5th post

"There was another little stand of trees, and I ran into that, and out the other side a moment later, around the gazebo, headed for some more trees, saw an archway- and lost track of where I was.
Oh, yeah, I thought, those arches the lilac committee put up. I knew it wasn't the one near my house, all the way across the park, but assumed they must have put up a bunch of them, never mind that Highland Park was across the street, not on Westfall Nursing Home grounds.
I sped through the arch- which sure looked like granite, though I knew it couldn't be- and there were a lot more trees on the far side, for which I was grateful. I zigzagged, watching the ground so I wouldn't trip over tree roots, and wondered if now was the time to try hiding. I couldn't hear Julian anymore, so I glanced over my shoulder.
Not a sign of him.
Of course, not a sign of the arch, either.
Or the wall.
Or the nursing home.
And there were a lot of trees.
A whole lot.
Even when I looked over the tops of my lenses.
I was in a forest. Not a wooded yard. Not a park.
A freaking forest (Velde 91-92)."

I think in this passage is about setting. Wendy, the main character, obviously takes her time to explain that there is a change of setting/scene from a suburban neighborhood to a forest- and she's freaked. Wendy describes the setting not with an enormous amount of describing, but just enough so that the reader gets a mental picture.

Questions: Why take the time to describe a forest? Why put the scene that follows in a forest and what does the setting that the scene takes place in have to do with what Wendy learns in the end? Haha- I would be freaked too if I suddenly ended up in a forest out of no where...