iRead Journal Prompt #1 for The Compound

-Select a relatively important event in the book and describe why it was a turning point in the character's life? What was it that the character decided or learned to do?

The turning point of a relatively important event in the book happened when the dad was unconscious, and the mom was going in and out of consciousness.  The dad was unconscious because of the food poisoning and he was uttering numbers and words; he was very hard to understand.  Eli was trying to figure out if he was mumbling about the code to the door, or if he was just talking nonsense. Eli decided they had to get out of the compound; he needed to figure out the code to the door.  He knew that the code had to be numbers, but he was unsure how many numbers.  When Eli confronted his mother about the code, she replied that his father was the only person who knew about the code.  She claimed that the code was memorized, and not written. Eli was really concerned because his mother was pregnant, and she didn’t look so good.  He thought that his mother’s life could be in danger because she told him that doctors recommend that she not have any more babies.  She kept complaining about a lot of pain in her stomach.  She was starting to bleed.  He felt bad that he couldn’t help his mother besides giving her blankets and telling her to be calm and to rest.  Eli knew that she needed medical help and he didn’t know how to help her, except to get out of the compound.  He told his mother “I’ll find the clue” (194).  In his mind, that mentally committed him to find a way to get the door open.  He could see his mom was in a lot of pain, and this motivated him even more.  His father gave Eli a one word clue (turducken).  Eli remembered turducken was a type of food that his family enjoyed eating at Christmas time.  Turducken is a tuckey stuffed with a duck, that was stuffed with a chicken.  He was trying to figure out how that food was a clue.  He remembered his brother, Lucas, talking about the clowns, and saying “the mystery inside” (204).  Eli decided to go into the nursery and find the clowns that Lucas was referring to.  He took them all apart, and at the bottom of the smallest clown was a clue.  The word on the clown was “Hautbois” which is French for oboe.  Still driven to figure out the clue, Eli went to his sister’s oboe case and searched it.  He found a piece of blank paper.  He could tell there was invisible ink on it because when he was younger he used to write a bunch of messages to his twin brother, Eddy, in invisible ink.  He took the paper into the lab and put chemicals onto the paper to reveal the message.  A lot of numbers started to appear on the paper.  “I had it, I had the power to get us out of here.” (208).  While Eli was looking at the paper, he heard someone clapping.  His dad walked towards him and said “So you have the code now.” (209).  Eli replies by saying they can escape and get help.