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Dave Eggers' The Wild Things is available for preorder, in regular hardcover and
limited-edition fur-covered.
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1. When I was four years old, my parents took me for a long walk in the country. I was wearing Wellington boots that were too big and my socks fell down and bunched underneath the arches of my feet. I had a pebble under my heel that I couldn't dislodge, so I was walking slowly. My parents urged me to keep up. They walked far ahead of me. They were in love. I started crying and wouldn't walk anymore until they came back to help me with the pebble. They did come back to get me. But instead of helping me with the pebble, my mother picked me up and dropped me into a field of bulls next to the road that was surrounded by a clicking electric fence. My father told me the bulls would be my parents now. 2. One day I was crying in a field of bulls surrounded by a clicking electric fence and begging my parents to lift me over the fence and take me home. The bulls were huge, snorting, ferocious and clearly about to charge. My mother said she would lift me out if—and only if—I could catch a caterpillar and eat it. I found one but it was so hairy and creepy that I dropped it and couldn't possibly find another.
1. When I was four years old, my mother and my father took me for a long walk in the country. I was such a whiny crybaby. Have you ever heard me cry? You'd kill me. So when I wouldn't stop crying, my mother picked me up and put me in a field of bulls next to the road that was surrounded by an electric fence. My father said, "The bulls will look after you now!" But the bulls were really, really far away. 2. One day I was crying in a field of bulls surrounded by an electric fence and my mother asked me to eat a caterpillar just to see if I would do it. My mother wanted me to stand up for myself. I was such a wimp though. I actually tried to eat a caterpillar but then just started crying again. Both my mother and father were pretty sure these two stories happened on different days.
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