Tiny lives in the Zoo, a housing project in downtown Toronto. People have lots of names for her--"Girlzilla, Bigfoot, Titanic"--but her real name is Tyne, and she is known for the power of her basketball skills. However, she calls herself "Ghetto Cinderella" on the morning that she heads into the flooded furnace room to clean the basement for her dad, the apartment building superintendent.
Her boyfriend, Stick, is texting her as she heads into the incinerator room where trash was previously burned in the building. It is there that she discovers some cracks in the wall, probably created by the street demolition happening in her neighborhood. Flashlight in hand, nothing could prepare her as the beam from her light reveal the source of the rotten smell that permeates the room.
"It's like something from a butcher shop. I make out a rib cage. Might be a whole animal carcass dumped in there,....Oh God! No! No! A human face!..." (McNamee 17). The horrific sight sends Tiny running for her father, but it takes less than an hour for her dad to tell her that she imagined the whole thing. And sure enough, the body is no longer there.
From this pivotal moment, Tyne is out to discover the truth about her father, her family, and herself. She is sure that the body didn't just crawl out of the basement on its own, and the only footprints in and out belong to beloved father and her own.
McNamee, Graham. Defender. New York: Wendy Lamb Books, 2017. Print.
Her boyfriend, Stick, is texting her as she heads into the incinerator room where trash was previously burned in the building. It is there that she discovers some cracks in the wall, probably created by the street demolition happening in her neighborhood. Flashlight in hand, nothing could prepare her as the beam from her light reveal the source of the rotten smell that permeates the room.
"It's like something from a butcher shop. I make out a rib cage. Might be a whole animal carcass dumped in there,....Oh God! No! No! A human face!..." (McNamee 17). The horrific sight sends Tiny running for her father, but it takes less than an hour for her dad to tell her that she imagined the whole thing. And sure enough, the body is no longer there.
From this pivotal moment, Tyne is out to discover the truth about her father, her family, and herself. She is sure that the body didn't just crawl out of the basement on its own, and the only footprints in and out belong to beloved father and her own.
McNamee, Graham. Defender. New York: Wendy Lamb Books, 2017. Print.
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