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Chapter 2
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  It's my earliest memory. I was three years old, and we were living in a trailer park in a southern Arizona town whose name I never knew. I was standing1 on a chair in front of the stove, wearing a pink dress my grandmother had bought for me. Pink was my favorite color. The dress's skirt stuck out like a tutu, and I liked to spin around in front of the mirror, thinking I looked like a ballerina. But at that moment, I was wearing the dress to cook hot dogs, watching them swell2 and bob in the boiling water as the late-morning sunlight filtered in through the trailer's small kitchenette window.

  I could hear Mom in the next room singing while she worked on one of her paintings. Juju, our black mutt, was watching me. I stabbed one of the hot dogs with a fork and bent3 over and offered it to him. The wiener was hot, so Juju licked at it tentatively, but when I stood up and started stirring the hot dogs again, I felt a blaze of heat on my right side. I turned to see where it was coming from and realized my dress was on fire. Frozen with fear, I watched the yellow-white flames make a ragged5 brown line up the pink fabric6 of my skirt and climb my stomach. Then the flames leaped up, reaching my face.

  I screamed. I smelled the burning and heard a horrible crackling as the fire singed7 my hair and eyelashes. Juju was barking. I screamed again.

  Mom ran into the room.

  "Mommy, help me!" I shrieked8. I was still standing on the chair, swatting at the fire with the fork I had been using to stir the hot dogs.

  Mom ran out of the room and came back with one of the army-surplus blankets I hated because the wool was so scratchy. She threw the blanket around me to smother9 the flames. Dad had gone off in the car, so Mom grabbed me and my younger brother, Brian, and hurried over to the trailer next to ours. The woman who lived there was hanging her laundry on the clothesline. She had clothespins in her mouth. Mom, in an unnaturally10 calm voice, explained what had happened and asked if we could please have a ride to the hospital. The woman dropped her clothespins and laundry right there in the dirt and, without saying anything, ran for her car.

  * * *When we got to the hospital, nurses put me on a stretcher. They talked in loud, worried whispers while they cut off what was left of my fancy pink dress with a pair of shiny scissors. Then they picked me up, laid me flat on a big metal bed piled with ice cubes, and spread some of the ice over my body. A doctor with silver hair and black-rimmed glasses led my mother out of the room. As they left, I heard him telling her that it was very serious. The nurses remained behind, hovering13 over me. I could tell I was causing a big fuss, and I stayed quiet. One of them squeezed my hand and told me I was going to be okay.

  "I know," I said, "but if I'm not, that's okay, too."The nurse squeezed my hand again and bit her lower lip.

  The room was small and white, with bright lights and metal cabinets. I stared for a while at the rows of tiny dots in the ceiling panels. Ice cubes covered my stomach and ribs14 and pressed up against my cheeks. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a small, grimy hand reach up a few inches from my face and grab a handful of cubes. I heard a loud crunching15 sound and looked down. It was Brian, eating the ice.

  * * *The doctors said I was lucky to be alive. They took patches of skin from my upper thigh16 and put them over the most badly burned parts of my stomach, ribs, and chest. They said it was called a skin graft17. When they were finished, they wrapped my entire right side in bandages.

  "Look, I'm a half-mummy," I said to one of the nurses. She smiled and put my right arm in a sling18 and attached it to the headboard so I couldn't move it.

  The nurses and doctors kept asking me questions: How did you get burned? Have your parents ever hurt you? Why do you have all these bruises19 and cuts? My parents never hurt me, I said. I got the cuts and bruises playing outside and the burns from cooking hot dogs. They asked what I was doing cooking hot dogs by myself at the age of three. It was easy, I said. You just put the hot dogs in the water and boil them. It wasn't like there was some complicated recipe that you had to be old enough to follow. The pan was too heavy for me to lift when it was full of water, so I'd put a chair next to the sink, climb up and fill a glass, then stand on a chair by the stove and pour the water into the pan. I did that over and over again until the pan held enough water. Then I'd turn on the stove, and when the water was boiling, I'd drop in the hot dogs. "Mom says I'm mature for my age," I told them. "and she lets me cook for myself a lot."Two nurses looked at each other, and one of them wrote something down on a clipboard. I asked what was wrong. Nothing, they said, nothing.

  * * *Every couple of days, the nurses changed the bandages. They would put the used bandage off to the side, wadded and covered with smears21 of blood and yellow stuff and little pieces of burned skin. Then they'd apply another bandage, a big gauzy cloth, to the burns. At night I would run my left hand over the rough, scabby surface of the skin that wasn't covered by the bandage. Sometimes I'd peel off scabs. The nurses had told me not to, but I couldn't resist pulling on them real slow to see how big a scab I could get loose. Once I had a couple of them free, I'd pretend they were talking to each other in cheeping voices.

  The hospital was clean and shiny. Everything was white梩he walls and sheets and nurses' uniforms梠r silver梩he beds and trays and medical instruments. Everyone spoke22 in polite, calm voices. It was so hushed you could hear the nurses' rubber-soled shoes squeaking23 all the way down the hall. I wasn't used to quiet and order, and I liked it.

  I also liked it that I had my own room, since in the trailer I shared one with my brother and my sister. My hospital room even had its very own television set up on the wall. We didn't have a TV at home, so I watched it a lot. Red Buttons and Lucille Ball were my favorites.

  The nurses and doctors always asked how I was feeling and if I was hungry or needed anything. The nurses brought me delicious meals three times a day, with fruit cocktail24 or Jell-O for dessert, and changed the sheets even if they still looked clean. Sometimes I read to them, and they told me I was very smart and could read as well as a six-year-old.

  One day a nurse with wavy25 yellow hair and blue eye makeup26 was chewing on something. I asked her what it was, and she told me it was chewing gum. I had never heard of chewing gum, so she went out and got me a whole pack. I pulled out a stick, took off the white paper and the shiny silver foil under it, and studied the powdery, putty-colored gum. I put it in my mouth and was stunned27 by the sharp sweetness. "It's really good!" I said.

  "Chew on it, but don't swallow it," the nurse said with a laugh. She smiled real big and brought in other nurses so they could watch me chew my first-ever piece of gum. When she brought me lunch, she told me I had to take out my chewing gum, but she said not to worry because I could have a new stick after eating. If I finished the pack, she would buy me another. That was the thing about the hospital. You never had to worry about running out of stuff like food or ice or even chewing gum. I would have been happy staying in that hospital forever.

  * * *When my family came to visit, their arguing and laughing and singing and shouting echoed through the quiet halls. The nurses made shushing noises, and Mom and Dad and Lori and Brian lowered their voices for a few minutes, then they slowly grew loud again. Everyone always turned and stared at Dad. I couldn't figure out whether it was because he was so handsome or because he called people. "pardner" and. "goomba" and threw his head back when he laughed.

  One day Dad leaned over my bed and asked if the nurses and doctors were treating me okay. If they were not, he said, he would kick some asses12. I told Dad how nice and friendly everyone was. "Well, of course they are," he said. "They know you're Rex Walls's daughter."When Mom wanted to know what it was the doctors and nurses were doing that was so nice, I told her about the chewing gum.

  "Ugh," she said. She disapproved28 of chewing gum, she went on. It was a disgusting low-class habit, and the nurse should have consulted her before encouraging me in such vulgar behavior. She said she was going to give that woman a piece of her mind, by golly. "After all," Mom said. "I am your mother, and I should have a say in how you're raised."* * *"Do you guys miss me?" I asked my older sister, Lori, during one visit.

  "Not really," she said. "Too much has been happening.""Like what?""Just the normal stuff.""Lori may not miss you, honey bunch, but I sure do," Dad said. "You shouldn't be in this antiseptic joint29."He sat down on my bed and started telling me the story about the time Lori got stung by a poisonous scorpion30. I'd heard it a dozen times, but I still liked the way Dad told it. Mom and Dad were out exploring in the desert when Lori, who was four, turned over a rock and the scorpion hiding under it stung her leg. She had gone into convulsions, and her body had become stiff and wet with sweat. But Dad didn't trust hospitals, so he took her to a Navajo witch doctor who cut open the wound and put a dark brown paste on it and said some chants and pretty soon Lori was as good as new. "Your mother should have taken you to that witch doctor the day you got burned," Dad said, "not to these heads-up-their-asses med-school quacks31."* * *The next time they visited, Brian's head was wrapped in a dirty white bandage with dried bloodstains. Mom said he had fallen off the back of the couch and cracked his head open on the floor, but she and Dad had decided32 not to take him to the hospital.

  "There was blood everywhere," Mom said. "but one kid in the hospital at a time is enough.""Besides," Dad said, "Brian's head is so hard, I think the floor took more damage than he did."Brian thought that was hilarious33 and just laughed and laughed.

  Mom told me she had entered my name in a raffle34 at a fair, and I'd won a helicopter ride. I was thrilled. I had never been in a helicopter or a plane.

  "When do I get to go on the ride?" I asked.

  "Oh, we already did that," Mom said. "It was fun."Then Dad got into an argument with the doctor. It started because Dad thought I shouldn't be wearing bandages. "Burns need to breathe," he told the doctor.

  The doctor said bandages were necessary to prevent infection. Dad stared at the doctor. "To hell with infection," he said. He told the doctor that I was going to be scarred for life because of him, but, by God, I wasn't the only one who was going to walk out of there scarred.

  Dad pulled back his fist as if to hit the doctor, who raised his hands and backed away. Before anything could happen, a guard in a uniform appeared and told Mom and Dad and Lori and Brian that they would have to leave.

  Afterward35, a nurse asked me if I was okay. "Of course," I said. I told her I didn't care if I had some silly old scar. That was good, she said, because from the look of it, I had other things to worry about.

  * * *A few days later, when I had been at the hospital for about six weeks, Dad appeared alone in the doorway36 of my room. He told me we were going to check out, Rex Walls杝tyle.

  "Are you sure this is okay?" I asked.

  "You just trust your old man," Dad said.

  He unhooked my right arm from the sling over my head. As he held me close, I breathed in his familiar smell of Vitalis, whiskey, and cigarette smoke. It reminded me of home.

  Dad hurried down the hall with me in his arms. A nurse yelled for us to stop, but Dad broke into a run. He pushed open an emergency-exit door and sprinted37 down the stairs and out to the street. Our car, a beat-up Plymouth we called the Blue Goose, was parked around the corner, the engine idling. Mom was up front, Lori and Brian in the back with Juju. Dad slid me across the seat next to Mom and took the wheel.

  "You don't have to worry anymore, baby," Dad said. "You're safe now."A FEW DAYS AFTER Mom and Dad brought me home, I cooked myself some hot dogs. I was hungry, Mom was at work on a painting, and no one else was there to fix them for me.

  "Good for you," Mom said when she saw me cooking. "You've got to get right back in the saddle. You can't live in fear of something as basic as fire."I didn't. Instead, I became fascinated with it. Dad also thought I should face down my enemy, and he showed me how to pass my finger through a candle flame. I did it over and over, slowing my finger with each pass, watching the way it seemed to cut the flame in half, testing to see how much my finger could endure without actually getting burned. I was always on the lookout38 for bigger fires. Whenever neighbors burned trash, I ran over and watched the blaze trying to escape the garbage can. I'd inch closer and closer, feeling the heat against my face until I got so near that it became unbearable39, and then I'd back away just enough to be able to stand it.

  The neighbor lady who had driven me to the hospital was surprised that I didn't run in the opposite direction from any fire I saw. "Why the hell would she?" Dad bellowed40 with a proud grin. "She already fought the fire once and won."I started stealing matches from Dad. I'd go behind the trailer and light them. I loved the scratching sound of the match against the sandpapery brown strip when I struck it, and the way the flame leaped out of the redcoated tip with a pop and a hiss41. I'd feel its heat near my fingertips, then wave it out triumphantly42. I lit pieces of paper and little piles of brush and held my breath until the moment when they seemed about to blaze up out of control. Then I'd stomp43 on the flames and call out the curse words Dad used, like. "Dumb-ass11 sonofabitch!" and. "Cocksucker!"One time I went out back with my favorite toy, a plastic Tinkerbell figurine. She was two inches tall, with yellow hair pulled up in a high ponytail and her hands on her hips44 in a confident, cocky way that I admired. I lit a match and held it close to Tinkerbell's face to show her how it felt. She looked even more beautiful in the flame's glow. When that match went out, I lit another one, and this time I held it really close to Tinkerbell's face. Suddenly, her eyes grew wide, as if with fear; I realized, to my horror, that her face was starting to melt. I put out the match, but it was too late. Tinkerbell's once perfect little nose had completely disappeared, and her saucy45 red lips had been replaced with an ugly, lopsided smear20. I tried to smooth her features back to the way they had been, but I made them even worse. Almost immediately, her face cooled and hardened again. I put bandages on it. I wished I could perform a skin graft on Tinkerbell, but that would have meant cutting her into pieces. Even though her face was melted, she was still my favorite toy.

  DAD CAME HOME IN the middle of the night a few months later and roused all of us from bed.

