MaddAddam

Back at the cobb-house, Toby is still under the effects of the herbs she took for her vision quest with Pilar, and Zeb teases her. Blackbeard is saying he heard Pilar speak to Toby through the sow. Toby isn’t sure what happened, but her revelations are real. She wants to skip story time, but Zeb urges her to try to tell the Crakers a story anyway. Instead of telling a story, Toby asks what story they want to hear next. They ask about Zeb and Crake and how Crake was created. Blackbeard starts to explain, and Toby invites him to put on the cap, but Blackbeard is terrified. When she tells Zeb about the Crakers being scared of the hat, Zeb flirts with her instead of talking. Toby admits that she doesn’t fully believe his compliments. Zeb asserts that he noticed that she was attractive during their Gardener days, but she was fully dedicated to being Eve Six and he had been seeing Lucerne. Even when Lucerne left, Zeb was intimidated by her. Emotional, Toby thinks silently, “All those years you were my lifeline” (231).