There are monsters in the sea,

Good exercise,' aka the actual worst phrase in the English language next to 'wake up' and 'all the eggs are gone.

rainmaker: Weird, I didn’t know you had such a thing for timid guys.MirkerLurker: Really does it for me when a guy is paralyzed with fear on a regular basis.rainmaker: Aw. Sad.MirkerLurker: What’s sad?rainmaker: That it would never work between us. I’m too courageous.

Six: everyone - and when I say everyone, I mean absolutely, positively everyone, from the librarians to the students to the staff to the oldest, cruiser janitor - was piss-down-their-legs scared of Miles Richter. Of all the crazy things I heard about East Shoal, that was the only thing I couldn't believe.

Do you ever write your own stuff?" I ask. "Instead of fanfiction?""Sometimes," he says, "But I don't think it's as good as my fanfiction. It's easier with fanfiction. Fanfiction is just playing with someone else's characters and settings and themes. I don't worry if it's any good because it's fun. But when I try to write something of my own, it's just...constant worry. It never seems good enough.

You found me in a constellation.

You know a school is run by stuck-up sons of bitches when it doesn't even have a bike rack.

Yeah. I told you he was crazy, right? I heard he does some weird stuff at home, too.' He said it with a conspiratorial stage whisper. 'Like mowing his lawn, and trimming his peonies.''Peonies?' I balked. 'God, he really is a freak.

Are you French?' I asked instead.'Oui!'Foreign. Foreign spy. French Communist Party acted on Stalin's instructions during part of World War II. French Communist spy.Stop it stop it stop itI turned to Art, a black kid who was a foot and a half taller than me and whose pecs were about to burst of his shirt and eat someone. I gave him a two on the delusion detector. I didn't trust those pecs.'Hi,' he rumbled.I waved weakly.

My parents didn't grow up here or anything. They chose to live in this nowhere town. Why? Because it was named after Hannibal of Carthage. Their basic train of thought was this: Hannibal's Rest? And we're naming our child after Alexander the Great? MARVELOUS. Ah, the history, it tickles.Sometimes I wanted to beat my parents over the head with a frying pan.