Chapter 22 · Lily's Crossing

Copywork

Lily could see his hands clasped tight together, and his knees clenched. He was shaking as if he were cold on that hot afternoon.

There was another tremendous streak of lightning. It lit the porch, and the whole of the sky, and she could see in the distance a rowboat at the edge of the bay, about to cross through the edge of the marshes. It was Albert.

Lily thinks, “All he had done was keep his eyes closed.” Then why is Albert shaking as he tells her?

For the educator Two passages, five sentences. The first is from the boat the other afternoon, while Albert tells Lily his story. Its first sentence joins two things Lily sees with a comma and “and,” and leaves the verb out of the second half: “and his knees clenched.” The second is a simile built with “as if,” and it uses “were” after “as if,” the form for something that is not really so: he is not cold, and the afternoon is hot. The second passage is the end of the chapter. A short sentence gives the flash. A long one piles up what the flash shows, joined by “and,” and ends on a rowboat “about to cross.” Then three words. That is the talk. Running home, Lily thinks, “All he had done was keep his eyes closed,” which makes what Albert did sound small; his body, as he tells it, does not. One student may say he shakes from fear as he remembers the hospital people and the Nazis in France; another may say he shakes from shame, because “I could have stayed.” Either is good if it points to the page. The vocabulary words clenched and tremendous stand in these passages. Leave the hinge alone here, since whether shutting his eyes was a lie is the last written question, and claim nothing about why Albert is in the rowboat.

Discussion

Narration Tell back Lily’s afternoon, from Poppy’s letter to the rowboat in the lightning. Then tell what Albert told her in the boat the other afternoon.

Mrs. Hailey says she was crabby. Lily starts to say no, then smiles and rolls her eyes. Why doesn’t she say no? Character
In the boat, Lily tells Albert what Gram might say. The war will end, and Ruth will come. Do those words help him, or make him feel worse? Character
Lily is crying so hard she can barely see Albert’s face. What is she crying about? Character
Lily asks Albert, “Promise?” We never hear his answer. Why might Giff leave it out? Author's choice

Make a Connection Think of a story, or a time in your own life, when one friend asked another for a promise. What made that promise easy or hard to keep?

Vocabulary

crabby: I know I was crabby the other day Grumpy and short-tempered, the way Mrs. Hailey was on a hot, tiring day.
vibration: Outside the window was a sudden flash of lightning, and then a clap of thunder, so close they could feel the vibration. A fast shaking you can feel, like the thunder Lily and Mrs. Hailey felt inside the library.
spattered: The wind picked up papers and swirled them into doorways, and huge drops spattered the dust along the boulevard. Hit a surface in scattered drops, the way the first rain struck the dusty street.
clenched: Lily could see his hands clasped tight together, and his knees clenched. Pressed together hard and tight, as Albert held his knees while he told his secret.
breakers: Lily could see him looking toward the sea, the waves high, breakers crashing onto the beach. Big waves that curl over and crash as they reach the shore.
tremendous: There was another tremendous streak of lightning. Huge and powerful, much bigger than usual.
plucked: Mrs. Hailey plucked it off the shelf in back of her and stamped it with the end of her pencil. Picked something off quickly with the fingers, as Mrs. Hailey took the book down.

Critical thinking

Lily thinks the moose head is a thousand years old. Later she thinks she has told “a thousand lies.” Is she being fair to herself?
Albert shut his eyes so the hospital people would not take him away with Ruth. Was that a lie?