The Unfinished Angel: Peoples–My Territory

by Sharon Creech
An American girl named Zola arrives in a small Swiss village and encounters an angel awaiting a mission.

Here are links to our lists for the novel: Peoples–My Territory, Swishing in the Night–Meatballs, The Nature of Zola–What the Angel Knows

Here is a link to our lists for Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech.
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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. loll
    be lazy or idle
    What is my mission? I think I should have been told. I have been lolling around in the stone tower of Casa Rosa, waiting to find out.
  2. promenade
    a public area set aside as a pedestrian walk
    I am free to come and go in the mountain villages, free to float along the promenade on the lake, free to swish up through the Alps to mountain huts, free to spend days and nights floating and swishing.
  3. harmony
    compatibility in opinion and action
    He tells Signora Divino, his neighbor, “We will bring all the children from all over the world and we will live in harmony!”
  4. incivility
    deliberate discourtesy
    Signora Divino turns toward the foof and then returns her stare to Mr. Pomodoro, who says, “I am weary of incivility.”
  5. crude
    conspicuously and tastelessly indecent
    “You know,” Mr. Pomodoro continues, “bad manners, burping, crude language, that sort of thing.”
  6. cretin
    a person of subnormal intelligence
    “Uck!” Signora Divino says. “Idiots! Cretins!”
  7. duvet
    a soft quilt usually filled with down
    Also in this room is a narrow cot covered with a worn feather duvet, and a small desk with a candle on it.
  8. bellow
    make a loud noise, as of an animal
    Sometimes when the wind is blowering hard and bellowing like a bull, I slip through the trip door and into the bed with the feather duvet.
  9. barge
    push one's way
    Honestly! Peoples, what do they think? They can barge in and move angels out?
  10. assume
    take to be the case or to be true
    “Mmm. Well, then, if you are going to continue to live here, I assume you will help me.”
    I do not like her assuming that I will help her.
  11. hover
    hang in the air; fly or be suspended above
    As Zola turns to zag her way back down the steps, she adds, “Feel free to hover about”—she waves a fig-smudged hand through the air—“and get the feel of things.
  12. intervene
    get involved, so as to alter or hinder an action
    Intervene? Of course I will intervene ... if I choose to.
  13. goodwill
    a disposition to kindness and compassion
    Angels are supposed to float about bringing love and goodwill and protection and good fortune, no?
  14. turquoise
    a shade of blue tinged with green
    Everything is very bright colors, some colors I do not know the names for, more than raspberry and emerald and turquoise and periwinkle (that is a color, right?), yellows like the sun and the birds, and oranges like the apricots and the tangerines and the melons.
  15. fleece
    the outer coat of an animal, especially sheep and yaks
    “Fur, fleece? From a lamb?” Zola presses her dainty hands to her chest.
  16. crucial
    of the greatest importance
    “How especially perfect,” she says, quite seriously, as if Signora Mondopoco has just offered a crucial fact of existence.
  17. straggle
    go, come, or spread in a rambling or irregular way
    Zola scrambles over the fence and up the hill and peers in through the straggly wire fencing.
  18. scavenge
    collect discarded or refused material
    “They’re probably out scavenging for food,” she says.
  19. gnaw
    bite or chew on with the teeth
    They are huddled in a corner under one torn blanket and they are gnawing at a loaf of bread.
  20. snivel
    cry or whine with snuffling
    The youngest one, maybe he is five or six years old, is sniveling. “Mama,” he whimpers. “I want Mama.”
  21. hobble
    walk unevenly due to pain, injury, or weakness
    Signora Divino hobbles out of her house in her pink bed jacket (again!) and says many ugly words to Zola in Italian and Zola says them right back at her, even though I do not think Zola knows what they mean.
  22. sincerely
    without pretense
    “I most sincerely doubt that,” Zola says, and she leaves, which makes Vinny even madder, because he is left with only his grandma to give the show-off to.
  23. mushy
    very sentimental or emotional
    First, I tell you that I am in peace with the birdies and the froggies and the toads and the kittens and the puppies and the lizards, all
    of those creatures, just like I am in peace with the mountains and the trees and the flowers, but let’s not get too mushy.
  24. ponder
    reflect deeply on a subject
    “Mm” and “ah” and “erm,” he mumbles. He tapples rapidly into his dimputer, tapple, tapple, tapple, pauses, looks up, ponders the ceiling, resumes tappling.
  25. accustomed
    in the habit of or adapted to
    She seems accustomed to this.
  26. sprawl
    sit or lie with one's limbs spread out
    At Zola’s doorway, he sees her sprawled on the floor with her feet up on the bed, a stack of paperback novels beside her and one in her hand, which she is reading.
  27. snatch
    grasp hastily or eagerly
    Oh, Angel, the little boy snatched the box of cookies and fled to the basement and ate the cookies, all of them.
  28. jagged
    having a sharply uneven surface or outline
    She keeps rocks: jagged rocks, smooth rocks, big rocks, little rocks.
  29. puny
    inferior in strength or significance
    I am hundreds of years old, and she is just a puny few-years-old people. Maybe ten. Maybe twelve. Maybe eight. Puh!
  30. reassure
    cause to feel confident
    I am about to reassure her that I am perfectly calm when we hear boom, boom, boom-de-boom, boom, boom, boom-de-boom.
Created on Tue Dec 15 14:53:09 EST 2015 (updated Mon Sep 17 16:23:44 EDT 2018)

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