- Um, how 'bout an giant eye?
- That's right, Shmoopers. Arrietty has come face to face with a huge human eye. A huge human eye that belongs to a boy.
- Arrietty is shaking in her little boots, but she stands up to the boy, and soon realizes the boy is just as afraid of her as she is of him.
- As they chit-chat, we learn that the boy is 10, and Arrietty is 14, and that the boy has just come from India.
- The boy can't read, and wants Arrietty to read to him.
- The boy at first thinks Arrietty is a fairy, just like the little man he saw carrying a doll's teacup a while back, but Arrietty explains that that was her father. And she's no Tinkerbell.
- Ready to hear what borrowers think about humans? Prepare yourself—this one's a doozy.
- Borrowers think that there aren't many people in the world the boy's size, because it's not possible—how could there be enough huge chairs for all of them? How would there be enough food? Humans are dying out, and borrowers just need a few humans alive in order to "keep" them.
- Are you scratching your head? (And maybe a little angry?)
- The boy is, too.