“When I had that attack of pleurosis - he asked me what was the matter when I came back. I said pleurosis he thought that I said Blue Roses! So that’s what he always called me after that. Whenever he saw me, he’d holler, ‘Hello, Blue Roses!”
″... Pa caught Laura up in his safe, big hug. ‘We’re across the Mississippi!‘, he said, hugging her joyously. ‘How do you like that, little half-pint of sweet cider half drunk up?‘”
“Woodpecker’s the name, and outlawing’s the game. I’m wanted in fifty states and Mexico. It’s nice to feel wanted, and I’d like to be wanted by you. In fact, I just blew my disguise in the hopes that it would open your eyes and soften your heart.”
″‘There’s nothing wrong with him!’ I said. ‘My mother calls him Fudge. My father calls him Fudge. My grandmother calls him Fudge. His friends call him Fudge. My friends call him Fudge. I call him Fudge. He calls himself Fudge...‘”
“I call him the rabbit man, but he doesn’t look or act like a rabbit. Doesn’t have long ears or a lot of children. Actually, I can’t remember why I call him that. I just do. Sometimes in your mind you call someone something just because it tickles you softly to call them that.”
“My biggest problem is my brother, Farley Drexel Hatcher. He’s two-and-a-half years old. Everybody calls him Fudge. I feel sorry for him if he’s going to grow up with a name like Fudge, but I don’t say a word. It’s none of my business.”
“Erk, Yuk, or Gherkin. When I grew up and left school and left Barringa East for ever, I planned to change my name to something really elegant. It was a waste of time doing it before then.”
“My name is Marigold, but to one and all because my father is very memorable and eccentric and had been around at the school for a very long time before I was born- was only Bill’s Daughter. Hence Bilgewater. Oh hilarity, hilarity! Bilgewater Green.”
″‘You’re a bottler,’ said Charlie gratefully. ‘Isn’t she, Simey?’
Simon couldn’t answer. If he opened his mouth, he knew he would yell ‘Don’t call me that’. And what was the use? It would just make another name that nobody could say. They had to call him Simey; they were Edie and Charlie.”
″‘You’re subject A-five and they called you the Glue.’
Newt gave him a startled look. ‘The Glue?’
Thomas let go of his shirt and stepped back. ‘Yeah. Probably because you’re kind of the glue that holds us all together.‘”
“Fog Benson had captured him when the cub was six months old. He had killed Ben’s mother and brought the young bear to town to show him off. And because Ben had cried for hours for his lost mother, Fog had laughingly named him ‘Squeaky Ben,’ after a local character with a querulous voice. As the cub grew and it became apparent his size would be tremendous, the ‘Squeaky’ part was dropped.”
″... he was generally known in the neighborhood as Commander Crackpott! You may think that’s rude, and so it is, but Commander Pott was a humorous man and he knew his own shortcomings very well, so when he heard that was his nickname in the neighborhood he was not at all cross. He just roared with laughter and said, ‘I’ll show ‘em!‘”
It’s not terribly unusual for a boy to have an imaginary friend, but Matthew’s parents have to agree that his—nicknamed Chocky—is anything but ordinary.
“The sinister Great Aunt Emma, from whose nickname the book’s title is derived, is actually a malevolent alien. And only the snotty but switched-on kids of the Carpenter household are clever enough to defeat her.”