Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson - MonkeyNotes by PinkMonkey.com
PinkMonkey® Literature Notes on . . .
Speak
by
Laurie Halse Anderson
1999
MonkeyNotes Study Guide by Diane Clapsaddle
Reprinted with permission from TheBestNotes.com Copyright  2005, All Rights Reserved
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KEY LITERARY ELEMENTS
SETTING
Speak is set in Syracuse, New York, in the specific neighborhood and school-Merryweather High School-of
Melinda Sordino in the present day.
CHARACTER LIST
Melinda Sordino - She is a sophomore in Merryweather High School, Syracuse, New York. She is terribly
unhappy, because she is the victim of a vicious rape, and so spends her entire ninth-grade year trying to come to
terms with what happened to her. She refuses to speak most of the time and she misbehaves in interesting ways
to try to give meaning to her own existence or to avoid the pain she feels so deeply. She appears to have great
potential and like most of us, she will eventually discover that she makes her life whatever it will become.
Melinda’s parents - Their dissatisfaction with their own lives and their marriage contributes to Melinda’s
unhappiness. When she is able to overcome her pain, she helps them to overcome theirs as well.
Mr. Freeman - He is the Art teacher who has his own issues with a school board, who will provide him with no
supplies with which to teach. However, he is the only adult who tries to understand Melinda’s pain and
encourages her to stand up for what she believes. He offers an ear to listen and a shoulder to cry on if Melinda
ever needs him. In the end, he also is one of those that helps her find her way to speaking again.
David Petrakis - He is Melinda’s biology lab partner and is one of the few students in the school who will
speak to her. She comes to admire him very much for his brilliance; his willingness to stand up for what is right,
and his patience for her. He, too, is a bastion of support when she needs it most and might just be a love interest
for her in the future.
Andy Evans - Also known as IT or Beast or a wolf, he is the rapist who gets away with what he does to many
girls, because he is good looking and charming and popular. He tortures Melinda psychologically every time he
is near her, but she is the one who finally stops his terrible behavior.
Heather from Ohio - She is a new girl who befriends Melinda at the beginning of the school year. She is
shallow and cold and uses Melinda when she needs her talents so as to become more popular among a clique
known as the Marthas.
Rachel/Rachelle - Melinda’s best friend since elementary school, she is at the party where Melinda is raped.
After Melinda calls the cops and the party is raided, she stops talking to Melinda and leads the way to making
the girl an Outcast. She discovers the truth for herself in the end and finds her way back into their friendship.
Ivy - Another of Melinda’s friends, she, too, stops talking to her for a while, but sees in their Art class that
Melinda is suffering great emotional pain. She slowly comes to understand Melinda and gives her a kind of
unspoken support when she needs it the most.
Hairwoman - This is the name that Melinda gives her English teacher. She feels little more than contempt for
her through most of the story, but comes to understand her better by the end and even feels some admiration for
her. She is like Melinda in that she has to find her own way to satisfaction within her life.
Mr. Neck - He is the social studies teacher who also happens to be a racist. David Petrakis challenges the way
Mr. Neck teaches through a lawyer hired by his parents and Mr. Neck is forced to give ground or lose his job.
Principal Principal - This is Melinda’s name, obviously, for the principal of her school. He is the subject of
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ridicule and not really a fully fleshed out character. This is significant in that he has no depth in the way he
works in the school and so generates no respect.
The Jocks, the Country Clubbers, the Idiot Savants, the Cheerleaders, Marthas, etc. -These are names of
clans that the students at Merryweather High School have formed to have friends and create some kind of
meaning to what they accomplish in school. They seldom associate with each other and every member is
controlled by what the clan expects. They can also be referred to as cliques.
CONFLICT
Protagonist - The protagonist of a story is the main character who traditionally undergoes some sort of change.
He or she must usually overcome some opposing force. The protagonist in this novel is Melinda Sordino, a
ninth-grader at Merryweather High School who must find some way to deal with being raped and labeled an
outcast among the students of her school. She spends her entire ninth grade year reacting or not reacting to her
pain.
Antagonist - The antagonist of a story is the force that provides an obstacle for the protagonist. The antagonist
does not always have to be a single character or even a character at all. One of the antagonists is Andy Evans, a
senior who raped Melinda at the end-of-the-summer party when she was too drunk to defend herself. He
continues to torture her in subtle, psychological ways every time he sees her. Other antagonists are the girls who
have dumped Melinda as a friend, because she is unable to tell them the truth. They believe she has betrayed
them. The real antagonist, however, that Melinda faces is herself. She can only become stronger when she
learns to speak the truth again and only she can find the way to that strength.
