Place

"My eyes had started to hurt in Oklahoma from all that flat land."

-Taylor, pg. 37

Character

"The thing about you Taylor is that you just don't let anybody put one over on you."

-Lou Ann, pg. 157

Metaphor

• "There was a cactus with bushy arms and a coat of yellow spines as thick as fur. A bird had built her nest in it. In and out she flew among the horrible spiny branches, never once hesitating. You just couldn’t imagine how she’d made a home in there."

Quote of the Novel**

But this is the most intresting part: wisteria vines, like other legumes, often thrive in poor soil, the book said. Their secret is something called rhizobia. These are microscopic bugs that live underground in little knots on the roots. They suck nitrogen gas right out of the soiland turn it into fertilizer for the plant. The rhizobia are not actually part of the plant, they are seperate creatures, but they always live with legumes: a kind of underground railroad moving secretly up and down the roots. "It's like this," I told Turtle. " There's a whole invisible system for helping out the plant that you'd never guess was there" I loved this idea. "It's just the same as with people. The way Edna has Virgie, and Virgie has Edna and Sandi has kid centralStation, and everybody has Mattie. And on and on." The wisteria vines on their own would just barely get by, is how I explained it to Turtle, but put thjem together withrhizobia and they make miracles.