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The Centipede Summary

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What is a summary of The Centipede by Rony V. Diaz?

Here is a summary of The Centipede by Rony V. Diaz:

Eddie is a little kid who often gets picked on by his sister. He describes a time when he went into her
dollhouse and broke one of her dolls and she got so angry that she fell down, foaming at the mouth, and
had to go to the hospital. Ever since then, the family has to be calm around her and work at not angering
her or inspiring any extreme emotion because she has a weak heart. So Eddie takes it. He takes it when
she complains about his pigeons and they have to let them go. He cries, but doesn't retaliate when she
burns his butterflies. He says nothing when she asks that his monkey be killed because it is mocking her.

He tells of a hunting trip with his father when they first met a dog that he adopts, and how it has helped
him since, how he hangs out with it every day, why it is important to him. And one day he sees his sister
beating it with a stick. He says nothing, because he shouldn't upset her, but his hatred is building from
all the times that she has been cruel to him and destroyed the things that he loves. She tells him that if
he allows it in the house again she will have the workman kill it, because it ruined her slippers. He runs
after the dog, calling it. He finally gets close enough to see it, though it won't come to him or allow him
to touch it, and he sees that his sister has punctured the dog's eye.

When he comes home, the workman shows him a centipede that he found while chopping wood. Eddie
kills it so that it won't hurt him to carry it, goes inside, and throws it in his sister's lap. She screams,
accuses him of trying to kill her, and falls down, clutching her chest in pain, moaning. He feels bad,
saying that the centipede is dead (it can't hurt her), but she doesn't move.

That is how the story ends. The reader is left to wonder what happened to the sister, and what happens
next. It seems to be a story about how not allowing our emotions to be vented in some way can be
dangerous, but also about injustice, and how we deal with it.

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