corncobwebs 's review for:

Pay Attention, Carter Jones by Gary D. Schmidt

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If it hadn't been the first day of school, and if my mother hadn't been crying her eyes out the night before, and if the fuel pump on the Jeep had been doing what a fuel pump on a Jeep is supposed to be doing, and if it hadn't been raining like an Australian tropical thunderstorm -- and I've been been in one, so I know what it's like -- and if the very last quart of one percent milk hadn't gone sour and clumped up, then our mother would never have let the Butler into our house.

This is such a great opening line.