I Am Half-Sick of Shadows (Flavia de Luce, #4)

by Alan Bradley

I had learned by personal experience that grumblers are deaf to any voices but their own.

With her flushed face and her green outfit, she reminded me of something I’d seen in a recent color supplement. What was it, now …? Oh, yes! That was it … “You look like the flag of Portugal,” I said. “I’ll leave you alone so that you can wave good-bye.” I knew that I would pay for my insolence later, but Dieter’s hearty laugh was worth it.

Like any bookworm’s sister, I knew the titles of a million books I hadn’t read.

“Think of the billions of trillions of snowflakes, and the billions of trillions of hydrogen and oxygen molecules in every single one of them. It makes you wonder, doesn’t it, who wrote the laws for the wind and the rain, the snow and the dew? I’ve tried to work it out, but it makes my head spin.”