Climax - The climax of a plot is the major turning point that allows the protagonist to resolve the conflict. The
climax here occurs when Melinda finally confronts Andy as he tries to rape her the second time. The first time
she couldn’t find a way to speak or call for help, but this time she does and the evil he has perpetrated on her
and other girls in the school finally comes to an end.
Outcome - Melinda finds out she has a lot to offer and is able to speak once more. She makes peace with her
parents and her friends and learns that out of this terrible year, she has become stronger and more mature. The
future looks brighter even though IT will always be a part of her memory.
SHORT PLOT/CHAPTER SUMMARY (Synopsis)
This novel relates the story of a young girl in Syracuse, New York, who is brutally raped at a party given by one
of her friends. She calls the police for help and they arrive to find only a teen party with illegal alcohol. Because
none of her friends know about the rape, they believe she called the cops to bust them. As a result, they make
her an Outcast. She spends her entire ninth-grade year coming to terms with happened to her and finding the
voice she lost as a result of her trauma to tell the truth.
THEMES
Strength of Character - The theme of strength of character is the most prevalent theme. Melinda nearly loses
that strength completely as she shuts down emotionally, psychologically, and verbally. She cannot speak about
what is unspeakable pain, until she learns from her experiences throughout the school year that she has to dig
deep within herself to find the power to go on and to believe in herself again. She is actually one of the lucky
ones, because she finds her way back to some semblance of normalcy. Many others never recover from such
trauma.
Growing Up - The theme of growing up is also an important idea. Even though most high school students never
suffer the trauma Melinda did, they do experience at one time or another what Melinda calls the One Big
Hazing Activity: they all seek to belong, to be accepted in some way or another. No one wants to be so outcast
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that she belongs to no group nor has any friends, like Melinda. As a result, growing up is really difficult and
high school is sheer torture. She says that if you survive high school, they let you become an adult. She just
hopes it’s worth it. This is Melinda’s concept that for some kids, it’s not worth it and that high school is a very
traumatic experience.
Conformity - The theme of conformity is a theme which makes the reader think about how we torture each
other in the name of belonging. We all must fear being alone so much that anyone who is different is ostracized.
Melinda could find no way to conform after the summer party and must hide inside herself to survive. But, of
course, the memories of what she endured at the hands of Andy Evans and later by her friends doesn’t exactly
make inside herself much better. She sincerely would like to be one of the conformists, but it is in being a nonconformist, even though it was label forced upon her, that makes her a stronger, better person.
The lesson from this theme involves a need to be aware of those in our society that we knowingly or
unknowingly ostracize and trying to find a way to include them, too. Think of the pain that would disappear if
we all were accepted for who we are. Of course, we all know that this would then become paradise or a utopia!
However, in striving to make it come true, we can become better people.
MOOD
This story is filled with sadness, despair, fear, and loneliness throughout most of the novel. It is only when
Melinda finds the strength to face all of these emotions that the mood changes to one of triumph and inspiration.
BACKGROUND INFORMATION - BIOGRAPHY
Laurie Halse Anderson was born Laurie Beth Halse (pronounced Haltz) on October 23, 1961 in Potsdam, New
York. She grew up in Syracuse, New York and as a high school student she was lived abroad as an exchange
student for 13 months. She lived on a pig farm in Denmark during that time. She attended Onondage
Community College for two years and then transferred to Georgetown Univeristy, where she graduated in 1984
with a degree in Languages and Linguistics.
She married to Greg Anderson and has two daughters, Stephanie and Meredith. She later divorced Greg and
she has married Scott Larrabee. She lives in Philadephia, Pennsylvania currently, but she plans to settle in
Mexico, New York in the near future.
Laurie had been researching and working on a historical novel novel Fever 1793 since 1993, when she stopped
to write this, her first novel to be published, Speak in 1999. Speak turned out to be an amazing success and it
has been highly honored by critics and readers. She later completed and published her novel Fever 1793 in
2000.
She has written several other novels, including a follow-up to Speak. The novel Catalyst was published in 2002
and is set in the same high school as Speak. Some of the characters from Speak make brief appearances in
Catalyst.
She can be visited at her website at www.writerlady.com.
