I turned with an inward groan to look at him. Quackenbush wasn't going to let me just do the work for him like the automaton I wished to be. We were going to have to be pitted against each other. It was easy enough now to see why. For Quackenbush had been systematically disliked since he first set foot in Devon, with careless, disinterested insults coming at him from the beginning, voting for and applauding the class leaders through years of attaining nothing he wanted for himself. I didn't want to add to his humiliations; I even sympathized with his trembling, goaded egotism he could no longer contain, the furious arrogance which sprang out now at the mere hint of opposition from someone he had at last found whom he could consider inferior to himself. I realized that all this explained him, and it wasn't the words he said which angered me. It was only that he was so ignorant, that he knew nothing of the gypsy summer, nothing of the loss I was fighting to endure, of skylarks and splashes and petal-bearing breezes, he had not seen Leper's snails or the Charter of the Super Suicide Society; he shared nothing, knew nothing, felt nothing as Phineas had done.
Sam Witwicky:
You won't give me a day, huh? You won't give me one day in college?
Optimus Prime:
I'm sorry, Sam, but the last fragment of the Allspark was stolen.
Sam Witwicky:
Like what? Decepticons stole it?
Optimus Prime:
We placed it under human protection at your government's request... but I'm here for your help, Sam, because your leaders believe we brought vengeance upon your planet. Perhaps they are right. That is why they must be reminded by another human of the trust we share.
Sam Witwicky:
This isn't my war!
Optimus Prime:
Not yet. But I fear it soon will be. Your world must not share the same fate as Cybertron. Whole generations lost...
Sam Witwicky:
I know. And I want to help you, I do, but I am not some alien ambassador, you know? I'm a normal kid with normal problems. I am where I'm supposed to be. I'm sorry, I... I really am...
Optimus Prime:
Sam, fate rarely calls upon us at a moment of our choosing.
Sam Witwicky:
You're Optimus Prime. You don't need me. [Sam walks away]
Optimus Prime:
We do, more than you know...
Stanley Cunningham:
Philadelphia is one of the oldest cities in this country. A lot of generations have lived here and died here. Almost any place you go in this city has a history and a story behind it. Even this school and the grounds it sits on. Can anyone guess what this building was used for a hundred years ago, before you went to this school, before I went to this school? Yes, Cole?
Cole Sear:
They used to hang people here.
Stanley Cunningham:
No, uh, that, mm-mm, that's not correct. Uh, where'd you hear that?
Cole Sear:
They'd pull the people in, crying and kissing their families 'bye. People watching would spit at them.
Stanley Cunningham:
Uh, Cole, this, this building was a legal courthouse. Laws were passed here. Some of the very first laws of this country. This whole building was full of, uh, lawyers, uh, lawmakers.
Cole Sear:
They were the ones that hanged everybody.
As I had to do whenever I glimpsed this river, I thought of Phineas. Not of the tree and pain, but of one of his favorite tricks, Phineas in exaltation, balancing on one foot on the prow of a canoe like a river god, his raised arms invoking the air to support him, face transfigured, body a complex set of balances and compensations, each muscle aligned in perfection with all the others to maintain this supreme fantasy of achievement, his skin glowing from immersions, his whole body hanging between river and sky as though he had transcended gravity and might by gently pushing upward with his foot glide a little way higher and remain suspended in space, encompassing all the glory of the summer and offering it to the sky.
