A Red Herring Without Mustard (Flavia de Luce #3)

by Alan Bradley

I’d learned quite early in life that the mind loves nothing better than to spook itself with outlandish stories, as if the various coils of the brain were no more than a troop of roly-poly Girl Guides huddled over a campfire in the darkness of the skull.

The very best people are like that. They don’t entangle you like flypaper.

Neither of them moved or spoke, but I knew, in the way we females are supposed to know, that they had been talking about me.

I was learning that among friends, a smile can be better than a belly laugh.

“Of course I love them,” I said, throwing myself full length onto the bed. “That’s why I’m so good at hating them.”