You are being provided with a book chapter by chapter. I will request you to read the book for me after each chapter. After reading the chapter, 1. shorten the chapter to no less than 300 words and no more than 400 words. 2. Do not change the name, address, or any important nouns in the chapter. 3. Do not translate the original language. 4. Keep the same style as the original chapter, keep it consistent throughout the chapter. Your reply must comply with all four requirements, or it’s invalid.
I will provide the chapter now.

6
When I was ten, I was invited to be a contestant on Star Search.
On the rst show, I did a spunky version of a song I’d heard sung by Judy
Garland: “I Don’t Care.” I got 3.75 stars. My rival, a girl who sang opera, got
3.5. I advanced to the next round. The next episode taped later that day, and I
was up against a bolo-tie-wearing boy with a lot of hair spray in his hair named
Marty Thomas, age twelve. We were friendly; we even played basketball together
before the show. I sang the Judds’ “Love Can Build a Bridge,” which I’d sung the
year before at my aunt’s wedding.
While we were waiting for our scores, Marty and I were interviewed onstage
by the host, Ed McMahon.
“I noticed last week, you have the most adorable, pretty eyes,” he said to me.
“Do you have a boyfriend?”
“No, sir,” I said.
“Why not?”
“They’re mean.”
“Boyfriends?” Ed said. “You mean all boys are mean? I’m not mean! How
about me?”
“Well, it depends,” I said.
“I get that a lot,” Ed said.
I got 3.75 again. Marty got a perfect 4. I smiled and hugged him politely, and
as I walked o, Ed wished me luck. I kept it together until I made it backstage—
but then I burst into tears. Afterward, my mom got me a hot fudge sundae.
My mom and I kept ying back and forth to New York. The intensity of
working in the city as a little girl was exciting for me, even if it was also
intimidating.
I got oered a job: an understudy role in the o-Broadway musical Ruthless!,
inspired by The Bad Seed, All About Eve, Mame, and Gypsy. I played a
sociopathic child star named Tina Denmark. Tina’s rst song was called “Born
to Entertain.” It hit close to home. The other understudy was a talented young
actress named Natalie Portman.
While I was doing the show, we rented a little apartment for my mom, baby
Jamie Lynn, and me near my public school, the Professional Performing Arts
School, and I took classes nearby at Broadway Dance Center. But mostly I
passed my time at the Players Theatre downtown.
The experience was a validation in some way, proof I had enough talent to
make it in the theatrical world. But it was a grueling schedule. There was no time
to be a regular kid or really make friends, because I had to work nearly every day.
On Saturdays there were two shows.
I also didn’t love being an understudy. I had to be at the theater every night
until as late as midnight, in case I had to take over for the main Tina, Laura Bell
Bundy. After a few months, she left and I took over the lead, but I was awfully
worn out.
By the time Christmas came around, I desperately wanted to go home—and
then I learned I was supposed to perform on Christmas Day. In tears, I asked my
mom, “Am I really going to do this for Christmas?” I looked at the little mini
tree in our apartment, thinking about the sturdy evergreen we’d have in our
living room in Kentwood.
In my little-girl mind, I didn’t understand why I’d want to do that—continue
performing through the holidays. So I quit the show and went home.
The schedule of New York City theater was just too rough on me at that age.
One good thing did come out of it, though: I learned how to sing in a theater
with small acoustics. The audience is right beside you—just two hundred people
in the room. Honestly, it’s strange, but in that space, the feeling of singing is

You are being provided with a book chapter by chapter. I will request you to read the book for me after each chapter. After reading the chapter, 1. shorten the chapter to no less than 300 words and no more than 400 words. 2. Do not change the name, address, or any important nouns in the chapter. 3. Do not translate the original language. 4. Keep the same style as the original chapter, keep it consistent throughout the chapter. Your reply must comply with all four requirements, or it’s invalid.
I will provide the chapter now.

