Quotes from Lauren Henderson

You like to dance," he observes conversationally. "Yes…" Safe question, safe answer. Well, at least I didn't babble.

Is it a whale? I wonder. Or a shark? I shrug. These are the kind of questions you find yourself pondering when you're at a fantastic party, all your girlfriends have been snapped up on sight, and you're busy propping up the drinks table with your bum because no one wants to talk to you.

Something else that's different about Italian boys, I realize. If they see a girl they fancy they go up to her and start talking. If an English boy likes you, he'll mostly avoid you not to seem too keen. Which is barking mad, of course. Generally, things on the dating side do seem to run much better here. Except if you look like their sister.

No more past. I study the future, okay?" He kisses me, so sweetly my heart melts. "Only the future." I know I'm looking up at him with stars in my eyes, and I don't care. I love that, at last, I can show Luca exactly how I feel, and he can do the same. We're free. Finally, we're free. "The future is here in this room, Violetta," he says to me. " Questo è il nostro futuro. " "This is our future.

If there's anything more annoying than a boy praising another girl's beauty to your face, I can't think what it is.

I'm a dog in the manger. I can't have him myself but I don't want anyone else to have him either. Wow. The more I learn about myself, the more selfish I turn out to be.

Maybe the most amazing thing is how nice the fish smells. Not pongy at all: it's like seawater, salty and clean and fresh. "It's not exactly Birds Eye fish fingers, is it?" Kelly says, jolted out of her silence by the sight of a whole crate of squid, white and violet with purple tentacles, arranged in overlapping rows. "This is gross! But kind of interesting," Paige comments, which is actually quite positive for Paige looking at a lot of raw fish.

We stop, swivel, pause in the middle of the Grand Canal. We're waiting for another water taxi to emerge from under a bridge, and once it's gone we pass through, the buses slipping past us, a gondola too, the gondolier angling his pole skillfully under the bridge; everyone seems to know how to get past everyone else with no obvious rules, no traffic lanes. "Imagine a pileup," Paige comments. "Everyone would drown.

I'm sorry I was such a cow this afternoon, Violet," Kelly says to me. "It was really nice of you to eat my pasta." "Paige put hers in her napkin," I say. "Oh really?" Kelly manages a giggle. "I should do that next time.

My English is much better than my sister Elisa's," he adds affably. "Your English ees better," Elisa snaps, "because you love to talk to foreign girls. All foreign girls," she adds, sweeping her cold, dark, mascaraed gaze around at us to emphasize her message: that her brother is a big slut and we shouldn't be flattered by his attentions.

I'm so absorbed in my thoughts that I haven't seen the flash of sunlight on metal that means a car is coming up the winding drive, working its way around the switchback bends. I don't notice the other girls stir, sit up, because a car approaching at this time of day is very likely to contain precious cargo: i.e., at least one boy.

Elisa was right about her brother , I think, having enough experience to recognize when a boy's flirtation skills are set to automatic pilot. Leonardo isn't homing in on me with any kind of special interest, he's just having fun with the girl he happens to be sitting next to at the moment. Leonardo is a big slut. But I rather like it.

You should hear what that creep told her. He was in love, she was the only one he'd ever felt like this about, she was the most beautiful girl in the world-- you know." I don't, actually. No boy has ever said those words to me. But I nod as if one has.

I'm not an etiquette expert, but I can't help feeling that knocking our hostess's daughter over a stone balcony might not be considered the most appropriate way to celebrate the first full day of our summer course.

You know, we should make a note of all the mean things Elisa says to us in Italian. That way, we'll learn all the best swearwords.

Sometimes I think hanging out with boys would be an awful lot simpler. And then I remember how much they like to make fart jokes, and I change my mind again.

I realize that looming up before us is one of the major holiday hurdles that any group of girls has to face: the first time they all decide to go swimming together. I hate this bit. It's the Swimsuit Beauty Parade.

I do a hundred sit-ups every morning," Kendra says, reaching for her white-framed sunglasses. "You can join in if you want." "Oh my God !" Paige wails. "A hundred ? I can barely do three !" She grabs a handful of stomach and wobbles it. I am increasingly, reluctantly, impressed with Paige: it takes real courage to wobble your tummy in public.

Bollocks ," I say, with feeling. "What is 'bollocks'?" Luca asks, sounding very interested. "Never mind," I say firmly to him.

Andrea's really good-looking," I say to Kendra in a low voice when I hear the Vespa and the jeep start up. "Whatever." She shrugs. "The weird thing? I love to, you know, hook a boy on the line, but when I do? I don't care about 'em anymore. I'm funny that way.

I had a really good time tonight. Tons of boys hanging off me. And I could see it was really messing with her head--she kept giving me these dirty looks. So I'm going to get as many boys as I can running after me this summer. Just to make Elisa really…" She pauses. "What would Kelly say? Narked. " Now her smile's real. "I want to make Elisa narked. " I smile back: the English word sounds really cool in her American accent.

He lifts one of my hands and raises it to his cheek, a gesture so tender and unexpected that my breath catches in my throat. I feel the blood rising to my cheeks, and I look down at my lap. I can't meet his eyes.

This is the specialty of the trattoria," Luigi Two announces. " Spaghetti con cozze e parmigiana. There is parmesan cheese also on the pasta. It is very unusual and interesting." " Unusual and interesting" might be okay in a modern art museum , I think, but not for food! We're teenage girls--doesn't he realize we'd much rather have pizza?

Luca never stands when he can lean.