Page 78 - SpringBoard_ELA_Grade8_Flipbook

aCTIvITy 1.9
continued
42 But how could she use it? What was she meant to do?
43 If she could give love to IT perhaps it would shrivel up and die, for she was sure
that IT could not withstand love. But she, in all her weakness and foolishness and baseness and nothingness, was incapable of loving IT. Perhaps it was not too much to ask of her, but she could not do it.
44 But she could love Charles Wallace.
45 She could stand there and she could love Charles Wallace.
46 Her own Charles Wallace, the real Charles Wallace, the child for whom she had
come back to Camazotz, to IT, the baby who was so much more than she was, and who was yet so utterly vulnerable.
47 She could love Charles Wallace.
48 Charles. Charles, I love you. My baby brother who always takes care of me. Come
back to me, Charles Wallace, come away from IT, come back, come home. I love you, Charles. Oh, Charles Wallace, I love you.
49 Tears were streaming down her cheeks, but she was unaware of them.
50 Now she was even able to look at him, at this animated thing that was not her own
Charles Wallace at all. She was able to look and love.
51 I love you. Charles Wallace, you are my darling and my dear and the light of my life and the treasure of my heart, I love you. I love you. I love you.
52 Slowly his mouth closed. Slowly his eyes stopped their twirling. The tic in the forehead ceased its revolting twitch. Slowly he advanced toward her.
53 “I love you!” she cried. “I love you, Charles! I love you!”
54 Then suddenly he was running, pelting, he was in her arms, he was shrieking with
sobs. “Meg! Meg! Meg!”
55 “I love you, Charles!” she cried again, her sobs almost as loud as his, her tears mingling with his. “I love you! I love you! I love you!”
56 A whirl of darkness. An icy cold blast. An angry, resentful howl that seemed to tear through her. Darkness again. Through the darkness to save her came a sense of Mrs Whatsit’s presence, so that she knew it could not be IT who now had her in its clutches.
57 And then the feel of earth beneath her, of something in her arms, and she was rolling over on the sweet-smelling autumnal earth, and Charles Wallace was crying out, “Meg! Oh, Meg!”
58 Now she was hugging him close to her, and his little arms were clasped tightly about her neck. “Meg, you saved me! You saved me!” he said over and over.
59 “Meg!” came a call, and there were her father and Calvin hurrying through the darkness toward them.
60 Still holding Charles she struggled to stand up and look around. “Father! Cal! Where are we?”
my Notes
Unit 1 • The Challenge of Heroism 51
vulnerable: susceptible to danger
autumnal: related to autumn
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