How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
Imagine your best friend's smile, how you remember it from its front-teeth-missing days till this moment. A year after the braces have come off and she's finally learned how to comb that mass of hair. The boys falling over themselves for her. Her name is Lulu. (1.12)
Think back, as Toswiah/Evie asks us to: Can you remember a friend like this and how he or she changed over childhood? How does the memory make you feel?
Quote #2
Imagine yourself whispering back I'm not going anywhere. I'd never leave here in a million years!
And Lulu laughing, throwing her head back like a grown-up. And Lulu's warm head on my shoulder—the day so perfect, we're speechless.
Lulu, my friend. (1.15-17)
Of course, Toswiah/Evie does leave Lulu behind in Denver. How might Lulu have been affected by this? Imagine the situation from Lulu's point of view. Poor Lulu, right?
Quote #3
Lulu lived five doors down from us. Earlier that evening, before the bullets came through the kitchen window, she had tiptoed up to my room and hugged me in the way she had done so many nights before.
We had known we would be leaving but didn't know exactly when. Each morning before school, Lulu and I hugged each other hard—thankful for another day together. Each night, we cried and said our goodbyes. Lulu and I had been born in the same hospital. Our mothers said we turned toward each other in our neighboring incubators and smiled. We were both born a month too soon in the middle of the night. We both weighed less than five pounds. When Lulu left my room, I pressed my face against the pane and cried. (8.3-4)
Lulu and Toswiah/Evie have history. They literally don't remember a world without each other, and they came into the world with the same issues—born a month early, not weighing much. They've been there for each other since day one, and now they are being ripped apart.