11-150 Word Diary

My Diary: 11/2 Today he walked in with a deep blue bruise on his face. This wasn’t the first time I pretended it wasn’t there. 11/9 He started using his left hand for everything today. He is right-handed, but I didn’t mention it. 11/16 Today he walked in with a limp. The bruise from two weeks ago is gone, but a fresh one has replaced it. I was going to tell someone, but I never got around to it. 11/19 His limp had been getting better. However, today it was worse. I am going to talk to someone tomorrow… 11/20 He looked okay today.... I’ll find someone on Monday; it was a long week. 11/23 He didn’t come to school today. I talked to the someone. She needed to talk to him personally, but, as I mentioned, he wasn’t there. 11/24 He was absent again.
Every animal was happy to let the Terrible Things take the others, as long as it wasn’t them. “‘We don’t have feathers,’ the frogs said. ‘Nor we,’ said the squirrels. ‘Nor we,’ said the porcupines’” (Bunting 13-15). The other animals happily gave the Terribles Things what they wanted because it meant they themselves wouldn’t be taken. To justify the heartless betrayal of their fellow forest creatures, they made up excuses like “those birds were always noisy” (Bunting 26) or “those squirrels were greedy” (Bunting 48). Their willingness to give up their friends and keep quiet in order to save themselves was produced from the fear that if they were to protest, they would be the ones who would be captured. Each time the Terrible Things came back for more, the others readily handed them over without complaint or question. “‘We mustn’t ask,’ Big Rabbit said. ‘The Terrible Things don’t need a reason. Just be glad it wasn’t us they wanted” (Bunting 31-32). Through the animals’ submission to the Terrible Things and their requests, the animals were giving up their personal rights. Little Rabbit spoke up and questioned what the Terrible Things were doing and how it was fair, but he didn’t take executive action. Big Rabbit convinced Little Rabbit that there was nothing that they could do. “This time Little Rabbit didn’t ask why. By now he knew that the Terrible Things didn’t need a reason” (Bunting 89-90). Not speaking up and remaining docile for so long made Little Rabbit acquire the quality of learned helplessness. Stopping what the Terrible Things are doing is out of his control. “When they had all gone, Little Rabbit crept into the middle of the empty clearing. ‘I should have tried to help the other rabbits,’ he thought. ‘If only we creatures had stuck together, it could have been different’” (Bunting 112-114). When Little Rabbit is all alone, he realizes that if he and his