |
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c9b2165
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You'd be shocked at how many adults are already dead inside, walking around with no clue, waiting for a heart attack or cancer to finish the job. When people don't express themselves, they die one piece at a time. It's the saddest thing I know.
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Laurie Halse Anderson |
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ad5e37c
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Eve ate the apple because Adam was afraid
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fear
eve
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Laurie Halse Anderson |
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cf2d599
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THE FIRST TEN LIES THEY TELL YOU IN HIGH SCHOOL 1. We are here to help you. 2. You will have enough time to get to your class before the bell rings. 3. The dress code will be enforced. 4. No smoking is allowed on school grounds. 5. Our football team will win the championship this year. 6. We expect more of you here. 7. Guidance counselors are always available to listen. 8. Your schedule was created with your needs in mind. 9. Your locker co..
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Laurie Halse Anderson |
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b93a810
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Welcome to the only class that will teach you to how to survive" Welcome to Art."
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Laurie Halse Anderson |
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3ce82d1
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It was hard to know how to play the game when the rules kept changing.
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relationship
sad
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Laurie Halse Anderson |
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31f6156
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Tell me this is a nightmare
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Laurie Halse Anderson |
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37df1b3
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The next time you work on your trees, don't think about trees. Think about love, or hate, or joy, or rage-- whatever makes you feel something, makes your palms sweat or your toes curl.
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Laurie Halse Anderson |
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526ab2b
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Underground, pale seeds roll over in their sleep. Starting to get restless. Starting to dream green.
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Laurie Halse Anderson |
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f7955f6
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Let me ask you something. We're fighting for freedom, right?" I picked my words carefully. "So why is that man allowed to own Baumfree and Bett?" "Well," he said slowly, "we're fighting for our freedom. Not theirs."
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Laurie Halse Anderson |
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a0f8c87
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A teacher (a good teacher) is composed of molecules of education and intelligence, bonded together by patience and passion.
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Laurie Halse Anderson |
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ad50de2
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I push my ragged mouth against the mirror. A thousand bleeding, crusted lips push back. What does it feel like to walk in a new skin? Was she completely sensitive like a baby, or numb, without nerve endings, just walking in a skin bag? I exhale and my mouth disappears in a fog. I feel like my skin has been burned off. I stumble from thornbush to thornbush--my mother and father who hate each other, Rachel who hates me, a school that gags on ..
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Laurie Halse Anderson |
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53ab913
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I wake up breathing dirt. I cough and spit out the pebbles in my mouth, but when I inhale again, wet clots of clay fill my lungs.
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Laurie Halse Anderson |
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50edc55
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I used to dream about bringing a knife to therapy and slicing her into pork chop-sized pieces.
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Laurie Halse Anderson |
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86bc083
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Maybe that was why I wanted to slap so many of the zombies; they had no idea how freaking lucky they were. Lucky and ignorant, happy little rich kids who believed in Santa Claus and the tooth fairy and thought that life was supposed to be fair.
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Laurie Halse Anderson |
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287095f
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Well... It might be a little broken.' 'A little broken is still broken,' I pointed out. 'But fixable.
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inspirational
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Laurie Halse Anderson |
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d65a3ae
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If everyone was really having sex, they why was it paradoxically a hush-hush-whisper thing and a scream-it-online-and -in-the-cafeteria thing? If everyone was really having sex, why weren't more girls sporting baby bumps? I know the statistics.
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Laurie Halse Anderson |
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219ff2d
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One had to be careful with elbows and boys
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courting
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Laurie Halse Anderson |
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500a4ab
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No wonder the zombies were crazy. They thought they were supposed to practice breeding before they learned how to do their own laundry. They talked about it, thought about it, maybe did it, all while going through the motions of attending class and learning stuff so that they could go forth and become productive adults. Whatever that was supposed to mean.
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Laurie Halse Anderson |
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75b204a
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Looking out the window, I wondered how many of those kids had parents who were losing it, or parents who were gone, taken off without a forwarding address, or parents who had buried themselves alive, who could argue and chop wood and make asses of themselves without being fully conscious. How many of them believed what they were saying when they blathered on about what college they'd go to and what they'd major in and how much they'd earn a..
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Laurie Halse Anderson |
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746130c
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They were coming, on wings from far away, all the pictures and voices, smells, tastes, all the everything from the past was flying toward me as fast as it could.
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Laurie Halse Anderson |
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04d94dc
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The warped perception of time is a hallmark of trauma.
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Laurie Halse Anderson |
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2c26118
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If I could turn into a wisp of smoke, I could slip into them and disappear.
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Laurie Halse Anderson |
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089b4fc
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Dr. Parker and all my parents live in a paper-mache world. They just patch up problems with strips of newspaper and a little glue.
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Laurie Halse Anderson |
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0e5c065
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When I was a real girl, my mother fed me her glass dreams one spoonful at a time. Harvard. Yale. Princeton. Duke. Undergrad. Med school. Internship, residency, God. She'd brush my hair and braid it with long words, weaving the Latin roots and Greek branches into my head so memorizing anatomy would come easy.
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Laurie Halse Anderson |
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d76c172
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When you're alive, people can hurt you. It's easier to crawl into a bone cage or snowdrift of confusion. It's easier to lock everybody out. But it's a lie.
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Laurie Halse Anderson |
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ce4b712
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Fracture lines etch the surface of the glass box as if a body fell from the sky and landed on it.
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Laurie Halse Anderson |
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74e912b
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We had eight inches of snow last night. In any other part of the country, that would mean a snow day. Not in Syracuse. We never get snow days. It snows an inch in South Carolina, everything shuts down and they get on the six o'clock news. In our district, they plow early and often and put chains on the bus tires.
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Laurie Halse Anderson |
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bd31e17
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I cut class, you cut class, he, she, it cuts class. We cut class, they cut class. We all cut class. I cannot say this in Spanish, because I did not go to Spanish today. Gracias a dios. Hasta luego.
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Laurie Halse Anderson |
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16abdc0
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I scurry out to the three-way mirror. With an extra-large sweatshirt over the top, you can hardly tell that they are Effert's jeans. Still no Mom. I adjust the mirror so I can see reflections of reflections, miles and miles of me and my new jeans. I hook my hair behind my ears. I should have washed it. My face is dirty. I lean into the mirror. Eyes after eyes after eyes stare back at me. Am I in there somewhere? A thousand eyes blink. No ma..
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Laurie Halse Anderson |
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ca386e5
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I dare you to punch me," I said. "You? Dare me?" He was laughing too hard to say anything else. I shove him. "I double-dare you. If you don't have the guts to do it, you're a weenie." I shove again, harder. "If you do, you're an even bigger weenie because it's harder to take a punch than to give one."
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Laurie Halse Anderson |
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a680746
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Picasso sure had a thing for naked women. Why not draw them with their clothes on? Who sits around without a shirt on, plucking a mandolin? Why not draw naked guys, just to be fair? Naked women is art, naked men a no-no, I bet. Probably because most painters are men.
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Laurie Halse Anderson |
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93aa581
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Like most blacks in Philadelphia, Eliza was free. She said Philadelphia was the best city for freed slaves or freeborn Africans.
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Laurie Halse Anderson |