1
I wish everyone would stop crying, Tom. Uncle Joe would be so angry about it." But she's crying herself now. "He'd be so angry at us, Tom, for crying so much when all he did was laugh.Melina Marchetta
2
Stani walks in later, glaring at them both.“ Bloody bastards. One minute punching each other, next minute reading poetry. What’s wrong with everyone this week?” Tom can tell thatMelina Marchetta
3
Worse still, he doesn’t know how to follow the piper anymore because it’s a path Tom has lost faith in. And the piper knows it. Tom can see it in his father’s eyes now. And the more he stares, the clearer it becomes.Melina Marchetta
4
She knows that feeling too. Of believing that each time someone says her name, it’s to tell her that something bad has happened.Melina Marchetta
5
Play me something that makes me feel; This soul inside me is made of steel. Brain is breathing, but heart’s not beating And, babe, I need you to make things real. Walk inside me without silence, Kill the past and change the tense. Empty gnawing and the ache is soaring; Take me places that make more sense.Melina Marchetta
6
The string slices into the skin of his fingers and no matter how tough the calluses, it tears. But this beat is fast and even though his joints are aching, his arm's out of control like it has a mind of its own and the sweat tat drenches his hair and face seems to smother him, but nothing's going to stop Tom. He;s aiming for oblivion.Melina Marchetta
7
What about the contacts your mum had?” his dad asked.“ I rang and spoke to four very polite computers who gave me all these options and then cut out on me. Then I tried the post office, because they were advertising, and I spoke to another computer. Very rude, that one. Don’t think it recognized ‘Are you shitting me?’ as an option.”“ You know why that is?”“ Why is that, Dominic?” Tom had asked drolly, because he knew he was going to be told why.“ Because we don’t live in a society anymore, Tom. We live in an economy. We’re not citizens. We’re customers. That’s what this government’s done to us.Melina Marchetta
8
He knows bad days. Bad days take him completely by surprise. They make him not trust the good days because it's likely something is lurking twenty-four hours away.Melina Marchetta
9
It still amazes him how they could have been misled by her personality in Year Eleven. It's what depression does to a person, it changes them completely.Melina Marchetta
10
They always prided themselves on looking youthful. “Forty’s the new thirty, ” they’d joke. Until heartbreak and grief enter your life, and then forty’s the new one hundred.Melina Marchetta
11
Tom always did anger well. Hid it well, but showed it even betterMelina Marchetta
12
In an instant he forgot Joe's poem about Japan except the part about 'you are the bell, and I am the tongue of the bell, ringing you, ' and a new sound entered his life, like when he was a kid and he first heard the sound of horses clip-clopping and he asked his mother in wonder, "What's that sound, because I've never heard it before?Melina Marchetta
13
I hope you're not smoking in front of her, ' Lucia says to him.' Yeah, I lie in bed and puff in her face, Lucia, ' he says, irritated.Melina Marchetta
14
And won’t he grow up to be the healthiest of young men, all because she kept him safe? Ready for the world. Ready to one day conquer it. To travel. Get on a train. Go to work. Get blown out of her life. Maybe she should be having that glass of wine and cigarette after all.Melina Marchetta
15
Does it help?” he asks. “The e-mailing.” She nods. “A tiny bit. It’s strange. You’re writing a letter to someone who’s never going to read it, so it kind of frees you up a bit.Melina Marchetta
16
She could have dropped you both off. whar's the worst she can do? cry hysterically?"the gears on the ute get stuck at the lights and will pushes tom's hand out of the way and and shoves it into the correct gear."it wasn't her" he mutters after a moment."sorry?" tom says."she didn't cry""then what?"it's too quiet except for the quiet for the crap engine sounding like a lawn mower."i cried"luca bursts out laughing beside will."yeah, well i did" will says. "And it's not the thing you want to do in front of a bunch on engineers.Melina Marchetta
17
Just say up on the hill is the meaning of life and someone knew it and they wanted everyone else to enjoy it. So they put a red vinyl sofa up there.Melina Marchetta
18
But grieving people are selfish. They won’t let you comfort them and they say you don’t understand and they make you feel useless when all your life you’ve been functional to them.Melina Marchetta
19
Even five minutes of your time can make someone’s day,Melina Marchetta