Quotes from Ann M. Martin

At least for now.

I could tell.

Okay, so Courtie had some dirt on the knees of her pants and a piece of grass in her hair and a little red around her mouth. She was four. What did Leigh expect? Four-year-olds get dirty. I'd be more worried if she were pristine every day. To me, dirt is a sign of fun. It's normal.

I really love Courtie and I love Leigh too, I guess. After all, she'd been my stepmother for five years then ever since I was 11, and she'd seen my older brother, Mike and me through some hard times. But Leigh and I had always clashed, especially over Courtenay. See, Leigh didn't quite trust me. We got off on the right foot and never seemed to get on the right one, at least not for long.

she'd taken a leave of absence when Squirt was born).

Mike and I have lived with Dad every since my mom took off when she was 7. They got divorced a year later. I love my mom and I know she loves Mike and me. Of course, I haven't seen her in ages, but that's just because she's such a creative person and creative people need space. At least, some of them do.

I looked at my watch. 2:30. I really should go back to sleep soon or I'd be a basket case at school tomorrow, I thought, but I was avoiding nightmares of my own. I had them pretty often, more often than Courtenay did. I knew they weren't real, I knew they wouldn't hurt me, but they still scared me to death.

My mother says I am a pack rat. So what? Pack rats are probably very nice animals. And I bet they're prepared for anything. I know I am.

It was time to put Abby to work.

Mike and I ran through everything we thought Courtenay should know about being on her own in the big, bad world: who to trust, who not to trust, what to do if somebody wanted to give her candy, touch her, take her for a ride. And that was one of the big problems between Leigh and me. Leigh was incensed that I had started the Lost Game. She thought it would scare Courtenay and all Leigh wanted to do was protect her.

If Kristy wanted me to feel left out for some reason, I could do the same to her.

What if it was someone else, someone who remembered something awful about the last Halloween masquerade, twenty-eight years ago?

me for anything

There was no way Swanilda could have been black

Mary Anne schedules our baby-sitting jobs.

What I didn't figure was that I'd be eating dinner with the Stepsister from the Black Lagoon.

throw-the-beanbag-in-the-Pilgrim's-mouth.

pin-the-feather-on-the-turkey

Take Me Out to the Ball Game.

Never eat Oreo cream filling before bed. You'll wake up with a headache.

I felt terrible. What could I do to make Kristy feel better? And if she felt better, would she be nicer to me?

I am Rose Howard and my first name has a homonym. To be accurate, it has a homophone, which is a word that's pronounced the same as another word but spelled differently.

Crunch. Claudia Kishi was eating something sweet and chocolatey.

truth? The Louvre