In the morn­ing, the atmos­phere is thick with crows, fill­ing the trees and rooftops sur­round­ing Leighton’s home. Observ­ing from her bed­room win­dow, she notes the unset­tling pres­ence of these birds as her broth­er returns home, prompt­ing her to rush through her show­er to instill some sem­blance of nor­mal­cy in the chaot­ic morn­ing. This school year feels par­tic­u­lar­ly heavy for Leighton, as it marks her final stretch before she must find a way to pro­tect her sis­ters and ensure her path to col­lege.

Enter­ing the kitchen, she is greet­ed by her moth­er, who, star­tled, spills cof­fee on her­self. Though she attempts to smile at Leighton, the warmth is over­shad­owed by a hol­low sem­blance of hap­pi­ness that no longer reflects their clos­er rela­tion­ship. The pres­ence of scar­let ros­es in a chipped vase—a token from her broth­er’s attempts to apologize—further com­pli­cates the fam­i­ly dynam­ics.

Leighton wres­tles with her feel­ings, torn between con­fronting her moth­er about the sit­u­a­tion at home or smooth­ing over the ten­sion. When she inquires about her broth­er’s recent actions, their moth­er deflects and insists on a casu­al morn­ing rou­tine, a tac­tic Leighton rec­og­nizes as an attempt to avoid the sen­si­tive top­ic. The heav­i­ness in the house remains pal­pa­ble, with signs of dis­tur­bance evi­dent in the dis­ar­ray of pic­ture frames and a per­va­sive sense of stress that seems to height­en dur­ing these dif­fi­cult nights.

As the antic­i­pa­tion and anx­i­ety swell in the house­hold, Leighton reflects on her iden­ti­ty and the traits she shares with a pho­to­graph of a girl from a hap­pi­er time. This con­tem­pla­tion leads her to ques­tion her abil­i­ty to for­give and cope with the ongo­ing tur­moil.

Before rush­ing her sis­ters to the bus stop, Leighton resolves to con­front the rem­nants of their frac­tured life, sym­bol­ized by a use­less house phone that links them to a world out­side. With the famil­iar sound of a dial tone, she acknowl­edges the frag­ile vein of com­mu­ni­ca­tion that remains, under­scor­ing the ten­sion and com­plex­i­ty of fam­i­ly, love, and the des­per­ate need for safe­ty amidst chaos.

In Chap­ter Two of “The Choco­late War,” the pro­tag­o­nist, Obie, is steeped in bore­dom and exhaus­tion, par­tic­u­lar­ly in his inter­ac­tions with Archie, a senior at Trin­i­ty High whom Obie both admires and resents. Ten­sions flare as Obie con­fronts Archie while the two sit on the bleach­ers. Obie’s frus­tra­tion is pal­pa­ble; he is late for work yet feels trapped in a con­ver­sa­tion that is both tedious and con­fronta­tion­al. Archie’s play­ful open­ness about his dis­dain for author­i­ty and reli­gion adds to Obie’s irri­ta­tion, par­tic­u­lar­ly since he relies on Archie’s whims for a sig­nif­i­cant part of his social stand­ing with­in The Vig­ils, the secre­tive orga­ni­za­tion they belong to at school.

As they chat, it’s clear that Obie both wants to assert his inde­pen­dence and feels an invol­un­tary pull towards Archie’s charis­ma. When the dis­cus­sion turns to recent school assign­ments, Obie duti­ful­ly records names Archie pro­vides for a mys­te­ri­ous mis­sion linked to The Vig­ils. Each name car­ries weight as it hints at poten­tial mis­chief, par­tic­u­lar­ly when Archie men­tions a fresh­man named Nor­man Stan­ton and whim­si­cal­ly assigns him the innocu­ous word “side­walk,” reveal­ing the dis­turb­ing nature of the games they play.

The mood shifts when Jer­ry Renault’s name comes up, a kid who is strug­gling with grief after the death of his moth­er. Obie’s con­cern for Jer­ry stark­ly con­trasts with Archie’s detached sug­ges­tion to tar­get him as a vic­tim for The Vig­ils. This ruth­less sug­ges­tion high­lights Archie’s abil­i­ty to manip­u­late those around him and rais­es ques­tions about his moral com­pass, leav­ing Obie feel­ing uncom­fort­able but simul­ta­ne­ous­ly drawn to Archie’s pow­er­ful influ­ence.