  "Time to pull up stakes and leave this shit-hole behind," he hollered.

  We had fifteen minutes to gather whatever we needed and pile into the car.

  "Is everything okay, Dad?" I asked. "Is someone after us?""Don't you worry," Dad said. "You leave that to me. Don't I always take care of you?""'Course you do," I said.

  "That's my girl!" Dad said with a hug, then barked orders at us all to speed things up. He took the essentials梐 big black cast-iron skillet and the Dutch oven, some army-surplus tin plates, a few knives, his pistol, and Mom's archery set梐nd packed them in the trunk of the Blue Goose. He said we shouldn't take much else, just what we needed to survive. Mom hurried out to the yard and started digging holes by the light of the moon, looking for our jar of cash. She had forgotten where she'd buried it.

  An hour passed before we finally tied Mom's paintings on the top of the car, shoved whatever would fit into the trunk, and piled the overflow46 on the backseat and the car floor. Dad steered47 the Blue Goose through the dark, driving slowly so as not to alert anyone in the trailer park that we were, as Dad liked to put it, doing the skedaddle. He was grumbling48 that he couldn't understand why the hell it took so long to grab what we needed and haul our asses into the car.

  "Dad!" I said. "I forgot Tinkerbell!""Tinkerbell can make it on her own," Dad said. "She's like my brave little girl. You are brave and ready for adventure, right?""I guess," I said. I hoped whoever found Tinkerbell would love her despite her melted face. For comfort, I tried to cradle Quixote, our gray and white cat who was missing an ear, but he growled49 and scratched at my face. "Quiet, Quixote!" I said.

  "Cats don't like to travel," Mom explained.

  Anyone who didn't like to travel wasn't invited on our adventure, Dad said. He stopped the car, grabbed Quixote by the scruff of the neck, and tossed him out the window. Quixote landed with a screeching50 meow and a thud, Dad accelerated up the road, and I burst into tears.

  "Don't be so sentimental," Mom said. She told me we could always get another cat, and now Quixote was going to be a wild cat, which was much more fun than being a house cat. Brian, afraid that Dad might toss Juju out the window as well, held the dog tight.

  To distract us kids, Mom got us singing songs like. "Don't Fence Me In" and. "This Land Is Your Land," and Dad led us in rousing renditions of. "Old Man River" and his favorite. "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot." After a while, I forgot about Quixote and Tinkerbell and the friends I'd left behind in the trailer park. Dad started telling us about all the exciting things we were going to do and how we were going to get rich once we reached the new place where we were going to live.

  "Where are we going, Dad?" I asked.

  "Wherever we end up," he said.

  * * *Later that night, Dad stopped the car out in the middle of the desert, and we slept under the stars. We had no pillows, but Dad said that was part of his plan. He was teaching us to have good posture51. The Indians didn't use pillows, either, he explained, and look how straight they stood. We did have our scratchy army-surplus blankets, so we spread them out and lay there, looking up at the field of stars. I told Lori how lucky we were to be sleeping out under the sky like Indians.

  "We could live like this forever," I said.

  "I think we're going to," she said.

  WE WERE ALWAYS DOING the skedaddle, usually in the middle of the night. I sometimes heard Mom and Dad discussing the people who were after us. Dad called them henchmen, bloodsuckers, and the gestapo. Sometimes he would make mysterious references to executives from Standard Oil who were trying to steal the Texas land that Mom's family owned, and FBI agents who were after Dad for some dark episode that he never told us about because he didn't want to put us in danger, too.

  Dad was so sure a posse of federal investigators52 was on our trail that he smoked his unfiltered cigarettes from the wrong end. That way, he explained, he burned up the brand name, and if the people who were tracking us looked in his ashtray53, they'd find unidentifiable butts54 instead of Pall55 Malls that could be traced to him. Mom, however, told us that the FBI wasn't really after Dad; he just liked to say they were because it was more fun having the FBI on your tail than bill collectors.

  We moved around like nomads56. We lived in dusty little mining towns in Nevada, Arizona, and California. They were usually nothing but a tiny cluster of sad, sunken shacks57, a gas station, a dry-goods store, and a bar or two. They had names like Needles and Bouse, Pie, Goffs, and Why, and they were near places like the Superstition58 Mountains, the dried-up Soda59 Lake, and the Old Woman Mountain. The more desolate60 and isolated61 a place was, the better Mom and Dad liked it.

  Dad would get a job as an electrician or engineer in a gypsum or copper62 mine. Mom liked to say that Dad could talk a blue streak63, spinning tales of jobs he'd never had and college degrees he'd never earned. He could get about any job he wanted, he just didn't like keeping it for long. Sometimes he made money gambling64 or doing odd jobs. When he got bored or was fired or the unpaid65 bills piled up too high or the lineman from the electrical company found out he had hot-wired our trailer to the utility poles梠r the FBI was closing in梬e packed up in the middle of the night and took off, driving until Mom and Dad found another small town that caught their eye. Then we'd circle around, looking for houses with for-rent signs stuck in the front yard.

  Every now and then, we'd go stay with Grandma Smith, Mom's mom, who lived in a big white house in Phoenix66. Grandma Smith was a West Texas flapper who loved dancing and cussing and horses. She was known for being able to break the wildest broncs and had helped Grandpa run the ranch67 up near Fish Creek68 Canyon69, Arizona, which was west of Bullhead City, not too far from the Grand Canyon. I thought Grandma Smith was great. But after a few weeks, she and Dad would always get into some nasty hollering match. It might start with Mom mentioning how short we were on cash. Then Grandma would make a snide comment about Dad being shiftless. Dad would say something about selfish old crones with more money than they knew what to do with, and soon enough they'd be face-to-face in what amounted to a full-fledged cussing contest.

  "You flea-bitten drunk!" Grandma would scream.

  "You goddamned flint-faced hag!" Dad would shout back.

  "You no-good two-bit pud-sucking bastard70!""You scaly71 castrating banshee bitch!"Dad had the more inventive vocabulary, but Grandma Smith could outshout him; plus, she had the home-court advantage. A time would come when Dad had had enough and he'd tell us kids to get in the car. Grandma would yell at Mom not to let that worthless horse's ass take her grandchildren. Mom would shrug72 and say there was nothing she could do about it, he was her husband. Off we'd go, heading out into the desert in search of another house for rent in another little mining town.

  Some of the people who lived in those towns had been there for years. Others were rootless, like us梛ust passing through. They were gamblers or ex-cons or war veterans or what Mom called loose women. There were old prospectors73, their faces wrinkled and brown from the sun, like dried-up apples. The kids were lean and hard, with calluses on their hands and feet. We'd make friends with them, but not close friends, because we knew we'd be moving on sooner or later.

  We might enroll75 in school, but not always. Mom and Dad did most of our teaching. Mom had us all reading books without pictures by the time we were five, and Dad taught us math. He also taught us the things that were really important and useful, like how to tap out Morse code and how we should never eat the liver of a polar bear because all the vitamin A in it could kill us. He showed us how to aim and fire his pistol, how to shoot Mom's bow and arrows, and how to throw a knife by the blade so that it landed in the middle of a target with a satisfying thwock. By the time I was four, I was pretty good with Dad's pistol, a big black six-shot revolver, and could hit five out of six beer bottles at thirty paces. I'd hold the gun with both hands, sight down the barrel, and squeeze the trigger slowly and smoothly76 until, with a loud clap, the gun kicked and the bottle exploded. It was fun. Dad said my sharpshooting would come in handy if the feds ever surrounded us.

  Mom had grown up in the desert. She loved the dry, crackling heat, the way the sky at sunset looked like a sheet of fire, and the overwhelming emptiness and severity of all that open land that had once been a huge ocean bed. Most people had trouble surviving in the desert, but Mom thrived there. She knew how to get by on next to nothing. She showed us which plants were edible77 and which were toxic78. She was able to find water when no one else could, and she knew how little of it you really needed. She taught us that you could wash yourself up pretty clean with just a cup of water. She said it was good for you to drink unpurified water, even ditch water, as long as animals were drinking from it. Chlorinated city water was for namby-pambies, she said. Water from the wild helped build up your antibodies. She also thought toothpaste was for namby-pambies. At bedtime we'd shake a little baking soda into the palm of one hand, mix in a dash of hydrogen peroxide, then use our fingers to clean our teeth with the fizzing paste.

  I loved the desert, too. When the sun was in the sky, the sand would be so hot that it would burn your feet if you were the kind of kid who wore shoes, but since we always went barefoot, our soles were as tough and thick as cowhide. We'd catch scorpions79 and snakes and horny toads80. We'd search for gold, and when we couldn't find it, we'd collect other valuable rocks, like turquoise81 and garnets. There'd be a cool spell come sundown, when the mosquitoes would fly in so thick that the air would grow dark with them, then at nightfall, it turned so cold that we usually needed blankets.

  There were fierce sandstorms. Sometimes they hit without warning, and other times you knew one was coming when you saw batches82 of dust devils swirling83 and dancing their way across the desert. Once the wind started whipping up the sand, you could only see a foot in front of your face. If you couldn't find a house or a car or a shed to hide in when the sandstorm started, you had to squat84 down and close your eyes and mouth real tight and cover your ears and bury your face in your lap until it passed, or else your body cavities would fill with sand. A big tumbleweed might hit you, but they were light and bouncy and didn't hurt. If the sandstorm was really strong, it knocked you over, and you rolled around like you were a tumbleweed.

  When the rains finally came, the skies darkened and the air became heavy. Raindrops the size of marbles came pelting85 out of the sky. Some parents worried that their kids might get hit by lightning, but Mom and Dad never did, and they let us go out and play in the warm, driving water. We splashed and sang and danced. Great bolts of lightning cracked from the low-hanging clouds, and thunder shook the ground. We gasped86 over the most spectacular bolts, as if we were all watching a fireworks show. After the storm, Dad took us to the arroyos87, and we watched the flash floods come roaring through. The next day the saguaros and prickly pears were fat from drinking as much as they could, because they knew it might be a long, long time until the next rain.

  We were sort of like the cactus88. We ate irregularly, and when we did, we'd gorge89 ourselves. Once when we were living in Nevada, a train full of cantaloupes heading east jumped the track. I had never eaten a cantaloupe before, but Dad brought home crates90 and crates of them. We had fresh cantaloupe, stewed91 cantaloupe, even fried cantaloupe. One time in California, the grape pickers went on strike. The vineyard owners let people come pick their own grapes for a nickel a pound. We drove about a hundred miles to the vineyards, where the grapes were so ripe they were about to burst on the vine in bunches bigger than my head. We filled our entire car full of green grapes梩he trunk, even the glove compartment92, and Dad piled stacks in our laps so high we could barely see over the top. For weeks afterward, we ate green grapes for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

  * * *All this running around and moving was temporary, Dad explained. He had a plan. He was going to find gold.

  Everybody said Dad was a genius. He could build or fix anything. One time when a neighbor's TV set broke, Dad opened the back and used a macaroni noodle to insulate some crossed wires. The neighbor couldn't get over it. He went around telling everyone in town that Dad sure knew how to use his noodle. Dad was an expert in math and physics and electricity. He read books on calculus93 and logarithmic algebra94 and loved what he called the poetry and symmetry of math. He told us about the magic qualities every number has and how numbers unlock the secrets of the universe. But Dad's main interest was energy: thermal95 energy, nuclear energy, solar energy, electrical energy, and energy from the wind. He said there were so many untapped sources of energy in the world that it was ridiculous to be burning all that fossil fuel.

  Dad was always inventing things, too. One of his most important inventions was a complicated contraption he called the Prospector74. It was going to help us find gold. The Prospector had a big flat surface about four feet high and six feet wide, and it rose up in the air at an angle. The surface was covered with horizontal strips of wood separated by gaps. The Prospector would scoop96 up dirt and rocks and sift97 them through the maze98 of wooden strips. It could figure out whether a rock was gold by the weight. It would throw out the worthless stuff and deposit the gold nuggets in a pile, so whenever we needed groceries, we could go out back and grab ourselves a nugget. At least that was what it would be able to do once Dad finished building it.

  Dad let Brian and me help him work on the Prospector. We'd go out behind the house, and I'd hold the nails while Dad hit them. Sometimes he let me start the nails, and then he'd drive them in with one hard blow from the hammer. The air would be filled with sawdust and the smell of freshly cut wood, and the sound of hammering and whistling, because Dad always whistled while he worked.

  In my mind, Dad was perfect, although he did have what Mom called a little bit of a drinking situation. There was what Mom called Dad's. "beer phase." We could all handle that. Dad drove fast and sang really loud, and locks of his hair fell into his face and life was a little bit scary but still a lot of fun. But when Dad pulled out a bottle of what Mom called. "the hard stuff," she got kind of frantic99, because after working on the bottle for a while, Dad turned into an angry-eyed stranger who threw around furniture and threatened to beat up Mom or anyone else who got in his way. When he'd had his fill of cussing and hollering and smashing things up, he'd collapse100. But Dad drank hard liquor only when we had money, which wasn't often, so life was mostly good in those days.

