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Copywork
About This Passage
This sentence is one of the book's most precise renderings of what missing someone actually feels like. Notice the structure: an action ('my mind kept going') followed by a place ('to that empty spot') followed by an explanation that defines the place ('the spot where I felt like she should be'). DiCamillo refuses to use a metaphor here. She does not say 'a hole in my heart' or 'a wound that wouldn't heal.' She uses literal spatial language: an empty spot. The refusal of metaphor is the chapter's greatest move, because metaphor would be too neat. The empty spot is not standing in for anything — it IS the way Opal experiences her mother's absence. She has a part of her mind that goes back to where her mother should be, and the going-back is involuntary. Notice also the phrase 'time after time,' which tells us this is a habit, not a single moment. The grief is structured into Opal's daily attention. Copying this passage teaches a writer that some experiences are best rendered without metaphor — the literal description is more accurate than any image would be.
Time after time my mind kept going to that empty spot, the spot where I felt like she should be.
Full copywork activity with handwriting lines available in the complete study guide.
Discussion Questions
Narration Prompt
Retell the chapter. Then identify the moment Otis becomes a fully realized character — the moment when he is no longer just 'the man in the pet store' but a specific person with a specific past.
Discussion Questions
- DiCamillo describes Otis playing his guitar in detail: he 'tapped his pointy-toed boots,' he played with 'his eyes closed and he was smiling.' This is the most physically present we have ever seen Otis. What is DiCamillo doing by giving us such specific physical details only when Otis is playing music? What is she saying about when Otis is most himself?
- Otis lets the animals out of their cages because he 'feels sorry for them being locked up.' Then he says, 'I know what it's like being locked up.' These two sentences connect his experience to his action. What kind of moral logic is DiCamillo describing here — the kind in which a person's own suffering becomes the source of their compassion for others?
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Vocabulary Builder
Item 1
happening without your choosing — your mind or body does it on its own, before you have decided
Item 2
describing something exactly as it is, without using comparison or symbol — the opposite of metaphorical
Item 3
won over or held in place by something that has acted on you — a charmed snake is one held still by a snake charmer's music
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Critical Thinking
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