Miss Lucy was the only guardian present. She was leaning over the rail at the front, peering into the rain like she was trying to see right across the playing field. I was watching her as carefully as ever in those days, and even as I was laughing at Laura, I was stealing glances at Miss Lucy’s back. I remember wondering if there wasn’t something a bit odd about her posture, the way her head was bent down just a little too far so she looked like a crouching animal waiting to pounce. And the way she was leaning forward over the rail meant drops from the overhanging gutter were only just missing her – but she seemed to show no sign of caring. I remember actually convincing myself there was nothing unusual in all this – that she was simply anxious for the rain to stop – and turning my attention back to what Laura was saying. Then a few minutes later, when I’d forgotten all about Miss Lucy and was laughing my head off at something, I suddenly realised things had gone quiet around us, and that Miss Lucy was speaking.

(Excerpt from Never Let Me Go, by Kazuo Ishiguro. Available on https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/2017/ishiguro/prose/)

Ba-room, ba-room, ba-room, baripity, baripity, baripity, baripity. Good. His dad had the pickup going. He could get up now. Jess slid out of bed and into his overalls. He didn't worry about a shirt because once he began running he would be hot as popping grease even if the morning air was chill, or shoes because the bottoms of his feet were by now as tough as his worn-out sneakers.

"Where you going, Jess?" May Belle lifted herself up sleepily from the double bed where she and Joyce Ann slept.

"Sh." He warned. The walls were thin. Momma would he mad as flies in a fruit jar if they woke her up this time of day.

He patted May Belle's hair and yanked the twisted sheet up to her small chin. "Just over the cow field," he whispered. May Belle smiled and snuggled down under the sheet.

"Gonna run?"

"Maybe."

Of course he was going to run. He had gotten up early every day all summer to run. He figured if he worked at it – and Lord, had he worked – he could be the fastest runner in the fifth grade when school opened up. He had to be the fastest – not one of the fastest or next to the fastest, but the fastest. The very best.

(Excerpt from Bridge to Terabithia, by Katherine Paterson. Available on https://www.e-reading.club/bookreader.php/135126/Patterson_- _Bridge_to_Terabithia.pdf)