  Every night when Lori, Brian, and I were about to go to sleep, Dad told us bedtime stories. They were always about him. We'd be tucked in our beds or lying under blankets in the desert, the world dark except for the orange glow from his cigarette. When he took a long draw, it lit up just enough for us to see his face.

  "Tell us a story about yourself, Dad!" we'd beg him.

  "Awww. You don't want to hear another story about me," he'd say.

  "Yes, we do! We do!" we'd insist.

  "Well, okay," he'd say. He'd pause and chuckle101 at some memory. "There's many a damned foolhardy thing that your old man has done, but this one was harebrained even for a crazy sonofabitch like Rex Walls."And then he'd tell us about how, when he was in the air force and his plane's engine conked out, he made an emergency landing in a cattle pasture and saved himself and his crew. Or about the time he wrestled102 a pack of wild dogs that had surrounded a lame4 mustang. Then there was the time he fixed103 a broken sluice104 gate on the Hoover Dam and saved the lives of thousands of people who would have drowned if the dam had burst. There was also the time he went AWOL in the air force to get some beer, and while he was at the bar, he caught a lunatic who was planning to blow up the air base, which went to show that occasionally, it paid to break the rules.

  Dad was a dramatic storyteller. He always started out slow, with lots of pauses. "Go on! What happened next?" we'd ask, even if we'd already heard that story before. Mom giggled105 or rolled her eyes when Dad told his stories, and he glared at her. If someone interrupted his storytelling, he got mad, and we had to beg him to continue and promise that no one would interrupt again.

  Dad always fought harder, flew faster, and gambled smarter than everyone else in his stories. Along the way, he rescued women and children and even men who weren't as strong and clever. Dad taught us the secrets of his heroics梙e showed us how to straddle a wild dog and break his neck, and where to hit a man in the throat so you could kill him with one powerful jab. But he assured us that as long as he was around, we wouldn't have to defend ourselves, because, by God, anyone who so much as laid a finger on any of Rex Walls's children was going to get their butts kicked so hard that you could read Dad's shoe size on their ass cheeks.

  When Dad wasn't telling us about all the amazing things he had already done, he was telling us about the wondrous106 things he was going to do. Like build the Glass Castle. All of Dad's engineering skills and mathematical genius were coming together in one special project: a great big house he was going to build for us in the desert. It would have a glass ceiling and thick glass walls and even a glass staircase. The Glass Castle would have solar cells on the top that would catch the sun's rays and convert them into electricity for heating and cooling and running all the appliances. It would even have its own water-purification system. Dad had worked out the architecture and the floor plans and most of the mathematical calculations. He carried around the blueprints107 for the Glass Castle wherever we went, and sometimes he'd pull them out and let us work on the design for our rooms.

  All we had to do was find gold, Dad said, and we were on the verge108 of that. Once he finished the Prospector and we struck it rich, he'd start work on our Glass Castle.

  AS MUCH AS DAD liked to tell stories about himself, it was almost impossible to get him to talk about his parents or where he was born. We knew he came from a town called Welch, in West Virginia, where a lot of coal was mined, and that his father had worked as a clerk for the railroad, sitting every day in a little station house, writing messages on pieces of paper that he held up on a stick for the passing train engineers. Dad had no interest in a life like that, so he left Welch when he was seventeen to join the air force and become a pilot.

  One of his favorite stories, which he must have told us a hundred times, was about how he met and fell in love with Mom. Dad was in the air force, and Mom was in the USO, but when they met, she was on leave visiting her parents at their cattle ranch near Fish Creek Canyon.

  Dad and some of his air force buddies109 were on a cliff of the canyon, trying to work up the nerve to dive into the lake forty feet below, when Mom and a friend drove up. Mom was wearing a white bathing suit that showed off her figure and her skin, which was dark from the Arizona sun. She had light brown hair that turned blond in the summer, and she never wore any makeup except deep red lipstick110. She looked just like a movie star, Dad always said, but hell, he'd met lots of beautiful women before, and none of them had ever made him weak in the knees. Mom was different. He saw right away that she had true spirit. He fell in love with her the split second he laid eyes on her.

  Mom walked up to the air force men and told them that diving off the cliff was no big deal, she'd been doing it since she was little. The men didn't believe her, so Mom went right to the edge of the cliff and did a perfect swan dive into the water below.

  Dad jumped in after her. No way in hell, he'd say, was he letting a fine broad like that get away from him.

  "What kind of dive did you do, Dad?" I asked whenever he told the story.

  "A parachute dive. Without a parachute," he always answered.

  Dad swam after Mom, and right there in the water, he told her he was going to marry her. Twenty-three men had already proposed to her, Mom told Dad, and she had turned them all down. "What makes you think I'd accept your proposal?" she asked.

  "I didn't propose to you," Dad said. "I told you I was going to marry you."Six months later, they got married. I always thought it was the most romantic story I'd ever heard, but Mom didn't like it. She didn't think it was romantic at all.

  "I had to say yes," Mom said. "Your father wouldn't take no for an answer." Besides, she explained, she had to get away from her mother, who wouldn't let her make even the smallest decision on her own. "I had no idea your father would be even worse."Dad left the air force after he got married because he wanted to make a fortune for his family, and you couldn't do that in the military. In a few months, Mom was pregnant. When Lori came out, she was mute and bald as an egg for the first three years of her life. Then suddenly, she sprouted111 curly hair the color of a new penny and started speaking nonstop. But it sounded like gibberish, and everyone thought she was addled112 except for Mom, who understood her perfectly113 and said she had an excellent vocabulary.

  A year after Lori was born, Mom and Dad had a second daughter, Mary Charlene, who had coal-black hair and chocolate-brown eyes, just like Dad. But Mary Charlene died one night when she was nine months old. Crib death, Mom always said. Two years later, I was born. "You were to replace Mary Charlene," Mom said. She told me that she had ordered up a second redheaded girl so Lori wouldn't feel like she was weird114. "You were such a skinny baby," Mom used to tell me. "The longest, boniest thing the nurses had ever seen."Brian arrived when I was one. He was a blue baby, Mom said. When he was born, he couldn't breathe and came into this world having a seizure115. Whenever Mom told the story, she would hold her arms rigid116 and clench117 her teeth and go bug-eyed to show how Brian looked. Mom said when she saw him like that, she thought, Uh-oh, looks like this one's a goner, too. But Brian lived. For the first year of his life, he kept having those seizures118, then one day they just stopped. He turned into a tough little guy who never whined119 or cried, even the time I accidentally pushed him off the top bunk120 and he broke his nose.

  Mom always said people worried too much about their children. Suffering when you're young is good for you, she said. It immunized your body and your soul, and that was why she ignored us kids when we cried. Fussing over children who cry only encourages them, she told us. That's positive reinforcement for negative behavior.

  Mom never seemed upset about Mary Charlene's death. "God knows what He's doing," she said. "He gave me some perfect children, but He also gave me one that wasn't so perfect, so He said, 'Oops, I better take this one back.'" Dad, however, wouldn't talk about Mary Charlene. If her name came up, his face grew stony121 and he'd leave the room. He was the one who found her body in the crib, and Mom couldn't believe how much it shook him up. "When he found her, he stood there like he was in shock or something, cradling her stiff little body in his arms, and then he screamed like a wounded animal," she told us. "I never heard such a horrible sound."Mom said Dad was never the same after Mary Charlene died. He started having dark moods, staying out late and coming home drunk, and losing jobs. One day soon after Brian was born, we were short on cash, so Dad pawned122 Mom's big diamond wedding ring, which her mother had paid for, and that upset Mom. After that, whenever Mom and Dad got in a fight, Mom brought up the ring, and Dad told her to quit her damn bellyaching. He'd say he was going to get her a ring even fancier than the one he pawned. That was why we had to find gold. To get Mom a new wedding ring. That and so we could build the Glass Castle.

  "DO YOU LIKE ALWAYS moving around?" Lori asked me.

  "Of course I do!" I said. "Don't you?""Sure," she said.

  It was late afternoon, and we were parked outside of a bar in the Nevada desert. It was called the Bar None Bar. I was four and Lori was seven. We were on our way to Las Vegas. Dad had decided it would be easier, as he put it, to accumulate the capital necessary to finance the Prospector if he hit the casinos for a while. We'd been driving for hours when he saw the Bar None Bar, pulled over the Green Caboose梩he Blue Goose had died, and we now had another car, a station wagon123 Dad had named the Green Caboose梐nd announced that he was going inside for a quick nip. Mom put on some red lipstick and joined him, even though she didn't drink anything stronger than tea. They had been inside for hours. The sun hung high in the sky, and there was not the slightest hint of a breeze. Nothing moved except some buzzards on the side of the road, pecking over an unrecognizable carcass. Brian was reading a dog-eared comic book.

  "How many places have we lived?" I asked Lori.

  "That depends on what you mean by 'lived,'" she said. "If you spend one night in some town, did you live there? What about two nights? Or a whole week?"I thought. "If you unpack124 all your things," I said.

  We counted eleven places we had lived, then we lost track. We couldn't remember the names of some of the towns or what the houses we had lived in looked like. Mostly, I remembered the inside of cars.

  "What do you think would happen if we weren't always moving around?" I asked.

  "We'd get caught," Lori said.

  * * *When Mom and Dad came out of the Bar None Bar, they brought us each a long piece of beef jerky and a candy bar. I ate the jerky first, and by the time I unwrapped my Mounds125 bar, it had melted into a brown, gooey mess, so I decided to save it until night, when the desert cold would harden it up again.

  By then we had passed through the small town beyond the Bar None Bar. Dad was driving and smoking with one hand and holding a brown bottle of beer with the other. Lori was in the front seat between him and Mom, and Brian, who was in back with me, was trying to trade me half of his 3 Musketeers for half of my Mounds. Just then we took a sharp turn over some railroad tracks, the door flew open, and I tumbled out of the car.

  I rolled several yards along the embankment, and when I came to a stop, I was too shocked to cry, with my breath knocked out and grit126 and pebbles127 in my eyes and mouth. I lifted my head in time to watch the Green Caboose get smaller and smaller and then disappear around a bend.

  Blood was running down my forehead and flowing out of my nose. My knees and elbows were scraped raw and covered with sand. I was still holding the Mounds bar, but I had smashed it during the fall, tearing the wrapper and squeezing out the white coconut128 filling, which was also covered with grit.

  Once I got my breath back, I crawled along the railroad embankment to the road and sat down to wait for Mom and Dad to come back. My whole body felt sore. The sun was small and white and broiling-hot. A wind had come up, and it was roiling129 the dust along the roadside. I waited for what seemed like a long time before I decided it was possible Mom and Dad might not come back for me. They might not notice I was missing. They might decide that it wasn't worth the drive back to retrieve130 me; that, like Quixote the cat, I was a bother and a burden they could do without.

  The little town behind me was quiet, and there were no other cars on the road. I started crying, but that only made me feel more sore. I got up and began to walk back toward the houses, and then I decided that if Mom and Dad did come for me, they wouldn't be able to find me, so I returned to the railroad tracks and sat down again.

  I was scraping the dried blood off my legs when I looked up and saw the Green Caboose come back around the bend. It hurtled up the road toward me, getting bigger and bigger, until it screeched131 to a halt right in front of me. Dad got out of the car, knelt down, and tried to give me a hug.

  I pulled away from him. "I thought you were going to leave me behind," I said.

  "Aww, I'd never do that," he said. "Your brother was trying to tell us that you'd fallen out, but he was blubbering so damned hard we couldn't understand a word he was saying."Dad started pulling the pebbles out of my face. Some were buried deep in my skin, so he reached into the glove compartment for a pair of needle-nosed pliers. When he'd plucked all the pebbles from my cheeks and forehead, he took out his handkerchief and tried to stop my nose from bleeding. It was dripping like a broken faucet132. "Damn, honey," he said. "You busted133 your snot locker134 pretty good."I started laughing really hard. "Snot locker" was the funniest name I'd ever heard for a nose. After Dad cleaned me up and I got back in the car, I told Brian and Lori and Mom about the word, and they all started laughing as hard as me. Snot locker. It was hilarious.

  WE LIVED IN LAS VEGAS for about a month, in a motel room with dark red walls and two narrow beds. We three kids slept in one, Mom and Dad in the other. During the day, we went to the casinos, where Dad said he had a sure-fire system for beating the house. Brian and I played hide-and-seek among the clicking slot machines, checking the trays for overlooked quarters, while Dad was winning money at the blackjack table. I'd stare at the long-legged showgirls when they sashayed across the casino floor, with huge feathers on their heads and behinds, sequins sparkling on their bodies, and glitter around their eyes. When I tried to imitate their walk, Brian said I looked like an ostrich135.

  At the end of the day, Dad came to get us, his pockets full of money. He bought us cowboy hats and fringed vests, and we ate chicken-fried steaks in restaurants with ice-cold air-conditioning and a miniature jukebox at each table. One night when Dad had made an especially big score, he said it was time to start living like the high rollers we had become. He took us to a restaurant with swinging doors like a saloon. Inside, the walls were decorated with real prospecting136 tools. A man with garters on his arms played a piano, and a woman with gloves that came up past her elbows kept hurrying over to light Dad's cigarettes.