Despite his inter­nal con­flict regard­ing par­tic­i­pa­tion in these cru­el games, Obie ulti­mate­ly suc­cumbs to Archie’s pres­sure, adding Jerry’s name along with the cru­el assign­ment of “choco­lates.” The chap­ter encap­su­lates Obie’s strug­gles between loy­al­ty and con­science, embed­ding a haunt­ing sense of melan­choly over the ado­les­cent emo­tions and moral dilem­mas faced with­in the micro­cosm of high school life .

In Chap­ter Two of “Lord of the Flies,” titled “Fire on the Moun­tain,” Ralph gath­ers the boys on the plat­form using the conch shell, which has become a sym­bol of order and author­i­ty. The set­ting con­trasts with the morn­ing meet­ing; the boys are more sub­dued in their sun­burnt clothes. Ralph sits sur­round­ed by his peers and feels uncer­tain about how to lead. Once he begins to speak, he becomes more con­fi­dent, explain­ing their sit­u­a­tion on the unin­hab­it­ed island and the need for order.

Ralph stress­es the lack of adults, assert­ing that they must take care of them­selves. This is met with a mix of accep­tance and chaos, lead­ing Ralph to pro­pose a sys­tem by which the boys can speak with­out inter­rup­tion using the conch. Jack enthu­si­as­ti­cal­ly sup­ports the idea of hunt­ing for food, and they all share their excite­ment about the pos­si­bil­i­ty of hunt­ing pigs.

How­ev­er, when a small boy reveals he has seen a “beast­ie” or “snake-thing,” a shift occurs. Ini­tial­ly dis­missed by Ralph, the fear of the unseen crea­ture takes hold of the group, spurring debate and laugh­ter before the larg­er boys attempt to calm the lit­tle one’s fears. Jack takes charge, insist­ing that if there is a threat, they will hunt it while also plan­ning to hunt pigs.

Ralph, aim­ing to main­tain focus, states that they need a sig­nal fire for res­cue. Every­one gets excit­ed, and Jack leads the charge up the moun­tain to gath­er wood, lay­ing the ground­work for a fire. They strug­gle to light it until Ralph sug­gests using Pig­gy’s glass­es as a lens. The fire ignites dra­mat­i­cal­ly, spread­ing rapid­ly and ignit­ing the for­est in a fren­zy, caus­ing the boys to cheer wild­ly.

How­ev­er, amidst the exhil­a­ra­tion, Ralph real­izes the fire is out of con­trol. Chaos ensues as they rec­og­nize the fire is more dis­as­trous than use­ful. The chap­ter con­cludes with Pig­gy anx­ious­ly point­ing out the pres­ence of the miss­ing boy with a birth­mark, height­en­ing the ten­sion as the boys grap­ple with both exhil­a­ra­tion over their new pow­er and fear over the poten­tial con­se­quences of their reck­less­ness. The inno­cence of child­hood begins to clash with the dark­ness brought on by fear and chaos .

In the sec­ond chap­ter of “The Bread­win­ner,” we wit­ness Par­vana’s dai­ly life under the oppres­sive regime of the Tal­iban. Moth­er and Noo­ria are busy clean­ing while Father takes a moment to rest after kiss­ing the younger chil­dren, Ali and Maryam. Par­vana returns home with bun­dles and is quick­ly instruct­ed by Noo­ria to fetch water, a task she resents because it requires mul­ti­ple trips to the water tap. This respon­si­bil­i­ty weighs heav­i­ly on her, as she feels bur­dened by the chores that fall sole­ly on her shoul­ders.

As Par­vana strug­gles with her duties, she reflects on her fam­i­ly’s small liv­ing space, devoid of the com­forts they once had. The only fur­nish­ings left are a tall wood­en cup­board and two toshaks, a stark reminder of their loss dur­ing the war. Par­vana longs for con­nec­tion and friend­ship, but her fam­i­ly’s iso­la­tion leaves her feel­ing lone­ly and unac­knowl­edged.

The house­hold dynam­ics reveal ten­sions between Par­vana and her sis­ter Noo­ria. Noo­ri­a’s supe­ri­or atti­tude and the way she flaunts her longer hair irri­tate Par­vana. As they clean, an argu­ment about sell­ing clothes leads to Parvana’s resent­ment boil­ing over, par­tic­u­lar­ly direct­ed at Noo­ria and their moth­er, who seems to side with her daugh­ter. Par­vana is par­tic­u­lar­ly attached to a beau­ti­ful shal­war kameez giv­en to her by her aunt, high­light­ing the emo­tion­al weight of their pos­ses­sions amidst pover­ty.

