Quail

quail
verb, intransitive. To feel or show fear or apprehension. Also a noun.

Mike was devoted to his livestock. Day after day, he brought kitchen discards home from the restaurant where he worked and fed them to his pigs. He delighted in seeing their response when he dumped buckets of cabbage cores and melon rinds into their trough. They never dived into their dry food and fought over it as they did over the restaurant scraps. Their robust growth was almost visible, and he knew all those fruits and vegetables would turn into succulent chops and hams.

He sought nourishing weeds to supplement the commercial chicken feed, as well. He knew that green food is what turns the yolks a deep orange when chickens lay eggs. There was plenty of poke and wild amaranth growing on the property, and he took time to chop some of it up and throw it into the chickens' run every day. Once, when his wife was cutting up a head of broccoli for their dinner, he shouldered her aside and began cutting the stem into small cubes that he could give his poultry.

"I'm not sure you understand, Betty," he told her as he scooped them into a pail. "I actually love the chickens."

With dismay, he saw the hens quail when he approached with those nourishing tidbits and run into their house to hide. He wanted them to love him back.


Definitions adapted from The New Oxford American Dictionary, Oxford University Press, Inc., 2005 (eBook Edition, copyright 2008), and from Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam Company, Publishers, Springfield, Massachusetts, USA, 1965, depending on which is more convenient to hand.

Pacify

pacify
verb, transitive. To quell the anger, agitation, or excitement of. To soothe or calm. To bring peace to a country or warring factions, especially by the use or threatened use of military force.

The last time Gail saw Sandy was early spring semester in 1969. That was when the other girl decided she could no longer stand to be buried in the Midwest, away from her high school friends, and especially away from her boyfriend. She dropped out, halfway through freshman year, and returned to Alexandria, Virginia, a suburb of Washington, D.C.

It seemed as if Sandy's departure from Ohio had pulled the pin from a grenade. As soon as the weather began to warm, students all over the country began to abandon their college classes and protest on campuses and in the streets. Each incident fueled the conflict. A month before classes were scheduled to end, the deaths of protesters at Kent State made the state of affairs all too real. After a few tense days, Gail's university closed early

She walked all over campus during the last two days students were permitted to gather their belongings and pack up their dorm rooms. She endured catcalls from construction workers on the steel skeleton of the dormitory they were erecting. She scanned the rooflines of the classroom and administration buildings, looking for evidence of snipers. There was a rumor that the university president had requested help from the National Guard to pacify any uprising the students might foment. She saw no one on the roofs. She didn't know whether to be disappointed or relieved.

Sandy called from Alexandria early that summer. She was unhappy about having to live with her parents again while she figured out what she wanted to do. Gail's sympathy was limited. She had her own problems. Her father had laid down the law after she came home: if she wanted to return to school the following September, she would have to come up with the money to pay her tuition and room and board herself. Gail was working in the kitchen of a hamburger place near the mall, wearing a mustard-colored uniform that reeked of fryer grease, her hair in a net. She hated the job, but was doing her best to get used to it. She had no choice but to keep it and save everything she earned.

Years later, Gail still wondered whatever became of Sandy. That phone call was the last contact she ever had with her.


Definitions adapted from The New Oxford American Dictionary, Oxford University Press, Inc., 2005 (eBook Edition, copyright 2008), and from Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam Company, Publishers, Springfield, Massachusetts, USA, 1965, depending on which is more convenient to hand.

Obey

obey

verb, transitive. To comply with the command, direction, or request of a person or a law. To submit to the authority of. To carry out a command or instruction. To behave in accordance with a general principle, natural law, etc.

"I know you don't understand," his mother stated as she hefted the basket of washing onto her hip. "I have work to do. Go talk to your grandfather about it. Maybe he can explain it." She left him there and headed toward the clothesline.

He kicked at the dust at the foot of the back porch steps. He tried to be good. He did. Every year, it seemed, there were more rules he was expected to obey, more restrictions on what he wanted to do. It wasn't fair. A tear emerged from one eye and he let it roll down his cheek and splash onto his shirt unimpeded.

