Funeral Songs for Dying Girls: List 4

by Cherie Dimaline
Living in the Toronto cemetery where her father works and her mother is buried, sixteen-year-old Winifred Blight often wanders around the graves at night, which leads to the belief that they would be a good moneymaking addition to a haunted ghost tour.

This list covers "Find Me"–"Invasion."

Here are links to our lists for the novel: List 1, List 2, List 3, List 4, List 5
40 words 10 learners

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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. smitten
    marked by foolish or unreasoning fondness
    But I was smitten. I would drive that war machine to hook the kraken himself. I’d hang his ugly hide from the pole like a hideous flag. I spent every day for the next twenty years on that soggy deck, and it was the love of my life.
  2. beseech
    ask for or request earnestly
    “Whatcha doing?” I tried to be casual, but I imagined he had been whispering to the suitcase, beseeching the dust for coordinates to a secret meeting place.
  3. assessment
    the act of judging a person or situation or event
    “Cute. Look at you, you big nerd.”
    It was a fair assessment. I had my black-rimmed reading glasses on, and an oversized turquoise silk robe covered in giant pink peonies.
  4. groove
    a long narrow furrow cut by a natural process or a tool
    I pulled out the Neil Young’s Greatest Hits album, stood and walked over to the turntable. I moved the needle to the last groove and the first notes of “Harvest Moon” filled the room like fabric run loose off the bolt.
  5. saunter
    walk leisurely and with no apparent aim
    We’d been running drills for a week already and I was in line for layups when Jennifer sauntered in, went over to Mr. P with a class schedule, and then took a seat in the bleachers.
  6. wayward
    difficult to manage or keep in order
    Then she picked up my wayward ball, dribbled it a few times, and tossed it back to me.
  7. turret
    a small tower extending above a building
    After the last bell, I followed her back through the bush to her townhouse on a corner lot in the complex. It was narrow and had three stories, like a turret.
  8. evasive
    avoiding or escaping from difficulty or danger
    Sleep was evasive, but I refused to fill the hours with anything other than a gentle swing in the hammock, counting the cracks on the ceiling until they jumped and snapped into patterns.
  9. intrigue
    cause to be interested or curious
    Decades later, a researcher was wandering the mountains, taking in the local flora, when he noticed what appeared to be a fig tree growing on the side of a hill. He was intrigued; figs didn’t grow in this region.
  10. spur
    incite or stimulate
    That seed in his stomach grew and, nourished by the decay of its host and spurred on by the spotlight of sun, had extended its woody arms toward the sky in one last, long hallelujah.
  11. ether
    a medium that was once thought to fill all space
    How could she not have been the one to follow my voice through whatever crack in the ether had allowed in this strange girl?
  12. chastise
    scold or criticize severely
    Since the afternoon at the Peak when she chastised me for asking too many questions I was careful to dole them out slow.
  13. futile
    unproductive of success
    “Phil, will this even work? I mean, will braids stay?” I was thinking about her futile attempts to color in her nails.
  14. prone
    lying face downward
    We fake bowed to each other while remaining prone, wiggling against the weave, giggling at each other’s ridiculous gestures while trying to keep the bed steady.
  15. tribulation
    an annoying or frustrating or catastrophic event
    Eventually we settled back down, slowly swinging and listening to Dolly’s trials and tribulations on low, just a twangy whisper in the background.
  16. laden
    filled with a great quantity
    Carts laden with fake jade and smiling Buddha statues rattled as they were pulled inside for the night.
  17. trundle
    cause to move by turning over or in a circular manner
    Trucks wheezed down narrow streets, pans clattered through the open back doors of a bakery, old ladies in kerchiefs trundled buggies up the sidewalk and the fruit sellers were making pyramids out of oranges.
  18. erratic
    likely to perform unpredictably
    And then the ground starts shaking. Except it’s not the ground, it’s the fence. It starts subtle and then gets faster, more erratic, and I change my grip, hold the pole and the pokey top links that bite into my palms.
