Joan feels remorse for having hated her toes most of her life. She inherited them from her grandmother, who had hated them too. Her grandmother had cried at the swimming pool on Joan's 11th birthday ... [+]
Phineas wished, for the two-thousand-three-hundred-and-twenty-third time, that he had a different name. His father was in the army, and the family moved fairly often. No, unfairly often. There was nothing fair about it. Every year, every grade, it was a new school. Some years it was two new schools in the same year. And at every new school, the class laughed when the teacher said his name, then teased him about it when they got out of the classroom. It wasn't so bad in England, but here in the US, they laughed every time. He explained this to his new teacher, Mr. Cray. "Hmm," said Mr. Cray. "W