Her hair pulled up in a ponytail over her head like pebbles
After Anora, the narrator's sister, consumed with excitement begins crawling down the front steps feet-first, the narrator uses a simile to bring out the imagery of her curly dark hair pulled into a ponytail likening it to Pebbles from The Flintstones, a case of allusion: "She was wearing a striped T-shirt and her curly dark hair was pulled in a ponytail over her head like Pebbles from The Flinstones."
He watched Dad like a hawk
The narrator uses a simile to bring out the keenness with which Elridge watched over her father during a game of dominoes. She says that Elridge watched over her father 'like a hawk', a comparison that emphasizes the acuteness and sharpness with which the event of watching was carried out, and alluding to the hawks keen sight at the same time: "And when he wasn’t teaching me, he watched Dad like a hawk."
The smell of the vestibule at GSCC
When her father takes her to the Government Subsidized Charity Club (GSCC), she compares the smell of the vestibule to the smell of pea and cigarettes. This comparison enables the reader to develop an overview of how foul-smelling the room felt: "In addition to the lack of toys, the entire place smelled like pee and cigarettes."
Stealthness like a phantom lurking through the shadows
After the narrator's skin color is used as the 'butt' for every joke at the GSCC, she becomes more sensitive to people to an extent that she becomes stealth avoiding all human contact. She compares her stealthy behavior to the lurking of a phantom through the shadows or a ninja: "After a day or so of avoiding all human contact, I started to think of myself as stealthiness itself, like a phantom lurking through the shadows—or better yet, like a ninja."
Practiced capping like an upstart fighter training for a championship
At the GSCC, the narrator says that she got taken down over and over again by the caps of the other guys at the GSCC. She later compares her dedication to capping practice to that of an upstart fighter training for a championship. The use of this simile enhances the reader's perception of the capping practice of the narrator as it appeals to their imagination: "But at night, I practised capping like an upstart fighter training for a championship."
