Introducing "Daddy's Girl"

Caucasian girl, 12 or 13, fuzzy hair pulled back, wearing a purple ski jacket and green corduroy pants, cuffs tucked into winter boots. She doesn't read to pass the time, to avoid contact with others. She's a lifer, focused: an important distinction.

Magic Street, Orson Scott Card (Del Rey)

Page 71:

Quon said she was in competitions all the time, and she outswam and outdived girls two years older than her and people said she was so natural and quick in the water. "She just lives to swim."

In grade 5 she moved. In her old hometown, her old elementary friends learned the new ways, the new rules, of grade 6, 7 and 8. She spent the summer alone, thinking the rules would stay the same. She looked away from the girls in the street, ignored their attempts to befriend her. She would have new friends soon enough. She spent the months sitting in a woven sun chair under a new-old maple tree in her new-old backyard, outside her new-old house in a new-old town. Sitting in the locker room, two days into new-school, she changed into her shorts and two-toned cap sleeve tee, canary-yellow and pistachio-green, enough to cover her shoulders. But as the other girls stood in their bras she missed her old elementary friends more than ever before. They would have told her it was the summer they'd all started shaving.

Meet her again, for the first time.

Bloor Line, minus Dad

Caucasian girl, 12 or 13, with long, curly hair tied back in a tight ponytail. Her brow is wide and high, her eyebrows soft and fuzzy. The bridge of her broad nose bears summer's last glow. I've been watching her read for almost a year, two-three times a week, always in the company of her gentle father who, too, reads at her side, protective, close enough that I've never been able to see the cover of her books let alone which page she reads. This school year, she's a big girl. Solo. I'm cautious. I don't want to be the one to betray the reserve of safety and comfort as she rides transit alone, en route to her new big girl world.

Artemis Fowl: The Opal Deception, Eoin Colfer (Talk Miramax Books)

Page 219:

Mulch slathered his fingers with spittle and spread it around the crown of his head, reaching as far back and the manacles would allow.

She stands at the kitchen counter, chewing slowly, eyes drooping, the toasted bagel cradled in the palm of her hand lying limp at the edge of the sink. Her father gets up early every Saturday, off to market for a dozen fresh from the wood oven, their weekly treat. He favours peanut butter while she slathers hers in cream cheese and red pepper jelly.

She watches her father run the push mower back and forth over a patch of weeds then stop to hike his pants. She hooks a stray hair from her mouth, checks the clock to see that she's not late for her first day of school, swallows heavy, then takes another bite, watching her father descend into the deep ditch.