When You Reach Me: Things Left Behind–The Second Proof

by Rebecca Stead
After a fight with her best friend, Miranda starts receiving mysterious letters from a person who can predict the future — and who warns Miranda that someone is going to die.

Here are links to our lists for the novel: List 1, List 2, List 3, List 4

Here are links to our lists for other works by Rebecca Stead: Liar & Spy, Goodbye Stranger
14 words 702 learners

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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. seizure
    a sudden attack characterized by spasms or convulsions
    I’m usually fine. People don’t even really know I have it, because for years I’ve hardly had any seizures at all.
  2. billow
    rise and move, as in waves
    I watched my breath billowing in front of me and racewalked toward school.
  3. whirl
    turn in a twisting or spinning motion
    I whirled around and saw Julia in a long coat.
  4. atom
    the smallest component of an element
    If you figured out a way to bring yourself to another time, probably through some sort of teleportation—you’d be somehow re-creating your atoms, really, not physically moving them, I’m guessing; that would be tricky....”
  5. triumphant
    joyful and proud especially because of success
    He looked triumphant.
  6. mystified
    totally perplexed and mixed up
    He looked completely mystified, as if I had just changed the subject from something very normal to something completely insane, instead of the other way around.
  7. justification
    a statement in explanation of some action or belief
    What you’re talking about is a justification.
  8. swagger
    walk with a lofty proud gait
    Jimmy swaggered over to the phone with a huge smile on his face.
  9. dome
    a hemispherical roof
    “They should have had the dome up.”
  10. aside
    not taken into account or excluded from consideration
    He ran the place alone, aside from the forty minutes a day that we were there.
  11. racist
    discriminatory on the basis of skin color
    “You racist pig.”
  12. dingy
    thickly covered with ingrained dirt or soot
    For three days in a row, the sky was like a dingy white sheet.
  13. microscopic
    so small as to be invisible without a magnifying device
    It starts in the water, with tiny things, microscopic, and then some get bigger.
  14. portable
    easily or conveniently transported
    I got some good stuff: a beaded bracelet, a portable radio, a fancy journal to write in with clouds on the cover, a sweater, and a tin of these really crispy ginger cookies I love from a bakery near Mom and Richard’s office.
Created on Thu Sep 19 12:51:35 EDT 2013 (updated Wed Jun 25 12:52:37 EDT 2025)

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