CHAPTER 6
Friends and relatives had dropped by the house all Friday and
brought Patricia six bunches of flowers, two copies of Southern
Living and one copy of Redbook, three casseroles (corn, taco,
spinach), a pound of coffee, a bottle of wine, and two pies (Boston
cream, peach). She decided that regifting a casserole was
appropriate, given the situation, so she took out the taco one to thaw.
Carter had gone to the hospital early even though it was the
weekend. Patricia found Mrs. Greene and Miss Mary sitting on the
back patio. The morning felt soft and warm, and Mrs. Greene leafed
through Family Circle magazine while Miss Mary stared at the bird
feeder, which was, as usual, crawling with squirrels.
“Are you enjoying the sunshine, Miss Mary?” Patricia asked.
Miss Mary turned her watery eyes toward Patricia and scowled.
“Hoyt Pickens came by last night,” she said.
“Ear’s looking better,” Mrs. Greene said.
“Thank you,” Patricia said.
Ragtag, lying at Miss Mary’s feet, perked up as a fat black marsh
rat streaked out of the bushes and dashed across the grass, making
Patricia jump and sending three squirrels fleeing in terror. It dashed
around the edge of the fence separating their property from the
Langs next door and was gone as fast as it had appeared. Ragtag put
his head down again.
“You ought to put out poison,” Mrs. Greene said.
Patricia made a mental note to call the bug man and see if they had
rat poison.
“I’m just going down the street to drop off a casserole,” Patricia
said.
“We’re about to have some lunch,” Mrs. Greene said. “What are
you thinking about for lunch, Miss Mary?”
“Hoyt,” Miss Mary said. “What was his name, that Hoyt?”
Patricia wrote a quick note (So sorry for your loss, The Campbells)
and taped it to the tin foil over the taco casserole, then walked down
the warming streets to Ann Savage’s cottage, the freezing cold
casserole held in front of her.
It was turning into a hot day so she had a little bit of a shine on her
by the time she stepped off the road onto Mrs. Savage’s dirt yard. The
nephew must be home because his white van sat on the grass,
underneath the shade. It looked out of place in the Old Village
because, as Maryellen had pointed out, it seemed like the kind of
thing a child snatcher would drive.
Patricia walked up the wooden steps to the front porch and rattled
her knuckles against the screen door. After a minute she knocked
again and heard nothing but the hollow echo of her knock inside the
house and cicadas screaming from the drainage pond that separated
Mrs. Savage’s yard from the Johnsons next door.
Patricia knocked again and waited, looking across the street at
where developers had torn down the Shortridges’ house, which used
to have the most beautiful slate roof. In its place, someone from out
of town was building an ostentatious miniature mansion. More and
more of these eyesores were popping up all over the Old Village, big
heavy things that sprawled from property line to property line and
didn’t leave any room for a yard.
Patricia wanted to leave the casserole, but she hadn’t come all this
way not to speak to the nephew. She decided to try the front door.
She’d just leave it on the kitchen counter with a note, she told herself.
She opened the screen door and turned the doorknob. It stuck for a
moment, then swung open.
“Yoo-hoo?” Patricia called into the dim interior.
No one answered. Patricia stepped inside. All the blinds were
drawn. The air felt hot and dusty.
“Hello?” Patricia said. “It’s Patricia Campbell from Pierates
Cruze?”
No answer. She’d never been inside Ann Savage’s house before.
Heavy old furniture crowded the front room. Liquor store boxes and
paper bags of junk mail covered the floor. Circulars, catalogs, and old
rolled-up copies of the Moultrie News spilled from the seats of every
chair. Four dusty old Samsonite suitcases were lined up against the
wall. Built-in shelves around the front door were crowded with
waterlogged romance novels. It smelled like the Goodwill store.
A doorway on her left led into a dark kitchen, and a doorway on
her right led to the back of the house. A ceiling fan spun lethargically
overhead. Patricia looked down the hallway. There was a half-open
door at the far end leading to what she assumed was the bedroom.
From it, she heard the groaning of a window-unit air conditioner.
Surely the nephew wouldn’t have gone out and left his air
conditioner on.
Holding her breath, Patricia walked carefully down the hall and
pushed the bedroom door all the way open.
“Knock knock?” she said.
The man lying on the bed was dead.
He lay on top of the quilt, still in his work boots. He wore blue
jeans and a white button-up shirt. His hands were at his sides. He
was huge, well over six feet, and his feet hung off the end. But despite
his size, he looked starved. The flesh clung tight to his bones. The
sallow skin of his face looked drawn and finely wrinkled, his blond
hair looked brittle and thin.
“Excuse me?” Patricia asked, her voice a shaky rasp.
She forced herself to step all the way into the room, put the
casserole dish on the end of the bed, and took his wrist. His skin felt
cool. He had no pulse.
Patricia examined his face closely. He had thin lips, a wide mouth,
and high cheekbones. His looks lay somewhere between handsome
and pretty. She shook his shoulder, just in case.
“Sir?” she croaked. “Sir?”
His body barely moved beneath her hand. She held the back of her
forefinger under his nostrils: nothing. Her nursing instincts took
over.
She used one hand to pull his chin down, and the other to pull his
upper lip back. She felt inside his mouth with one finger. His tongue
felt dry. Nothing obstructed his airway. Patricia leaned over his face
and realized, with a tickling in the veins on the inside of her elbows,
this was the closest she’d been to a man who wasn’t her husband in
nineteen years. Then her dry lips pressed against his chapped ones
and formed a seal. She pinched his nose shut and blew three strong
breaths into his windpipe. Then she performed three strong chest
compressions.
Nothing. She leaned down for a second attempt, made the seal
with their lips, and blew into his mouth, once, twice, then her trachea
vibrated backward as air blasted down her throat. She reared back
coughing, the man bolted upright, his forehead smacking into the
side of Patricia’s skull with a hollow knock, and Patricia staggered
backward into the wall, knocking all the breath out of her lungs. Her
legs went out from under her, and she slid to the floor, landing hard
on her butt, as the man leapt to his feet, wild-eyed, sending the
casserole dish clattering to the floor.
“What the fuck!” he shouted.
He looked wildly around the room and found Patricia on the floor
at his feet. Chest heaving, mouth hanging open, he squinted at her in
the dimness.
“How’d you get in?” he shouted. “Who are you?”
Patricia managed to get her breathing under control enough to
squeak, “Patricia Campbell from Pierates Cruze.”
“What?” he barked.
“I thought you were dead,” she said.
“What?” he barked again.
“I performed CPR,” she said. “You weren’t breathing.”
“What?” he barked one more time.
“I’m your neighbor?” Patricia cowered. “From Pierates Cruze?”
He looked out the hall door. He looked back at his bed. He looked
down at her.
“Fuck,” he said again, and his shoulders slumped.
“I brought you a casserole,” Patricia said, pointing at the upside-
down casserole dish.
The man’s chest heaved slower.
“You came here to bring me a casserole?” he asked.
“I’m so sorry for your loss,” Patricia said. “I’m…your great-aunt
was found in my yard? And things got a little bit physical? Maybe
you’ve seen my dog? He’s a cocker spaniel mix, he, well…maybe it’s
better you haven’t? And…? Well, I so hope that nothing happened at
our house to make your aunt worse.”
“You brought me a casserole because my aunt died,” he said, as if
explaining it to himself.
“You didn’t come to the door,” she said. “But I saw your car outside
so I stuck my head in.”
“And down the hall,” he said. “And into my bedroom.”
She felt like a fool.
“No one here thinks twice about that,” she explained. “It’s the Old
Village. You weren’t breathing.”
He opened his eyes wide and closed them tightly a few times,
swaying slightly.
“I am very, very tired,” he said.
Patricia realized he wasn’t going to help her to her feet, so she
pushed herself up off the floor.
“Let me clean this up,” she said, reaching for the casserole dish. “I
feel so stupid.”
“No,” he said. “You have to leave.” He wavered, his head jerking in
little shakes and nods.
“It’ll only take a minute,” she said.

