The Girls I've Been: Chapters 28–41

by Tess Sharpe
A seventeen-year-old girl must use all the skills she has learned as the daughter of a con artist in order to survive being held hostage by two men trying to rob the bank of a small town in California.

Here are links to our lists for the novel: Chapters 1–15, Chapters 16–27, Chapters 28–41, Chapters 42–52, Chapters 53–69
40 words 21 learners

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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. crude
    not carefully or expertly made
    I draw a crude map on one side, detailing the hall and where they’re keeping us.
  2. pathological
    caused by or evidencing a mentally disturbed condition
    My therapist would probably call me pathological or something, but I just call it sheer survival.
  3. pension
    regular payment to allow a person to subsist without working
    “I just mean, you’re not going around conning old ladies out of their pensions,” Wes continues, like that’s going to help.
  4. winnow
    select desirable parts from a group or list
    I’ve just winnowed it down to the essentials.
  5. bounty
    payment or reward for acts such as catching criminals
    “The bounty’s up to seven million if they bring me back to Florida alive,” I say.
  6. array
    an impressive display or assortment
    He kept an array of cleavers around, from his days as an actual butcher—the nickname didn’t come out of nowhere.
  7. dolly
    a wheeled handcart for moving heavy objects
    O’Malley kicks the dolly with the welding equipment toward HT1.
  8. earnestly
    in a sincere and serious manner
    “That’s why I called you,” he says earnestly.
  9. pallet
    a portable platform for storing or moving goods
    We go outside and I wait until she’s settled on one of the chaises that Lee built from wood pallets and I found cushions for at a rummage sale.
  10. sordid
    morally degraded
    “Please don’t say it like that.”
    “Like what?”
    “Like it’s sordid or something. It’s not.”
  11. whimsy
    an odd or fanciful or capricious idea
    Wes has gotten hold of the unicorn floatie raft that Lee brought home one day in a rare fit of whimsy.
  12. moniker
    a familiar name for a person
    Is everyone’s dad just evil? Her question circles in my head, because evil is a good word for the mayor, but it makes me wonder what her dad did to earn that moniker.
  13. loll
    be lazy or idle
    “I understand,” she says, turning back to watch him lolling about in the pool, kicking his feet like a little kid.
  14. ostentatious
    intended to attract notice and impress others
    I don’t think of it as his house. It’s not—it’s the mayor’s. It’s his little fiefdom. An ostentatious log-cabin-style lodge sitting on ten acres that he rules like a medieval lord.
  15. atrophied
    diminished in size or strength from disease or injury
    It feels like the part of me that’s supposed to react fast and smart is atrophied, struggling to come alive in time.
  16. livid
    discolored by coagulation of blood beneath the skin
    It heals so much rougher. His shoulders are new terrain now; the old scar that taught me we were the same is bisected with sensitive tissue that’s purple-fresh and livid against his skin.
  17. erratic
    having no fixed course
    Finally, the erratic shooting ceases, and I hear the thump and creak of the ladder.
  18. ratchet
    move by degrees in one direction only
    Sitting back into the shadows, I wait, my heart ratcheting up with each moment that passes.
  19. grifter
    a person who swindles you by means of deception or fraud
    Besides preachers, politicians are the other acceptable kind of grifters, after all. I’ve known from day one that the mayor’s more than a little shady.
  20. flippant
    showing an inappropriate lack of seriousness
    “I mean, I did ride my bike over here,” I say, and I’m playing so brave and flippant.
  21. fodder
    soldiers regarded as expendable under artillery fire
    I am done being fodder. I’ve become the cannon instead.
  22. tithe
    an offering of a tenth part of some personal income
    Which is why I know you made a deal with Pastor Thompkins to help with the rezoning of that land by the river he bought for his megachurch. Twenty percent of the tithe is impressive.
  23. sheen
    the visual property of something that shines
    His face is like stone. No more toothpaste smile. No more political sheen.
  24. snipe
    attack in speech or writing
    They snipe at each other and they have the most complicated in-jokes they can never explain properly because they end up laughing too hard.
  25. camaraderie
    the quality of affording easy familiarity and sociability
    And now they’re going to take all that camaraderie and unite to form a Nora lied to me support group?
  26. scour
    examine minutely
    You have hitmen scouring the country—maybe the globe—for you.
  27. frisson
    an almost pleasurable sensation of fright
    They have to be right, and then that frisson of fear and hysteria flashes wide and true.
  28. vertigo
    a reeling sensation; a feeling that you are about to fall
    It all comes crashing down when a woman who is not my sister answers the phone. Reality hits me so fast I’m shocked by the vertigo.
  29. lurch
    move abruptly
    It flares in his eyes a second before he lurches toward me instead of away, and then his hand closes around my throat.
  30. scrabble
    grope, scratch, or feel searchingly
    After the initial freeze moment, it’s almost impossible to resist grabbing at someone’s arms and wrists when they’re choking you out. It’s instinctive: You scrabble, you claw, because if you can just get one breath in, you can fight harder.
  31. pomp
    cheap or pretentious or vain display
    At first, I think Joseph’s smiley in the way Elijah was—that kind of fake cheeriness that’s all performance and pomp.
  32. smug
    marked by excessive complacency or self-satisfaction
    Joseph’s on the hook too fast for someone who manipulates for a living; he moves us into his house after just two months of dating, and Mom’s smug about it and I’m so glad I’m not getting terrorized by Jamison anymore that I’ve left Haley and my curled-up fists behind.
  33. grating
    causing irritation
    “Who did you think you’ve been talking to on the phone this whole time?” I tilt my head, the sarcasm grating.
  34. spleen
    a large oval organ between the stomach and the diaphragm
    “Better hope it’s your spleen or something you can live without. Organs are kind of hard to come by.”
  35. suppress
    control and refrain from showing
    Margaret looks like she’s trying to suppress an indulgent smile that might come off as condescending.
  36. indulgent
    tolerant or lenient
    Margaret looks like she’s trying to suppress an indulgent smile that might come off as condescending.
  37. bile
    a digestive juice secreted by the liver
    And I’ve never talked about it because of that swirl of shame and the sour taste of bile that rises in my throat every time I think about it.
  38. muster
    summon up, call forth, or bring together
    Her eyebrows twitch—the closest thing I’ll get to a frown her placid-like-a-pond face can muster up.
  39. placid
    calm and free from disturbance
    Margaret can’t keep her pond- placid mask from slipping as the realization fully grasps her.
  40. initiate
    set in motion, start an event or prepare the way for
    When I don’t say anything, she continues, “Have you ever initiated a fight? I know you’ve been in a few. We’ve talked about them in the past.”
Created on Thu Feb 01 10:16:18 EST 2024 (updated Fri Feb 02 11:05:31 EST 2024)

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