Legendary Frybread Drive-In: "Maybe It Starts," by Kate Hart

by Cynthia Leitich Smith
Sandy June's Legendary Frybread Drive-In is a magical place where Indigenous teens can find love, support, comfort, and community — no matter where in space or time they come from.

Here are links to our lists for the first nine selections in this collection:
Maybe It Starts, House of Stray Cats, Mvskoke Joy, Game Night, Look Away, Patent Red, Braving the Storm, You Had One Job, Heart Berry
15 words 5 learners

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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. necessitate
    require as useful, just, or proper
    Not just because it’s dark and wet and full of spiders and who knows what else, and not just because it’s always scary weather that necessitates entering its depths.
  2. fallout
    radioactive particles that settle after a nuclear explosion
    It’s not a real cellar—no shelves for preserves or rations for nuclear fallout—just a temporary safety pod.
  3. bedraggled
    limp, untidy, and soiled
    Running a hand through her wet hair creates a grim mental picture: emerging from the shelter to find reporters in the neighborhood, trying to interview her while she looks like a bedraggled cat.
  4. ethereal
    of heaven or the spirit
    Her rebellious, ethereal, aura-reading, forgetting-she-had-a-daughter-at-all mother didn’t just like to be noticed—she demanded it.
  5. gauzy
    so thin as to transmit light
    She wore gauzy skirts and bangle bracelets, anklets that chimed when she walked, patchouli that smelled up the house, dresses made of tablecloths and fishnets sewn together—and a full face of incongruous makeup with a “signature red” lipstick.
  6. incongruous
    lacking in harmony or compatibility or appropriateness
    She wore gauzy skirts and bangle bracelets, anklets that chimed when she walked, patchouli that smelled up the house, dresses made of tablecloths and fishnets sewn together—and a full face of incongruous makeup with a “signature red” lipstick.
  7. genuinely
    in accordance with truth or fact or reality
    Explanations were rare and disappointing, and she seemed genuinely confused that Janet resented being left alone.
  8. lurid
    glaringly vivid and graphic; marked by sensationalism
    She read palms, she read tea leaves, she read Mother Earth News and every lurid bodice ripper she could get her hands on, but she could not read her daughter, and so she didn’t notice how much it hurt when she missed things like school plays.
  9. emulate
    strive to equal or match, especially by imitating
    Janet found her impossible to live with, much less emulate, and her only goal was to get the hell out of Tulsa and Oklahoma entirely.
  10. triviality
    a detail that is considered insignificant
    Janet was fairly sure that Reiki was Japanese, Wicca was British, and yoga came from a different kind of Indian, but her mother had no time for such trivialities.
  11. disown
    cast off
    She had no grandparents to ask—her father’s parents were deceased, and her mother’s had disowned them for reasons Janet didn’t fully understand.
  12. belated
    after the expected or usual time
    She sent belated birthday cards and random newspaper clippings about people Janet didn’t know.
  13. doting
    extravagantly or foolishly loving and indulgent
    And lo and behold, when Maggie was born, Sharon the Star became a doting, if somewhat flighty, grandmother.
  14. flighty
    guided by whim and fancy
    And lo and behold, when Maggie was born, Sharon the Star became a doting, if somewhat flighty, grandmother.
  15. debacle
    a sudden and complete disaster
    Of course there was the cellar debacle, but Grandma Star also sends her books about Native history and culture and let slip that Mom used a tribal scholarship for grad school.
Created on Mon Feb 23 08:13:33 EST 2026 (updated Tue Mar 24 13:48:58 EDT 2026)

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