How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
No, we had to travel all the way down to our Grandma Dowdel's before we ever set eyes on a corpse. Dad said Mary Alice and I were getting to the age when we could travel on our own. He said it was time we spent a week with Grandma, who was getting on in years. (1.3)
Joey and Mary Alice don't necessarily want to leave Chicago for a week because their hometown is exciting and there's always something going on. But surprisingly, their time in Grandma's sleepy little town leads to their first-ever glimpse of a dead body.
Quote #2
Mary Alice said she couldn't stand the place. For one thing, at Grandma's you had to go outside to the privy. It stood just across from the cobhouse, a tumbledown shed full of stuff left there in Grandpa Dowdel's time. (1.6)
Mary Alice in particular hates Grandma's place because it's so different from their own home. From her perspective, the worst part is that you have to go outside to use the restroom…which is just so humiliating. And so stinky.
Quote #3
Presently she said, "I'll tell you what that reporter's after. He wants to get the horselaugh on us because he thinks we're nothing but a bunch of hayseeds and no-'count country people. We are, but what business is it of his?" (1.13)
Grandma immediately takes a dislike to the reporter who's coming to write a story on Shotgun Cheatham's death. She knows that a city slicker like him is just there to make rude observations about all the hillbilly folks in the country.