How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
Someone asked us later, "Didn't you wonder why no one came across you sooner?"
Did I wonder?
When you see your parents zipped up in black body bags on the Jellicoe Road like they're some kind of garbage, don't you know?
Wonder dies. (Prologue.5-8)
And this, folks, is the happy note our story opens on. Dang. If that doesn't set the tone for the amount of suffering that's going to follow, we don't know what does.
Quote #2
At that time Webb thought nothing would make sense ever again. The pain was worse now because up till then Narnie and Tate and Webb had all just felt numb and if it hadn't been for Fitz's spirit blasting them out of their grief, Webb honestly believed that the three of them would have made some crazy suicide pact. (2.72)
If Fitz hadn't ridden by on the stolen bike and saved them all, this story could have had a very different ending. Ditto for if he'd saved them, but decided not to stick around. It's his presence that keeps the three survivors from wrapping their thoughts too much around the idea of death—or even suicide.
Quote #3
Tate had lost her younger sister as well as her parents in the accident. "We were playing Rock Paper Scissors," she said. "I was paper and she was rock so I lived and she died." (2.72)
Whoa. When you think about it, that's probably how a kid in this position would come to understand death. Maybe the results of a Rock, Paper, Scissors game don't really determine whether someone lives or dies, but we can definitely see how Tate could get there.