In the first sentence of the Paragraph 18, the author uses three different tenses---“don’t intend”, “was”, and “had happened”. The author uses “don’t” because she does the behavior “intend” right now. And like “was showing”, is the author’s past action, but the “had happened” is the action which is before the “was showing”. The strict structure is worth studying. The author uses three words all of which start with the letter “g” in order to emphasize. In my opinion, the author is showing off her triumph, although she emphasizes that she does don’t show off now many times. In the last sentence of the Paragraph 19, “however” should have been put in front of the “exulting”. The author’s intention is emphasis of “exulting”. We can see the next two paragraphs which talk about the “exulting”.
The first sentences of the Paragraph 20 and Paragraph 21 are used inverted structure because of emphasis. “A tap dance” draws my attention. From a reference, it means a kind of a dance.
In the Paragraph 21, a word “gorgeous” appears three times. From this, we could understand the showoff’s emotion clearly.
In the Paragraph 22, I find a phrase---“would have done”. In the context, I know this sentence is used subjunctive mood. We know that mother hasn’t done what the author said after the phrase.
