Unit 3: Genre Study 1 – Realistic Fiction

And it was on one of their climbs, on one of those blue days that was gushing into a bright copper, that Turner reached up and put his hand on something wet and clammy and slimy and moving, recoiled with a yelp, and startled Lizzie beneath him.

But the waves kept turning the bow from Malaga, and the oars kept slipping out of the locks, and by the time he had gotten them back in, the boat had skewed all around and was slipping up and down in the troughs.

"Head the dory...the dory into the waves," said Lizzie feebly.

But he turned into it anyway, rowing with all the might he could summon in his drained arms, pushing back with his legs and grunting with each pull, not even calling to Lizzie because he could not speak and pull at the same time.

As more and more stars roused themselves, he rowed.

Then another, and another almost beside the boat, so that he could feel the spray of it against his face, and the dory rocked to the rhythm of the new swells as a great Presence broke the surface of the sea and Turner knew, or felt, the vastness of the whales.

I had a dilemma and wondered if I should confess to him that I was afraid to skate.

If nothing else, I was persistent.