  Dad told us we were having something special for dessert梐 flaming ice-cream cake. The waiter wheeled out a tray with the cake on it, and the woman with the gloves lit it with a taper137. Everyone stopped eating to watch. The flames had a slow, watery138 movement, rolling up into the air like ribbons. Everyone started clapping, and Dad jumped up and raised the waiter's hand above his head as if he'd won first prize.

  A few days later, Mom and Dad went off to the blackjack table and then almost immediately came looking for us. Dad said one of the dealers139 had figured out that he had a system and had put the word out on him. He told us it was time to do the skedaddle.

  * * *We had to get far away from Las Vegas, Dad said, because the Mafia, which owned the casinos, was after him. We headed west, through desert and then mountains. Mom said we should all live near the Pacific Ocean at least once in our lives, so we kept going all the way to San Francisco.

  Mom didn't want us staying in one of those tourist-trap hotels near Fisherman's Wharf140, which she said were inauthentic and cut off from the real life of the city, so we found one that had a lot more character, in a place called the Tenderloin District. Sailors and women with lots of makeup stayed there, too. Dad called it a flophouse, but Mom said it was an SRO, and when I asked what that stood for, she told me the hotel was for special residents only.

  While Mom and Dad went out looking for investment money for the Prospector, we kids played in the hotel. One day I found a half-full box of matches. I was thrilled, because I much preferred the wooden matches that came in boxes over the flimsy ones in the cardboard books. I took them upstairs and locked myself in the bathroom. I pulled off some toilet paper, lit it, and when it started burning, I threw it down the toilet. I was torturing the fire, giving it life, and snuffing it out. Then I got a better idea. I made a pile of toilet paper in the toilet, lit it, and when it started burning, the flame shooting silently up out of the bowl, I flushed it down the toilet.

  One night a few days later, I suddenly woke up. The air was hot and stifling141. I smelled smoke and then saw flames leaping at the open window. At first I couldn't tell if the fire was inside or outside, but then I saw that one of the curtains, only a few feet from the bed, was ablaze142.

  Mom and Dad were not in the room, and Lori and Brian were still asleep. I tried to scream to warn them, but nothing came out of my throat. I wanted to reach over and shake them awake, but I couldn't move. The fire was growing bigger, stronger, and angrier.

  Just then the door burst open. Someone was calling our names. It was Dad. Lori and Brian woke up and ran to him, coughing from the smoke. I still couldn't move. I watched the fire, expecting that at any moment my blanket would burst into flames. Dad wrapped the blanket around me and picked me up, then ran down the stairs, leading Lori and Brian with one arm and holding me in the other.

  Dad took us kids across the street to a bar, then went back to help fight the fire. A waitress with red fingernails and blue-black hair asked if we wanted a Coca-Cola or, heck, even a beer, because we'd been through a lot that night. Brian and Lori said yes, please, to Cokes. I asked if I might please have a Shirley Temple, which was what Dad bought me whenever he took me to a bar. For some reason, the waitress laughed.

  The people at the bar kept making jokes about women running naked out of the burning hotel. All I had on was my underwear, so I kept the blanket wrapped tightly around me. After I drank my Shirley Temple, I tried to go back across the street to watch the fire, but the waitress kept me at the bar, so I climbed up on a stool to watch through the window. The fire trucks had arrived. There were flashing lights and men in black rubber coats holding canvas hoses with big jets of water coming out of them.

  I wondered if the fire had been out to get me. I wondered if all fire was related, like Dad said all humans were related, if the fire that had burned me that day while I cooked hot dogs was somehow connected to the fire I had flushed down the toilet and the fire burning at the hotel. I didn't have the answers to those questions, but what I did know was that I lived in a world that at any moment could erupt into fire. It was the sort of knowledge that kept you on your toes.

  * * *After the hotel burned down, we lived for a few days on the beach. When we put down the backseat of the Green Caboose, there was room for everyone to sleep, though sometimes someone's feet would be sticking in my face. One night a policeman tapped on our window and said we had to leave; it was illegal to sleep on the beach. He was nice and kept calling us. "folks" and even drew us a map to a place where we could sleep without getting arrested.

  But after he left, Dad called him the goddamn gestapo and said that people like that got their jollies pushing people like us around. Dad was fed up with civilization. He and Mom decided we should move back to the desert and resume our hunt for gold without our starter money. "These cities will kill you," he said.

  AFTER WE PULLED UP stakes in San Francisco, we headed for the Mojave Desert. Near the Eagle Mountains, Mom made Dad stop the car. She'd seen a tree on the side of the road that had caught her fancy.

  It wasn't just any tree. It was an ancient Joshua tree. It stood in a crease143 of land where the desert ended and the mountain began, forming a wind tunnel. From the time the Joshua tree was a tiny sapling, it had been so beaten down by the whipping wind that, rather than trying to grow skyward, it had grown in the direction that the wind pushed it. It existed now in a permanent state of windblownness, leaning over so far that it seemed ready to topple, although, in fact, its roots held it firmly in place.

  I thought the Joshua tree was ugly. It looked scraggly and freakish, permanently144 stuck in its twisted, tortured position, and it made me think of how some adults tell you not to make weird faces because your features could freeze. Mom, however, thought it was one of the most beautiful trees she had ever seen. She told us she had to paint it. While she was setting out her easel, Dad drove up the road to see what was ahead. He found a scattering145 of parched146 little houses, trailers settling into the sand, and shacks with rusty147 tin roofs. It was called Midland. One of the little houses had a for-rent sign. "What the hell," Dad said, "this place is as good as any other."* * *The house we rented had been built by a mining company. It was white, with two rooms and a swaybacked roof. There were no trees, and the desert sand ran right up to the back door. At night you could hear coyotes howling.

  When we first got to Midland, those coyotes kept me awake, and as I lay in bed, I'd hear other sounds桮ila monsters rustling148 in the underbrush, moths149 knocking against the screens, and the creosote crackling in the wind. One night when the lights were out and I could see a sliver150 of moon through the window, I heard a slithering noise on the floor.

  "I think there's something under our bed," I said to Lori.

  "It's merely a figment of your overly active imagination," Lori said. She talked like a grown-up when she was annoyed.

  I tried to be brave, but I had heard something. In the moonlight, I thought I saw it move.

  "Something's there," I whispered.

  "Go to sleep," Lori said.

  Holding my pillow over my head for protection, I ran into the living room, where Dad was reading. "What's up, Mountain Goat?" he asked. He called me that because I never fell down when we were climbing mountains梥ure-footed as a mountain goat, he'd always say.

  "Nothing, probably," I said. "I just think maybe I saw something in the bedroom." Dad raised his eyebrows151. "But it was probably just a figment of my overly active imagination.""Did you get a good look at it?" he asked.

  "Not really.""You must have seen it. Was it a big old hairy sonofabitch with the damnedest-looking teeth and claws?""That's it!""And did it have pointed152 ears and evil eyes with fire in 'em, and did it stare at you all wicked-like?" he asked.

  "Yes! Yes! You've seen it, too?""Better believe I have. It's that old ornery bastard Demon153."Dad said he had been chasing Demon for years. By now, Dad said, that old Demon had figured out that it had better not mess with Rex Walls. But if that sneaky son of a gun thought it was going to terrorize Rex Walls's little girl, it had by God got another think coming. "Go fetch my hunting knife," Dad said.

  I got Dad his knife with the carved bone handle and the blade of blue German steel, and he gave me a pipe wrench154, and we went looking for Demon. We looked under my bed, where I had seen it, but it was gone. We looked all around the house梪nder the table, in the dark corners of the closets, in the toolbox, even outside in the trash cans.

  "C'mere, you sorry-ass old Demon!" Dad called out in the desert night. "Come out and show your butt-ugly face, you yellow-bellied monster!""Yeah, c'mon, you old mean Demon!" I said, waving the pipe wrench in the air. "We're not scared of you!"There was only the sound of the coyotes in the distance. "This is just like that chickenshit Demon," Dad said. He sat down on the front step and lit up a cigarette, then told me a story about the time Demon was terrorizing an entire town, and Dad fought it off in hand-to-hand combat, biting its ears and sticking his fingers in its eyes. Old Demon was terrified because that was the first time it had met anyone who wasn't afraid of it. "Damned old Demon didn't know what to think," Dad said, shaking his head with a chuckle. That was the thing to remember about all monsters, Dad said: They love to frighten people, but the minute you stare them down, they turn tail and run. "All you have to do, Mountain Goat, is show old Demon that you're not afraid."* * *Not much grew around Midland other than the Joshua tree, cacti155, and the scrubby little creosote bushes that Dad said were some of the oldest plants on the planet. The great granddaddy creosote bushes were thousands of years old. When it rained, they let off a disgusting musty smell so animals wouldn't eat them. Only four inches of rain fell a year around Midland梐bout the same as in the northern Sahara梐nd water for humans came in on the train once a day in special containers. The only animals that could survive around Midland were lipless, scaly creatures such as Gila monsters and scorpions, and people like us.

  A month after we moved to Midland, Juju got bitten by a rattlesnake and died. We buried him near the Joshua tree. It was practically the only time I ever saw Brian cry. But we had plenty of cats to keep us company. Too many, in fact. We had rescued lots of cats since we tossed Quixote out the window, and most of them had gone and had kittens, and it got to the point where we had to get rid of some of them. We didn't have many neighbors to give them to, so Dad put them in a burlap sack and drove to a pond made by the mining company to cool equipment. I watched him load the back of the car with bobbing, mewing bags.

  "It doesn't seem right," I told Mom. "We rescued them. Now we're going to kill them.""We gave them a little extra time on the planet," Mom said. "They should be grateful for that."* * *Dad finally got a job in the gypsum mine, digging out the white rocks that were ground into the powder used in drywall and plaster of paris. When he came home, he'd be covered with white gypsum powder, and sometimes we'd play ghost and he'd chase us. He also brought back sacks of gypsum, and Mom mixed it with water to make Venus de Milo sculptures from a rubber cast she ordered through the mail. It grieved Mom that the mine was destroying so much white rock梥he said it was real marble and deserved a better fate and that, by making her sculptures, she was at least immortalizing some of it.

  Mom was pregnant. Everyone hoped it would be a boy so Brian would have someone to play with other than me. When it got time for Mom to give birth, Dad's plan was for us to move to Blythe, twenty miles south, which was such a big town it had two movie theaters and two state prisons.

  In the meantime, Mom devoted156 herself to her art. She spent all day working on oil paintings, watercolors, charcoal157 drawings, pen-and-ink sketches158, clay and wire sculptures, silk screens, and wood blocks. She didn't have any particular style; some of her paintings were what she called primitive159, some were impressionistic and abstract, some were realistic. "I don't want to be pigeonholed," she liked to say. Mom was also a writer and was always typing away on novels, short stories, plays, poetry, fables160, and children's books, which she illustrated161 herself. Mom's writing was very creative. So was her spelling. She needed a proofreader, and when Lori was just seven years old, she would go over Mom's manuscripts, checking for errors.

  While we were in Midland, Mom painted dozens of variations and studies of the Joshua tree. We'd go with her and she'd give us art lessons. One time I saw a tiny Joshua tree sapling growing not too far from the old tree. I wanted to dig it up and replant it near our house. I told Mom that I would protect it from the wind and water it every day so that it could grow nice and tall and straight.

  Mom frowned at me. "You'd be destroying what makes it special," she said. "It's the Joshua tree's struggle that gives it its beauty."I NEVER BELIEVED IN Santa Claus.

  None of us kids did. Mom and Dad refused to let us. They couldn't afford expensive presents, and they didn't want us to think we weren't as good as other kids who, on Christmas morning, found all sorts of fancy toys under the tree that were supposedly left by Santa Claus. So they told us all about how other kids were deceived by their parents, how the toys the grown-ups claimed were made by little elves wearing bell caps in their workshop at the North Pole actually had labels on them saying MADE IN JAPAN.

  "Try not to look down on those other children," Mom said. "It's not their fault that they've been brainwashed into believing silly myths."We celebrated162 Christmas, but usually about a week after December 25, when you could find perfectly good bows and wrapping paper that people had thrown away and Christmas trees discarded on the roadside that still had most of their needles and even some silver tinsel hanging on them. Mom and Dad would give us a bag of marbles or a doll or a slingshot that had been marked way down in an after-Christmas sale.

  Dad lost his job at the gypsum mine after getting in an argument with the foreman, and when Christmas came that year, we had no money at all. On Christmas Eve, Dad took each of us kids out into the desert night one by one. I had a blanket wrapped around me, and when it was my turn, I offered to share it with Dad, but he said no thanks. The cold never bothered him. I was five that year and I sat next to Dad and we looked up at the sky. Dad loved to talk about the stars. He explained to us how they rotated through the night sky as the earth turned. He taught us to identify the constellations163 and how to navigate164 by the North Star. Those shining stars, he liked to point out, were one of the special treats for people like us who lived out in the wilderness165. Rich city folks, he'd say, lived in fancy apartments, but their air was so polluted they couldn't even see the stars. We'd have to be out of our minds to want to trade places with any of them.

