"It's cool with you though, isn't it, if we have a party?" Hannah asked.

"Yeah, sure" Sacha said. She didn't want to say 'no'. It'd seem mean. But she tried not to sound convinced of the merits of the idea.

"All right!" Hannah beamed. She held the letter from the tax office in her hands delicately, staring at it like it was a letter from a friend on the other side of the world. "Four-hundred dollars" she sighed. "Almost five-hundred!"

"Are you sure you want to blow it all on a party?" Sacha asked.

"I wouldn't consider it 'blowing it'" Hannah replied matter-of-factly. "If you're not gonna spend money on enjoying yourself, what are you gonna spend it on?"

"Why spend it?" Sacha was thinking of how much she could use almost five-hundred dollars; she was wondering why Hannah's tax refund had arrived, and not her own. It was only two weeks ago that Hannah had been fretting about how she'd left her tax to the last minute!

"Well what else are you gonna do with money?" Hannah laughed. "You can't take it with you!" She didn't know it, but she was repeating a phrase her father had used many times, when she was just an infant and absorbing everything the world presented to her without even understanding any of it.

"You make it sound like you're about to die" Sacha said.

"Well I'm not planning on living forever. You know, 'live fast, die young', all that."

Sacha looked at her, appalled. "You don't really believe that!"

Hannah shrugged. "Don't talk to me about beliefs" she said. "I dunno, it's a thing. It's a saying. Maybe it's right, maybe it's not, but it's a good excuse to party! Don't you think?"

"I think it's horrible" Sacha said.

"Well." Hannah rolled her eyes. She thought she'd done it discreetly, but she hadn't. "That doesn't surprise me."