When You Reach Me Society and Class Quotes

"Latchkey child" is a name for a kid with keys who hangs out alone after school until a grown-up gets home to make dinner. Mom hates that expression. She says it reminds her of dungeons, and must have been invented by someone strict and awful with an unlimited childcare budget. (2.2)

Mom cried the first time she saw our apartment. The whole place was filthy, she says. The wood floors were "practically black," the windows were "caked with dirt," and the walls were smeared with something she "didn't even want to think about." Always in those same words. (4.15)

But I soon found out that Julia wasn't like the rest of us. She took trips all over the world with her parents. She would disappear from school and show up two weeks later with satin ribbons worked into her braids, or with a new green velvet scoop-neck dress, or wearing three gold rings on one finger. She learned about sixty-percent-cacao chocolate, she said, in Switzerland, where her parents had bought her a lot of it, along with a little silver watch she was always shoving in people's faces. (11.11)

"But first you have to learn the V-cut," he told us. "Very important. Except he said "Velly important," stretched his eyelids back with two fingers, and bowed down low – it was the classic fake-Chinese act. I had never seen a grown-up do it before. If Mom had been there, she would have whacked him on the head with a plastic tray. (18.2)

On the other side of the street, Julia was walking alone, wearing her orange suede knapsack and an orange suede headband that matched. Matching suede knapsacks and headbands were probably all the rage in Switzerland, I thought.

"You mean Swiss Miss?" I grabbed two rolls and dropped them into the bag at my feet. "She's not my friend. Not even close."

He smiled slowly. "Swiss Miss. That's a good one." He stared outside for another minute and then stood up. "You're funny, you know that?" (22.9-11)

"Your friend, little Swiss Miss. Don't let me find her in here again. Ever."

"Who?" Annemarie said.

"I think he means Julia," I said.

"You think Julia took the money?" Colin laughed. "Julia needs money like a fish needs a bicycle."

Jimmy shook his head. "Some things are in the blood. All the money in the world can't change a person's blood." (37.9-14)

If anyone needs the money," Annemarie said to me coldly, "it's you, not Julia." (37.29)

One kid has green suede boots. One has a charge account at Gold's. One has keys in her pocket.

"Does it really matter?" I asked myself.

It did. (38.6-8)

I folded my pink square a couple of times. Then I leaned forward and dropped the note into Julia's lap. I hadn't had much time – it was just the one word: TRUCE. (42.13)

Something very familiar caught my eye. It was on the bedside table, under the ugly lamp. It was my book – or maybe it was my book's twin sister, just as old and beat-up-looking as mine, but with different creases and one corner ripped off the cover. I went over and picked it up. (44.16)