Wild Things

by Laura Kay

I’d like to say I was overflowing with ideas for my new adventures but, actually, my immediate thought was of the new notebook I would treat myself to so I could journal my progress, perhaps a new pen. Highlighters, even. The thrill of new stationery! Yes, this was definitely something I could get into.

We’re very protective of him. A man in a shiny suit once deliberately stood on Jamie’s foot in Pret, so Ray threw the man’s tuna baguette out onto the street.

exactly the kind of boy I’d always fancied—slightly brooding, a bit pale, and interesting.

me fr

“She’s happy just watching,” Jamie says to Ray, and then quietly, just to me, “you pervert.”

A slow march toward certain death. It gives me plenty of time to contemplate drowning. I have read that in the last moments of consciousness before your lungs succumb to the water, people experience a kind of euphoria. So at least there’s that to look forward to.

this is so my kids coded

We decide that Jamie really can pull them off and that wearing Crocs is all about your state of mind. If you believe in the Crocs, then other people will believe in the Crocs.

“She must really like him,” Jamie says, “because Will isn’t really very funny, is he?”

“Oh my god, Jamie, do you like him?” “No!” “You do!” “Well, maybe,” he says. “You know there’s more to him than just a mustache.”

“El, what you have now isn’t real though. You’re not best friends. You don’t want to be her best friend. You’re living this sort of half-life where you live on scraps from her and hope, and you just wait for something to change but you don’t actually do anything about

“A housewarming so bad that you actually had to move out of the house,”

“It’s a children’s book,” she says, “for children. Who look at pictures.”

ready for a night of eating cheese and crying,

“Do you ever stop? The things we hear. Have some respect for God’s sake, it’s New Year’s Day. And it’s Sunday. A day of rest if ever there was one.”