Five years and Nolan had always been there. Five years and Dane always appeared nervous, as if it were a first date.

Kevin's dad is convinced that there's one weed spawning all the others in his garden and he just needs to find it.

For Arabella, Christmas gifts were not judged on how expensive they were. They were an insight into how well I really knew and understood her.

We kept white feathers before exams or doctors’ appointments. Black feathers, of course, were warnings. We knew these to be facts, as empirical as science.

Ten words, one tale. Ten tales, a hundred words.

“It’s always the same to begin with,” I said. “I’m on the beach. The sand is hot, the sun is bearing down. It makes the sand look white, like snow.”

There is a bleached skeleton that holds no marrow

He sat on the bench. Their bench. And watched the birds. And remembered.

Truda paused at the gate and tried to calm her racing heart.

Mr. and Mrs. Whitaker next door were targeted the following weekend...

"I love you, Martha, but you break things. You're breaking us."

But in my head that summer before we moved into the town was yellow and purple and red and supremely happy

You have to play the cards you're dealt

"That tree," he says. "It's looking at me."

How many people who turn on a light understand the generation of electricity?