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Timofey Pnin 13

Dr Pnin nimbly walked into the passage, voiced a query, received a quiet answer, and returned with his son Timofey, a thirteen-year-old gimnazist (classical school pupil) in his gimnazicheskiy uniform – black blouse, black pants, shiny black belt (I attended a more liberal school where we wore what we liked).

Do I really remember his crew cut, his puffy pale face, his red ears? Yes, distinctly. I even remember the way he imperceptibly removed his shoulder from under the proud paternal hand, while the proud paternal voice was saying: ‘This boy has just got a Five Plus (A+) in the Algebra examination.’

Vladimir Nabokov · Pnin

13

Will Parker

The White Mountains

John Christopher

"‘You are small for it. So you will take the Cap next summer?’"

13

Victor Frankenstein

Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus

Mary Shelley

"When I was thirteen years of age we all went on a party of pleasure to the baths near Thonon..."

13

Amory Blaine

This Side of Paradise

F. Scott Fitzgerald

"Amory became thirteen..."

13

Billy Bob

'Children on Their Birthdays'

Truman Capote

"...thirteen years old and crazy in love..."

13

Charles Highway

The Rachel Papers

Martin Amis

"I got bronchitis – absolutely spontaneously – at the age of thirteen..."

13

Peter Watson

'The Swan'

Roald Dahl

"He was a brilliant pupil, already in the senior class at school although he was only thirteen..."

13

Nelson Angstrom

Rabbit Redux

John Updike

"Nelson, at thirteen, is under average height, with his mother’s dark complexion..."

13

Alfred Polly

The History of Mr Polly

H.G. Wells

"Outside the regions devastated by the school curriculum he was still intensely curious..."

13

Joel Knox

Other Voices, Other Rooms

Truman Capote

"Now at thirteen Joel was nearer a knowledge of death than in any year to come..."

13

Adrian Albert Mole

The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13 ¾

Sue Townsend

"It's time I fell in love, after all I am 13 ¾ years old..."