You are being provided with a book chapter by chapter. I will request you to read the book for me after each chapter. After reading the chapter, 1. shorten the chapter to no less than 300 words and no more than 400 words. 2. Do not change the name, address, or any important nouns in the chapter. 3. Do not translate the original language. 4. Keep the same style as the original chapter, keep it consistent throughout the chapter. Your reply must comply with all four requirements, or it’s invalid.
I will provide the chapter now.

6
Eddie isn’t there when I walk Adele the next morning. His car is missing from the garage, and I tell
myself I’m not disappointed when I take the puppy from the backyard and out for her walk.
Thornfield Estates is just up the hill from Mountain Brook Village where I used to work, so this
morning, I take Adele there, her little legs trotting happily as we turn out of the neighborhood. I tell
myself it’s because I’m bored with the same streets, but really, it’s because I want people to see us. I
want people who don’t know I’m the dog-walker to see me with Eddie’s dog. Which means, in their
heads, I’m linked with Eddie.
It makes me hold my head up higher as I walk past Roasted, past the little boutique selling things
that I now recognize as knockoffs of Southern Manors. I pass three stores with brightly patterned
quilted bags in the windows, and I think how many of those bags are probably tucked away in closets
in Thornfield Estates.
What would it feel like to be the kind of woman who spent $250 on an ugly bag just because you
could?
At my side, Adele trots along, her nails clicking on the sidewalk, and I’m just about to turn by the
bookstore when I hear, “Jane?”
It’s Mrs. McLaren. I walk her dalmatian, Mary-Beth, every Wednesday, and now she’s standing in
front of me, a Roasted cup in hand. Like Emily Clark, she wears fancy yoga clothes half the time, but
she’s smaller and curvier than Emily or Mrs. Reed, her hair about four different shades of blond as it
curls around her face.
“What are you two doing all the way down here?” She asks it with a smile, but my face suddenly
flames hot, like I’ve been caught at something.
“Change of scenery,” I reply with a sheepish shrug, hoping Mrs. McLaren will just let this go, but
now she’s stepping closer, her gaze falling to Adele.
“Sweetheart, it’s probably not safe to have the dogs out of the neighborhood.” The words are
cooed, sugar-sweet, a cotton candy chastisement, and I hate her for them.
Like I’m a child. Or, worse, a servant who wandered out of her gated yard.
“We’re not far from home,” I say, and at my side, Adele whines, straining on her leash, her tail
brushing back and forth.
Home.
There’s a shopping bag dangling from Mrs. McLaren’s wrist as she steps closer. It’s imprinted
with the logo of one of those little boutiques I just passed, and I wonder what’s in it, wanting to catch
a glimpse of the item inside, so that when I see it lying around her house later, I can take it. A stupid,
petty reaction, lashing out, I know that, but there it is, an insistent pulse under my skin.
Whatever this bitch bought today, she’s not going to keep it, not after making me feel this small.
“Okay, well, maybe run on back there, then?” The uptick, making it a question. “And sweetie,
please don’t ever take Mary-Beth out of the neighborhood, okay? She gets so excitable, and I’d hate
for her to be out in all this…” she waves a hand, the bag still dangling from her wrist. “Rigmarole.”
I’ve seen maybe three cars this morning, and the only rigmarole currently happening is Mrs.
McLaren stopping me like I’m some kind of criminal for daring to walk a dog outside Thornfield’s
gates.
But I nod.
I smile.
I bite back the venom flooding my mouth because I have practice at that, and I walk back to
Thornfield Estates and to Eddie’s house.
It’s cool and quiet as I let myself in, and I lean down to unclip Adele’s leash. Her claws skitter
across the marble, then the hardwood as she makes her way to the sliding glass doors, and I follow,
opening them to let her out into the yard.
This is the part where I’m supposed to hang up her leash on the hook by the front door, maybe
leave a note for Eddie saying that I came by and that Adele is outside, and then leave. Go back to the
concrete box on St. Pierre Street, think again about taking the GRE, maybe sort through the various
treasures I’ve picked up on dressers, on bathroom counters, beside nightstands.
Instead, I walk back into the living room with that bright pinkish-red couch and floral chairs, the
shelves with all those books, and I look around.
For once, I’m not looking for something to take. I don’t know what it says about me, about Eddie,
