Paul Jenkins

“He’d carefully judged the measure of his opponent’s resolve, and knew that a man as greedy and weak willed as Marcus James would always be the one to crack first under duress.”

“Wil had learned as a child that the best way to deal with goons—the more muscle-bound the better—was to confuse them. For while the human bicep was something anyone with a little patience could build up to an impressive size, the human brain was less a variable and more something a person was born with. Goons, in his experience, were rarely born with very large ones.”

““I see where you’re going with this, Wil. Bravo!”“Do you?” replied Wil. “Because honestly, Mr. Dinsdale, if you know where I’m going, perhaps you’d be kind enough to give me directions!””

“That’s it! That’s the utterly random mental chaos I was looking for! No one’s going to predict that response! Anything Else?”

““Wil,” said Barry with a weight of sadness that only a parent can know, “I tried as hard as I could.””

“The Quantum Needle was theoretically used to repair any tears in the fabric of the space-time continuum, though how it actually worked in the field was a matter of some debate. When Wil had pressed the question, Mr. Dinsdale had simply mumbled, “quantum physics,” which seemed to be his standard response to any question he didn’t know the answer to.”

“You know, Mr. Dinsdale, this all sounds delightfully bananas but I’m kinda monkeyed out this week.”

“We all know that life isn’t fair. But life should at least come with a printed copy in large type in case of misunderstandings and overbilling.”

“His museum took a stance against conventional thinking, and the slow death of intellect that comes with mediocrity.”

“Wil opened his eyes to find Thursday glaring in at him through his window; apparently, the universe was already in a foul mood.”

“But even a man who has paid his rent doesn’t have forever.”

“Wil knew that he had done something that might never be undone: his Dad might forgive the years of lies, but he would never forgive this one moment of absolute truth.”

“Hindsight would later suggest to Wil that things coincidentally began to fall down at exactly the same time he began to relax. He wasn’t to know this at the time, of course. Otherwise it would’ve been foresight.”

“Wil allowed his voice to trail off. The chances of a rational explanation at this point were in exact proportion to the chances of Lucy believing it.”

“Wil felt like a nun at a fashion show: he was clearly out of his comfort zone, and would probably be better off sticking to his usual habits.”

““I think you’re missing the point.”“I think I’m not alone in that.””

“The next morning, Wil Morgan awoke from a fitful night’s sleep and a rather disturbing variation of his anxiety dream in which he’d arrived too late to register for the World’s Biggest Failure competition and had been disqualified.”

“Wil had always been a hopeless romantic, with “hopeless” being the operative word.”

“There was evidence of neither angels nor ambulance workers, which Wil took to be a positive sign.”

“Wil had always suspected Mrs. Chappell’s cats were onto something: if one can act as if everything is right with the world while all around clowns dressed in snorkels, flippers, and tutus are throwing bowls of neon-green custard at each other then, by golly, everything is right with the world.”