How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #7
I'd really like to get to know you more, the tangerine peel said. It's just so fascinating having a friend whose mother got killed.
The second she said it, she gasped. Seth looked up from his sandwich. Oh my God, said Amelia. It just came out.
It's okay, Wendy told Amelia. She felt relieved that someone said it, finally. (6.54-56)
It might be a little (okay, a lot) insensitive of Amelia to mock the other girls in their class who are trying to get close to Wendy now that her mother is "missing," but Wendy is just relieved that Amelia has said what everyone else is afraid to say: Janet isn't coming home again.
Quote #8
It made me think about what music we would choose, she said. If we did something like that.
Not just yet, okay, Wen? he said. I just can't let myself believe she isn't coming home. If I did, I don't know how I'd go on living. (8.82-83)
She may just be a kid, but Wendy has an easier time accepting that her mother is dead than Josh does. Josh is afraid to say it aloud; he's scared that he won't be able to go on if he admits that Janet is gone forever.
Quote #9
The idea that he wanted to be dead, though, that part was new. At her worst moments these last six weeks she never wanted that. She wished the world would disappear plenty of times. She wished there was a place to be where she didn't have to think anymore, where the sisters stopped coming at her. But dead, never. (8.91)
When Josh admits that he wants to be the one who died instead of Janet, it terrifies Wendy. She's already lost her mother—the idea that she could lose Josh as well is just too much for her to think about.