Dillard uses exciting verbs to build the tension. "We smashed through a gap in another hedge, entered a scruffy backyard and ran around its back porch and tight between houses to Edgerton Avenue; we ran across Edgerton to an alley and up our own sliding woodpile to the Halls' front yard; he kept coming." Then, all of the sudden, Dillard interrupts with an epiphany. Dillard is then able to relate to her pursuer. "It was an immense discovery, pounding into my hot head with every sliding, joyous step, that this ordinary adult knew what I thought only children who trained at football knew: that you have to fling yourself at what you're doing, you have to point yourself, forget yourself, aim, dive." With this epiphany, Dillard shows that this man is not ordinary, "for he would never give up, this man- and we were losing speed." "He chased us the the backyard labyrinths of ten blocks before he caught us by our jackets. He caught us and we all stopped." With a drop of the hat on the moon, reality comes back (allowing everyone to catch their breath, of course). ""You stupid kids," he began prefunctorily. We listened prefunctorily indeed, if we listened at all, for the chewing out was redundant, a mere formality, and beside the
Dillard uses exciting verbs to build the tension. "We smashed through a gap in another hedge, entered a scruffy backyard and ran around its back porch and tight between houses to Edgerton Avenue; we ran across Edgerton to an alley and up our own sliding woodpile to the Halls' front yard; he kept coming." Then, all of the sudden, Dillard interrupts with an epiphany. Dillard is then able to relate to her pursuer. "It was an immense discovery, pounding into my hot head with every sliding, joyous step, that this ordinary adult knew what I thought only children who trained at football knew: that you have to fling yourself at what you're doing, you have to point yourself, forget yourself, aim, dive." With this epiphany, Dillard shows that this man is not ordinary, "for he would never give up, this man- and we were losing speed." "He chased us the the backyard labyrinths of ten blocks before he caught us by our jackets. He caught us and we all stopped." With a drop of the hat on the moon, reality comes back (allowing everyone to catch their breath, of course). ""You stupid kids," he began prefunctorily. We listened prefunctorily indeed, if we listened at all, for the chewing out was redundant, a mere formality, and beside the