Two excerpts

       "Don't you sometimes think," I said to Ruth, "you should have looked into it more? All right, you'd have been the first. The first one any of us would have heard of getting to do something like that. But you might have done it. Don't you wonder sometimes, what might have happened if you tried?"
       "How could I have tried?" Ruth's voice was hardly audible. "It's just something I once dreamt about. That's all."
       "But if you'd at least looked into it. How do you know? They might have let you."
       "Yeah, Ruth," Tommy said. "Maybe you should at least have tried. After going on about it so much. I think Kath's got a point."
       "I didn't go on about it, Tommy. At least, I don't remember going on about it."
       "But Tommy's right. You should at least have tried. Then you could see a poster like that one, and remember that's what you wanted once, and that you at least looked into it . . ."

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       "No, Tommy. There's nothing like that. You life must now run the course that's been set for it."
       "So, what you're saying, Miss," Tommy said, "is that everything we did, all the lessons, everything. It was all about what you just told us? There was nothing more to it than that?"
       "I can see," Miss Emily said, "that it might look as though you were simply pawns in a game. It can certainly be looked at like that. But think of it. You were lucky pawns. There was a certain climate and now it's gone. You have to accept that sometimes that's how things happen in this world. People's opinions, their feelings, they go one way, then the other. It just so happens you grew up at a certain point in this process."
       "It might be just some trend that came and went," I said. "But for us, it's our life."
       "Yes, that's true. But think of it. You were better off than many who came before you. And who knows what those who come after you will have to face [ . . . ]"