  "Pick out your favorite star," Dad said that night. He told me I could have it for keeps. He said it was my Christmas present.

  "You can't give me a star!" I said. "No one owns the stars.""That's right," Dad said. "No one else own


点击收听单词发音收听单词发音  

1 standing 2hCzgo     
n.持续,地位;adj.永久的,不动的,直立的,不流动的
参考例句:
  • After the earthquake only a few houses were left standing.地震过后只有几幢房屋还立着。
  • They're standing out against any change in the law.他们坚决反对对法律做任何修改。
2 swell IHnzB     
vi.膨胀,肿胀;增长,增强
参考例句:
  • The waves had taken on a deep swell.海浪汹涌。
  • His injured wrist began to swell.他那受伤的手腕开始肿了。
3 bent QQ8yD     
n.爱好,癖好;adj.弯的;决心的,一心的
参考例句:
  • He was fully bent upon the project.他一心扑在这项计划上。
  • We bent over backward to help them.我们尽了最大努力帮助他们。
4 lame r9gzj     
adj.跛的,(辩解、论据等)无说服力的
参考例句:
  • The lame man needs a stick when he walks.那跛脚男子走路时需借助拐棍。
  • I don't believe his story.It'sounds a bit lame.我不信他讲的那一套。他的话听起来有些靠不住。
5 ragged KC0y8     
adj.衣衫褴褛的,粗糙的,刺耳的
参考例句:
  • A ragged shout went up from the small crowd.这一小群人发出了刺耳的喊叫。
  • Ragged clothing infers poverty.破衣烂衫意味着贫穷。
6 fabric 3hezG     
n.织物,织品,布;构造,结构,组织
参考例句:
  • The fabric will spot easily.这种织品很容易玷污。
  • I don't like the pattern on the fabric.我不喜欢那块布料上的图案。
7 singed dad6a30cdea7e50732a0ebeba3c4caff     
v.浅表烧焦( singe的过去式和过去分词 );(毛发)燎,烧焦尖端[边儿]
参考例句:
  • He singed his hair as he tried to light his cigarette. 他点烟时把头发给燎了。
  • The cook singed the chicken to remove the fine hairs. 厨师把鸡燎一下,以便去掉细毛。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
8 shrieked dc12d0d25b0f5d980f524cd70c1de8fe     
v.尖叫( shriek的过去式和过去分词 )
参考例句:
  • She shrieked in fright. 她吓得尖叫起来。
  • Li Mei-t'ing gave a shout, and Lu Tzu-hsiao shrieked, "Tell what? 李梅亭大声叫,陆子潇尖声叫:“告诉什么? 来自汉英文学 - 围城
9 smother yxlwO     
vt./vi.使窒息;抑制;闷死;n.浓烟;窒息
参考例句:
  • They tried to smother the flames with a damp blanket.他们试图用一条湿毯子去灭火。
  • We tried to smother our laughter.我们强忍住笑。
10 unnaturally 3ftzAP     
adv.违反习俗地;不自然地;勉强地;不近人情地
参考例句:
  • Her voice sounded unnaturally loud. 她的嗓音很响亮,但是有点反常。 来自《简明英汉词典》
  • Her eyes were unnaturally bright. 她的眼睛亮得不自然。 来自《简明英汉词典》
11 ass qvyzK     
n.驴;傻瓜,蠢笨的人
参考例句:
  • He is not an ass as they make him.他不象大家猜想的那样笨。
  • An ass endures his burden but not more than his burden.驴能负重但不能超过它能力所负担的。
12 asses asses     
n. 驴,愚蠢的人,臀部 adv. (常用作后置)用于贬损或骂人
参考例句:
  • Sometimes I got to kick asses to make this place run right. 有时我为了把这个地方搞得像个样子,也不得不踢踢别人的屁股。 来自教父部分
  • Those were wild asses maybe, or zebras flying around in herds. 那些也许是野驴或斑马在成群地奔跑。
13 hovering 99fdb695db3c202536060470c79b067f     
鸟( hover的现在分词 ); 靠近(某事物); (人)徘徊; 犹豫
参考例句:
  • The helicopter was hovering about 100 metres above the pad. 直升机在离发射台一百米的上空盘旋。
  • I'm hovering between the concert and the play tonight. 我犹豫不决今晚是听音乐会还是看戏。
14 ribs 24fc137444401001077773555802b280     
n.肋骨( rib的名词复数 );(船或屋顶等的)肋拱;肋骨状的东西;(织物的)凸条花纹
参考例句:
  • He suffered cracked ribs and bruising. 他断了肋骨还有挫伤。
  • Make a small incision below the ribs. 在肋骨下方切开一个小口。
15 crunching crunching     
v.嘎吱嘎吱地咬嚼( crunch的现在分词 );嘎吱作响;(快速大量地)处理信息;数字捣弄
参考例句:
  • The horses were crunching their straw at their manger. 这些马在嘎吱嘎吱地吃槽里的草。 来自《简明英汉词典》
  • The dog was crunching a bone. 狗正嘎吱嘎吱地嚼骨头。 来自《简明英汉词典》
16 thigh RItzO     
n.大腿;股骨
参考例句:
  • He is suffering from a strained thigh muscle.他的大腿肌肉拉伤了,疼得很。
  • The thigh bone is connected to the hip bone.股骨连着髋骨。
17 graft XQBzg     
n.移植,嫁接,艰苦工作,贪污;v.移植,嫁接
参考例句:
  • I am having a skin graft on my arm soon.我马上就要接受手臂的皮肤移植手术。
  • The minister became rich through graft.这位部长透过贪污受贿致富。
18 sling fEMzL     
vt.扔;悬挂;n.挂带;吊索,吊兜;弹弓
参考例句:
  • The boy discharged a stone from a sling.这个男孩用弹弓射石头。
  • By using a hoist the movers were able to sling the piano to the third floor.搬运工人用吊车才把钢琴吊到3楼。
19 bruises bruises     
n.瘀伤,伤痕,擦伤( bruise的名词复数 )
参考例句:
  • He was covered with bruises after falling off his bicycle. 他从自行车上摔了下来,摔得浑身伤痕。 来自《简明英汉词典》
  • The pear had bruises of dark spots. 这个梨子有碰伤的黑斑。 来自《简明英汉词典》
20 smear 6EmyX     
v.涂抹;诽谤,玷污;n.污点;诽谤,污蔑
参考例句:
  • He has been spreading false stories in an attempt to smear us.他一直在散布谎言企图诽谤我们。
  • There's a smear on your shirt.你衬衫上有个污点。
21 smears ff795c29bb653b3db2c08e7c1b20f633     
污迹( smear的名词复数 ); 污斑; (显微镜的)涂片; 诽谤
参考例句:
  • His evidence was a blend of smears, half truths and downright lies. 他的证词里掺杂着诽谤、部份的事实和彻头彻尾的谎言。
  • Anything written with a soft pencil smears easily. 用软铅笔写成的东西容易污成一片。
22 spoke XryyC     
n.(车轮的)辐条;轮辐;破坏某人的计划;阻挠某人的行动 v.讲,谈(speak的过去式);说;演说;从某种观点来说
参考例句:
  • They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
  • The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。
23 squeaking 467e7b45c42df668cdd7afec9e998feb     
v.短促地尖叫( squeak的现在分词 );吱吱叫;告密;充当告密者
参考例句:
  • Squeaking floorboards should be screwed down. 踏上去咯咯作响的地板应用螺钉钉住。 来自《简明英汉词典》
  • Can you hear the mice squeaking? 你听到老鼠吱吱叫吗? 来自《简明英汉词典》
24 cocktail Jw8zNt     
n.鸡尾酒;餐前开胃小吃;混合物
参考例句:
  • We invited some foreign friends for a cocktail party.我们邀请了一些外国朋友参加鸡尾酒会。
  • At a cocktail party in Hollywood,I was introduced to Charlie Chaplin.在好莱坞的一次鸡尾酒会上,人家把我介绍给查理·卓别林。
25 wavy 7gFyX     
adj.有波浪的,多浪的,波浪状的,波动的,不稳定的
参考例句:
  • She drew a wavy line under the word.她在这个词的下面画了一条波纹线。
  • His wavy hair was too long and flopped just beneath his brow.他的波浪式头发太长了,正好垂在他的眉毛下。
26 makeup 4AXxO     
n.组织;性格;化装品
参考例句:
  • Those who failed the exam take a makeup exam.这次考试不及格的人必须参加补考。
  • Do you think her beauty could makeup for her stupidity?你认为她的美丽能弥补她的愚蠢吗?
27 stunned 735ec6d53723be15b1737edd89183ec2     
adj. 震惊的,惊讶的 动词stun的过去式和过去分词
参考例句:
  • The fall stunned me for a moment. 那一下摔得我昏迷了片刻。
  • The leaders of the Kopper Company were then stunned speechless. 科伯公司的领导们当时被惊得目瞪口呆。
28 disapproved 3ee9b7bf3f16130a59cb22aafdea92d0     
v.不赞成( disapprove的过去式和过去分词 )
参考例句:
  • My parents disapproved of my marriage. 我父母不赞成我的婚事。 来自《简明英汉词典》
  • She disapproved of her son's indiscriminate television viewing. 她不赞成儿子不加选择地收看电视。 来自《简明英汉词典》
29 joint m3lx4     
adj.联合的,共同的;n.关节,接合处;v.连接,贴合
参考例句:
  • I had a bad fall,which put my shoulder out of joint.我重重地摔了一跤,肩膀脫臼了。
  • We wrote a letter in joint names.我们联名写了封信。
30 scorpion pD7zk     
n.蝎子,心黑的人,蝎子鞭
参考例句:
  • The scorpion has a sting that can be deadly.蝎子有可以致命的螫针。
  • The scorpion has a sting that can be deadly.蝎子有可以致命的螫针。
31 quacks fcca4a6d22cfeec960c2f34f653fe3d7     
abbr.quacksalvers 庸医,骗子(16世纪习惯用水银或汞治疗梅毒的人)n.江湖医生( quack的名词复数 );江湖郎中;(鸭子的)呱呱声v.(鸭子)发出嘎嘎声( quack的第三人称单数 )
参考例句:
  • I went everywhere for treatment, tried all sorts of quacks. 我四处求医,看过了各种各样的江湖郎中。 来自辞典例句
  • Hard-working medical men may come to be almost as mischievous as quacks. 辛勤工作的医生可能变成江湖郎中那样的骗子。 来自辞典例句
32 decided lvqzZd     
adj.决定了的,坚决的;明显的,明确的
参考例句:
  • This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
  • There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。
33 hilarious xdhz3     
adj.充满笑声的,欢闹的;[反]depressed
参考例句:
  • The party got quite hilarious after they brought more wine.在他们又拿来更多的酒之后,派对变得更加热闹起来。
  • We stop laughing because the show was so hilarious.我们笑个不停,因为那个节目太搞笑了。
34 raffle xAHzs     
n.废物,垃圾,抽奖售卖;v.以抽彩出售
参考例句:
  • The money was raised by the sale of raffle tickets.这笔款子是通过出售购物彩券筹集的。
  • He won a car in the raffle.他在兑奖售物活动中赢得了一辆汽车。
35 afterward fK6y3     
adv.后来;以后
参考例句:
  • Let's go to the theatre first and eat afterward. 让我们先去看戏,然后吃饭。
  • Afterward,the boy became a very famous artist.后来,这男孩成为一个很有名的艺术家。
36 doorway 2s0xK     
n.门口,(喻)入门;门路,途径
参考例句:
  • They huddled in the shop doorway to shelter from the rain.他们挤在商店门口躲雨。
  • Mary suddenly appeared in the doorway.玛丽突然出现在门口。
37 sprinted cbad7fd28d99bfe76a3766a4dd081936     
v.短距离疾跑( sprint的过去式和过去分词 )
参考例句:
  • He sprinted for the line. 他向终点线冲去。
  • Sergeant Horne sprinted to the car. 霍恩中士全力冲向那辆汽车。 来自辞典例句
38 lookout w0sxT     
n.注意,前途,瞭望台
参考例句:
  • You can see everything around from the lookout.从了望台上你可以看清周围的一切。
  • It's a bad lookout for the company if interest rates don't come down.如果利率降不下来,公司的前景可就不妙了。
39 unbearable alCwB     
adj.不能容忍的;忍受不住的
参考例句:
  • It is unbearable to be always on thorns.老是处于焦虑不安的情况中是受不了的。
  • The more he thought of it the more unbearable it became.他越想越觉得无法忍受。
40 bellowed fa9ba2065b18298fa17a6311db3246fc     
v.发出吼叫声,咆哮(尤指因痛苦)( bellow的过去式和过去分词 );(愤怒地)说出(某事),大叫
参考例句:
  • They bellowed at her to stop. 他们吼叫着让她停下。
  • He bellowed with pain when the tooth was pulled out. 当牙齿被拔掉时,他痛得大叫。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
41 hiss 2yJy9     
v.发出嘶嘶声;发嘘声表示不满
参考例句:
  • We can hear the hiss of air escaping from a tire.我们能听到一只轮胎的嘶嘶漏气声。
  • Don't hiss at the speaker.不要嘘演讲人。
42 triumphantly 9fhzuv     
ad.得意洋洋地;得胜地;成功地
