The Theory of Flight

“he was an Afrikaner, and Kuki’s parents, whose veins ran blue with the blood of good pioneers..."

People of Tongaland are treated well by soldiers and terrorists

Hangs himself in the Main Post Office courtyard next to plaque commemorating soldiers who died defending British in WWII

Todd Carmichael loses this when he's negotiating peace deal in Switzerland

Everleigh believes in the civil war cause so is eager to go fight

Biggest obstacle to Emil progressing in his goal of setting up central organisation

Feels betrayed and deceived by family

“In the 1990s, things began to change”... Street kids who

He was standing in the field alone, but he no longer felt alone. He could somehow feel the sway of the elephant grass...

“to help patrol the border to ensure that the terrorists did not cross into or out of the country…”

Rosamond does what to deal with loss of Everleigh:

“He, however, had chosen not to carry on without him, choosing instead to vacate the world in his own unique way.”

“If it did not exist, then what did that make him: an aberration, an anomaly, an abnormality… something wrong?”

Vida is worried that “metamorphosis… would be his responsibility.” 

Vida feels “absolute understanding and acceptance.” from

Beat(s) up 11-year-old girl

Why does Vida punch the man in the car?

He walked away from her but it was already too late…

The secret was that he had his own

…together Vida and [who???] would feast like kings, which was only fitting since they lived in the City of Kings.

Tongaland known as the ... of the war. Vida is determined to die to be relieved of pain.

Source of the Masuku family's wealth and privilege

she had an eye for the colourful, the unique and the precious. She saw beauty and value in things...

“It was harmony that quickly became a part of the postcolonial city.”

“For food there were restaurants, bakeries and butcheries…”

Seems gleeful to share news that Genie is HIV positive

Which isn't in the 'incongruous pair' description of Vida and Genie?

Vida's parents

Year when this happens

Shadrack, plays “an Olivine-can guitar”, legs amputated as a child due to

Vida hates The House that Jack Built because

“His brilliant mind, having touched the cusp of something beautiful, disintegrated.” (Harvard Scholarship)

still her most precious possessions

For the next two years Genie laughed, loved and lived as though nothing in her life had changed… until one afternoon

There is freedom, beauty even, in that kind of knowledge… and it is the kind of knowledge that finally quiets you.

Blue is

“He did what he did as a way of establishing his place in the world, of giving his life meaning.”

Girl in Vida and Everleigh's love triangle

“the things he created could actually have lives of their own — beyond him.”

“her name... proud, proper pioneer stock.”

Vida listens to... loudly as he does not care, wishes to be killed by the enemy

“you respected other people’s property, zones, marks, clients and customers; you neither interfered nor intervened..."

She left him, amid those bluey-purple jacaranda flowers, confused about everything but the swimming elephants.

Vida doubts his artwork because

fabled to have told story after story to keep herself alive. Genie gives performance after performance according to K.

1980 (newly-independent country) street dwellers not as a result of:

“the puny but dangerous and malicious leader fo the most notorious gang of street kids, ‘The Survivors’.”

“not like other boys. A mother knows these things.”

“They had found a way to live with devastation, uncaring gods and an oh-so-cruel world…”

Elephants can float (Zambezi River...)

Michael Macintosh AKA Mick the Tick

“Friends (like families) had expectations and created obligations.”

Most of them were orphaned children of parents... (Choose the odd one out)

told him about sunflowers, sojas, saviours and secrets. She told him the story of her life

“a beautiful, golden-haired boy”

Genie smells of vanilla and woodsmoke which makes Vida uncomfortable because