{EN} Flipped – Wendeline Van Draanen
1. „She’s got no concept of personal space. No respect for privacy. The world is her playground”
2. „Juli Baker is the kind of annoying person who makes a point of letting you know she’s smart.”
3. „What did a kiss feel like, anyway? Somehow I knew it wouldn’t be like the one I got from Mom or Dad at bedtime. The same species, maybe, but a radically different beast, to be sure.”
4. „But all of a sudden my stomach completely bailed on me. Juli loved that tree. Stupid as it was, she loved that tree, and cutting it down would be like cutting out her heart.”
5. „The tree looked lopsided and naked, and after a few minutes I had to get out of there. It was like watching someone dismember a body, and for the first time in ages, I felt like crying. Crying. Over a stupid tree that I hated.”
6. „I told myself I should be glad about it — it was like she wasn’t even there, and isn’t that what I’d always wanted? But still, I felt bad. About her tree, about how she hurried off to eat by herself in the library at lunch, about how her eyes were red around the edges. I wanted to tell her, Man, I’m sorry about your sycamore tree, but the words never seemed to come out.”
7. „After all, the last thing I needed was for Juli Baker to think I missed her.”
8. „I told him about his eyes and his hair and the way his cheeks blush, but I don’t think I explained it very well because when I was done Dad shook his head and told me in soft, heavy words that I needed to start looking at the whole landscape.”
9. „Then a few months ago I found myself talking to the tree. An entire conversation, just me and a tree. And on the climb down I felt like crying. Why didn’t I have someone real to talk to? Why didn’t I have a best friend like everyone else seemed to? Sure, there were kids I knew at school, but none of them were close friends. They’d have no interest in climbing the tree. In smelling the sunshine.”
10. „Bryce, I asked you to conquer your fear, but all you did was give in to it. If you were in love with her, that would be one thing. Love is something to be afraid of, but this, this is embarrassing. So she talks too much, so she’s too enthused about every little thing, so what? Get in, get your question answered, and get out. Stand up to her, for cryin’ out loud!”
11. „Why hadn’t I just stood up and said, No thanks, don’t want ’em, don’t need ’em, don’t like ’em … . Give them to the snake, why don’t you? Something! Was I really afraid of hurting her feelings? Or was I afraid of her?”
12. „Again I got no homework done. The more I watched them, the madder I got. I was still a cluck-faced jerk, while Juli was laughing it up with my grandfather. Had I ever seen him smile? Really smile? I don’t think so! But now he was knee-high in nettles, laughing.”
13. „How things looked had always been a biggie to my parents. Especially to my dad.”
14. „We walked our neighborhood and the next neighborhood and the next neighborhood, and not only did I find out that my granddad knows a lot of stuff, I found out that the guy is funny.”
15. „I’d spent so many years avoiding Juli Baker that I’d never really looked at her, and now all of a sudden I couldn’t stop. This weird feeling started taking over the pit of my stomach, and I didn’t like it.”
16. „It wasn’t just the yard. It was my dad’s truck, my mother’s car, the family bike that was more rust than steel, and the fact that when we did buy something new, it always seemed to come from a second-time-around store. Plus, we never went on vacation. Ever.”
17. „My father talked about his brother and how much he loved him and how he’d promised his parents he’d always take care of him. My mother talked about how much she loved my father for his strength and kind heart, about dreams and reality, and the need to count your blessings.”
18. „I shook my head. “Why are you over here, Mr. Duncan? If you don’t think I need the help and you’re not feeling bad about the eggs, then why would you do this?”
“Honestly?” I just looked at him, straight in the eye. He nodded, then said, “Because you remind me of my wife.”
“Your wife?”
“That’s right.” He gave me a little smile and said, “Renée would’ve sat up in that tree with you. She would’ve sat there all night.”
And with those two sentences, my anger vanished. “Really?”
“Absolutely.”
“She’s … she died?”
He nodded. “And I miss her terribly.” He tossed a branch into the heap and chuckled. “There’s nothing like a head-strong woman to make you happy to be alive.””
19. „Get beyond his eyes and his smile and the sheen of his hair—look at what’s really there.”
20. „Watching my dad chum it up with Juli’s dad—it was like seeing him lie. To Mr. Baker, to Juli, to my grandfather—to everybody. Why was he being such a worm? Why couldn’t he just act normal? You know, civil? Why did he have to put on such a phony show? This went way beyond keeping the peace with my mother. This was disgusting. And people said I was the spitting image of my father. How often had I heard that one? I’d never thought about it much, but now it was turning my stomach.”
21. „As I lay in my bed staring out the window at the sky, I thought about how my dad had always looked down on the Bakers. How he’d put down their house and their yard and their cars and what they did for a living. How he’d called them trash and made fun of Mr. Baker’s paintings. And now I was seeing that there was something really cool about that family. All of them. They were just … real. And who were we? There was something spinning wickedly out of control inside this house. It was like seeing inside the Bakers’ world had opened up windows into our own, and the view was not a pretty one.”
22. „Bryce had never been a friend to me, ever! He hadn’t made a stand for the tree, he’d thrown away my eggs, and he’d made fun of me at my uncle’s expense … . Why was I playing along like we were jolly friends and neighbors?”
23. „As I looked around, it struck me that we were having dinner with a group of strangers. We’d lived across the street for years, but I didn’t know these people at all. Lynetta did know how to smile. Mr. Loski was clean and smooth on the outside, but there was a distinct whiff of something rotten buried just beneath the surface. And the ever-efficient Mrs. Loski seemed flustered, almost hyper. Was it having us over that was making her nervous? Then there was Bryce—the most disturbing of all because I had to admit that I didn’t really know him, either. And based on what I’d discovered lately, I didn’t care to know any more. Looking across the table at him, all I got was a strange, detached, neutral feeling. No fireworks, no leftover anger or resurging flutters.”
24. „I sat there by myself and didn’t even care about covering up. I just wanted to be with her. To talk to her. To hold her hand again. To kiss her. Before school was out, I tried to talk to her again, but every time I got close, she’d dodge me. And then when the final bell rang, she disappeared. I looked everywhere for her, but she was just gone.”
25. „Juli was different, but after all these years that didn’t bother me anymore. I liked it. I liked her.”
26. „It started with that stupid newspaper article. And I don’t know … I’ve been weirded out ever since. She doesn’t look the same, she doesn’t sound the same, she doesn’t even seem like the same person to me!” I stared out the window at the Bakers’. “She’s … she’s just different.”
My grandfather stood beside me and looked across the street, too. “No, Bryce,” he said softly. “She’s the same as she’s always been; you’re the one who’s changed.” He clapped his hand on my shoulder and whispered, “And, son, from here on out, you’ll never be the same again.””
27. „Something. I’ve got to come up with some thing to show her that I’ve changed. To prove to her that I understand. But what? How do I show her that I’m not the guy she thinks I am? How do I erase everything I’ve done and start over? Maybe I can’t. Maybe it just can not be done. But if I’ve learned one thing from Juli Baker, it’s that I’ve got to put my whole heart and soul into it and try.”