Do your books ever talk to each other? Mine have been a lot lately. Right now I'm reading The Monster in the Hollows (obviously) and A Wrinkle in Time. (Have you read it?) In both books this week there were characters who had been, in different ways, made blank, unable to think or imagine outside the system which held them enslaved. In both books the main characters needed to reach through this deadening to find the real person on the other side.Anyway, I love Sara Cobbler.
She turned from her bed and bumped into one of the Maintenance Managers.“Excuse me,” Sara said, pretending to have just woken up.“I’ve been watching you, tool,” said the boy. He was a head taller than Sara, skinny but strong, with a missing front tooth. He held a chain in one fist and swayed it back and forth. Sara quickly looked at the floor. She had to remind herself to act like a factory tool, not a girl. “I’ve been watching you for a long time.”“Excuse me,” she repeated and tried to walk around him. He stepped sideways and blocked her path.“Look at me,” he said.Sara couldn’t slip by him, and she couldn’t look at him. She was afraid if he saw her eyes he would know in an instant that she was up to something. He would report her to Mobrik and that would be the end of it. If she was thrown into the coffin or punished, the children wouldn’t know what to do. Borley was bold enough and foolish enough to try to do it without her, and she couldn’t let that happen.“I said look at me.” The Maintenance Manager grabbed her face and forced it upward.Sara could pretend no more. She looked into his eyes, but not as a factory tool. She decided not to hide her awake-ness but to pour it into him. If he saw the light in her, maybe it would wake some compassion in him and he would let her go. It was a terrible risk, but she didn’t know what else to do. She willed him to see her as a girl, as someone he might have known before the Fork Factory, someone he could have been friends with. If she carried any of Janner’s fire, she prayed it would cross the few inches between them and make its way through his eyes and into his soul.
Discussion: Which passage stood out to you most this week?Is there anything you want to talk about? Come to the forum. See if there's a conversation you'd like to join, or start a new thread of your own. :-)Activity: Gather a few friends, an apple, and a staff-whacker (or maybe a pool noodle or cardboard tube). Take turns being the Guildmaster (or Guildmadam) and see who can sneak the apple away without being caught!