Heartbeat

In “Questions,” Annie elaborates on Max’s desire to open a camp for “boys like him” (42). Max wants to leave their town and feels restless there, but Annie doesn’t understand his mentality. To her, the town is complex and ever-changing. Max describes boys like him as having nothing. In class, Annie’s teacher Mr. Welling asks her class to write about what they fear and what they love. While her peers write about fearing math class and loving ice cream, Annie writes about her fear of death, as well as her love of laughing, running, and drawing. While Annie notices the disparity between her peers’ interpretation of the assignment and her own, she is “feeling stubborn” (46) and does not restart the assignment.

At home, Annie begins looking at books about fetal development with her father, who calls the child a “pumpkin alien baby” (47). She marvels at how the baby is growing fingers and toes and teeth, and how it knows how to do so. She thinks of her grandfather, whose dentures sit in a glass by his bed. Annie dreams of an alien pumpkin with teeth. In “Fried Chicken,”