Miss Avocet Character Analysis

Emma stood up and shut the door. “She won’t kill us,” she said, “those things will. And if they don’t, living like this might just be worse than dying. The Bird’s got us cooped up so tight we can hardly breathe, and all because she doesn’t have the spleen to face whatever’s out there!”

“Is this what you want?” Golan shouted. “Go ahead, burn me! The birds will burn, too! Shoot me and I’ll throw them over the side!”

“Not if I shoot you in the head!”

He laughed. “You couldn’t fire a gun if you wanted to. You forget, I’m intimately familiar with your poor, fragile psyche. It’d give you nightmares.”

I tried to imagine it: curling my finger around the trigger and squeezing; the recoil and the awful report. What was so hard about that? Why did my hand shake just thinking about it? How many wights had my grandfather killed? Dozens? Hundreds? If he were here instead of me, Golan would be dead already, laid out while he’d been squatting against the rail in a daze. It was an opportunity I’d already wasted; a split-second of gutless indecision that might’ve cost the ymbrynes their lives.

In the next boat, I saw Bronwyn wave and raise Miss Peregrine’s camera to her eye. I smiled back. We’d brought none of the old photo albums with us; maybe this would be the first picture in a brand new one. It was strange to think that one day I might have my own stack of yellowed photos to show skeptical grandchildren—and my own fantastic stories to share.

Then Bronwyn lowered the camera and raised her arm, pointing at something beyond us. In the distance, black against the rising sun, a silent procession of battleships punctuated the horizon.

We rowed faster.

Emma stood up and shut the door. “She won’t kill us,” she said, “those things will. And if they don’t, living like this might just be worse than dying. The Bird’s got us cooped up so tight we can hardly breathe, and all because she doesn’t have the spleen to face whatever’s out there!”

“Is this what you want?” Golan shouted. “Go ahead, burn me! The birds will burn, too! Shoot me and I’ll throw them over the side!”

“Not if I shoot you in the head!”

He laughed. “You couldn’t fire a gun if you wanted to. You forget, I’m intimately familiar with your poor, fragile psyche. It’d give you nightmares.”

I tried to imagine it: curling my finger around the trigger and squeezing; the recoil and the awful report. What was so hard about that? Why did my hand shake just thinking about it? How many wights had my grandfather killed? Dozens? Hundreds? If he were here instead of me, Golan would be dead already, laid out while he’d been squatting against the rail in a daze. It was an opportunity I’d already wasted; a split-second of gutless indecision that might’ve cost the ymbrynes their lives.

In the next boat, I saw Bronwyn wave and raise Miss Peregrine’s camera to her eye. I smiled back. We’d brought none of the old photo albums with us; maybe this would be the first picture in a brand new one. It was strange to think that one day I might have my own stack of yellowed photos to show skeptical grandchildren—and my own fantastic stories to share.

Then Bronwyn lowered the camera and raised her arm, pointing at something beyond us. In the distance, black against the rising sun, a silent procession of battleships punctuated the horizon.

We rowed faster.