The Honest Truth: Chapters 10–13 ½

by Dan Gemeinhart
Afflicted with recurring cancer, Mark is determined to go on the adventure of a lifetime — so he runs away from home and attempts to climb Mount Rainier. As Mark confronts the challenges of the mountain, his best friend Jessie faces her own struggle: whether or not to reveal Mark's secret.

Here are links to our lists for the novel: Chapters 1–3 ½, Chapters 4–6, Chapters 6 ½–9 ½, Chapters 10–13 ½
30 words 76 learners

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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. prance
    move or step in a lively, spirited, or showy way
    Beau whined and pranced around me.
  2. exhibit
    something shown to the public
    There was a big, 3-D model of the mountain that you could walk all the way around, and exhibits about the plants and animals that lived there, and information about history and climbing routes.
  3. crabby
    annoyed and irritable
    The lady at the register rang up my snacks. “Eight-fifty,” she said. The lady looked crabby.
  4. mushy
    very sentimental or emotional
    There was nothing mushy about jt. It didn’t matter that he was a boy and she was a girl. It just mattered that they were friends. Best friends.
  5. thermal
    caused by or designed to retain heat
    I pulled on my two sets of gloves and high-tech winter coat and the thermal hat that covered my face except for the eyeholes and a little mouth slit.
  6. glacier
    a slowly moving mass of ice
    The trail led right out of the back of the visitor center, right out of the parking lot. Like it was nothing. Just a walk through miles of snow and ice and glaciers and boulders and crevasses to the towering top of a sleeping volcano. No big deal.
  7. crevasse
    a deep fissure
    The trail led right out of the back of the visitor center, right out of the parking lot. Like it was nothing. Just a walk through miles of snow and ice and glaciers and boulders and crevasses to the towering top of a sleeping volcano. No big deal.
  8. nuzzle
    gently rub or push one's nose or face against something
    Beau nuzzled in against me.
  9. peer
    look searchingly
    I was peering up to spy the peak when the blowing snow parted for a moment and I saw a line of people.
  10. trudge
    walk heavily and firmly, as when weary, or through mud
    They were trudging downhill, back down away from the mountain and toward where people lived.
  11. chap
    make or become cracked or sore, especially from cold
    I shook my head and tried to think, sucking the weak air in through my chapped lips.
  12. haze
    confusion characterized by lack of clarity
    I stood and wrestled with the air for breath. I’d been walking in a haze. My thoughts wouldn’t string themselves together.
  13. wrack
    smash or break forcefully
    Shivers wracked my whole body.
  14. flounder
    move clumsily or struggle to move, as in mud or water
    Beau floundered in the snow.
  15. budge
    move very slightly
    I struggled to move my leg forward, but it wouldn’t budge.
  16. plunge
    fall abruptly
    You plunge down into the darkness, down until the space gets narrower and narrower and you’re finally stuck, pinched between two ice walls, far from any rescue.
  17. seethe
    be noisy with activity
    The storm swirled and seethed.
  18. gape
    be wide open
    I turned and walked to the side, along the gaping crevasse.
  19. plummet
    drop sharply
    I looked into Beau’s eyes, one brown and one green, as his face plummeted down away from me.
  20. grope
    feel about uncertainly or blindly
    He was wedged a good six feet down, way past my groping fingertips.
  21. mere
    being nothing more than specified
    When he was almost to the top, a mere foot from the rim, I pulled myself up to my feet in one final lift and fell backward.
  22. clamber
    climb awkwardly, as if by scrambling
    Beau shook himself and whined and clambered on top of me.
  23. numbness
    partial or total lack of sensation in a part of the body
    I tried to fish my camera out from under my layers, but the numbness now was past my fingers and through my hands and starting up my arms.
  24. frostbite
    damage to bodily tissue caused by extreme cold
    The doctors had rattled off all the things he’d had: frostbite, dehydration, exhaustion, hypothermia, shock.
  25. dehydration
    depletion of bodily fluids
    The doctors had rattled off all the things he’d had: frostbite, dehydration, exhaustion, hypothermia, shock.
  26. hypothermia
    subnormal body temperature
    The doctors had rattled off all the things he’d had: frostbite, dehydration, exhaustion, hypothermia, shock.
  27. veer
    turn sharply; change direction abruptly
    Even when he’d veered off the trail, they’d followed their guts and stayed with the dog.
  28. withered
    lean and wrinkled by shrinkage as from age or illness
    His body was withered and wasted away by it all.
  29. shroud
    cover as if with a burial garment
    She saw a picture of a little hallway with three women shrouded in kitchen steam and a picture of a bald and bloody boy in the bathroom mirror, and she heard about the voices of angels and the decision to keep going.
  30. gruff
    blunt and unfriendly or stern
    He never asked the police or his parents about the phone call to the tip line. Whether it had been the gruff voice of an old man or the scared voice of a girl.
Created on Thu Nov 15 14:25:29 EST 2018 (updated Thu Nov 15 14:39:59 EST 2018)

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