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Chapter 10: Grogler

Summary

El, Aadhya, and Liu get an assortment of snacks at the snack bar and share them in Aadhya’s room. On the stretch of wall between the bathrooms, they write their three names as a show to everyone that they are in an alliance. El has a dream about her mother in which she tells her mother not to worry because she has friends and is not joining an enclave. The next morning, Orion is very tired. El does a demonstration of the phase shift spell in the workshop for all the potential bidders. She bends a piece of wood—planning to make a carrying case for the golden book—and also liquefies silver. One of the seniors asks El to make liquid nitrogen out of the air, but before she can try, the mechanisms in the school send grinding vibrations through the room, causing instruments to fall from shelves. When students start to flee, El notices that Orion is headed downstairs instead of retreating upstairs with everyone else. 

El follows Orion to reprimand him for venturing down toward the dangers of the senior dorms and graduation hall, but she finds him fighting a grogler, a large jellyfish-like monster that regenerates its tentacles when they are cut off. El produces liquid nitrogen from the air, just as she would have done in the workshop demonstration. The monster freezes and dies. The graduation monsters have broken through the barrier and made a small hole in the bottom staircase. They are very hungry because Orion has saved so many kids. Orion has been patrolling at night. He and El argue, and she tells him that his new efforts to be a “white knight” will not undo the “white-knighting” he has done all year.

Analysis

This chapter represents a positive turning point in El’s ability to trust in and be vulnerable with others as she seals her alliance with Aadhya and Liu. The meal of strange snacks that El, Aadhya, and Liu assemble from the vending machines symbolizes the strength of their alliance, which they formalize by writing their names on the wall near the bathroom in three languages. Just as the meal is greater than the sum of its parts, each member’s strengths complement the others’. El’s dream and the phase spell demonstration prove that she is correct to trust Aadhya and Liu. El’s concern and frustration over Orion’s lack of sleep and white-knighting also indicate that she has grown to trust that her friendships are based on connection and compatibility as much as they are survival.

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