the children Quotes

“Another time, the children decide to rig up a ghost in their attic to scare the neighborhood bully Peter Frost. They use their Mama’s dressmaker’s form (called Madame-the-Bust), a pumpkin with real teeth and a scooter.”

As the adult world closes in on them, the children retreat to their secret sanctuary inside a dense lime tree, and, determined to die together, eat poison mushrooms.

“Each morning the children had to pass the place of graves on their way to buy the day’s water and only last week another baby in the village had died. It was always scary seeing the little graves, but especially this fresh one now.”