A deep, painful feeling of guilt for something you have done or failed to do

📝 He was filled with remorse for the harsh words he could never take back.

📖 When the truth sinks in, Maddie is swallowed by remorse, unable to stop thinking about the part her silence played.

Sincere sorrow for having done wrong, and the wish to put it right

📝 Her note was full of contrition, and she promised to do better.

📖 Maddie's contrition is real; she does not just feel bad, she longs to find Wanda and somehow make things right.

The inner voice that tells you whether something is right or wrong

📝 His conscience would not let him keep the money he had found.

📖 Maddie's conscience, which she had ignored for weeks, will not leave her in peace now that Wanda is gone.

Feeling and showing that you are sorry for doing wrong

📝 The penitent child returned the toy and said a quiet sorry.

📖 Both girls walk up to Boggins Heights penitent and hopeful, carrying a friendly letter they long to deliver.

Involved in something wrong, even just by letting it happen

📝 By keeping the secret, she became complicit in the whole plan.

📖 Maddie finally admits to herself that she was complicit, as guilty in her silence as Peggy was in her questions.

Deserving blame for something that has gone wrong

📝 The driver who ignored the red light was clearly culpable.

📖 Maddie feels culpable, and she is right to be: knowing better and saying nothing is its own kind of blame.

Feeling bad and embarrassed about something wrong you have done

📝 He was ashamed of how he had spoken to his grandmother.

📖 Maddie is ashamed, not of Wanda now, but of herself, and of all the mornings she looked away.

Lacking the courage to do what is right

📝 It felt cowardly to walk past and pretend he had not seen.

📖 It was cowardly, Maddie knows, to keep a kind note folded in her pocket rather than risk Peggy's laughter.

The ability to understand and share what someone else is feeling

📝 With real empathy, she sat beside the new pupil who looked so lost.

📖 Too late for Wanda, Maddie finally feels empathy, imagining at last how every morning's game must have felt from the inside.

A feeling of care and sorrow for someone else's suffering

📝 The whole class felt sympathy for the boy who had lost his dog.

📖 Maddie's sympathy had always been there, hidden and silent; what she lacked was the courage to let it show.

A modest view of yourself; being humble rather than proud

📝 She accepted the prize with humility, thanking everyone who had helped.

📖 It takes humility for Peggy and Maddie to admit they were wrong about a girl they had thought beneath them.

The quality of being honest and doing what is right, even when it is hard

📝 It took integrity to own up when no one would ever have known.

📖 Maddie decides that integrity means never again standing silent while someone is treated cruelly, whatever it costs her.

Standing together with others, especially to support someone treated unfairly

📝 The team wore the same badge in solidarity with their injured friend.

📖 What Wanda never had was solidarity, a single person willing to stand beside her while the others laughed.

A lesson about right and wrong that a story teaches

📝 The moral of the fable is that slow and steady can win the race.

📖 If the story has a moral, it is not a gentle one: looking away from cruelty is not the same as being innocent of it.

Not fair; not right

📝 It felt deeply unjust that the quiet workers got none of the praise.

📖 The whole thing was unjust, and the hardest part is that Maddie saw the unfairness clearly and still let it go on.

Something you do to make up for a wrong or to put it right

📝 He made amends for the broken window by mowing the lawn all summer.

📖 The girls try to make amends with a warm letter, but they cannot be sure it will ever truly reach Wanda's heart.

Blame or disappointment aimed at someone, including yourself

📝 There was gentle reproach in the teacher's voice, but no real anger.

📖 Wanda's reply, when it comes, holds no reproach at all, which somehow makes Maddie feel her mistake more deeply than angry words could.