Wringer Quotes

“They stood staring at each other’s face, the only place their eyes were safe.”
― Jerry Spinelli, Wringer

“Killing the pigeons and putting them out of their misery stubbornly refused to mean the same thing. Palmer thought about misery, and it seemed to him that a shotgun was not the only way to end it. When Palmer was miserable, for example, his mother or father would hold him close and wipe his tears. When Palmer's mother or father put him out of his misery, they did not shoot him, they offered him a cookie. Why then on Pigeon Day did the people bring guns instead of cookies?”
― Jerry Spinelli, Wringer

“During the week his father said many things, mostly with his hands. He rubbed Palmer’s hair and squeezed his shoulder and tugged on his shirt and tickled his ribs and pulled him backward with a finger hooked in the back pocket of his jeans and lightly brushed the side of his neck with his fingertips as he stopped and chatted with friends. Each of these things had a different meaning to Palmer and yet the same—a language unlearned, of words unheard, that came to roost at some warm and waiting perch far below his ears.”
― Jerry Spinelli, Wringer

“Other cars zoomed, and soon the pigeon was meat and feathers, flat. Then an old woman with a watering can began to sprinkle the road, and the meat plumped up and came together again with the feathers...”
― Jerry Spinelli, Wringer

“The price of peace had been high: expelling himself from the gang, proclaiming himself a traitor, banishing his beloved pet. For such a price, a peace should be excellent. Yet when Palmer reached for it, tried to taste it, it was not there.”
― Jerry Spinelli, Wringer

“Little kids on pastel bikes pedaled furiously, churning the heat to butter...”
― Jerry Spinelli, Wringer

“Henry was staring at the sky. Palmer saw Henry for what he was: a captive, strong enough to warn him about last night, but too weak to do anything except follow Beans. He saw in Henry something of himself, and worse, what he could become.”
― Jerry Spinelli, Wringer

“And where were you last night?” said Beans.

It occurred to Palmer that he had a right to questions of his own. “Where was I? Where were you?”
― jerry spinelli, Wringer

“He pictured them in his room, shadows, dark upon dark, Beans’s penlight like a starflake moving in the darkness...”
― Jerry Spinelli, Wringer

“In the utter darkness he felt himself to be nothing but ears and fingertips. He could feel Nipper’s heartbeat, putt-putting away behind the toothpick ribs like a tiny motor scooter. He could feel the cold, golden gaze of the trophy pigeon two rooms away. The silence of the house at night was not total. Somewhere a clock was ticking. Cricks and creaks came from nearby and distant quarters, as if the house were twitching in a sleep of its own.”
― Jerry Spinelli, Wringer

“Henry.

Whose streak, unlike Beans’s, was meek, not mean.

Who ran with Beans and Mutto. Who did what they did. But was different.”
― Jerry Spinelli, Wringer

“The empty look on Beans’s face indicated that the answer had reached his ears, but no farther.”
― Jerry Spinelli, Wringer

“Palmer stood there, hanging from her eyes.”
― Jerry Spinelli, Wringer

“He dreaded the closing bell. When it came he marched up to the teacher and told her he thought she should keep him after school.

She looked at him funny. “And why is that, Palmer?”

“Because I was bad.”

She looked surprised. Palmer was never bad. “I was not aware of that.”

“You just didn’t catch me.”

“Is that so? And now you wish to confess?”

“Yes.”


“You want to clear your conscience.”

“Yes.”

“I see.” She was smiling. She settled back in her chair. “So, what bad thing did you do?”

“I spit on the floor.”

Her eyebrows went up. “Really? Right here? In this room?”

“Yes.”

“When did you do this?”

“Uh, after lunch.”

She stood. “Would you mind showing me where you did it?”

Palmer had not anticipated this. He had not thought a confession required proof.”
― Jerry Spinelli, Wringer

“...suddenly the sunlight was briefly snipped, as if a page had been turned in front of a lightbulb.”
― Jerry Spinelli, Wringer

“And Palmer, he couldn’t decide, or rather, he didn’t want to decide. He simply wanted to enjoy: the bright spring day, the company of his friends. There was nothing he wanted to do—he simply wanted to be. But this was not something he could explain to himself, much less to the guys.”
― Jerry Spinelli, Wringer

“...he told her again and again that he did not, he really did not want to be a wringer.

