excerpt from The Lovely Bones

"he watched his solitary little boy in the yard talking to himself, he found anything to make walls for his fort. Just enough light was let into the fort to read by. Mostly he read the avengers, and x-men. He dreamed of being wolverine, who had a skeleton made of the strongest metal in the universe and who could heal from any wound overnight. he wouldn't let himself miss his mother, he tunneled into stories where weak men changed into strong half animals or used eye beams or magic hammers to power through steel, or climb up the sides of skyscrapers. he was the hulk when angry and spidey most of the other times. when he felt his heart hurt, he turned into something stronger than a little boy, and he grew up this way. a heart that flashed from heart to stone.. heart to stone. one day he came home from 2nd grade with a story he had written. 'once upon a time there was a kid named billy, he liked to explore, he saw a hole and went inside, but never came out, the end.' "