“Black (In my next life, I want to rest, avoid children, and be paid well).
So far she’s been quiet, but I know she’s listening, mostly because there’s no one else around but me. “What would yours say, Ultraviolet?”
“I’m not sure.” She tilts her head and gazes out over the dash at some distant point as if she’ll see the answer there. “What about yours?” Her voice sounds kind of drifting and far off, like she’s somewhere else.
I don’t even have to think about it. “Theodore Finch, in search of the Great Manifesto.”
She gives me a sharp look, and I can see she’s present and accounted for again. “I don’t know what that means.”
“It means ‘the urge to be, to count for something, and, if death must come, to die valiantly, with acclamation—in short, to remain a memory.’ ”
She goes quiet, as if she’s thinking this over. “So where were you Friday? Why didn’t you go to school?”
“I get these headaches sometimes. No big deal.” This isn’t an out-and-out lie, because the headaches are a part of it.
User Reviews: