Specifically, let’s talk about a book dear to my heart, Sarah Rees Brennan’s The Demon’s Covenant.

Sarah and I met over the internets via mutual friend and scary brilliant person, Justine Larbalestier. An admirer of Sarah’s work in fiction and non-fiction, especially The Demon’s Lexicon, I had sent her Guardian of the Dead. She liked it! (In fact, she blurbed it, which you can see on the US back cover)

And she emailed me, in return, The Demon’s Covenant.

I was in Oamaru at the time, and the next day I was set to go to Invercargill with my father to visit his father, and pick up my sister from Queenstown on the way home. I talked my mother into letting me print the manuscript on her school computer.

I read it in my aunt and uncle’s house, and stayed up for most of the night babbling to Sarah about how awesome it was. And then I made her tell me the plot of the third book, because I desperately needed to know who was going to live and who die and who was going to romance who. This is not my normal relation to Sarah and spoilers. Usually I have to figuratively gag her to prevent entire plots from spilling out of her figurative mouth. In this case, I shamelessly begged.

I mention the family connections up there, because they were very much on my mind as I read. The Demon’s Covenant is a book about families, about how they are formed and how they are maintained and protected and betrayed. It is a book about lies and promises and the importance of a good plan. It is a book told by Mae, QUEEN OF THE UNIVERSE, and it concerns her little brother using his abilities to trust and love against all the evidence to acquire a true friend and a terrible crush. In the middle of a supernatural cold war that is rapidly heating up, because that is just Jamie’s style. It is witty and warm and messes with tropes in a way I adore and is full of ideas that make me squeal and basically I really admire this book.

I love the settings, the solidity of the English settings against the wild glittering magic of the isolated Goblin Markets, and the way that one can suddenly seep into another, as in the very first scene where Mae, heading for a night on the town with school friends, encounters magic in the streets.

And I am head over heels in love with Mae, who is a normal girl in a world of magicians and demons and skilled warriors, insofar as “normal” encompasses brilliance, bravery, wit, charm, ambition, stubbornness, a recognition of her own limits, and a conscious refusal to be sidelined because of them. She is, as Sarah outlines in this awesome post, Ms. Normal in Paranormalandia.

And that is nearly always my favourite girl. That’s why Iris is my personal most-loved character in Guardian of the Dead, and why I love Lucy from My Love Lies Bleeding, and why Quincie P. Morris makes me grin. I love Ms. Normal, probably because if I suddenly discovered the world around me was inhabited by supernatural foes and eldritch powers warring for world domination, my skillset would no doubt still be restricted to such items as “reading very fast” and “baking”. And I would, nevertheless, try to put them to good use, as Mae does with her own skills at strategy and communication in The Demon’s Covenant.

Goodness, I had intended to do one of my blithe summaries in dialogue form, but it appears my love for this series carried me away into more substantial waters. How very unlike me. Maybe later!

You bastards.

These are the books sitting on the bottom shelf of my lovely new bookshelf, which means I have read them since arriving in the US. Minor spoilers.

*knucklecrack* READY? LET’S GO!

Norse Code, Greg van Eekhout.

BOOK: Action-packed Ragnarok as conspiracy theory, with MBA-student-turned-Valkyrie Kathy Castillo and perenially dumped on minor god Hermod trying to avert doom as it thunders towards them on wolf feet.
ME: Yeah, but are you funny?
BOOK: You know it.
ME: I am IN.

The Perils of Pleasure, Julie Anne Long.

BOOK: Female mercenary rescues male prisoner condemned to hang for a murder he didn’t commit. Then things get entertainingly complicated.
ME: Plot, schmot, are the sexy scenes sexy?
BOOK: Check out this one set in a closet.
ME: Whoa.
BOOK: Oh, and here’s a hayloft scene.
ME: WHOA.
BOOK: Right?

Bloodthirsty, Flynn Meaney.

BOOK: Finbar, a normal kid widely regarded as the Less Hot Twin, develops a genuine allergy to sunlight and then lets girls admiring of Certain Popular Vampire Books think he is a vampire in order to impress the girl of his dreams. Who, uh, doesn’t seem to care about those ridiculous rumours, but does like him as a person.
ME: Cute! But Finbar really could be looking at a wider selection of YA vampire novels, here.
BOOK: Why don’t you just write a column about that for Strange Horizons?
ME: WELL, MAYBE I WILL, BOOK.
BOOK: FINE, THEN!
ME: FINE!

Saving Maddie, Varian Johnson.

BOOK: Boy and girl were childhood friends; now she returns superhot and with a bad reputation, and he, down with God and his preacher Dad, wonders if he ought to be saving her.
ME: I am going to be so pissed if he succeeds.
BOOK: No spoilers, but it’s more complicated than that!
ME: Good. Ooh, hey! I like this Maddie.
BOOK: Thought you might.

Half-World, Hiromi Goto.

BOOK: Want to read a book inspired by non-Western mythology where a fat teenager must get her courage together to save the people she cares about?
ME: Book, you know that is my weakness!
BOOK: Oh, also, eerie settings, awesomely creepy villain, delightful repudiation of might makes right.
ME: Eeeeee!

Geektastic, ed. Holly Black and Cecil Castellucci.

BOOK: Various fun stories/short comics drenched in geek aesthetic, most of them awesomely girl-friendly!
ME: Except this one where the great revenge for someone victimised by a female bully is to take half-naked locker-room pictures of her with a concealed camera and photoshop that image into a sleazy hotel room, print the image on a poster telling people she likes sex and to call her on X number, and thereby slut-shaming her all over the school. Then her nice boyfriend breaks up with her because she is such a slut! Yay, happy ending?
BOOK: You don’t think she was a terrible person?
ME: I think she was AWFUL. But I balk at girls using the mechanics of girl-hating to fight girls and justifying it because the girls in question are SO AWFUL. Quite apart from the fact that taking naked pictures of someone without their consent is totally sexual assault and I don’t like the valorisation of sexual assult, this “solution” is all about taking advantage of the dominant narrative that girls having sex is disgaceful.
BOOK: Oh.
ME: I’m just saying. Can’t we ritually humiliate mean girls without making it all about how expressing sexual desire is the grossest thing ever for girls to do, the slutty sluts?
BOOK: … probably?
ME: But the rest of the book is great.

The DUFF, Kody Keplinger.

BOOK: “Designated Ugly Fat Friend” Bianca starts a sexual relationship with a guy she despises, then comes to like as she recognises that he is actually a person.
ME: Whoa.
BOOK: Sex? Sometimes tricky and sometimes used as escape vent instead of dealing with one’s issues. but it is not inherently shameful.
ME: YAY!

The Summer I Turned Pretty, Jenny Han.

BOOK: Hey, remember that period when you realised you were attractive and a bunch of young men also realised it and you were suddenly juggling a whole bunch of issues on how to be an ethical person making good choices and there weren’t any handy how-to guides and everything was completely confusing?
ME: I totally do!
BOOK: It happens to protagonist Belly in summer vacation. She’s fifteen.
ME: Oh, man, the poor kid. Hey, I really like how, although there are three boys interested in her, this is really Belly’s story. It’s not about which boy would be objectively best for Belly, it’s about her feelings and choices and desires, which are often subjective and confused.
BOOK: Wanna read the sequel?
ME: Heck, yes.

The Boyfriend List and The Boy Book, E. Lockhart.

BOOK: Wit, feminism, sharp characterisation, clear-eyed depiction of anxiety disorders as a thing both normal and treatable, structural tricks that inform the story, important friendships between young women-
ME: Honestly, you had me at “E. Lockhart”.
BOOK: Karen, I’m trying to explain why others might want to read me.
ME: Oh, right, well, because you are awesome.

The Girl Who Played With Fire, Steig Larsson.

BOOK: I am a book composed of 569 pages printed on paper, translated by Reg Keeland, published by the Quercus imprint of MacLehose Press in Monotype Sabon in 2009-
ME: How had I forgotten all the endless trivial detailing and blocking description from the first book?
BOOK: Because Lisbeth Salander is an awesome hacker badass, and you really like books where the exploitation and trafficking of women and girls is called to violent account.
ME: Yeah, but they also make me uneasy because I am never sure the best answer to violence is more violence.
BOOK: Whatever, you going to read the last one?
ME: Probably, but not until it’s in paperback.

Alcestis, Katharine Beutner.

BOOK: Riffing on Greek myth with a feminist take on Alcestis, the silent good wife who took her husband’s death and was rescued by Hercules.
ME: I am so into books where silenced women get voices. Oh, hey! Interesting thoughts on the nature of divinity! Also, hot sex scenes!
BOOK: Yup. Also, my writing is exquisite.
ME: I don’t suppose you could manage an unambiguously happy ending?
BOOK: Bit beyond the unbearable circumscription of Alcestis’s life, yes.

The Short Second Life Of Bree Tanner, Stephenie Meyer.

BOOK: Another woman silenced in the initial narrative who gets a voice!
ME: She dies.
BOOK: True, but Bree is kinda badass, don’t you think?
ME: Well, yeah. I do love vampire books where vampires are all like, “humans, awesome, let’s eat them.”
BOOK: Also, how hilarious is it that Edward’s crazysparklygorgeous beauty is cut down to “the redhead”?
ME: PRETTY DARN HILARIOUS.

Thief Eyes, Janni Lee Simner.

BOOK: Contemporary fantasy set in Iceland, with complicated motives for “heroes” and “villains”, charming characters, fantastic evocation of setting, and a love triangle that doesn’t end in a gross way?
ME: Yes, please!

Sorta Like A Rock Star, Matthew Quick.

BOOK: A Manic Pixie Dream Girl Who Quirkily Inspires Others Book Written By A Dude…
ME: Oh, please.
BOOK: … told from the PoV of said girl.
ME: … wait, what? You mean it’s not all about how MPDGs are so mysteriously unknowable, yet will eventually turn quirkily to the arms of the Ordinary Everyman Hero?
BOOK: Nope! It’s about the difficulty of hope, how terrible things happen for no reason, how the mechanics of poverty and oppression keep great people down, how they can be combated, and how faith – of many kinds, including in one’s God, in one’s self, and in one’s friends and allies – can be maintained, lost, regained, and blaze like a beacon for others. There’s barely any hints of romance.
ME: I didn’t know this could be done!
BOOK: Believe it, sister.

Clockwork Angel, Cassandra Clare.

BOOK: VICTORIAN STEAMPUNK Shadowhunters! Tessa has magic powers and is being hunted by Mysterious People With Dark Intentions. For love interests, you may have a choice of hot nice Jem, or hot sarcastic Will. Which team are you?
ME: TEAM TESSA.
BOOK: She is pretty darn great! May I do some interrogation of gender and race roles of the period?
ME: You certainly may.

Split, Swati Avashti.

BOOK: Want to read a book about families and domestic abuse and how redemption is possible and terrifying and not something you do once, but practice over and over?
ME: Um, yes?
BOOK: Great. Jace just punched his girlfriend, then his abusive father, then drove halfway across the country to turn up at his brother’s doorstep. Chris got out years ago. Now they have to deal with each other as the people they grew to be, and try to get their mother free.
ME: You’re freaking me out a little.
BOOK: Because domestic abuse is such a non-freaky subject.
ME: Point taken.

You Killed Wesley Payne, Sean Beaudoin.

BOOK: Salt River High is a school where the cliques run their rackets and no one talks about The Body. Down these mean hallways must walk a teen who is not himself mean, hard-boiled teen detective Dalton Rev, on a mission to solve the mystery, collect the cash, and maybe get the girl.
ME: Noir pulp meets high school clique narrative meets murder mystery? Are you kidding?
BOOK: Lady, I never kid about a case.
ME: FanTAStic.

I also read N.K. Jemisin’s sequels to The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, but I think I can’t talk about those so much yet because I’m not sure what’s changing. I can tell you they are superb. Also, your envy gives me strength.

Which I needed to complete this post, good grief. Tell me something fun, y’all!

I am a young adult fiction writer, and thus primarily a young adult fiction reader by both career and preference, but I also read adult books from time to time.

Then I review them in dialogue style in a spoilerific manner that often renders in-depth, wonderful works nonsensical. Here are recent highlights of my adult fic reading:

The Long Song, Andrea Levy.

BOOK: Would you like to read a story of Jamaican slavery ostensibly narrated by the engaging voice of Miss July, telling of her years of a young woman enslaved who must negotiate with the foolishness of her mistress and the myriad dangers of her position?
ME: Yeeeeees?
BOOK: She is an unreliable narrator who frequently interstitially lambasts her adult son in a most amusing manner when he attempts to make her tell the truth, or conceal it in a ladylike fashion!
ME: SOLD.

Soulless, Gail Carriger.

BOOK: I am a delightful paranormal romance set in Victorian England.
ME: This says you are fantasy/horror.
BOOK: IGNORE THAT. Here, let me introduce my main characters.
ALEXIA TARABOTTI: I am a spinster, on the shelf for a decade since I was fifteen, what with my Italian father and tan skin and big nose and decidedly assertive opinions which I do insist on sharing.
CONALL MACCON, EARL OF WOOLSEY: I am a well-regarded and very important werewolf and also head of Queen Victoria’s supernatural police branch. I do like a woman with spirit!
ALEXIA: Did I mention that my touch instantly cancels out supernatural abilities, so that if, for example, I were to touch you in werewolf form at full moon, you would become human?
CONALL: So instead of being an uncontrollable killing machine, I would instantly become a hot naked man?
ME: Make out!
* They do. *
ME: Be locked in a room together while he is overcome by transformation and only her touch can save him from mauling her*!
* They do. *
ME: HAVE SEX IN A CARRIAGE!
* THEY DO *
BOOK: There’s also some intriguing worldbuilding and a interesting supernatural scientific mystery going on here, you know.
ME: Whatever. Alexia/Conall forever!

* The inestimable Book Smugglers scoffed at this scene, and I cannot imagine why. If I had perhaps an hour to live and a hot dude to adore who adored me back, and I was locked in an inescapable cell, and there was no icecream around, I think this would be a very pleasant way to spend what were potentially my last minutes. And, indeed, there was no icecream.

The Rehearsal, Eleanor Catton.

BOOK: Karen, how ridiculously good am I?
ME: SO good. But-
BOOK: But?
ME: Well, you are also artificial and rather cold! You are beautifully written, but I can find no affection in any of your characters, and because many of them are teenagers, I find that very disturbing.
BOOK: Are you seriously claiming that a novel that is an extended mediation on the nature of performance and performativity, where action and character are explicitly scripted and observed in ways that break the constraints of typical narrative, contains too much artifice?
ME: Well, not when you put it like that.
BOOK: I do.
ME: I can’t wait for you to be a play.
BOOK: I know, right?

Avoiding Mr Right, Anita Heiss

BOOK: Karen, pop quiz.
ME: Hit me!
BOOK: What kind of contemporary romance novel includes its hardworking policy-making Murri heroine debating race relations with her whitefella policeman love interest, lucid dreams of international sexy times, and a group of delightful female friends being delightful?
ME: Um, an AWESOME one?
BOOK: Correct! Also, Sydney-versus-Melbourne culture wars.
ME: Please. Melbourne is obviously superior.
BOOK: Madam, I suspect bias.

Blackout, Connie Willis

BOOK: Now, you might think a book about time-travel to the Blitz should pack a bit more plot into 500 pages.
ME: That’s okay, I am enjoying the ride!
BOOK: I promise, stuff happens eventually.
ME: Seriously, I’m good.
BOOK: Oh, hey, cliffhanger ending! See you in June for the sequel.
ME: …

Secret Six: Depths, Gail Simone, Nicola Scott, Doug Hazlewood, et al.

BOOK: Karen, would you like some more beautifully drawn, superbly written, deeply amoral mercenaries on ethically taxing missions where they somehow still manage to do what could be considered from some lights as the “right” thing?
ME: Is Catman still hot?
BOOK: Yup.
ME: Is Scandal Savage still totally awesome?
BOOK: Duh.
ME: Yes, please!

As you can see, my adult fic reading, like my YA fic reading, is somewhat eclectic. Variety is the spice of life! And cumin, tumeric, ginger and cayenne pepper are the spice of my potato and lentil curry, which I had best rescue. I will enjoy that; I hope you may enjoy these!

It looked like this:

It was awesome.

But the most awesome part was that, thanks to sponsors and donators, we raised over a thousand dollars for the Alannah and Madeline Foundation.

The Alannah and Madeline Foundation is an organisation founded by a father whose two daughters and their mother were brutally murdered. The foundation is dedicated to helping children who have suffered from or witnessed violence – often in their homes and schools, where they should be safest. Their efforts include the Refuge Therapeutic Support Program, and the National Centre Against Bullying.

It will little surprise you, internets, that I’m going to be doing the challenge again this year, from May 14 – May 16, and YOU get to decide what it is I read. It works like this:

1) You pledge either a flat donation, or sponsor an amount per book – this can be any amount. Seriously, $1 a book is money they can use.

2) You then have the option of recommending a book for me to read and report on. Any hardcopy young adult book currently in print is allowed. Recommendations for books by PoC or authors from other underrepresented groups are especially smiled upon. First come, first served!

3) I make a good faith effort to acquire the books. If I can’t find yours, I’ll give you the option of another request.

4) From whatever time I get up on May 14 until 48 hours later, I read and review like unto the wind. A sedentary, diet coke popping wind!

5) You either make your donation directly, or I can collect it via paypal on your behalf and send in a lump sum.

Sound good? Sound worthy? Want to make me read your favourite works and tell you all my increasingly-crazed thoughts? Then hit the comments at my livejournal! They are screened; no one will know how much you are pledging but me and you.

Oh, and should you have no money to spare, which is completely normal, but still want to help, then I recommend signal-boosting this post. Link, tweet, and facebook away.

It is “Not Given Lightly”, by the mighty Chris Knox!

I am a bit sad writing this, because Chris Knox had a stroke last year that affected his speech and language centres. He now has much trouble with the words he put together so sweetly.

BUT. He is awesome, and also awesome is the way that the music community rallied to get support for him and his family. His mates and fans played benefit concerts and put together a cover album of his songs. It reminded me of the way fandom and writers do the same when people in their communities are in need. Should you wish to support Chris, you can check out Stroke here.

And should you just want to get some great music, you are also advised to check out Stroke. We are talking people like Boh Runga (Stellar*) and Jordan Luck (The Exponents) and the Finn Family and the Mint Chicks, all of whom I have spoken here in the course of this series on chapter headings. Also, there are international artists like The Mountain Goats and Yo La Tengo. Yeeeees, interested, aren’t we?

So here is Chris singing “Not Given Lightly”, which is my, and many other people’s favourite (a phenomenon he wrote about here). This is a fabulous live performance that encapsulates a lot of the joy and exuberance of his work, by, paradoxically, showing what happens when everything goes wrong. If you don’t have a lot of time, try watching from 1:40:

Karen, you say, that was LOVELY. Do we also get a final cookie to go with our final song?

Internets, I can do you one better than that.

Would you like to read the first two chapters of Guardian of the Dead?

Oh, you would? Then why don’t you toddle on over to Allen and Unwin, click on “Read an Extract” (under “More About This Book”) and download yourself the PDF!

And a round-up of the other chapter heading songs, just in case you missed some:

Why Does Love Do This To Me?
Suddenly Strange
Violent
Home, Land and Sea
Sitting Inside My Head
Unity (WARNING: Big spoiler in cookie)
Crazy? Yes! Dumb? No!
Pink Frost
Together Alone and Won’t Give In
Maybe Tomorrow

And so we have come to an end! It is two sleeps until Guardian of the Dead officially releases. My heartbeat resembles that of a hummingbird.

But there is no better song for the epilogue than this:

If you think I am going to give you a cookie from the epilogue, you don’t know me at all. Instead, let us have some Iris, because Iris is a delight.

