Lily's Crossing

Chapter 14

Patricia Reilly Giff · Trailblazers 4th–6th

Teaching Companion Print Adapt for your student

Copywork

The marshes were closing in around them, and there was the dry rustle of the reeds hitting the sides of the boat and scraping the bottom.

It was a huge ship, its top tangle of turrets and masts. For a moment, they didn’t say anything. They sat there watching, the rowboat rocking gently, until the ship disappeared into the mist again.

Nobody talks in either passage. What do the reeds and the ship tell you about what is going on between Lily and Albert?

For the educator Two passages, four sentences, in story order. Each sits beside a silence. The first follows “Lily didn’t say anything,” after Albert tells her about the Danube, and comes shortly before he asks, “How long?” It is one long sentence in two parts joined by a comma and “and.” The second part, “there was the dry rustle of the reeds,” runs on into two phrases built on -ing words, “hitting the sides of the boat and scraping the bottom,” so the sentence keeps going the way the reeds keep scraping. Say “dry rustle” aloud: the words sound like what they name. The second passage comes a moment after Albert says Ruth is his family and points, and it holds the second silence. Its first sentence is a main clause, then a comma and a phrase with no main verb of its own, “its top tangle of turrets and masts,” where the t sounds pile up like the towers. The middle sentence is short and opens with a phrase and a comma. The last sentence tucks a phrase between commas, “the rowboat rocking gently,” before the “until” that sends the ship back into the mist. For the talk, a student may say the closing marshes make the boat feel shut in just before Albert’s hardest question closes in on Lily, or that the ship makes Albert’s plan feel real, out there on the water. Either is a reading of Giff’s choice; look for one tied to what is said just before each passage. Claim nothing about whose ship it is.

Discussion

Narration Tell back the chapter in order. Start with Lily lying awake under her red quilt, and stop when she turns the boat toward the canal.

Rowing out, Lily tells Albert how to go far: “save your arms.” A little later, he asks her to teach him to swim. Why might he ask right then? Character
Lily knows the Danube only from a song in her piano book. What does Albert’s gray river tell her that the song can’t? Inference
Lily has known Margaret since they could walk, but Margaret doesn’t count. What makes a friend count for Lily? Theme
Albert tells Lily he was teasing her that day on the beach. Is that good news for her, or bad news? Tone
Albert guesses Lily won’t take him because she thinks he can’t keep up, or thinks he is a coward. Why is he so sure the problem is him? Character

Make a Connection Think of a story, or a time in your own life, when someone believed in a plan with their whole heart. How did the people around them treat that hope?

Vocabulary

rustle: The marshes were closing in around them, and there was the dry rustle of the reeds hitting the sides of the boat and scraping the bottom. A soft, dry, brushing sound, like tall grass rubbing against the rowboat.
turrets: It was a huge ship, its top tangle of turrets and masts. Small towers on top of a ship or a castle, like those on the huge ship Lily and Albert see in the mist.
uneasily: She thought about it a little uneasily. In a worried, not quite comfortable way, the way Lily thinks about the night ahead with Albert.
trembled: His lip trembled a little. Shook a little because of strong feeling, as Albert’s lip does when he speaks of Europe.
vaguely: Vaguely she heard Gram’s radio, the end of Lux Radio Theatre, and then music. Only a little and not clearly, the way sounds reach you as you drift off to sleep.

Critical thinking

Lily tells Albert, “You could never learn to swim the Atlantic in a summer.” Every word of that is true. How honest is she being?
Albert now wants to swim out to a ship because of the story Lily made up. What does she owe him?