A Tangle of Knots: The Owner–Marigold

by Lisa Graff
Author Lisa Graff cooks up a plot with magical ingredients and just the right amount of sweetness as she tells this tale of an orphan with a talent for baking and a mysterious past. Will this list of words be a piece of cake for you?

Here are links to our lists for the novel: Prologue–V, The Owner–Marigold, V–Epilogue
40 words 48 learners

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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. agility
    the gracefulness of a quick and nimble person or animal
    And, with an agility he hadn’t been able to muster in years, the Owner swept his hands through the register drawers, plucking out every last bill.
  2. maestro
    an artist of consummate skill
    But no matter how hard she tried to position her tongue and her lips and her fingers the way Maestro Messina instructed, the notes still came out sour.
  3. bewildered
    extremely confused and uncertain what to do
    Standing there, seeming lost and a little bewildered, was a woman of about sixty.
  4. decipher
    make out the meaning of
    And although Marigold knew that V couldn’t understand the words she was saying, somehow she deciphered the meaning.
  5. responsible
    worthy of or requiring trust; held accountable
    “You’re my responsible one, Marigold,” her mother went on, “and I would like you to do this simple favor for your father. You’ll have plenty of time for Talent-fishing later.”
  6. savor
    derive or receive pleasure from
    But it had been fifty-three years already—he could certainly savor this moment the way it was meant to be savored.
  7. appropriate
    take possession of by force
    The Owner had always believed that there was really only one Talent you needed in this world: The Talent for appropriating other people’s Talents.
  8. opaque
    not transmitting or reflecting light or radiant energy
    Where just a moment ago there had been nothing, now suddenly there was the Talent the Owner had plucked from the man in the gray suit, clean and condensed and opaque, like an ice cube.
  9. dissipate
    cause to separate and go in different directions
    As the Owner reached for the lid to the jar, the Talent began to dissipate, just as the Talents always did if you left them to their own devices.
  10. retrieve
    get or find back; recover the use of
    Suddenly he was Sir Will, a brave knight whose job it was to retrieve precious stolen objects from spooky evil wizards.
  11. instinct
    inborn pattern of behavior often responsive to stimuli
    The Owner's first instinct was to chase after him, but then his eyes fell to the powder blue suitcase on the bed.
  12. utensil
    an implement for practical use
    Utensils. Dozens and dozens of knickknacks and gadgets were inside. Rolling pins. Eggbeaters. Thermometers. Scoopers, scrapers, sheers, slotted spoons. Toast tongs. Mashers, peelers, corers, mincers, pitters, graters, grinders. Whisks and bags and brushes.
  13. surly
    unfriendly and inclined toward anger or irritation
    She scuttled out of the kitchen and looked to the top of the stairs just in time to make out the Owner’s surly face. He growled at her and then slammed shut his bedroom door. Toby was right about him—he was a grumpy old man.
  14. gingerly
    in a manner marked by extreme care or delicacy
    With the recipe clasped gingerly in her fingertips, she shut the suitcase and slid it underneath the countertop with its brothers.
  15. chaos
    a state of extreme confusion and disorder
    Because even if the letter from that old bat Principal Piles seemed to have disappeared in the chaos of the move (his parents had yet to mention it, and in Zane’s vast experience with trouble, when parents read such letters, they usually mentioned them right away), Zane’s problems hadn’t disappeared.
  16. delicate
    exquisitely fine and subtle and pleasing
    It was a small carton of delicate purple flowers, unlike anything Miss Mallory had ever seen before.
  17. impeccable
    without error or flaw
    “My own creation—an impeccable cross between a petunia and a pansy. Beautiful, aren’t they?”
  18. distinctive
    of a feature that helps to identify a person or thing
    The flowers had the petunia’s distinctive mauve hue and the pansy’s particular petals.
  19. invigorating
    imparting strength and vitality
    Even their scent was a perfect mix—combining the crisp freshness of a petunia with a pansy’s delicate richness, creating a cool, clean aroma that was both invigorating and calming at once.
  20. conundrum
    a difficult problem
    The conundrum, however, was that Miss Mallory had no idea where to put them.
  21. constructive
    emphasizing what is laudable or hopeful or to the good
    Which was not exactly the constructive sort of information she’d been looking for.
  22. competition
    an occasion on which a winner is selected from contestants
    As Cady swooped the last curl of peanut butter frosting onto the two-tiered peanut butter cake, she had a whole hour before she and Toby needed to leave for the competition.
  23. heirloom
    something that has been in a family for generations
    He gripped his sword—the beige and cracked and knobby one that some might mistake for a precious heirloom, or even a hairpin—and plopped himself down on a rock on the banks of River Street.
  24. impressive
    producing a strong effect
    To Will’s delight, the giant was even more impressive up close.
  25. standard
    commonly used or supplied
    Peanuts, oil, sugar, salt. Pretty standard stuff.
  26. quantity
    how much there is or how many there are of something
    But he supposed that, in the right quantities, any ingredients could be made magical.
  27. tentative
    hesitant or lacking confidence; unsettled in mind or opinion
    The Owner stuck a tentative finger into the food processor, where his first batch of his mother’s peanut butter sat, waiting.
  28. ingredient
    food that is a component of a mixture in cooking
    It had taken fifty-three years, but finally Mason Darlington Burgess, the good-for-nothing heir to the Darlington fortune, had discovered the secret ingredient to his own mother’s peanut butter recipe.
  29. stupendous
    so great in size, force, or extent as to elicit awe
    It was a Talent for churning happiness into her peanut butter that made his mother’s results so stupendous.
  30. pathetic
    inspiring scornful pity
    “The pathetic little waif is Talented, did you know that?”
  31. meager
    deficient in amount or quality or extent
    Toby could have his and Cady’s meager possessions packed and be out the door in no time, and then Cady would be safe.
  32. invaluable
    having incalculable monetary or intellectual worth
    “This”—Marigold read from the book—“'invaluable piece of paleontological lore’?”
  33. prospect
    the possibility of future success
    Perhaps even more marvelous, however, was the prospect that the Jupiter bird may have had the power of flight, making it by far the largest creature ever to soar in the skies.
  34. excavation
    the act of digging
    Those who believe that the Jupiter bird did indeed fly say that the answer lies in a single bone—a toe bone, which no one has yet been able to dig up, despite dozens of excavations.
  35. paleontologist
    a specialist in fossil organisms and related remains
    I got to work with all of these Talented researchers and paleontologists. Those guys were practically gods to me, and they actually let me dig right in and examine the earth, even though I was Fair.
  36. grunt
    an unskilled or low-ranking soldier or other worker
    I wasn’t just one of the volunteers they let tag along to do their grunt work; I was practically a real scientist.
  37. determined
    strongly motivated to succeed
    “I was pregnant with Zane at the time. Pretty far in. I can’t believe I spent all that time digging in the sun with a belly like that, but I was determined.”
  38. discovery
    something that is found
    Imagine how shocked I was—me, this Talentless little thing, making such a world-changing discovery.
  39. consequence
    a phenomenon that is caused by some previous phenomenon
    She had to understand that there were consequences when you acted—hadn’t her parents always said there would be consequences?
  40. delinquent
    guilty of a misdeed
    The truth was, Marigold didn’t know if boarding school would help her delinquent brother any more than she knew if she’d find her Talent in a day or a year or never.
Created on Fri May 27 17:18:27 EDT 2016 (updated Thu Sep 20 15:49:55 EDT 2018)

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