Pages read 183/183
It's the last cycle before starting a new book!
For this cycle, I chose to be a connector. My job is to pick out a certain section of the book and find connections to the outside world!
In the very beginning of chapter twenty two, a particular page caught my attention.
Page 121
“You collecting stones, or what?”
“It’s my happy wagon,” she said. “Actually, it could just as well be called an unhappy wagon, but I prefer happy.”
“So what’s it all about?”
“It’s about how I feel. When something makes me happy, I put a pebble in the wagon. If I’m unhappy, I take a pebble out. There are twenty pebbles in all.”
I counted three on the shelf. “So there’re seventeen in the wagon now, right?”
“Right.”
“So that means, what, you’re pretty happy?”
“Right again.”
“What’s the biggest number of pebbles ever in the wagon?”
She gave me a sly smile. “You’re looking at it.” It didn't seem like just a pile of pebbles anymore. “Usually,” she said, “it’s more balanced. It hangs around ten, a couple to one side or the other. Back and forth, back and forth. Like life.”
“How close to empty did the wagon ever get?” I said.
“Oh…” She turned her face to the ceiling, closed her eyes. “Once, down to three.”
I was shocked. “Really? You?”
She stared. “Why not me?”
“You don’t seem the type.”
“What type is that?”
“I don’t know…” I groped for the right words.
“The three-pebble type?” she offered.
I shrugged.
She picked up a pebble from the shelf and, with a grin, dropped it into the wagon. “Well, call me Miss Unpredictable.”
Connection to the outside world
This page reminded me that most people do not know how we really feel, or who we really are until they dig a little deeper. People we are not as close with will see only what we allow them to, and the parts we want them to see. Stargirl, for example, always seems bright and cheerful - that is how she wants people to think of her. It almost seems like she is unbreakable. But in reality, she is a human too, She has feelings like all of us, too. After Archie asked “How close to empty did the wagon ever get?”, and found out there were once only three pebbles in the wagon, He was shocked. Archie responded with "Really? You?", as if Stargirl was not allowed or able to feel sad. The reason why he felt confused was because Stargirl only shows the happiness and is extremely energetic in school. It is kind of like a shop with colored windows which are decorated in the most beautiful way possible, but when you walk in you may find more of dust and unfinished, dirty, rusty, furniture and floors colored in black, with holes inside and spiders crawling out. What this means is that most people do not know what is really on the inside. You cannot see through the windows of that shop, just like you cannot see through a person. Happiness can be a mask, and a lot of us hide under it. I could also relate this to myself. In school, I may always seem happy and positive, but that might not be what I really feel like. A lot of the time, I am thinking of all the things that make me confused, sad, even happy, mad, and heart-broken. Then they mix altogether and to not show negative emotion, I hide under a happy mask. Sometimes, the mask can break, but you eventually put it back together. (Of course, I am not depressed. Therefore, this does not happen every day. But when it does, almost no one notices) It is difficult to see through a mask, and when you tell a person how you really feel, they will be shocked. But that is what all of us do, is it not?
Stargirl may look super cheerful and energetic, but she has her downs too. You can never see what is really going on inside people's brains, and this page reminded me that we are all human, and we all have our ups and downs. No one is perfect, and no one is for sure always happy.
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