‘Where is Bernard?’ said Neville. ‘He has my knife. We were in the tool-shed making boats, and Susan came past the door. And Bernard dropped his boat and went after her taking my knife, the sharp one that cuts the keel. He is like a dangling wire, a broken bell-pull, always twangling.
VIRGINIA WOOLF, The Waves
There were 180 pupils in my year at school, girls and boys, thirteen or fourteen, all undergoing monstrous change. Some burst out of their seams while others erupted through their skin. Some slowed down into men and women overnight, and took on gravity. Others found that their circuitry came loose and while they were slowly being rewired, their hands and mouths did things that shouldn’t be seen or said as they blurted, stumbled and twitched. There were those for whom it was all ooze, blush, sweat and stink, and those who experienced such silence that even though they could see torment and confusion all around them, they prayed to be afflicted. One or two simply flowered.
Some boys’ voices squeaked, some croaked and veered, others descended gently and it could take weeks or months but then it was done, and they turned to us and spoke.
So will you
Do you want to
Y’know
Will
Want
Go
Out
Go out
Go out with
So?