As the chap­ter pro­gress­es, the fam­i­ly’s meal­time serves as a brief respite, filled with laugh­ter and sto­ries from Father about their rich Afghan his­to­ry. His sto­ry­telling empha­sizes val­ues of brav­ery and resilience, as he recounts a tale of a girl named Malali who inspired Afghan troops dur­ing a bat­tle. How­ev­er, this moment of peace is shat­tered when Tal­iban sol­diers burst into their home.

The sol­diers vio­lent­ly seize Father, accus­ing him of har­bor­ing for­eign ideas due to his edu­ca­tion in Eng­land. Par­vana’s fam­i­ly responds in pan­ic: her moth­er des­per­ate­ly tries to pro­tect her hus­band, while the chil­dren are ter­ri­fied. The scene esca­lates into chaos—Parvana attempts to defend her father but is over­pow­ered. Ulti­mate­ly, the sol­diers drag Father away, and in their wake, the fam­i­ly is left shat­tered and in dis­be­lief, high­light­ing the stark real­i­ty of life under Tal­iban rule. The chap­ter clos­es with a pow­er­ful image of the sib­lings, Par­vana and Maryam, cling­ing to each oth­er amidst the tur­moil, under­scor­ing the bonds of fam­i­ly and the loss of their sense of safe­ty.

In Chap­ter Two, the nar­ra­tor recounts their expe­ri­ence at the Min­istry after tak­ing the Lon­don Under­ground with Gra­ham Gore, who, despite being an expat from a dif­fer­ent time peri­od, adjusts well though he ques­tions mod­ern con­cepts such as dat­ing. While Gore’s demeanor sug­gests open­ness, the nar­ra­tor feels their rela­tion­ship is com­pli­cat­ed by the emo­tion­al bag­gage of both their his­to­ries. After arriv­ing, Gore is escort­ed to meet oth­er expats, while the nar­ra­tor meets with Quentin, their han­dler, who ques­tions the men­tal sta­tus of the expats, includ­ing Gore.

Quentin express­es con­cern over Gore’s cog­ni­tive under­stand­ing of the cur­rent time, reveal­ing that he pre­vi­ous­ly assumed his expe­di­tion had sur­vived. The chap­ter reveals the chal­lenges of com­mu­ni­cat­ing with peo­ple from vast­ly dif­fer­ent eras, as oth­ers like Regi­nald-Smyth strug­gle with their grasp of mod­ern life. Dur­ing a meet­ing with the Vice Sec­re­tary Adela, dis­cus­sion of expat wel­fare high­lights the project’s ambigu­ous moral­i­ty as they face poten­tial insan­i­ty or worse due to time trav­el. Simel­lia, anoth­er bridge, shares her own expat’s strug­gles, empha­siz­ing the over­ar­ch­ing theme of psy­chic trau­ma and adjust­ment.

The nar­ra­tor explores their per­cep­tion of Gore as charm­ing yet dis­ori­ent­ed, dis­cov­er­ing how he emo­tion­al­ly nav­i­gates the mod­ern era as they dine togeth­er. Their con­ver­sa­tion about the oth­er expats reflects the cul­tur­al dis­so­nance, with Gore’s attempts to fit in often lead­ing to humor and insight into his char­ac­ter.

As Gore strug­gles with the expec­ta­tion of adapt­ing to a mun­dane life, he express­es desires for a dog, a sug­ges­tion met with skep­ti­cism. Their insights into famil­ial and social iden­ti­ties remain com­pli­cat­ed, as the nar­ra­tor grap­ples with her own mixed-race back­ground while edu­cat­ing Gore on con­tem­po­rary soci­etal norms. The chap­ter reveals the nuanced com­plex­i­ties of adapt­ing dif­fer­ent lives, show­cas­ing the bal­ance between main­tain­ing indi­vid­u­al­i­ty and inte­gra­tion into a new world while delv­ing into nos­tal­gia and iden­ti­ty. The rap­port they build, despite their his­tor­i­cal and cul­tur­al dis­par­i­ties, hints at a friend­ship that might tran­scend those bound­aries.