From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs Basil E. Frankweiler

by E.L. Konigsburg

She didn’t like discomfort; even picnics were untidy and inconvenient: all those insects and the sun melting the icing on the cupcakes. Therefore, she decided that her leaving home would not be just running from somewhere but would be running to somewhere.

She was the oldest child and the only girl and was subject to a lot of injustice. Perhaps it was because she had to both empty the dishwasher and set the table on the same night while her brothers got out of everything.

Claudia loved the city because it was elegant; it was important; and busy.

“How come all your money is in change? It rattles.” “Bruce pays off in pennies and nickels. What did you expect him to pay me in? Traveler’s checks?”

“Head due northwest. Head due northwest,” she mimicked. “Can’t you simply say turn right or turn left as everyone else does? Who do you think you are? Daniel Boone? I’ll bet no one’s used a compass in Manhattan since Henry Hudson.”

Claudia wished to eat in the restaurant on the main floor, but Jamie wished to eat in the snack bar downstairs; he thought it would be less glamorous, but cheaper, and as chancellor of the exchequer, as holder of the veto power, and as tightwad of the year, he got his wish.

If you think of doing something in New York City, you can be certain that at least two thousand other people have that same thought. And of the two thousand who do, about one thousand will be standing in line waiting to do it.

It caused Claudia to want to embalm Jamie in a vat of mummy fluid right that minute. That would teach him inconspicuous.

The postman hardly looked puzzled. People working at the Grand Central Post Office grow used to strange remarks. They hear so many. They never stop hearing them; they simply stop sending the messages to their brains. Like talking into a telephone with no one on the receiver end.

“I have half a mind to join that group and go back with them and just be mysterious about where I came from.” “If you do that, it’ll show that you have half a mind. Exactly half. Only half. Something I’ve suspected for a long time. You can’t even see that this is perfect.”

We need to make more of a discovery.” “So do the people at the museum. What more of a discovery do you think that you, Claudia Kincaid, girl runaway, can make? A tape recording of Michelangelo saying, ‘I did it?’ Well, I’ll clue you in. They didn’t have tape recorders 470 years ago.”

“You’re never satisfied, Claude. If you get all A’s, you wonder where are the pluses. You start out just running away, and you end up wanting to know everything. Wanting to be Joan of Arc, Clara Barton, and Florence Nightingown all in one.”

“I got it after the war….” “Which war?” Jamie interrupted. “World War II. Which war did you think I meant? The American Revolution?” “Are you that old?” Jamie asked. “I’m not even going to answer that.”