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Copywork
About This Passage
Kate DiCamillo opens an interior room inside a character with the single word 'secretly.' Four short sentences move from external behavior (agreeing) to internal truth (good company). This is the technique of compressed characterization — full inner life delivered in a paragraph.
Baby agrees with everything Eugenia says. It is easier that way. But secretly Baby has an opinion of her own. Baby's opinion is that Mercy is good company.
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Discussion Questions
Narration Prompt
Summarize the chapter, then explain what the author wanted you to notice about how the two sisters relate.
Discussion Questions
- Baby agrees with Eugenia out loud while secretly disagreeing. The text calls this 'easier that way.' Is the easier path the wiser one here, or the cowardly one? Where would Aristotle's golden mean fall — between Eugenia's loud certainty and Baby's silent dissent?
- Eugenia uses elevated, formal speech ('a crisis of an uncertain nature') for a domestic problem (a pig at a window). Mr. Watson did the same in chapter 3 ('I know exactly what we must do'). Kate DiCamillo gives both characters this verbal armor. What is being claimed about the relationship between certainty and competence?
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Vocabulary Builder
Item 1
a personal judgment, distinguished from a verifiable fact
Item 2
in a manner concealed from others; an adverb whose moral weight depends on what is concealed
Item 3
a moment of acute danger or decision; from Greek krisis, a turning point
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Critical Thinking
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