“Leon regarded Archie with triumph, smiling almost grotesquely, a caricature of a smile really. Leon was not accustomed to smiling. But something else was behind the smile, behind those icy cold eyes, a smile that said he had not believed a word of what Archie had said. Which did not bother Archie in the least. The important thing was that Leon had chosen to pretend he had believed.”

Source: Beyond the Chocolate War (1985), p. 81

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Robert Cormier 50
American author, columnist and reporter 1925–2000

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“The wolf was smiling at him, and he had never known that a wolf could smile.”

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Context: He stirred again, halfway between sleep and wakefulness, and he was not alone. Across the fire from him sat, or seemed to sit, a man wrapped in some all-enveloping covering that might have been a cloak, wearing on his head a conical hat that dropped down so far it hid his face. Beside him sat the wolf — the wolf, for Boone was certain that it was the same wolf with which he'd found himself sitting nose to nose when he had wakened the night before. The wolf was smiling at him, and he had never known that a wolf could smile.
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