Awards for Speak include:
A 2000 Printz Honor Book
A 1999 National Book Award Finalist
An Edgar Allen Poe Award Finalist
Winner of the Golden Kite Award
An ALA Top Ten Best Books for Young Adults
An ALA Quick Pick
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A Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year
A Booklist Top Ten First Novel of 1999
A BCCB Blue Ribbon Book
An SLJ Best Book of the Year
A Horn Book Fanfare Title
CHAPTER SUMMARIES WITH NOTES
Note: The author does not use traditional chapter numbers or section numbers in this novel. They are each
given a name. For the purpose of this study guide, we have assigned chapter and part numbers, but please note
that they do not appear in the original text.
PART 1 - FIRST MARKING PERIOD
CHAPTER 1 - Welcome to Merryweather High
Summary
This chapter begins with Melinda Sordino’s first day of high school and she has a stomachache. She fears where
to sit on the bus and indicates she’s unsure whether any of her friends will talk to her or not. She ends up being
the only person sitting alone, even though she’s the first pickup of the day. Someone behind her shoots a
breakfast wrapper at her head. As they pull up to the school, she sees the janitors painting over the signboard for
the school. Melinda observes that calling the school “The Home of the Trojans” doesn’t send a strong message
of abstinence.
Ninth graders are herded into the auditorium and Melinda notes that they all fall into clans like Jocks, Country
Clubbers, Idiot Savants, Cheerleaders, and other cliques to which teenagers seem to need to belong. She tells us
she spent the month of August doing nothing and going nowhere. “I have entered high school with the wrong
hair, the wrong clothes, the wrong attitude. And I don’t have anyone to sit with. I am Outcast.” The clan she
belonged to the year before, the Plain Janes, has splintered and been absorbed by other groups. She mentions
three friends of the year before: Nicole, Ivy and Jessica, who has moved away. Her best friend was Rachel
Bruin, who now sits behind Melinda laughing at her and mouthing the words, “I hate you.” Melinda bites her
lips so as not to think about it.
She is the only one left standing when Mr. Neck, the social studies teacher, enters the auditorium and orders her
to sit. She describes him as a predator with a gray jock buzz cut and a whistle around a neck thicker than his
head. She finds a seat beside “another wounded zebra” who says she is “Heather from Ohio.” She is new to the
district. Melinda thinks to herself that there are ten lies they tell you in high school, the first being, “We are here
to help you.” The other nine are equally sarcastic:
THE FIRST TEN LIES THEY TELL YOU IN HIGH SCHOOL
1. We are here to help you.
2. You will have enough time to get to your class before] the bell rings.]
3. The dress code will be enforced.
4. No smoking is allowed on school grounds.
5. Our football team will win the championship this year.
6. We expect more of you here.
7. Guidance counselors are always available to listen.
8. Your schedule was created with your needs in mind.
9. Your locker combination is private.
10. These will be the years you look back on fondly.
After the assembly for the freshmen, Melinda is late to class, because she can’t find the biology room. She
receives her first demerit and thinks there are only 699 days and seven class periods until graduation
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Notes
The reader is quickly introduced to the narrator of the story who seems intelligent, creative, and deeply sad.
There is no doubt that something happened in August before her freshman year in high school that left her
friendless and outcast. She mentions having friends during her eighth grade year, but now they refuse to
associate with her and even tell her that they hate her. She is a keen observer of all the bad parts about high
school and reserves her sarcasm for those things that are the most ridiculous, like changing the name of the
school mascot to avoid any sexual references by the students. She also has little use for teachers as evidenced by
her description of Mr. Neck (not really his name, but one by which we will know him for the rest of the story).
He is a “predator,“ so we can assume that he will be a thorn in her side before the story is complete.
Melinda does make a friend of sorts: Heather from Ohio, who has “at least five grand worth of orthodontia, but
has great shoes.” Melinda’s list of the ten lies they tell you in high school is representative of her selfproclaimed bad attitude, but also reflects the despair she feels as she enters this new world. Something has gone
seriously wrong in Melinda’s life. She agonizes for high school to be over.
CHAPTER 2 - Our Teachers Are the Best
Summary
Melinda’s second commentary on a teacher concerns her English teacher whom she christens Hairwoman,
because her hair is black from her part to her ears and then neon orange to the frizzy ends. Melinda explains that
Hairwoman takes twenty minutes to take attendance, because she won’t look at the students. The rest of the
period is spent with her standing at the board, her back to the class, discussing the required reading and their
journals. Once again, she is scheduled for American History for the ninth time in nine years. She sarcastically
observes that they never get past The Industrial Revolution and that they only made it to World War I once.