or how I might feel about Eddie that I don’t want to take anything from him, but I don’t. I just want to
know him. To learn something.
Actually, if I’m being honest with myself, I want to see pictures of him with Bea.
There aren’t any in the living room, but I can see spaces on the wall where photographs must have
hung. And the mantel is weirdly bare, which makes me think it once held more than just a pair of
silver candlesticks.
I wander down the hall, sneakers squeaking, and there’s more emptiness.
Upstairs.
The hardwood is smooth underfoot, and there are no blank spaces here, only tasteful pieces of art.
On the landing, there’s a table with that glass bowl I recognize from Southern Manors, the one
shaped like an apple, and I let my fingers drift over it before moving on, up the shorter flight of stairs
to the second floor.
It’s dim up here, the lights off, and the morning sun not yet high enough to reach through the
windows. There are doors on either side, but I don’t try to open any of them.
Instead, I make my way to a small wooden table under a round stained-glass window, there at the
end of the hall.
There’s only one thing on it, a silver-framed photograph, and it’s both exactly what I wanted to
see, and something I wish I’d never seen at all.
I had wondered what Bea and Eddie looked like together, and now I know.
They’re beautiful.
But it’s more than just that. Lots of people are beautiful, especially in this neighborhood where
everyone can afford the upkeep, so it’s not her perfect hair and flawless figure, her bright smile and
designer bathing suit. It’s that they look like they fit. Both of them, standing on that gorgeous beach,
her smiling at the camera, Eddie smiling at her.
They’d found the person for them. That thing most of us look for and never find, that thing I always
assumed didn’t exist, because in this whole wide world, how could there ever be one person who
was just right for you?
But Bea was right for Eddie, I can see that now, and I suddenly feel so stupid and small. Sure,
he’d flirted with me, but he was probably one of those guys for whom it was second nature. He’d had
this. He certainly didn’t want me.
“That was in Hawaii.”
I whirl around, the keys falling from my suddenly numb fingers.
Eddie is standing in the hallway, just at the top of the stairs, leaning against the wall with one
ankle crossed in front of the other. He’s wearing jeans today and a blue button-down, the kind that
looks casual, but probably costs more than I’d make in a couple of weeks at the coffee shop or
walking dogs. I wonder what that’s like, to have so much money that spending someone’s rent on one
shirt doesn’t even register.
His sunglasses dangle from his hand, and he nods at the table. “That picture,” he tells me, as if I
hadn’t known what he was referring to. “That’s me and Bea in Hawaii last year. We met there,
actually.”
I swallow hard, shoving my hands into the back pockets of my jeans, straightening my shoulders.
“I was just looking for the bathroom,” I tell him, and he smiles a little.
“Of course you were,” he says, pushing off from the wall and walking closer. The hall is wide
and bright, filled with light from the inset window above us, but it feels smaller, closer, as he moves
nearer.
“It was the one picture I couldn’t bring myself to get rid of,” he says now, and I’m very aware of
him standing right next to me, his elbow nearly brushing my side.
“The rest were mostly shots of our wedding, a few pictures of when we were building this house.
But that one…” Trailing off, he picks up the frame, studying the image. “I don’t know. I just couldn’t
throw it out.”
“You threw the rest of them away?” I ask. “Even your wedding pictures?”
He sets the frame back on the table with a soft clunk. “Burned them, actually. In the backyard three
days after the accident.”
“I’m so sorry,” I say quietly, trying not to imagine Eddie standing in front of a fire as Bea’s face
melted.
But then he looks at me, his blue eyes narrowing just a little bit. “I don’t think you are, Jane,” he
says, and my mouth is dry, my heart hammering. I wish I’d never come upstairs into this hallway, and I
am so glad I came into this hallway because if I hadn’t, we wouldn’t be standing here right now, and
he wouldn’t be looking at me like that.
“What happened was awful,” I try again, and he nods, but his hand is already coming up to cup my
elbow. His fingers fold around the sharp point, and I stare down at where he’s touching me, at the
sight of that hand on my skin.
“Awful,” he echoes. “But you’re not sorry, because her not being here means that you can be here.
With me.”

