Three stores later, Rory finally has a phone which she promptly loses as she is walking from the store to her car. When she finally chooses a very basic phone that allows a maximum of parental restrictions and agrees to pay for the insurance plan, her father takes her out to buy the phone. Rory's parents give her an armful of pamphlets of cell phones they approve of and tell her to make an educated choice and share her reasoning with them. The SMALL THINGS list is made up of things like getting her own house key, using the stove, oven and other electrical appliances, staying up until 9:30, sitting in the front seat of the car, watching Friday the 13th, Part IX, doing her homework without having her mom check it, walking the three blocks to school alone, riding an upside down roller coaster, buying lunch in the cafeteria and picking out her own clothes.įrom the start, being twelve and being allowed to to the things on her lists doesn't go the way she had expected.
The BIG THINGS list consists of things like getting a cell phone, having a pet, staying home alone, going to a boy-girl party, wearing make-up, babysitting, getting her ears pierced, shaving her legs, going to the mall with no parental supervision, and getting contact lenses. In fact, Rory has made a chart of BIG THINGS and SMALL THINGS that she will FINALLY get to do when she turns twelve, some of which she has been waiting for for years. Having grown up the child of two frugal young parents with ideas about discipline that will seem strict and overly anxious to many readers, Rory is anxiously awaiting her twelfth birthday, one that will bring privileges with it that many of her friends have been enjoying for years. Even though she tries to tell the woman this, she gets this cryptic advice before being yanked out of her tight spot, "You won't get what you want, Rory Swenson, until you see what you need." But, Rory knows exactly what she needs. When the old woman ask Rory what the universe might want her to pause and reflect upon, she is mystified since she leads such a boring life. When a strange old woman finds her, she gets a mysterious warning before being hauled out of the drainpipe. When we first meet Rory Swenson she is stuck in a drainpipe at the Willow Falls Reservoir where her sixth grade class has gone for yet another field trip.
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