"Wonder," Vocabulary from Part 3

It’s not that she was unstable or anything: just distant.

But she insisted I go away.

Then one day I blurted out that I had a little brother who was deformed.

And, of course, the reaction I got from the little girls in the bungalow was dramatic.

I regretted saying this the moment it escaped from my lips, of course: I felt like such a fake.

But, I have to admit, there was a part of me that felt a little entitled to this lie.

I muttered, looking down, “I don’t feel well."

Davenport took a deep breath, like he was trying to restrain himself.

It was that crazy backstage theater mayhem where sweaty actors stand euphoric while people come worship them for a few seconds.

It was that crazy backstage theater mayhem where sweaty actors stand euphoric while people come worship them for a few seconds.

When I was really little, that was mainly because there were too many medical issues, like my trache tube needing to be cleared every hour, or reinserting my feeding tube if it got detached.

Like Max G and Max W will never live down their Dungeons & Dragons obsession.

But if she could have looked a little further back, into the stillness and the darkness before Time dawned, she would have read there a different incantation.

There were concession stands there, too, like at a farmers’ market, selling roasted peanuts and cotton candy.

That was the big gossip that went around: the jock and the brainiac.

The Broarwood Nature Reserve, as you know, is dedicated to preserving our natural resources and the environment.

Do not venture beyond the orange cones at the edges of the fairgrounds.

Broarwood would reimburse us the cost of the hearing aids, he said.

Mom and I didn’t talk much the whole walk home, and when we got to the front stoop, I automatically looked in the front bay window, because I forgot for a second that Daisy wasn’t going to be there like always, perched on the sofa with her front paws on the windowsill, waiting for us to come home.

I started devouring the sandwich.

The right piece was completely gone and the left one was mangled.

“Is it safe to assume that it was because of the story of the . . . um, the duckling that turns into a swan?”

"Here I was looking for symbolism and metaphors and, um . . . sometimes a duck is just a duck!”

I mean, to me this was a major revelation, and he was acting like it was no big deal.

It glimmered in their kindness to him, it glowed in their keenness, it hinted in their caring, indeed it caressed in their gaze.

“Children, what I want to impart to you today is an understanding of the value of that simple thing called kindness."

I know I’m kind of infamous for my .. . um . . . verbosity .

“The final award this morning,” said Mr. Tushman, after the kids onstage had returned to their seats, “is the Henry Ward Beecher medal to honor students who have been notable or exemplary in certain areas throughout the school year."

“While reading up on his life in preparation for this award, I came upon a passage that he wrote that seemed particularly consistent with the themes I touched on earlier, themes I’ve been ruminating upon all year long."

Your deeds are your monuments.—inscription on an Egyptian tomb