参考例句:
  • The lion was roaring triumphantly. 狮子正在发出胜利的吼叫。
  • Robert was looking at me triumphantly. 罗伯特正得意扬扬地看着我。
43 stomp stomp     
v.跺(脚),重踩,重踏
参考例句:
  • 3.And you go to france, and you go to stomp! 你去法国,你去看跺脚舞!
  • 4.How hard did she stomp? 她跺得有多狠?
44 hips f8c80f9a170ee6ab52ed1e87054f32d4     
abbr.high impact polystyrene 高冲击强度聚苯乙烯,耐冲性聚苯乙烯n.臀部( hip的名词复数 );[建筑学]屋脊;臀围(尺寸);臀部…的
参考例句:
  • She stood with her hands on her hips. 她双手叉腰站着。
  • They wiggled their hips to the sound of pop music. 他们随着流行音乐的声音摇晃着臀部。 来自《简明英汉词典》
45 saucy wDMyK     
adj.无礼的;俊俏的;活泼的
参考例句:
  • He was saucy and mischievous when he was working.他工作时总爱调皮捣蛋。
  • It was saucy of you to contradict your father.你顶撞父亲,真是无礼。
46 overflow fJOxZ     
v.(使)外溢,(使)溢出;溢出,流出,漫出
参考例句:
  • The overflow from the bath ran on to the floor.浴缸里的水溢到了地板上。
  • After a long period of rain,the river may overflow its banks.长时间的下雨天后,河水可能溢出岸来。
47 steered dee52ce2903883456c9b7a7f258660e5     
v.驾驶( steer的过去式和过去分词 );操纵;控制;引导
参考例句:
  • He steered the boat into the harbour. 他把船开进港。
  • The freighter steered out of Santiago Bay that evening. 那天晚上货轮驶出了圣地亚哥湾。 来自《简明英汉词典》
48 grumbling grumbling     
adj. 喃喃鸣不平的, 出怨言的
参考例句:
  • She's always grumbling to me about how badly she's treated at work. 她总是向我抱怨她在工作中如何受亏待。
  • We didn't hear any grumbling about the food. 我们没听到过对食物的抱怨。
49 growled 65a0c9cac661e85023a63631d6dab8a3     
v.(动物)发狺狺声, (雷)作隆隆声( growl的过去式和过去分词 );低声咆哮着说
参考例句:
  • \"They ought to be birched, \" growled the old man. 老人咆哮道:“他们应受到鞭打。” 来自《简明英汉词典》
  • He growled out an answer. 他低声威胁着回答。 来自《简明英汉词典》
50 screeching 8bf34b298a2d512e9b6787a29dc6c5f0     
v.发出尖叫声( screech的现在分词 );发出粗而刺耳的声音;高叫
参考例句:
  • Monkeys were screeching in the trees. 猴子在树上吱吱地叫着。
  • the unedifying sight of the two party leaders screeching at each other 两党党魁狺狺对吠的讨厌情景
51 posture q1gzk     
n.姿势,姿态,心态,态度;v.作出某种姿势
参考例句:
  • The government adopted an uncompromising posture on the issue of independence.政府在独立这一问题上采取了毫不妥协的态度。
  • He tore off his coat and assumed a fighting posture.他脱掉上衣,摆出一副打架的架势。
52 investigators e970f9140785518a87fc81641b7c89f7     
n.调查者,审查者( investigator的名词复数 )
参考例句:
  • This memo could be the smoking gun that investigators have been looking for. 这份备忘录可能是调查人员一直在寻找的证据。
  • The team consisted of six investigators and two secretaries. 这个团队由六个调查人员和两个秘书组成。 来自《简明英汉词典》
53 ashtray 6eoyI     
n.烟灰缸
参考例句:
  • He knocked out his pipe in the big glass ashtray.他在大玻璃烟灰缸里磕净烟斗。
  • She threw the cigarette butt into the ashtray.她把烟头扔进烟灰缸。
54 butts 3da5dac093efa65422cbb22af4588c65     
笑柄( butt的名词复数 ); (武器或工具的)粗大的一端; 屁股; 烟蒂
参考例句:
  • The Nazis worked them over with gun butts. 纳粹分子用枪托毒打他们。
  • The house butts to a cemetery. 这所房子和墓地相连。
55 pall hvwyP     
v.覆盖,使平淡无味;n.柩衣,棺罩;棺材;帷幕
参考例句:
  • Already the allure of meals in restaurants had begun to pall.饭店里的饭菜已经不像以前那样诱人。
  • I find his books begin to pall on me after a while.我发觉他的书读过一阵子就开始对我失去吸引力。
56 nomads 768a0f027c2142bf3f626e9422a6ffe9     
n.游牧部落的一员( nomad的名词复数 );流浪者;游牧生活;流浪生活
参考例句:
  • For ten years she dwelled among the nomads of North America. 她在北美游牧民中生活了十年。
  • Nomads have inhabited this region for thousands of years. 游牧民族在这地区居住已有数千年了。 来自《简明英汉词典》
57 shacks 10fad6885bef7d154b3947a97a2c36a9     
n.窝棚,简陋的小屋( shack的名词复数 )
参考例句:
  • They live in shacks which they made out of wood. 他们住在用木头搭成的简陋的小屋里。 来自《简明英汉词典》
  • Most people in Port au-Prince live in tin shacks. 太子港的大多数居民居住在铁皮棚里。 来自互联网
58 superstition VHbzg     
n.迷信,迷信行为
参考例句:
  • It's a common superstition that black cats are unlucky.认为黑猫不吉祥是一种很普遍的迷信。
  • Superstition results from ignorance.迷信产生于无知。
59 soda cr3ye     
n.苏打水;汽水
参考例句:
  • She doesn't enjoy drinking chocolate soda.她不喜欢喝巧克力汽水。
  • I will freshen your drink with more soda and ice cubes.我给你的饮料重加一些苏打水和冰块。
60 desolate vmizO     
adj.荒凉的,荒芜的;孤独的,凄凉的;v.使荒芜,使孤寂
参考例句:
  • The city was burned into a desolate waste.那座城市被烧成一片废墟。
  • We all felt absolutely desolate when she left.她走后,我们都觉得万分孤寂。
61 isolated bqmzTd     
adj.与世隔绝的
参考例句:
  • His bad behaviour was just an isolated incident. 他的不良行为只是个别事件。
  • Patients with the disease should be isolated. 这种病的患者应予以隔离。
62 copper HZXyU     
n.铜;铜币;铜器;adj.铜(制)的;(紫)铜色的
参考例句:
  • The students are asked to prove the purity of copper.要求学生们检验铜的纯度。
  • Copper is a good medium for the conduction of heat and electricity.铜是热和电的良导体。
63 streak UGgzL     
n.条理,斑纹,倾向,少许,痕迹;v.加条纹,变成条纹,奔驰,快速移动
参考例句:
  • The Indians used to streak their faces with paint.印第安人过去常用颜料在脸上涂条纹。
  • Why did you streak the tree?你为什么在树上刻条纹?
64 gambling ch4xH     
n.赌博;投机
参考例句:
  • They have won a lot of money through gambling.他们赌博赢了很多钱。
  • The men have been gambling away all night.那些人赌了整整一夜。
65 unpaid fjEwu     
adj.未付款的,无报酬的
参考例句:
  • Doctors work excessive unpaid overtime.医生过度加班却无报酬。
  • He's doing a month's unpaid work experience with an engineering firm.他正在一家工程公司无偿工作一个月以获得工作经验。
66 phoenix 7Njxf     
n.凤凰,长生(不死)鸟;引申为重生
参考例句:
  • The airline rose like a phoenix from the ashes.这家航空公司又起死回生了。
  • The phoenix worship of China is fetish worship not totem adoration.中国凤崇拜是灵物崇拜而非图腾崇拜。
67 ranch dAUzk     
n.大牧场,大农场
参考例句:
  • He went to work on a ranch.他去一个大农场干活。
  • The ranch is in the middle of a large plateau.该牧场位于一个辽阔高原的中部。
68 creek 3orzL     
n.小溪,小河,小湾
参考例句:
  • He sprang through the creek.他跳过小河。
  • People sunbathe in the nude on the rocks above the creek.人们在露出小溪的岩石上裸体晒日光浴。
69 canyon 4TYya     
n.峡谷,溪谷
参考例句:
  • The Grand Canyon in the USA is 1900 metres deep.美国的大峡谷1900米深。
  • The canyon is famous for producing echoes.这个峡谷以回声而闻名。
70 bastard MuSzK     
n.坏蛋,混蛋;私生子
参考例句:
  • He was never concerned about being born a bastard.他从不介意自己是私生子。
  • There was supposed to be no way to get at the bastard.据说没有办法买通那个混蛋。
71 scaly yjRzJg     
adj.鱼鳞状的;干燥粗糙的
参考例句:
  • Reptiles possess a scaly,dry skin.爬行类具有覆盖着鳞片的干燥皮肤。
  • The iron pipe is scaly with rust.铁管子因为生锈一片片剥落了。
72 shrug Ry3w5     
v.耸肩(表示怀疑、冷漠、不知等)
参考例句:
  • With a shrug,he went out of the room.他耸一下肩,走出了房间。
  • I admire the way she is able to shrug off unfair criticism.我很佩服她能对错误的批评意见不予理会。
73 prospectors 6457f5cd826261bd6fcb6abf5a7a17c1     
n.勘探者,探矿者( prospector的名词复数 )
参考例句:
  • The prospectors have discovered such minerals as calcite,quartz and asbestos here. 探矿人员在这里发现了方解石、石英、石棉等矿藏。 来自《简明英汉词典》
  • The prospectors have discovered many minerals here. 探矿人员在这里发现了许多矿藏。 来自辞典例句
74 prospector JRhxB     
n.探矿者
参考例句:
  • Although he failed as a prospector, he succeeded as a journalist.他作为采矿者遭遇失败,但作为记者大获成功。
  • The prospector staked his claim to the mine he discovered.那个勘探者立桩标出他所发现的矿区地以示归己所有。
75 enroll Pogxx     
v.招收;登记;入学;参军;成为会员(英)enrol
参考例句:
  • I should like to enroll all my children in the swimming class.我愿意让我的孩子们都参加游泳班。
  • They enroll him as a member of the club.他们吸收他为俱乐部会员。
76 smoothly iiUzLG     
adv.平滑地,顺利地,流利地,流畅地
参考例句:
  • The workmen are very cooperative,so the work goes on smoothly.工人们十分合作,所以工作进展顺利。
  • Just change one or two words and the sentence will read smoothly.这句话只要动一两个字就顺了。
77 edible Uqdxx     
n.食品,食物;adj.可食用的
参考例句:
  • Edible wild herbs kept us from dying of starvation.我们靠着野菜才没被饿死。
  • This kind of mushroom is edible,but that kind is not.这种蘑菇吃得,那种吃不得。
78 toxic inSwc     
adj.有毒的,因中毒引起的
参考例句:
  • The factory had accidentally released a quantity of toxic waste into the sea.这家工厂意外泄漏大量有毒废物到海中。
  • There is a risk that toxic chemicals might be blasted into the atmosphere.爆炸后有毒化学物质可能会进入大气层。
79 scorpions 0f63b2c0873e8cba29ba4550835d32a9     
n.蝎子( scorpion的名词复数 )
参考例句:
  • You promise me that Black Scorpions will never come back to Lanzhou. 你保证黑蝎子永远不再踏上兰州的土地。 来自电影对白
  • You Scorpions are rather secretive about your likes and dislikes. 天蝎:蝎子是如此的神秘,你的喜好很难被别人洞悉。 来自互联网
80 toads 848d4ebf1875eac88fe0765c59ce57d1     
n.蟾蜍,癞蛤蟆( toad的名词复数 )
参考例句:
  • All toads blink when they swallow. 所有的癞蛤蟆吞食东西时都会眨眼皮。 来自《简明英汉词典》
  • Toads have shorter legs and are generally more clumsy than frogs. 蟾蜍比青蛙脚短,一般说来没有青蛙灵活。 来自辞典例句
81 turquoise Uldwx     
n.绿宝石;adj.蓝绿色的
参考例句:
  • She wore a string of turquoise round her neck.她脖子上戴着一串绿宝石。
  • The women have elaborate necklaces of turquoise.那些女人戴着由绿松石制成的精美项链。
82 batches f8c77c3bee0bd5d27b9ca0e20c216d1a     
一批( batch的名词复数 ); 一炉; (食物、药物等的)一批生产的量; 成批作业
参考例句:
  • The prisoners were led out in batches and shot. 这些囚犯被分批带出去枪毙了。
  • The stainless drum may be used to make larger batches. 不锈钢转数设备可用来加工批量大的料。
83 swirling Ngazzr     
v.旋转,打旋( swirl的现在分词 )
参考例句:
  • Snowflakes were swirling in the air. 天空飘洒着雪花。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
  • She smiled, swirling the wine in her glass. 她微笑着,旋动着杯子里的葡萄酒。 来自辞典例句
84 squat 2GRzp     
