Cold Cereal: Chapters 23–29

by Adam Rex
In this first book of the Cold Cereal Saga, eleven-year-old gifted students Scott Doe and Emily and Erno Utz discover that the Goode and Harmliss Toasted Cereal Company is not as sweet as its products.

Here are links to our lists for the novel: Prologue–Chapter 6, Chapters 7–13, Chapters 14–22, Chapters 23–29, Chapters 30–40
40 words 6 learners

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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. reprobate
    a person without moral scruples
    “Inhothpitable mithcreants! Thcoundrelth! Dithcourteouth reprobateth!”
  2. atonal
    characterized by avoidance of traditional musical scales
    Biggs was still cradling Emily, and possibly singing something atonally.
  3. diaphanous
    so thin as to transmit light
    She was pallid and clothed in diaphanous tatters; and Fergus thought she could be beautiful if only she fixed her hair, or at least combed the worms out of it.
  4. keen
    express grief verbally
    Finchbriton sang out loud and clear and set the tops of trees ablaze, while the bean-sidhe keened and wailed and fell to her knees.
  5. tithe
    an offering of a tenth part of some personal income
    The superstitious fairies (an' we're all a little superstitious) revive all the old stories abou' elves going to hell to pay a tithe to the devil, but truth is, it's not just the Fay disappearin'.
  6. cudgel
    a club that is used as a weapon
    They were approaching from all sides. Men in long coats and top hats, a barefooted boy. A peddler pushing a cart hung with knives and holding a long whetstone like a cudgel.
  7. substantial
    fairly large
    Within a week the Telegraph warned that substantial numbers of hungry Irishmen might now be posing as infants, looking to be fed.
  8. intimate
    imply as a possibility
    A chapbook published later that year intimated that the little man may well have been a changeling—an Old World fairy left in place of a stolen child—but of course this theory was widely regarded as hogwash.
  9. apparition
    a ghostly appearing figure
    More than once a dog, unable to see him but still haunted by apparitions of smell and sound, would whimper or bark in his direction.
  10. kelpie
    a water spirit in the form of a horse
    Was it some strange kelpie? No, it wasn't dripping anything, especially.
  11. addled
    confused and vague; used especially of thinking
    They trap our kind. They take our magic, I know not why. I escaped, but I am drained, and my glamour is addled.
  12. neurosis
    a mental illness that makes you behave in an unusual way
    E2 exhibits normal socialization skills and no verifiable neuroses.
  13. conventional
    conforming with accepted standards
    Her IQ, as previously stated, is too high to be measured in any conventional sense.
  14. devise
    come up with after a mental effort
    There was even an unfinished verse in the margins, possibly the clue to some new game he'd been devising.
  15. copse
    a dense growth of trees, shrubs, or bushes
    When this second ATV rider rounded a copse of trees, he saw, in the pink of his helmet-mounted arc light, a squinting old man with a tiny head.
  16. prostrate
    stretched out and lying at full length along the ground
    “See,” said Mick to the rider, who was now unconscious and prostrate on the ground, “I says, ‘Yeh have somethin' in your eye.' An’ then you says, ‘What have I got in my eye?' An’ then I says, ‘My fist.' Yeh did it wrong.”
  17. apprise
    inform somebody of something
    Just wanted to keep you apprised of the situation: up to now I've been missing on purpose, because Goodco wanted your friends alive. But I just got a kill order. To kill you.
  18. gait
    a person's manner of walking
    The guards carrying their crate trudged along out of the park, their gaits swaying the crate in a constant tide that was getting Erno a little queasy.
  19. subdue
    put down by force or intimidation
    Somewhere, close by, still more soldiers were carrying the unconscious body of Biggs. It had taken ten men to subdue him.
  20. mollify
    cause to be more favorably inclined
    “You're not old enough for the front,” Mick argued.
    “You're not big enough,” Scott answered. He mollified himself by imagining Mick wriggling in a big plastic car seat.
  21. chide
    scold or reprimand severely or angrily
    But still she touched Erno on the hand, a touch that chided, Don't be mean.
  22. scant
    less than the correct or legal or full amount
    Their eyes adjusted to the scant moonlight slicing in through high windows.
  23. limpid
    clear and bright
    Mick lit a match and tossed it, and then both guards were encircled by a wall of limpid flame.
  24. ether
    a highly inflammable liquid formerly used as an anesthetic
    Amid these was a glass jar with the word ether spelled on the side in flaking gold.
  25. monolithic
    imposing in size or bulk or solidity
    How the ride plummeted and rocked, spun and lurched through the air and past monolithic teeth.
  26. prone
    having a tendency
    “Also unpredictable, unstable, occasionally emotional—"
    “Also that. And prone to physical frailty and dizzy spells. All symptoms I think we'll neglect to mention in the cereal commercials.”
  27. disdainful
    expressing extreme contempt
    “He's a sensitive soul,” he said with a disdainful air. “Never stops talking about his ugly little grandchildren.”
  28. logy
    sluggish and slow to react
    Erno started to climb over the logy body of the surgeon, then thought better of it and first heaved the man farther into the cage.
  29. quail
    draw back, as with fear or pain
    The tall man saw the flames, saw the weird light show, and quailed.
  30. tourniquet
    a bandage that stops the flow of blood by applying pressure
    He was still breathing, so Erno tied his hands and feet with some rubber tourniquet bands.
  31. piebald
    having sections or patches colored differently and brightly
    They had managed to pull him, in this fashion, through a large but empty kitchen, into a service elevator, out of the service elevator, and down a long and dimly lit hall across a piebald red carpet.
  32. mezzanine
    intermediate floor just above the ground floor
    There were two doors in this hall, one labeled MEZZANINE A and the other MEZZANINE B.
  33. proscenium
    the part of a stage between the curtain and the orchestra
    They were overlooking a vast hall with a proscenium arch and stage at one end. It was curtained in black and pink and flanked by two tremendous pillars carved to look like wheat.
  34. wizened
    lean and wrinkled by shrinkage as from age or illness
    Here and there sat robed figures—some hooded, some with hoods drawn back to reveal wizened, spotty heads and feathery white hair.
  35. staccato
    marked by or composed of disconnected parts or sounds
    Then some prancing, staccato music started, and the grand universal mysteries were unveiled by way of a middle-aged man cavorting around the stage in green tights.
  36. spry
    moving quickly and lightly
    “I am a leprechaun, spry and free—
    slipped through a rip in re-al-i-ty—
    lost and alone as an elf can be—
    poor little wee little me!”
  37. brood
    the young of an animal cared for at one time
    Come along with us and we'll give you food
    and make you a part of our happy brood!
  38. tenor
    the general meaning or substance of an utterance
    Just then the mood and tenor of everything changed. Cymbals crashed. The music turned very operatic, and the theater lights dimmed to a dusky red.
  39. wispy
    thin and weak
    Rich with the magic sheared and shorn
    from lep-re-chaun and uni-corn
    we open reality's wispy veil
    and bring that vale a whale!
  40. procession
    the action of a group moving ahead in regular formation
    From their vantage point at the rear of the mezzanine, they'd missed the slow procession through the hall below of pallbearers carrying, between them, a mock whale decked out like a parade float.
Created on Wed Dec 14 11:45:05 EST 2022 (updated Fri Oct 06 13:21:12 EDT 2023)

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