He was alone. Not only had his mother turned her back on him, preferring to do her chores instead of helping him navigate these growing-up thickets, there wasn't a hen or a cat or even a dog in sight. For a moment, even the air was empty of birdsong.

Grandpa's cottage was silent across the pasture beyond their chicken coop. Maybe he should go talk to him. Would Grandpa sympathize? Would he even understand why Kyle felt so defeated and forlorn?

He stood, kicked at the dust one more time, and shoved his hands into his overall pockets. He would try to explain why he had done what he had done to his grandfather. Maybe he would listen. Without much hope, Kyle began to walk slowly toward the cottage.

Definitions adapted from The New Oxford American Dictionary, Oxford University Press, Inc., 2005 (eBook Edition, copyright 2008), and from Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam Company, Publishers, Springfield, Massachusetts, USA, 1965, depending on which is more convenient to hand.

Nab

nab
verb, transitive. To catch someone doing something wrong. To take or grab something. To steal.

She watched her supervisor as he entered the conference room. He paused at the side table and nabbed a doughnut before he continued to approach her, and took a bite out of it as he sat, two chairs away.

'You didn't think I was going to drop our little argument, did you?' he addressed her around bits of dough and icing.

She averted her gaze and fixed it on the folder in front of her, then realized too late that he had deliberately spoken with his mouth full in order to prompt her to do exactly that. Was the man incapable of interacting with her without pushing as many of her psychological buttons as possible? He must be a Scorpio. It was the only explanation for the way he treated her: her and everyone else she had watched him deal with.
Definitions adapted from The New Oxford American Dictionary, Oxford University Press, Inc., 2005 (eBook Edition, copyright 2008), and from Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam Company, Publishers, Springfield, Massachusetts, USA, 1965, depending on which is more convenient to hand.

Macerate

macerate
verb, transitive. To soften or break up something, especially food, by soaking in a liquid.
verb, intransitive. To become softened or broken up by soaking.

The boys looked into the opening in the cistern's lid. Jim shuddered.

"No one has cleaned this out in a long time." He glanced at Tony's face. "Do you think it's in there?"

"No telling."

Both were silent for a moment, then Tony rose and went inside. When he returned, he was carrying a long pole. Jim moved aside as his friend approached.

Tony pushed the pole into the cistern and fed it in until it struck bottom. Slowly, he began to move it about on the invisible floor, feeling for a lump the size of the box they hoped to find. Jim moved back to the opening and shone the beam of his flashlight onto the dark water inside. It was an opaque, tannin-colored soup of insect parts and leaf particles the water had macerated over who knew how many years. Even if Tony did find the box with the pole, how would they ever get it out of there?
Definitions adapted from The New Oxford American Dictionary, Oxford University Press, Inc., 2005 (eBook Edition, copyright 2008), and from Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam Company, Publishers, Springfield, Massachusetts, USA, 1965, depending on which is more convenient to hand.

Label

label

verb, transitive. To attach a label to something. To assign to a category, especially inaccurately or restrictively. To give a name to something. Also a noun.

Brittany's heart sank as she rounded the corner and looked up the corridor toward her locker. Those girls were gathered nearby, talking among themselves, squealing and laughing as usual. She had tried to ignore the looks they darted at her on previous mornings when she visited her locker near their little club meeting. They made it obvious they didn't want her near; considered her approach an intrusion.

She had to get her chemistry notes for first period. Today was a lab. Brittany raised her head and squared her shoulders. She was visiting her locker, as was her right. Nothing more, nothing less. She determined not to let the looks and whispers of this coterie bother her. Her steps became more deliberate as she neared them.

"Good morning," she stated to the group as a whole when she stopped at locker number fifty-nine. She swept their surprised gazes with her own as she reached for the combination lock.

Brittany was surprised to see their eyes drop or slide sideways after touching hers. Mentally shrugging, she turned to work the combination, then saw the reason. Someone had labelled her locker with a crudely lettered word on a neon green sticker: "GEEK."

Definitions adapted from The New Oxford American Dictionary, Oxford University Press, Inc., 2005 (eBook Edition, copyright 2008), and from Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam Company, Publishers, Springfield, Massachusetts, USA, 1965, depending on which is more convenient to hand.