Vocab 11

  1. Dubious (adj.) fraught with uncertainty or doubt

Shay looked dubious. “How’d you manage that?”


  1. Gawk (n.) to look with amazement 

She wasn’t here to gawk. She was an infiltrator, a sneak, an ugly. And she had a mission.


  1. Impromptu (adj.) with little or no preparation or forethought

The machine was lobbing the masks out the back, trying to coax more followers into the impromptu parade: devil faces and horrible clowns, green monsters and gray aliens with big oval eyes, cats and dogs and cows, faces with crooked smiles or huge noses.

  1. Incongruous (adj.) lacking in harmony or compatibility or appropriateness

The high hairdo towered over her thin face like a dunce cap, the white-blond hair utterly incongruous with her olive skin.

  1. Predatory (adj.) living by or given to victimizing others for personal gain

There were a few normal people as well, but they faded into insignificance next to the predatory forms moving gracefully through the halls.

  1. Intrigue (v.) cause to be interested or curious

You’ll have to tell me all about it. But don’t you dare tell anyone else. Not yet. Everyone’s going to be so intrigued.

  1. Reverie (n.) an abstracted state of absorption

Shay’s voice pulled Tally from her reverie.


  1. Subside (v.) wear off of die down

She’d only seen him once since the operation, and that was coming out of the hospital, before the swelling had subsided.

  1. Ultimatum (n.) a final peremptory demand

She sat and stared, having to remind herself every few minutes that it had all really happened: the cruel pretties, the strange buildings on the edge of town, the terrible ultimatum from Dr. Cable.

  1. Vapid (adj.) lacking significance or liveliness or spirit or zest

“Like being a vapid, boring pretty?”