How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
He thought of all of them—all his characters, stuck in the duffel bag, rats chewing at the edges. He thought of bugs crawling over them and trash dumped on top of them. He thought of the folded-up Questions, still in the backpack, and of how he'd said William's nightmare was being buried alive. (4.2)
When Zach pictures his toys at the dump, the imagery of decay and decomposition is vivid. Not that we're afraid or anything…
Quote #2
Now that it was daytime, he could see the glass orbs were slightly too small for her eye sockets, leaving gaps in the corners. An ant crawled out from one of them, marching across her eye and up over her forehead into the thicket of her hair. (8.50)
Here's another image of decay. The Queen is made of porcelain, but here it almost sounds as though she's decomposing like a real human body. Gross.
Quote #3
"If you died," Poppy said, keeping her voice low, "Do you think you'd want to be a ghost?" (9.64)
Talking about ghosts seems like a safe way for the kids to explore death, which is a really scary concept. And while ghosts aren't exactly alive, they're not exactly dead either, which perhaps helps the kids think of death as not so final.