The Tiger Rising (950l) - Middle School Reading Article Worksheet (Page 2 of 4) in pdf

The Tiger Rising (950l) - Middle School Reading Article Worksheet Page 2

Vale Middle School Reading Article

The Tiger Rising (950L)

Notes on my thoughts,

long, afraid that the tiger would disappear. He stared and then he turned and ran

reactions and questions as I

back into the woods, toward the Kentucky Star. And the whole way home, while

read:

his brain doubted what he had seen, his heart beat out the truth to him. Ti-ger.

Ti-ger. Ti-ger.

That was what Rob thought about as he stood beneath the Kentucky Star sign

and waited for the bus. The tiger. He did not think about the rash on his legs, the

itchy red blisters that snaked their way into his shoes. His father said that it

would be less likely to itch if he didn’t think about it.

And he did not think about his mother. He hadn’t thought about her since the

morning of the funeral, the morning he couldn’t stop crying the great heaving

sobs that make his chest and stomach hurt. His father, watching him standing

beside him, had started to cry, too.

They were both dressed up in suits that day; his father’s suit was too small. And

when he slapped Rob to make him stop crying, he ripped a hole underneath the

arm of the jacket.

“There ain’t no point in crying,” his father had said afterward. “Crying ain’t

going to bring her back.”

It had been six month since that day, six months since he and his father had

moved from Jacksonville to Lister, and Rob had not cried since, not once.

The final thing he did not think about that morning was getting onto the bus. He

specifically did not think about Norton and Billy Threemonger waiting for him

like chained and starved guard dogs, eager to attack.

Rob had a way of not-thinking about things. He imagined himself as a suitcase

that was too full, like the one that he had packed when they left Jacksonville

after the funeral. He made all his feelings go inside the suitcase and locked it

shut. That was the way he not-thought about things. Sometimes it was hard to

keep the suitcase shut. But now he had something to put on top of it. The tiger.

So as he waited for the bus under the Kentucky Star sign, and as the first drops

of rain fell from the sullen sky, Rob imagined the tiger on top of his suitcase,

blinking his golden eyes, sitting proud and strong, unaffected by all the not-

thoughts inside straining to come out.

DiCamillo, Kate. The tiger rising. NY: Candlewick Press, 2001.

The Tiger Rising (950l) - Middle School Reading Article Worksheet Page 2