  19. crass
    so unrefined as to be offensive or insensitive
    My teeth chattered just thinking about them, what they could be saying, who had something funny or crass to say about my stupid broken heart, but I refused to even look in that direction.
  20. pedestrian
    lacking wit or imagination
    I’d always thought if I needed her bad enough, she’d come. That she wouldn’t let something as routine as birth, something as pedestrian as death, slice her away from her child like a piece of crust.
  21. abscess
    a localized collection of pus surrounded by inflamed tissue
    Could I scoop her up like a handful of ashes and keep her in my pocket to replace the absence of her that had settled there like an abscess?
  22. vitality
    an energetic style
    Here were the swing sets and plastic playhouses of children, leaning against the chain-link fence like red dresses at a funeral, gaudy in all their vitality, hemmed in by black grief and gray fetishes of death.
  23. lull
    a pause during which things are calm
    It was just after morning rush hour, so even the road was quiet. And in the lull I heard a hundred different calls: cicadas, grasshoppers, frogs, bees.
  24. scour
    examine minutely
    I went all the way to the Peak this way, eyes searching, ears scouring.
  25. scuttle
    move about or proceed hurriedly
    She was on her hands and knees in the dirt, as if she had scuttled up the incline that way, coming to a sudden stop before collision.
  26. relent
    give in, as to influence or pressure
    She relented, pushing herself into standing, arms akimbo.
  27. indignation
    a feeling of righteous anger
    “I’m wandering away.”
    I had these weird feelings—maybe indignation, or frustration? And also guilt. And definitely panic. I didn’t want her to go, not like this, not mad at me.
  28. sparse
    not dense or plentiful
    She cut into the tall weeds, through the bushes, and into the sparse woods.
  29. viscous
    having the sticky properties of an adhesive
    But I couldn’t find a way to take it back so I left it there, stuck in the viscous air between us.
  30. volatility
    the quality of being unpredictable and affected by emotion
    “Mind your own damn business. Jesus, can’t a girl have a conversation with her little cousin without bystanders? Christ.” They quickly turned away from her volatility.
  31. imposing
    impressive in appearance
    Walking through the front gate, the fences felt less imposing. If I jumped, I was sure I could touch the top links.
  32. meekly
    in a submissive or spiritless manner
    The door slammed and Tay screamed her worst insult—“You’re not punk at all!” Candy meekly waved from behind the soft-tinted glass.
  33. rend
    tear or be torn violently
    I was without him for the first time in years, and it was rending.
  34. cacophony
    loud confusing disagreeable sounds
    At eight o’clock, the tour bus drove up in a cacophony of air brakes and exhaust.
  35. threshold
    the entrance for passing through a room or building
    I watched from our front door, standing on the threshold in half safety.
  36. garish
    tastelessly showy
    It was weird to have so many live people here, not grieving, not saying goodbye in that quiet, useless way mourners did, but straight-up living. It was garish.
  37. falter
    move hesitatingly, as if about to give way
    Dad and I faltered, not really sure where we should head.
  38. eulogy
    a formal expression of praise for someone who has died
    I had to keep my mind as still as possible, free of any thoughts of her, so I went into the chapel. It was a small, tidy space. Wooden pews enough to hold eighty, a simple altar at the front painted red with a pulpit for eulogies, and a triptych of windows behind.
  39. triptych
    art consisting of a painting or carving on three panels
    I had to keep my mind as still as possible, free of any thoughts of her, so I went into the chapel. It was a small, tidy space. Wooden pews enough to hold eighty, a simple altar at the front painted red with a pulpit for eulogies, and a triptych of windows behind.
  40. interloper
    someone who intrudes on the privacy or property of another
    It felt safer in this stomach than being outside right now with so many interlopers, with the heaviness of my father, pretending he was just playing reliable staff member in the midst of his personal crisis.
Created on Wed May 29 10:15:55 EDT 2024 (updated Thu May 30 11:49:22 EDT 2024)

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