Steven K. Smith > Quotes

“his breath and listened. Yes, there it was again – it sounded like voices. “Help! Down here! Help me!” screamed Derek as loud as he could. His cries echoed through the cave. The voices seemed to be getting closer, but it was hard to tell. “Heeeelp!” “Hey, I think it’s coming from over here,” he heard a voice say in the distance. “Wow – where did that hole come from? I’ve never seen that before,” came another voice. “Look, there’s a tunnel!” “Down here! I’m down here!” yelled Derek.”
― Steven K. Smith, Summer of the Woods

“After dinner,”
― Steven K. Smith, Mystery on Church Hill

“and uncle had a pair of Retrievers that came along to cool off from the heat, and the two dogs ran and jumped in the water like they were born to swim. The boys threw a tennis ball to each other in the shallow areas, and the dogs jumped back and forth, trying to grab every throw out of the air. An old wooden platform floated off the far shore of the pond. The kids jumped in and out of the water, judging each other’s best cannonball splash. Uncle Drew said that the water was nearly twenty feet deep.”
― Steven K. Smith, Summer of the Woods

“Sometimes he told people that he got all his gray hairs from what his boys put him through.”
― Steven K. Smith, Secret of the Staircase

“He thought back to his experience seeing the pottery gleaming from the dirt and imagined what it must have been like to find so many of these different items.”
― Steven K. Smith, Shadows at Jamestown

“How do you feel now, Zach?” Zach shook his head. This was stupid. “Just awesome, thanks. I love being a human guinea pig. How about you?”
― Steven K. Smith, The Bridge

“What did they do, give you the royal flush and then stuff you in your locker?” Sam remembered”
― Steven K. Smith, Ghosts of Belle Isle

“The man in the suit. He's up to something.”
― Steven K. Smith, Spies at Mount Vernon

“Give me liberty or give me death!”
― Steven K. Smith, Mystery on Church Hill

“Alligators once lived in marble ponds that surrounded the Thomas Jefferson statue in the Palm Court Lobby. The last of the alligators, Old Pompey, called The Jefferson home until his death in 1948.”
― Steven K. Smith, Secret of the Staircase

“July hit Virginia that summer like a furnace. The temperature rose higher and higher, eclipsing one hundred degrees. The ancient air conditioning system in the boys’ house groaned from constant use, and the grass around the yard was slowly turning a crispy brown. It was too hot to play outside, so Sam and Derek spent hours plotting out their search for the missing treasure.”
― Steven K. Smith, Summer of the Woods

“It was the second week of June and the school year was over early since only a few snow days had been used over the winter months.”
― Steven K. Smith, Summer of the Woods

“Give me liberty, or give me death!”
― Steven K. Smith, Mystery on Church Hill

“there?”
― Steven K. Smith, Midnight at the Mansion

“Then, behind the branch, he caught a faint glimpse of something black moving.”
― Steven K. Smith, Summer of the Woods

“MyBoys3 Press Supports Did You Enjoy Shadows at Jamestown”
― Steven K. Smith, Shadows at Jamestown

“kind of gross, but at this point Sam was so hungry, he’d eat just about anything. Grrrowwllll his stomach cried out again. He glanced up the line at Caitlin Murphy to see if she noticed. She had a smirk on her face like she knew something, but that was how she always looked, so he couldn’t tell if it was because of him. “Is that organic broccoli?” Caitlin asked one of the lunch ladies through a cloud of steam”
― Steven K. Smith, Mystery on Church Hill

“Please pass the sugar cubes.” Sam rolled his eyes as he handed the crystal bowl of white and brown sugar cubes to Caitlin. He refused to look over at his mom at the next table. She was in a deep conversation with Anita, seemingly not concerned about subjecting him to a tea party. This was terrible. What was ‘high tea’ anyhow? He looked across at Caitlin. She seemed to be enjoying herself. She was really excited about being in this fancy old hotel. “Isn’t”
― Steven K. Smith, Secret of the Staircase

“Maybe spies liked to be old-school too. Maybe some still practiced timeworn methods like the ones George Washington had used. Apparently, Washington developed a lot of spy craft techniques to help him fool the British. Secret code names, dead drops, invisible ink, cyphers, coded messages—all kind of things.”
― Steven K. Smith, Spies at Mount Vernon

“notwithstanding,”
― Steven K. Smith, Shadows at Jamestown

“begrudgingly”
― Steven K. Smith, Secret of the Staircase

“Derek crouched down and studied the dirt again under the lantern light. “Something’s in there,” he whispered. “How do you know?” asked Nathan, hesitation filling his voice. “I can sense it,” answered Derek. Sam groaned, then did something surprising. Maybe he was sick of Derek always telling him what to do. Maybe it was because his feet hurt. Maybe he was tired of always getting scared for no reason. “This is stupid,” he yelled, grabbing the lantern. He pushed past Derek and Nathan. “There’s nothing out there. It’s just the shadows playing tricks on us. You probably didn’t even see the alligator come down here. We need to get the heck out of here before we get lost.” He stepped around the corner. “See!” he proclaimed, holding the lantern up high in front of him. Light streamed into an enormous, open room. It seemed to stretch on forever, like some hidden underground cavern. Water dripped from open cracks above them. Pillars of rock hung down from the ceiling. Derek’s mouth dropped open. “Oh my gosh...” Sam’s arm turned to stone, the lantern dangling from his hand like a light post. He couldn’t move a muscle, except for his eyes, which darted around the deep room of shadows. A wide pool of water lay in the middle of the space as if it had been filled by a hundred years of rainwater working its way underground. Lying all around the pool were alligators. Dozens of them.”
― Steven K. Smith, Secret of the Staircase