Dorothy hopped down from the desk. She walked across the room and stood before Palmer and looked straight into his eyes. “Then don’t,” she said. She made it sound so simple.”
― Jerry Spinelli, Wringer

“Tears filled his eyes. He let go. “I don’t want to be a wringer. But everybody else is a wringer when they’re ten, and I’m going to be ten in seventy-one days, and then I’m going to have to be a wringer too but I don’t want to. So what kind of a kid am I? Everybody wants to kill pigeons but me. What’s the matter with me?”

He said it all. He said things he had been thinking and feeling for years. He said things he didn’t even know he had been thinking until he heard them come out of his mouth. He told her how he hated the golden bird, the trophy his father had won one year for shooting the most pigeons. He told her it confused him. How could one person be both a shooter of pigeons and a loving father?”
― Jerry Spinelli, Wringer

“Same old across-the-street Dorothy he had known all his life.

And yet, somehow, not the same old Dorothy. Though she looked the same as always, Palmer had been seeing something else in her lately. Whatever it was, it registered not in his eyes but in his feelings, and was most clearly known to him by its absence in the company of anyone but her. It made him feel floating.”
― Jerry Spinelli, Wringer

“They were laughing and playing ball when Palmer, letting fly a long shot from beyond the bed, said, “Do you like my father?”

Dorothy watched the ball bounce off the door. “What kind of question is that?”

“Do you?”

“Sure, why?”

“Do you think he’s nice?”

“Yeah, don’t you?”

Palmer thought for a moment. “Yeah, he is. I guess that’s the problem.”
― Jerry Spinelli, Wringer

“And whenever she saw Palmer with them at school, she acted as if she did not know him. Palmer sensed that she was doing this for his sake.”
― Jerry Spinelli, Wringer

“Newborn leaf clusters on the surrounding trees had a look of pale green popcorn. Tufts of onion grass sprouted across the soccer field, releasing their sweet scent.”
― Jerry Spinelli, Wringer

“In a way more felt than thought, he sensed a connection between Nipper’s absence and Dorothy’s words, which had been haunting him without letup.”
― Jerry Spinelli, Wringer

“And to those nearby, and finally to Beans himself, it became clear that even now, even this close, still—still—she would not look at him.

And then she did it.

She spoke.

But the person she spoke to was not Beans. It was Palmer LaRue. She took one step back from Beans and walked straight over to Palmer and stood squarely in front of him and said, “Why are you doing this to me?”

And just like that, the girl in the red coat and floppy hat was no longer a target. She was Dorothy, there were tears in her eyes, and she was saying to him, not to anyone else, but to him, to Palmer, “Why are you doing this to me?” And he knew that through these last weeks she had been hurting after all, and that it had been himself, not Beans, who had hurt her the most.”
― Jerry Spinelli, Wringer

“The setting sun seemed to have ladled its syrupy light over the crusted snow, so that ordinary house parts and backyards in this fading moment seemed a spectacular raspberry dessert.”
― Jerry Spinelli, Wringer

“Their mooncast shadows snagged on potholes in the old parking lot and pulled like black taffy.”
― Jerry Spinelli, Wringer

“Next thing he knew he was yanked out of bed and onto his feet. “Come on,” whispered Beans, “we got somewhere to go.”

It did not occur to Palmer not to go along. Once the shock wore off, he realized what an honor had been granted him. Imagine: A month ago these guys ignored him except to tease him; now they snuck into his house and climbed into bed with him. Palmer LaRue. Amazing!”
― Jerry Spinelli, Wringer

“In their beaks they pinched the edges of the town, plucked it up and flew away with it”
― Jerry Spinelli, Wringer

“Then he began smelling the gray and sour odor even when his father wasn’t there, even when Pigeon Day was over. It might happen in the morning as he sat in school, or at night as he lay in bed. It could even happen in his father’s lap in the middle of winter, when the shotgun had been locked away for months.

The smell was sure to come on his birthday. It did not spoil his birthday, as it did not spoil his father’s lap, but it changed those things so they did not feel quite as good as before.”
― Jerry Spinelli, Wringer

“Palmer did not know what to say. He looked at Dorothy. She was staring at him. Somehow her face gave him the answer. He shook his head no.”
― Jerry Spinelli, Wringer