v.蹲坐,蹲下;n.蹲下;adj.矮胖的,粗矮的
参考例句:
  • For this exercise you need to get into a squat.在这次练习中你需要蹲下来。
  • He is a squat man.他是一个矮胖的男人。
85 pelting b37c694d7cf984648f129136d4020bb8     
微不足道的,无价值的,盛怒的
参考例句:
  • The rain came pelting down. 倾盆大雨劈头盖脸地浇了下来。
  • Hailstones of abuse were pelting him. 阵阵辱骂冰雹般地向他袭来。
86 gasped e6af294d8a7477229d6749fa9e8f5b80     
v.喘气( gasp的过去式和过去分词 );喘息;倒抽气;很想要
参考例句:
  • She gasped at the wonderful view. 如此美景使她惊讶得屏住了呼吸。
  • People gasped with admiration at the superb skill of the gymnasts. 体操运动员的高超技艺令人赞叹。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
87 arroyos fdacdabd8454df7ed4fac20328486b70     
n.(美洲沙漠中的)旱谷,干涸沟壑( arroyo的名词复数 );干谷
参考例句:
88 cactus Cs1zF     
n.仙人掌
参考例句:
  • It was the first year that the cactus had produced flowers.这是这棵仙人掌第一年开花。
  • The giant cactus is the vegetable skycraper.高大的仙人掌是植物界巨人。
89 gorge Zf1xm     
n.咽喉,胃,暴食,山峡;v.塞饱,狼吞虎咽地吃
参考例句:
  • East of the gorge leveled out.峡谷东面地势变得平坦起来。
  • It made my gorge rise to hear the news.这消息令我作呕。
90 crates crates     
n. 板条箱, 篓子, 旧汽车 vt. 装进纸条箱
参考例句:
  • We were using crates as seats. 我们用大木箱作为座位。
  • Thousands of crates compacted in a warehouse. 数以千计的板条箱堆放在仓库里。
91 stewed 285d9b8cfd4898474f7be6858f46f526     
adj.焦虑不安的,烂醉的v.炖( stew的过去式和过去分词 );煨;思考;担忧
参考例句:
  • When all birds are shot, the bow will be set aside;when all hares are killed, the hounds will be stewed and eaten -- kick out sb. after his services are no longer needed. 鸟尽弓藏,兔死狗烹。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
  • \"How can we cook in a pan that's stewed your stinking stockings? “染臭袜子的锅,还能煮鸡子吃!还要它?” 来自汉英文学 - 中国现代小说
92 compartment dOFz6     
n.卧车包房,隔间;分隔的空间
参考例句:
  • We were glad to have the whole compartment to ourselves.真高兴,整个客车隔间由我们独享。
  • The batteries are safely enclosed in a watertight compartment.电池被安全地置于一个防水的隔间里。
93 calculus Is9zM     
n.微积分;结石
参考例句:
  • This is a problem where calculus won't help at all.对于这一题,微积分一点也用不上。
  • After studying differential calculus you will be able to solve these mathematical problems.学了微积分之后,你们就能够解这些数学题了。
94 algebra MKRyW     
n.代数学
参考例句:
  • He was not good at algebra in middle school.他中学时不擅长代数。
  • The boy can't figure out the algebra problems.这个男孩做不出这道代数题。
95 thermal 8Guyc     
adj.热的,由热造成的;保暖的
参考例句:
  • They will build another thermal power station.他们要另外建一座热能发电站。
  • Volcanic activity has created thermal springs and boiling mud pools.火山活动产生了温泉和沸腾的泥浆池。
96 scoop QD1zn     
n.铲子,舀取,独家新闻;v.汲取,舀取,抢先登出
参考例句:
  • In the morning he must get his boy to scoop it out.早上一定得叫佣人把它剜出来。
  • Uh,one scoop of coffee and one scoop of chocolate for me.我要一勺咖啡的和一勺巧克力的。
97 sift XEAza     
v.筛撒,纷落,详察
参考例句:
  • Sift out the wheat from the chaff.把小麦的壳筛出来。
  • Sift sugar on top of the cake.在蛋糕上面撒上糖。
98 maze F76ze     
n.迷宫,八阵图,混乱,迷惑
参考例句:
  • He found his way through the complex maze of corridors.他穿过了迷宮一样的走廊。
  • She was lost in the maze for several hours.一连几小时,她的头脑处于一片糊涂状态。
99 frantic Jfyzr     
adj.狂乱的,错乱的,激昂的
参考例句:
  • I've had a frantic rush to get my work done.我急急忙忙地赶完工作。
  • He made frantic dash for the departing train.他发疯似地冲向正开出的火车。
100 collapse aWvyE     
vi.累倒;昏倒;倒塌;塌陷
参考例句:
  • The country's economy is on the verge of collapse.国家的经济已到了崩溃的边缘。
  • The engineer made a complete diagnosis of the bridge's collapse.工程师对桥的倒塌做了一次彻底的调查分析。
101 chuckle Tr1zZ     
vi./n.轻声笑,咯咯笑
参考例句:
  • He shook his head with a soft chuckle.他轻轻地笑着摇了摇头。
  • I couldn't suppress a soft chuckle at the thought of it.想到这个,我忍不住轻轻地笑起来。
102 wrestled c9ba15a0ecfd0f23f9150f9c8be3b994     
v.(与某人)搏斗( wrestle的过去式和过去分词 );扭成一团;扭打;(与…)摔跤
参考例句:
  • As a boy he had boxed and wrestled. 他小的时候又是打拳又是摔跤。
  • Armed guards wrestled with the intruder. 武装警卫和闯入者扭打起来。 来自《简明英汉词典》
103 fixed JsKzzj     
adj.固定的,不变的,准备好的;(计算机)固定的
参考例句:
  • Have you two fixed on a date for the wedding yet?你们俩选定婚期了吗?
  • Once the aim is fixed,we should not change it arbitrarily.目标一旦确定,我们就不应该随意改变。
104 sluice fxYwF     
n.水闸
参考例句:
  • We opened the sluice and the water poured in.我们打开闸门,水就涌了进来。
  • They regulate the flow of water by the sluice gate.他们用水闸门控制水的流量。
105 giggled 72ecd6e6dbf913b285d28ec3ba1edb12     
v.咯咯地笑( giggle的过去式和过去分词 )
参考例句:
  • The girls giggled at the joke. 女孩子们让这笑话逗得咯咯笑。
  • The children giggled hysterically. 孩子们歇斯底里地傻笑。 来自《简明英汉词典》
106 wondrous pfIyt     
adj.令人惊奇的,奇妙的;adv.惊人地;异乎寻常地;令人惊叹地
参考例句:
  • The internal structure of the Department is wondrous to behold.看一下国务院的内部结构是很有意思的。
  • We were driven across this wondrous vast land of lakes and forests.我们乘车穿越这片有着湖泊及森林的广袤而神奇的土地。
107 blueprints 79424f10e1e5af9aef7f20cca92465bc     
n.蓝图,设计图( blueprint的名词复数 )
参考例句:
  • Have the blueprints been worked out? 蓝图搞好了吗? 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
  • BluePrints description of a distributed component of the system design and best practice guidelines. BluePrints描述了一个分布式组件体系的最佳练习和设计指导方针。 来自互联网
108 verge gUtzQ     
n.边,边缘;v.接近,濒临
参考例句:
  • The country's economy is on the verge of collapse.国家的经济已到了崩溃的边缘。
  • She was on the verge of bursting into tears.她快要哭出来了。
109 buddies ea4cd9ed8ce2973de7d893f64efe0596     
n.密友( buddy的名词复数 );同伴;弟兄;(用于称呼男子,常带怒气)家伙v.(如密友、战友、伙伴、弟兄般)交往( buddy的第三人称单数 );做朋友;亲近(…);伴护艾滋病人
参考例句:
  • We became great buddies. 我们成了非常好的朋友。 来自辞典例句
  • The two of them have become great buddies. 他们俩成了要好的朋友。 来自辞典例句
110 lipstick o0zxg     
n.口红,唇膏
参考例句:
  • Taking out her lipstick,she began to paint her lips.她拿出口红,开始往嘴唇上抹。
  • Lipstick and hair conditioner are cosmetics.口红和护发素都是化妆品。
111 sprouted 6e3d9efcbfe061af8882b5b12fd52864     
v.发芽( sprout的过去式和过去分词 );抽芽;出现;(使)涌现出
参考例句:
  • We can't use these potatoes; they've all sprouted. 这些土豆儿不能吃了,都出芽了。 来自《简明英汉词典》
  • The rice seeds have sprouted. 稻种已经出芽了。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
112 addled fc5f6c63b6bb66aeb3c1f60eba4e4049     
adj.(头脑)糊涂的,愚蠢的;(指蛋类)变坏v.使糊涂( addle的过去式和过去分词 );使混乱;使腐臭;使变质
参考例句:
  • Being in love must have addled your brain. 坠入爱河必已使你神魂颠倒。
  • He has addled his head with reading and writing all day long. 他整天读书写字,头都昏了。 来自《简明英汉词典》
113 perfectly 8Mzxb     
adv.完美地,无可非议地,彻底地
参考例句:
  • The witnesses were each perfectly certain of what they said.证人们个个对自己所说的话十分肯定。
  • Everything that we're doing is all perfectly above board.我们做的每件事情都是光明正大的。
114 weird bghw8     
adj.古怪的,离奇的;怪诞的,神秘而可怕的
参考例句:
  • From his weird behaviour,he seems a bit of an oddity.从他不寻常的行为看来,他好像有点怪。
  • His weird clothes really gas me.他的怪衣裳简直笑死人。
115 seizure FsSyO     
n.没收;占有;抵押
参考例句:
  • The seizure of contraband is made by customs.那些走私品是被海关没收的。
  • The courts ordered the seizure of all her property.法院下令查封她所有的财产。
116 rigid jDPyf     
adj.严格的,死板的;刚硬的,僵硬的
参考例句:
  • She became as rigid as adamant.她变得如顽石般的固执。
  • The examination was so rigid that nearly all aspirants were ruled out.考试很严,几乎所有的考生都被淘汰了。
117 clench fqyze     
vt.捏紧(拳头等),咬紧(牙齿等),紧紧握住
参考例句:
  • I clenched the arms of my chair.我死死抓住椅子扶手。
  • Slowly,he released his breath through clenched teeth.他从紧咬的牙缝间慢慢地舒了口气。
118 seizures d68658a6ccfd246a0e750fdc12689d94     
n.起获( seizure的名词复数 );没收;充公;起获的赃物
参考例句:
  • Seizures of illicit drugs have increased by 30% this year. 今年违禁药品的扣押增长了30%。 来自《简明英汉词典》
  • Other causes of unconsciousness predisposing to aspiration lung abscess are convulsive seizures. 造成吸入性肺脓肿昏迷的其他原因,有惊厥发作。 来自辞典例句
119 whined cb507de8567f4d63145f632630148984     
v.哀号( whine的过去式和过去分词 );哀诉,诉怨
参考例句:
  • The dog whined at the door, asking to be let out. 狗在门前嚎叫着要出去。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
  • He whined and pouted when he did not get what he wanted. 他要是没得到想要的东西就会发牢骚、撅嘴。 来自辞典例句
120 bunk zWyzS     
n.(车、船等倚壁而设的)铺位;废话
参考例句:
  • He left his bunk and went up on deck again.他离开自己的铺位再次走到甲板上。
  • Most economists think his theories are sheer bunk.大多数经济学家认为他的理论纯属胡说。
121 stony qu1wX     
adj.石头的,多石头的,冷酷的,无情的
参考例句:
  • The ground is too dry and stony.这块地太干,而且布满了石头。
  • He listened to her story with a stony expression.他带着冷漠的表情听她讲经历。
122 pawned 4a07cbcf19a45badd623a582bf8ca213     
v.典当,抵押( pawn的过去式和过去分词 );以(某事物)担保
参考例句:
  • He pawned his gold watch to pay the rent. 他抵当了金表用以交租。 来自《简明英汉词典》
  • She has redeemed her pawned jewellery. 她赎回了当掉的珠宝。 来自《简明英汉词典》
123 wagon XhUwP     
n.四轮马车,手推车,面包车;无盖运货列车
参考例句:
  • We have to fork the hay into the wagon.我们得把干草用叉子挑进马车里去。
  • The muddy road bemired the wagon.马车陷入了泥泞的道路。
124 unpack sfwzBO     
vt.打开包裹(或行李),卸货
参考例句:
  • I must unpack before dinner.我得在饭前把行李打开。
  • She said she would unpack the items later.她说以后再把箱子里的东西拿出来。
125 mounds dd943890a7780b264a2a6c1fa8d084a3     
土堆,土丘( mound的名词复数 ); 一大堆
参考例句:
  • We had mounds of tasteless rice. 我们有成堆成堆的淡而无味的米饭。