Iris walked straight up to Mark until she was close enough to touch him, her head reaching neatly to just under his collarbone. They looked like something out of a fairy tale; his flaming hair set against her glossy lengths of black. He put his hand on her shoulder and she shook her head hard, then gasped up at him.

“How-”

“Shhh.” His eyes searched the mists. I clung to my tree trunk. “Ellie?”

“What did you do?” Iris demanded, and kicked him in the shin.

Mark jumped back, yelping out a curse, and Iris yelped too, grabbing at her stockinged foot. She overbalanced hard into the rim of a fountain with a thump that echoed dully, and then lurched upright again, landing a wild punch on his shoulder. He evaded the next one, but he was no longer looking for me.

“What are you going to do?” Iris demanded, limping towards him again. She swung her handbag at him and he danced out of her clumsy, if enthusiastic, reach. “Are you going to bewitch her?”

“I can’t! I just want to explain. Ellie, please! It’s safe, I promise!”

“I’m right here,” I called, and waded through the fog.

He favoured me with a tight smile. “Good. We were just about to start pulling hair.”

I’d back Iris in that fight, Mark, you adorable streak of twiggy uselessness.

The advantage of them being in so many incarnations is that I got to grab two songs – one from Crowded House, and one by The Finn Brothers. Some people might call this “cheating”.

“Together Alone” is a song partially about one of the myths underlying Guardian‘s creation. It was this song that made me think, “Hey, maybe I could use song titles for chapter headings?”

“Won’t Give In” is a song about family, and what it means when you belong to a people and a place.

The “Won’t Give In” chapter is near the end, and horrendously spoilery, so instead I will give you an excerpt of “Together Alone”, where Mark tells an origin story.

“Okay. In the beginning…” He hesitated, then shook his head. “Look. This is a dubious version of the myth. It isn’t the whole story, or an entirely true one, and there’s no way to get around it. I can’t even tell it to you in the right language, because you don’t speak it.”

“Chapman’s Homer?” I suggested.

He slanted a tight smile at me. “Heh. Close enough.”

“So,” I said, and half-bowed, trying to mimic Professor Gribaldi’s drawl. “At least be gloriously inaccurate.”

He returned the bow with an arm flourish that set his charms jingling, and tried again.

“Okay,” he said. “This is a story of how mankind was made, and how death entered the world. A long time after the beginning, there are Papa-tuanuku, who is the Earth Mother, and Rangi-nui, who is the Sky-Father. So strong is their affection that they cannot bear to be apart, and remain always in loving embrace. They bring forth many children, but will not relinquish their grip on each other. Those brought forth from Earth’s womb are forced to crawl upon her surface, while their father presses against her. There is only close, moist darkness and suffocating warmth. Like everyone, these children want to stretch and grow without the constraints laid upon them by their parents.

“Some of their sons gather to decide what should be done. One of the brothers says that they should kill their parents, but he is shouted down. Another proposes they do nothing at all and be content in their closeness, but no one listens to him. As always happens in such meetings, the most charismatic speaker wins the argument. One by one, five of the brothers, crawling in their claustrophobic prison-home, set their shoulders against their father and push. And finally, the last of the brothers, the tallest and strongest, lies on his back and pushes with his mighty legs, and measure by tiny measure, their father’s body moves.

“Rangi-nui calls to Papa-tuanuku, and they cleave ever tighter to each other. But they have seeded their own destruction, and the six brothers fight for every finger of space until their father is a torso’s length from their mother. Then a body’s length. Then as far as they can reach with their arms outstretched. And then, with one final heave, they hurl their father high above the loving reach of their mother’s embrace.

“And Sky-Father weeps in his grief and Earth-Mother tosses and rumbles in her anger, but it is done, and nothing they can do can ever reverse it.”

This is “Pink Frost”, a lovely little ditty about a man who has accidentally murdered his girlfriend and is now really distressed about the way she’s not moving. I feel awful sorry for him!

