Endangered: Chapters 14–19

by Eliot Schrefer
Fourteen-year-old Sophie rescues a young chimp named Otto while visiting a wildlife sanctuary in the Democratic Republic of Congo. But when the president is assassinated, Sophie must figure out how to protect Otto in a country at war.

Here are links to our lists for the novel: Chapters 1–5, Chapters 6–13, Chapters 14–19, Chapters 20–27
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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. wary
    marked by keen caution and watchful prudence
    They seemed to be like the bonobos: once jolted and forever wary.
  2. forage
    collect or look around for, as food
    I didn’t have an exact plan of what to do, but since the capital was about thirty kilometers away, basically west, Otto and I could walk away from the morning sun and get there in maybe two days, taking trails or following streambeds and foraging as we went.
  3. jubilant
    full of high-spirited delight
    Songololo’s jubilant shrieks were very loud.
  4. resolutely
    showing firm determination or purpose
    Fine, I thought as I kept walking, resolutely not turning around.
  5. purge
    rid of impurities
    They greeted loudly, calling and rubbing against one another to purge the anxiety of their new surroundings.
  6. havoc
    violent and needless disturbance
    After the havoc of the morning, Mushie neglected to build me a nest that night, so I slept on the ground.
  7. sprawling
    spreading out in different directions
    Kinshasa was a sprawling city of ten million, and if we headed west we’d be sure to hit some part of it.
  8. discreet
    marked by prudence or modesty and wise self-restraint
    Discreet as I tried to be, Songololo spotted us and scrambled out of Ikwa’s nest and down the tree.
  9. habitat
    the type of environment in which an organism normally lives
    But this region wasn’t natural bonobo habitat, so it hadn’t crossed my mind that there would be any bushmeat hunters around.
  10. wield
    handle effectively
    He wielded his useless arm like a club, flexing his powerful shoulder muscles to hurl it against the ground while he barked.
  11. gawk
    look with amazement
    The bonobos still in their nests kept shrieking while those of us nearby gawked at Pweto.
  12. hindrance
    any obstruction that impedes or is burdensome
    I put the duffel back on, despite the hindrance of Songololo’s grasping arms, and waited for Otto to climb aboard.
  13. extricate
    release from entanglement or difficulty
    I tried to extricate my fingers from hers, but she held tight.
  14. subsist
    support oneself
    The idea of subsisting on greenery alone — of prolonging that full-yet-empty stabbing sensation in my stomach — was totally unappealing, but the leaves would keep me alive.
  15. pry
    move or force in an effort to get something open
    Anastasia prodded Songololo, pried her eyes open with her fingers, only to have her daughter, in a move that looked familiar from my own typical Saturday morning behavior, roll over, groan, and put her arms over her face.
  16. hearten
    give encouragement to
    Then he finally gave in, and the raspy laughter he made heartened me a little.
  17. thoroughfare
    a public road from one place to another
    Still, the fact that roving gangs were free to travel on the main thoroughfare didn’t bode well for the condition of the capital.
  18. preferable
    more desirable than another
    I had no idea what I was walking into, but I knew one thing for sure: It was preferable to falling into that soldier’s hands on a lonely road.
  19. context
    the set of facts or circumstances that surround a situation
    It was fear that, in the context of survival, was doing what fear was meant to do; all my edges were left sharp.
  20. sluggish
    moving slowly
    I dismounted to see a sluggish train of women and children and the occasional man, slogging through the mud in their best clothes.
  21. hilarious
    extremely funny; causing laughter
    The smallest daughter found the process of moving as a group hilarious, giggled, and kept her dancing eyes trained on Otto.
  22. logistics
    supplying an operation with labor and materials as needed
    When I say that help can’t get in, it’s partly logistics — the runway was bombed out.
  23. mandate
    a formal statement of a command to do something
    Maybe there was a UN mandate that calling an animal endangered worked like clicking ruby slippers, and meant they’d have to drop everything and whisk us to safety.
  24. impoverished
    poor enough to need help from others
    How did a bunch of impoverished scraggly Rwandan mercenaries overthrow the standing government of the Democratic Republic of Congo?
  25. commotion
    a disorderly outburst or tumult
    A pair of guards was rushing toward the helicopter with crates in hand, and in the distance I heard commotion, heated complaints in Lingala.
  26. irk
    irritate or vex
    Irked at me, he jumped up and down a couple of times, ran a lap around the open space, and finally, spent, plopped down beside me.
  27. carcass
    the dead body of an animal
    Flies hovered over the carcasses, landing in the creases of their closed eyes.
  28. atone
    turn away from sin or do penitence
    If I had taken a healthy young bonobo and shot her, I could repent and atone.
  29. preoccupied
    having excessive or compulsive concern with something
    Otto had calmed somewhat and was preoccupied with trying to bring the smaller bonobo back to life, lying next to her and murping, blowing on her mouth, trying to get her to react.
  30. catapult
    shoot forth or launch
    Not that I had the strength to do the kinds of acrobatic leaps Otto was pulling off, hitting a stiff reed and using the rebound to catapult to the next.
  31. tolerant
    able to endure environmental conditions or stress
    I wanted to give him some of the purified water, but he was drinking like the bonobos in the sanctuary did, and I figured his system was more tolerant than mine.
  32. bedraggle
    make wet and dirty, as from rain
    I watched him decide whether to respond to the bedraggled half-white girl wearing a nervous ape.
  33. appraise
    consider in a comprehensive way
    I saw him appraise me, and had a pretty good guess what he was thinking.
  34. remorse
    a feeling of deep regret, usually for some misdeed
    Maybe I was tired, and feeling bad for lost clothing served as a place to shove a bunch of feelings: fear and stress and that nagging remorse over two furry bodies holding each other beneath a tree.
  35. secluded
    hidden from general view or use
    Nervous about attacks, we took whatever food we bought upriver a ways before pulling into secluded reeds to eat.
Created on Wed Dec 31 21:00:54 EST 2014 (updated Wed Sep 05 14:56:50 EDT 2018)

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