  • Ah! and there's the cemetery' - cemetery, he must have meant. 'You see the mounds? 啊,这就是同墓,”——我想他要说的一定是公墓,“看到那些土墩了吗?
126 grit LlMyH     
n.沙粒,决心,勇气;v.下定决心,咬紧牙关
参考例句:
  • The soldiers showed that they had plenty of grit. 士兵们表现得很有勇气。
  • I've got some grit in my shoe.我的鞋子里弄进了一些砂子。
127 pebbles e4aa8eab2296e27a327354cbb0b2c5d2     
[复数]鹅卵石; 沙砾; 卵石,小圆石( pebble的名词复数 )
参考例句:
  • The pebbles of the drive crunched under his feet. 汽车道上的小石子在他脚底下喀嚓作响。
  • Line the pots with pebbles to ensure good drainage. 在罐子里铺一层鹅卵石,以确保排水良好。
128 coconut VwCzNM     
n.椰子
参考例句:
  • The husk of this coconut is particularly strong.椰子的外壳很明显非常坚固。
  • The falling coconut gave him a terrific bang on the head.那只掉下的椰子砰地击中他的脑袋。
129 roiling 6b07a1484dc6ebaf5dc074a379103c75     
v.搅混(液体)( roil的现在分词 );使烦恼;使不安;使生气
参考例句:
  • Now, all that could be seen was the roiling, lead--coloured sea, with its thunderously heaving waves. 狂风挟着暴雨如同弥漫大雾,排挞呼号,在海上恣意奔驶。 来自汉英文学 - 现代散文
  • Rather, it is a roiling, seething cauldron of evanescent particles. 相反,它是一个不断翻滚、剧烈沸腾的大锅,内有逐渐消失的粒子。 来自互联网
130 retrieve ZsYyp     
vt.重新得到,收回;挽回,补救;检索
参考例句:
  • He was determined to retrieve his honor.他决心恢复名誉。
  • The men were trying to retrieve weapons left when the army abandoned the island.士兵们正试图找回军队从该岛撤退时留下的武器。
131 screeched 975e59058e1a37cd28bce7afac3d562c     
v.发出尖叫声( screech的过去式和过去分词 );发出粗而刺耳的声音;高叫
参考例句:
  • She screeched her disapproval. 她尖叫着不同意。 来自《简明英汉词典》
  • The car screeched to a stop. 汽车嚓的一声停住了。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
132 faucet wzFyh     
n.水龙头
参考例句:
  • The faucet has developed a drip.那个水龙头已经开始滴水了。
  • She turned off the faucet and dried her hands.她关掉水龙头,把手擦干。
133 busted busted     
adj. 破产了的,失败了的,被降级的,被逮捕的,被抓到的 动词bust的过去式和过去分词
参考例句:
  • You are so busted! 你被当场逮住了!
  • It was money troubles that busted up their marriage. 是金钱纠纷使他们的婚姻破裂了。
134 locker 8pzzYm     
n.更衣箱,储物柜,冷藏室,上锁的人
参考例句:
  • At the swimming pool I put my clothes in a locker.在游泳池我把衣服锁在小柜里。
  • He moved into the locker room and began to slip out of his scrub suit.他走进更衣室把手术服脱下来。
135 ostrich T4vzg     
n.鸵鸟
参考例句:
  • Ostrich is the fastest animal on two legs.驼鸟是双腿跑得最快的动物。
  • The ostrich indeed inhabits continents.鸵鸟确实是生活在大陆上的。
136 prospecting kkZzpG     
n.探矿
参考例句:
  • The prospecting team ploughed their way through the snow. 探险队排雪前进。
  • The prospecting team has traversed the length and breadth of the land. 勘探队踏遍了祖国的山山水水。
137 taper 3IVzm     
n.小蜡烛,尖细,渐弱;adj.尖细的;v.逐渐变小
参考例句:
  • You'd better taper off the amount of time given to rest.你最好逐渐地减少休息时间。
  • Pulmonary arteries taper towards periphery.肺动脉向周围逐渐变细。
138 watery bU5zW     
adj.有水的,水汪汪的;湿的,湿润的
参考例句:
  • In his watery eyes there is an expression of distrust.他那含泪的眼睛流露出惊惶失措的神情。
  • Her eyes became watery because of the smoke.因为烟熏,她的双眼变得泪汪汪的。
139 dealers 95e592fc0f5dffc9b9616efd02201373     
n.商人( dealer的名词复数 );贩毒者;毒品贩子;发牌者
参考例句:
  • There was fast bidding between private collectors and dealers. 私人收藏家和交易商急速竞相喊价。
  • The police were corrupt and were operating in collusion with the drug dealers. 警察腐败,与那伙毒品贩子内外勾结。
140 wharf RMGzd     
n.码头,停泊处
参考例句:
  • We fetch up at the wharf exactly on time.我们准时到达码头。
  • We reached the wharf gasping for breath.我们气喘吁吁地抵达了码头。
141 stifling dhxz7C     
a.令人窒息的
参考例句:
  • The weather is stifling. It looks like rain. 今天太闷热,光景是要下雨。
  • We were stifling in that hot room with all the windows closed. 我们在那间关着窗户的热屋子里,简直透不过气来。
142 ablaze 1yMz5     
adj.着火的,燃烧的;闪耀的,灯火辉煌的
参考例句:
  • The main street was ablaze with lights in the evening.晚上,那条主要街道灯火辉煌。
  • Forests are sometimes set ablaze by lightning.森林有时因雷击而起火。
143 crease qo5zK     
n.折缝,褶痕,皱褶;v.(使)起皱
参考例句:
  • Does artificial silk crease more easily than natural silk?人造丝比天然丝更易起皱吗?
  • Please don't crease the blouse when you pack it.包装时请不要将衬衫弄皱了。
144 permanently KluzuU     
adv.永恒地,永久地,固定不变地
参考例句:
  • The accident left him permanently scarred.那次事故给他留下了永久的伤疤。
  • The ship is now permanently moored on the Thames in London.该船现在永久地停泊在伦敦泰晤士河边。
145 scattering 91b52389e84f945a976e96cd577a4e0c     
n.[物]散射;散乱,分散;在媒介质中的散播adj.散乱的;分散在不同范围的;广泛扩散的;(选票)数量分散的v.散射(scatter的ing形式);散布;驱散
参考例句:
  • The child felle into a rage and began scattering its toys about. 这孩子突发狂怒,把玩具扔得满地都是。 来自《简明英汉词典》
  • The farmers are scattering seed. 农夫们在播种。 来自《简明英汉词典》
146 parched 2mbzMK     
adj.焦干的;极渴的;v.(使)焦干
参考例句:
  • Hot winds parched the crops.热风使庄稼干透了。
  • The land in this region is rather dry and parched.这片土地十分干燥。
147 rusty hYlxq     
adj.生锈的;锈色的;荒废了的
参考例句:
  • The lock on the door is rusty and won't open.门上的锁锈住了。
  • I haven't practiced my French for months and it's getting rusty.几个月不用,我的法语又荒疏了。
148 rustling c6f5c8086fbaf68296f60e8adb292798     
n. 瑟瑟声,沙沙声 adj. 发沙沙声的
参考例句:
  • the sound of the trees rustling in the breeze 树木在微风中发出的沙沙声
  • the soft rustling of leaves 树叶柔和的沙沙声
149 moths de674306a310c87ab410232ea1555cbb     
n.蛾( moth的名词复数 )
参考例句:
  • The moths have eaten holes in my wool coat. 蛀虫将我的羊毛衫蛀蚀了几个小洞。 来自《简明英汉词典》
  • The moths tapped and blurred at the window screen. 飞蛾在窗帘上跳来跳去,弄上了许多污点。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
150 sliver sxFwA     
n.裂片,细片,梳毛;v.纵切,切成长片,剖开
参考例句:
  • There was only one sliver of light in the darkness.黑暗中只有一点零星的光亮。
  • Then,one night,Monica saw a thin sliver of the moon reappear.之后的一天晚上,莫尼卡看到了一个月牙。
151 eyebrows a0e6fb1330e9cfecfd1c7a4d00030ed5     
眉毛( eyebrow的名词复数 )
参考例句:
  • Eyebrows stop sweat from coming down into the eyes. 眉毛挡住汗水使其不能流进眼睛。
  • His eyebrows project noticeably. 他的眉毛特别突出。
152 pointed Il8zB4     
adj.尖的,直截了当的
参考例句:
  • He gave me a very sharp pointed pencil.他给我一支削得非常尖的铅笔。
  • She wished to show Mrs.John Dashwood by this pointed invitation to her brother.她想通过对达茨伍德夫人提出直截了当的邀请向她的哥哥表示出来。
153 demon Wmdyj     
n.魔鬼,恶魔
参考例句:
  • The demon of greed ruined the miser's happiness.贪得无厌的恶习毁掉了那个守财奴的幸福。
  • He has been possessed by the demon of disease for years.他多年来病魔缠身。
154 wrench FMvzF     
v.猛拧;挣脱;使扭伤;n.扳手;痛苦,难受
参考例句:
  • He gave a wrench to his ankle when he jumped down.他跳下去的时候扭伤了足踝。
  • It was a wrench to leave the old home.离开这个老家非常痛苦。
155 cacti gSuyU     
n.(复)仙人掌
参考例句:
  • There we could see nothing but cacti.那里除了仙人掌我们什么也看不到。
  • Cacti can survive the lack of rainfall in the desert.仙人掌在降水稀少的沙漠中也能生存下去。
156 devoted xu9zka     
adj.忠诚的,忠实的,热心的,献身于...的
参考例句:
  • He devoted his life to the educational cause of the motherland.他为祖国的教育事业贡献了一生。
  • We devoted a lengthy and full discussion to this topic.我们对这个题目进行了长时间的充分讨论。
157 charcoal prgzJ     
n.炭,木炭,生物炭
参考例句:
  • We need to get some more charcoal for the barbecue.我们烧烤需要更多的碳。
  • Charcoal is used to filter water.木炭是用来过滤水的。
158 sketches 8d492ee1b1a5d72e6468fd0914f4a701     
n.草图( sketch的名词复数 );素描;速写;梗概
参考例句:
  • The artist is making sketches for his next painting. 画家正为他的下一幅作品画素描。
  • You have to admit that these sketches are true to life. 你得承认这些素描很逼真。 来自《简明英汉词典》
159 primitive vSwz0     
adj.原始的;简单的;n.原(始)人,原始事物
参考例句:
  • It is a primitive instinct to flee a place of danger.逃离危险的地方是一种原始本能。
  • His book describes the march of the civilization of a primitive society.他的著作描述了一个原始社会的开化过程。
160 fables c7e1f2951baeedb04670ded67f15ca7b     
n.寓言( fable的名词复数 );神话,传说
参考例句:
  • Some of Aesop's Fables are satires. 《伊索寓言》中有一些是讽刺作品。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
  • Little Mexican boys also breathe the American fables. 墨西哥族的小孩子对美国神话也都耳濡目染。 来自辞典例句
161 illustrated 2a891807ad5907f0499171bb879a36aa     
adj. 有插图的,列举的 动词illustrate的过去式和过去分词
参考例句:
  • His lecture was illustrated with slides taken during the expedition. 他在讲演中使用了探险时拍摄到的幻灯片。
  • The manufacturing Methods: Will be illustrated in the next chapter. 制作方法将在下一章说明。
162 celebrated iwLzpz     
adj.有名的,声誉卓著的
参考例句:
  • He was soon one of the most celebrated young painters in England.不久他就成了英格兰最负盛名的年轻画家之一。
  • The celebrated violinist was mobbed by the audience.观众团团围住了这位著名的小提琴演奏家。
163 constellations ee34f7988ee4aa80f9502f825177c85d     
n.星座( constellation的名词复数 );一群杰出人物;一系列(相关的想法、事物);一群(相关的人)
参考例句:
  • The map of the heavens showed all the northern constellations. 这份天体图标明了北半部所有的星座。 来自《简明英汉词典》
  • His time was coming, he would move in the constellations of power. 他时来运转,要进入权力中心了。 来自教父部分
164 navigate 4Gyxu     
v.航行,飞行;导航,领航
参考例句:
  • He was the first man to navigate the Atlantic by air.他是第一个飞越大西洋的人。
  • Such boats can navigate on the Nile.这种船可以在尼罗河上航行。
165 wilderness SgrwS     
n.杳无人烟的一片陆地、水等,荒漠
参考例句:
  • She drove the herd of cattle through the wilderness.她赶着牛群穿过荒野。
  • Education in the wilderness is not a matter of monetary means.荒凉地区的教育不是钱财问题。


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