In Chapter 6 of “The Beasts of Tarzan,” titled “A Hideous Crew,” the journey of Tarzan, Mugambi, Akut, Sheeta, and the savage apes progresses as they venture towards the open sea in a war-canoe, navigating through a break in the reef amidst challenging waves. The journey, initially smooth, soon becomes tumultuous as the apes aboard are thrown into panic by the rough seas, threatening to capsize their canoe. However, Tarzan and Akut manage to restore order, and the apes adapt to their maritime surroundings.

Upon reaching closer to the shore as night falls, their canoe capsizes, but all manage to reach safety. While the apes and Mugambi settle by a fire, Tarzan and Sheeta venture into the jungle, hunting a bull buffalo in a display of their primal prowess and synergy. After feasting, they return to the group, leading them towards the Ugambi River in search of natives for information about Rokoff, Tarzan’s adversary, and the kidnapped child, Jack.

The narrative shifts to Kaviri, a local chief, who, spurred by the sighting of Tarzan’s crew, believes them to be another threat similar to a previous white man (Rokoff), who had brought violence and abduction to his people. Kaviri sets out with war canoes to attack but is astounded and overpowered by the ferocity of Tarzan’s bestial crew. After a fierce confrontation, where Tarzan’s jungle allies display their formidable prowess, Kaviri finds himself captive and converses with Tarzan, learning of his quest to find the very man (Rokoff) he despises. Tarzan discovers from Kaviri that a white man, woman, and child, likely being pursued by Rokoff, had passed through the area earlier.

This revelation fuels Tarzan’s fears for his son’s safety and sets the stage for his continued quest, further into the heart of darkness along the Ugambi, with the unexpected but solid alliance of Kaviri’s men propelled by a mutual enmity for Rokoff. Spanning a blend of intense action, the dynamics of trust and betrayal, and the primal bond between man and beast, this chapter crucially bridges Tarzan’s savage prowess with his paternal instincts, amplifying his determination to vanquish Rokoff and recover his child.