Pax

by Sara Pennypacker

“So which is it? You going back for your home or for your pet?” “They’re the same thing,” Peter said, the answer sudden and sure,

Why do we have no family, Brother? Runt turned to Pax. Because of the humans, we have no family.

“I have more than everything I need.” Vola sat. “I have peace here.” “Because it’s so quiet?” “No. Because I am exactly where I should be, doing exactly what I should be doing. That is peace.

what if he was like his father, with that threatening kind of anger, the kind that was always simmering, the kind that could boil over at any time and hurt everyone in the way? The apologies afterward never healed the damage.

and . . . and there I was. I found another little true piece of my old self.”

I had to relearn everything that was right and wrong for me. But I couldn’t—the world was too loud for me to hear myself think.

The plain truth can be the hardest thing to see when it’s about yourself. If you don’t want to know the truth, you’ll do anything to disguise it.”

We all own a beast called anger. It can serve us: many good things come of anger at bad things; many unjust things are made just. But first we all have to figure out how to civilize it.”

Memories were so treacherous. Always lurking under the surface, ready to bushwhack you with a blade to the heart when you weren’t careful.