Summary

Chapter 12: Many people come to see the narrator in the fairy ring: The first is the opal miner, who tells the boy that the hunger birds need to clean up. The narrator starts reciting a poem from Alice in Wonderland to ward off the opal miner, and the man disappears. Next to come is the narrator’s sister, who says that his parents want him in the house. He sees bats flying about him and is not sure whether or not they are the hunger birds. Next, the narrator's father comes to tell him to return to the house, but the boy refuses. His father grows angry and tells the boy he is acting like an animal. The boy yells back, “Does it make you feel big to make the little boy cry?” (p. 136). Last comes Ursula Monkton, who admits that she has been...