The End of the Wild: Chapters 1–4

by Nicole Helget
Eleven-year-old Fern tries to prevent powerful entities from breaking up her family and polluting her small Michigan town.

Here are links to our lists for the novel: Chapters 1–4, Chapters 5–11, Chapters 12–19, Chapters 20–25
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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. tendril
    something long, light, slender, and often curling
    A gray tendril grows from just behind one ear. I don’t know why I have gray hairs at eleven years old.
  2. squat
    short and thick
    Another dog, short and squat, has brown ears down long.
  3. mottled
    having spots or patches of color
    One dog has nubs where his ears should be. And another, a mottled terrier that licks his nether regions, has one ear northwest and one ear southeast.
  4. canine
    a dog, wolf, jackal, or other closely related mammal
    A few regular-sized canines of other dog colors scratch their ears and bite away chunks of mud from between their toes.
  5. racket
    a loud and disturbing noise
    They bark at me and make a tetchy racket.
  6. muzzle
    forward projecting part of the head of certain animals
    He’s a yellow-and-brown German shepherd. The fur around his muzzle is silver with age.
  7. wily
    marked by skill in deception
    He’s a no-nonsense kind of dog. He’s wily and smart and courageous.
  8. coax
    influence or persuade by gentle and persistent urging
    “It’s okay,” I coax. “I’m not going to hurt you. It’s okay.”
  9. shard
    a broken piece of a brittle artifact
    This morning, the sunrise cuts like glass shards across the emptied cornfield, spills over the gravel road, and spears into the grove.
  10. gnarled
    old and twisted and covered in lines
    At the base of the oak tree, I stop. A hen-of-the-woods grows near the gnarled roots.
  11. hunch
    an impression that something might be the case
    I set the bone near the fence. I have a hunch Ranger will know it’s from me.
  12. unruly
    noisy and lacking in restraint or discipline
    My breath isn’t clipped short over minding my unruly brothers.
  13. rustle
    make a dry crackling sound
    After a few paces, footsteps rustle behind me again.
  14. intuition
    instinctive knowing, without the use of rational processes
    I spin with my weapon raised.
    But, again, no one’s there.
    Except my intuition tells me someone or something is.
  15. piercing
    painful as if caused by a sharp instrument
    A couple of steps back, I do see something walking toward me on the road. The angle of the piercing light makes it impossible to identify.
  16. hydraulic
    moved or operated or effected by liquid
    Up ahead, I’m surprised to see a bulldozer that reads KLOCHE’S HYDRAULIC FRACTURING parked on the side of the road.
  17. gape
    look with amazement
    For a while, all I can do is steady my air and gape at him until he turns around and disappears like a ghost into the woods.
  18. specimen
    an example regarded as typical of its class
    “Are we ready to study some bird specimens today?”
  19. delicate
    marked by great skill especially in meticulous technique
    Mr. Flores shrugs, then pulls out a glass case with what looks like a pink pigeon inside and places it delicately on the top of his desk.
  20. hypothesis
    a proposal intended to explain certain facts or observations
    “Sorry about your plants. But just because your data doesn’t support your hypothesis doesn’t mean that your project wasn’t successful.”
  21. aphid
    any of various small plant-sucking insects
    “What effect do aphids, or whatever kind of bugs they are, have on plants?”
    “Death,” says Mark-Richard.
  22. hijab
    a headscarf worn by Muslim women
    “At least everyone knows I have hair,” says Margot. “At least I’m not covering mine up all the time.”
    Alkomso straightens her hijab.
  23. fracking
    a method of extracting natural gas or oil from rock
    “What exactly is fracking?”
    “Drilling.”
    “Like, for oil?” I ask.
    “Sort of,” he says. “Natural gas. Miles and miles and miles beneath the surface.”
  24. outskirts
    area relatively far from the center, as of a city or town
    On the outskirts of Colter is where Alkomso and her family live in an apartment.
  25. hack
    chop or cut away
    Mom says Dad’s a lazy son of a gun for not cutting more. But I know where a dead tree finally fell down, so I’ll go out and hack off the easy branches.
  26. rafter
    one of several parallel sloping beams that support a roof
    He’s got three wild turkeys spread-eagle on a butchering table, and a headless, gutted deer strung up from the rafters.
  27. innards
    the organs in a body, collectively
    The head and a gloopy pile of innards rest on a garbage bag.
  28. poach
    hunt illegally
    I happen to know that Toivo can’t afford a hunting license and has gotten in trouble before for poaching. Unlike most other hunters, though, he doesn’t do it for fun. He does it because we need the food.
  29. reedy
    upright and slender
    Toivo is tall and reedy.
  30. venison
    meat from a deer used as food
    I think about the biscuit-and-ketchup sandwiches the boys and I choked down for lunch and how nice it would have been to have had a slice or two of venison sausage on them.
  31. fodder
    an inferior but widely available resource used to supply heavy demand
    If I get an F, it’ll just be more fodder for Grandpa to target Toivo.
  32. foreclosure
    proceedings initiated to repossess the collateral for a loan
    When Toivo was twelve, on the last week the mill was open before foreclosure shut it down, his father fell out of a tree and died.
  33. grouse
    popular game bird having a plump body and feathered legs
    When times are good, it’s full of fish and meat—walleye, grouse, duck, pheasant, turkey, venison, and bear.
  34. bauble
    cheap showy jewelry or ornament
    Instead, from a pail in a dark corner, I pull out four groundnuts, which look like small, knobby potatoes. They grow underground on long roots, spreading out like baubles on a necklace.
  35. pare
    strip the skin off
    With a sharp paring knife, I flick the peelings off the groundnuts and soften them up in the boiling water.
  36. muffled
    being or made softer or less loud or clear
    “Oh, Fern. Fern.” Grandpa’s words are muffled.
  37. knack
    a special way of doing something
    But Grandpa has a knack for doing something that makes you mad at him all over again in a hurry.
  38. prune
    cultivate, tend, and cut back the growth of
    Grandpa’s property is surrounded by ornamental trees, perfectly pruned and perfectly spaced, not my idea of a woods. Woods should be wild, with animal trails and bird fights and overgrown plants.
  39. guffaw
    laugh boisterously
    Grandpa guffaws. “I doubt that.”
  40. concoction
    an occurrence of an unusual mixture
    Toivo makes a natural concoction for headaches, nausea, chills, and what have you.
Created on Thu Oct 13 20:22:16 EDT 2022 (updated Tue Sep 12 15:34:16 EDT 2023)

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