“Of course there is such thing as a second chance,” went on Domenica, “We may waste our first trip to Italy, but that doesn’t mean that we need waste our second.”

More from The Importance of Being Seven

• “But we are all fortunate in one way or another. The task for most of us is to identify in what way that is, would you not agree?”
• Up through the water came a large trout; a flash of silver; a dart of light; the fulfillment of a small boy’s dream.