No one murders their girlfriend in Chapter Eleven, but it’s the bloodiest chapter by far until [SPOILER]. And meanie that I am, I’m not going to tell you who dies, and instead proffer this:

Then we were standing in the middle of a creek that came up to my knees, long river grasses winding about my calves. Iris moaned, a low, wavering noise that cut off into abrupt sobs. Bare-limbed European trees stood on the banks, with the odd patch of green indicating a cabbage tree or pine. I peered through them and made out a familiar squat, large structure, lit up by harsh white lights – the student association building. We were in the part of the creek that the pub looked over, but it seemed that no one had been out on the cold terrace at the time we appeared. At any rate, there weren’t any cries of alarm.

Mark staggered and fell against me, dragging Iris with him. I stood, somehow, against their double weight, and shoved back until we were all righted again, and splashing towards the bank. We collapsed in a tangle of cold wet limbs and bruises.

The Mint Chicks! They headed overseas, and are now based in Portland, which is a Big Deal in NZ music. Like, I am pretty sure American musicians are all, “Oh, I’m number one in Finland? That’s cool, I guess.” But NZ musicians playing original material generally need international sales and tours to be financially solvent. I think the pressure is good for the music, but probably bad for the musicians.

Anyway, this is “Crazy? Yes! Dumb? No!”, which has the most punctuation of any song title I’ve ever heard. I am very sad I can’t show you the music video, because it is awesome – a sort of suburban Red Riding Hood runs through the dark streets with a big German Shepherd, looking for love! Love is a dude in a paddock singing this song. But you can at least hear the song itself.

This titles Chapter Seven, which is so full of spoilers that the cookie below is pretty much the only non-spoiler laden bit in the whole thing.

When I arrived at Classics for third period, having spent all twenty minutes of morning break* struggling with the computer lab printers, a note taped to the door informed us that Professor Gribaldi was on leave; we were to have a study period instead.

I’d passed most of my classmates in the corridor, but one of them — Hannah something — was scowling at the notice, her own essay crumpling slightly in her hand. “I was up until four on this,” she said. It wasn’t exactly to me, I thought, just a necessary burst of frustration into the corridor. The skin under her eyes was dark and tight.

“I turned down coffee with a hot guy,” I offered.

“Oh, that sucks! And after all her crap about dedication and sacrifice. I bet students in Virginia never take sick days.”

“Are you kidding? Students in Virginia attend classes when they have the plague.”

She grinned. “I heard that one senior in Virginia died in the first term, and his decomposing corpse still attended all the classes.”

“And got top grades,” I said, nodding.

“And got into Yale, Harvard, and NYU.”

“Unlike slack Mansfielders, who have no Advanced Placement and no Ivy Leagues to aim for and no work ethic whatsoever.”

She laughed and shook her essay. “Four a.m.! I’m going to hand this in at the office. Want me to take yours?”

* Robyn informed me that American teenagers didn’t usually get a morning break – just lunch. “But when did you EAT?” I asked, horrified. I was hungry throughout the entirety of high school. I cannot imagine going without my precious precious break, during which I routinely ate a giant afghan biscuit and drank a can of Coke.

This title opens Chapter Three, and has thematic resonance I can’t tell you about, so instead I will share a cookie with Kevin in it, because he hasn’t had any screen time yet, and I like him a lot.

Everyone perked up and bounced towards the greenroom – except Reka, who apparently did not bounce; me, who was largely uninterested; and Kevin, who lagged behind to speak to me.

“Don’t you want to play dress-up?” I asked.

“Oh, I do,” he said, grinning. “I was holding out for Theseus in a feather cloak, but none of the local elders wanted to lend a taonga* that precious to a bunch of ignorant students.”

“Theseus is Māori?” I wondered.

Kevin pointed at his chest. “Duh. It’s a reimagining of Shakespeare’s classic comedy for extra extreme relevance to modern new Zealand audiences. Come on, I told you this. Last night.”

“Oh, last night,” I said pointedly. “I think I remember bits of it, before someone got me drunk and nearly expelled and dragged me into his play.”

*taonga = precious, treasured thing, which can be either tangible (like a cloak) or intangible (like language)