“Who knew there had been a war with the whole world?” Her social studies teacher is Mr. Neck who
remembers how he had to order her to sit in the auditorium and now warns her, “I got my eyes on you.”
Notes
Melinda takes this opportunity to describe two of her teachers, Hairwoman and Mr. Neck. She doesn’t call them
by their actual names, perhaps to reflect how little she respects them or perhaps because she is too wounded to
allow herself to feel any kind of admiration for anyone. It’s easier to point out their shortcomings than to
identify with them in any way.
CHAPTER 3 - Spotlight
Summary
In this section of First Marking Period, Melinda finally finds her locker and then heads for the cafeteria. She
observes that you never bring a lunch the first day of high school, because you never know what the acceptable
fashion will be. She doesn’t know how to order anything, so she just allows the “drones” to fill a tray with the
day’s general menu and looks for a place to sit down. She sees those girls who used to be her friends, but they
just look away. She is behind a basketball player who finds the rest of his team. One of his friends throws some
mashed potatoes and gravy at him, but they hit Melinda instead. She thinks she will be forever known as the
“girl who got nailed by mashed potatoes the first day.” The whole cafeteria explodes in laughter and Melinda
dumps her tray and bolts for the door.
As she runs for the door, Melinda is stopped by Mr. Neck who has cafeteria duty. He refuses to allow her to
leave and Melinda decides it’s easier to just stay silent, because nobody wants to hear what you have to say. He
notes in his book that he thought she was trouble the first time he saw her. He has taught for 24 years and
believes he can tell what’s going on in a kid’s head just by looking in his eyes. She earns another demerit.
Notes
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The first day continues to be a nightmare for Melinda. She is forced into the “spotlight” when all she wants is to
somehow get through the agony of being Outcast without attracting too much attention. The humiliation of
being snubbed by her friends, being hit with mashed potatoes and gravy, and being given yet another demerit
from Mr. Neck makes the “spotlight” unbearable. It is interesting to note, however, that in spite of the fact that
she knows how her friends feel about her, she is still anxious, actually determined in some ways, to fit in.
CHAPTER 4 - Sanctuary
Summary
After lunch, Melinda enters her art class and she labels it the dream that follows the nightmare. This classroom
is filled with windows to attract any sunlight that might appear in Syracuse, a city that is noted for its lack of
sunlight. There are paint splotches everywhere and a radio is playing her favorite station. She names her teacher
Mr. Freeman, perhaps because, as we will learn, he snubs his nose at the “establishment.” He is angry, because
the school board has denied him any supplies for the year. She describes him as ugly, with a big grasshopper
body, but he smiles as the students walk into the room and see him working on a pottery wheel. Melinda sees
Ivy, one of her friends from the year before, and wills her to look at her, but she won’t.
The first thing Mr. Freeman writes on the board is the word SOUL and tells the class, “This is where you can
find your soul, if you dare. Where you can touch that part of you that you never dared look at before.” She
thinks that he has to know from their reactions to this that they think he is weird. He also tells them that if they
don’t learn art now, they will never learn to breathe.
Mr. Freeman then shows them a huge globe that is missing half a hemisphere and asks them what they think it
is. When they are too literal in their answers, he sighs and says, “No imagination.” He tries to make them see
the possibilities for creation from an old broken globe, but he knows he will need the entire year to accomplish
this. He has each student draw a piece of paper from the globe on which is written the name of a common
object. He tells them they will spend the rest of the year turning their object into a piece of art. Melinda chooses
a tree and tries to choose a different piece of paper. Mr. Freeman tells her she can’t choose again, because she’s
already chosen her destiny. She questions whether he can conduct a class like this, since it sounds like too much
fun. They begin with clay and the pottery wheel.
Notes
The fact that Melinda has found something to like on this agonizing day is crucial to understanding how she
resolves her despair through the year. She has found a teacher who really cares what they learn and sincerely
wants them to discover their own destinies. That is why he is Mr. Freeman – he doesn’t allow the rules and the
structure of school to make him less than a great instructor. He will be her favorite throughout the story.
There are also some other ideas presented here which reflect Melinda herself: she is excited by the windows as
if she would walk the ends of the earth for just a little sunlight in her life; he challenges the class, including
Melinda, to find that part of their souls in places inside them which they have never touched before; and Mr.
Freeman points out to Melinda that choosing a tree as her object is her destiny. In these three examples, we are
prepared for the journey Melinda is going to take to escape her despair. Like the title of the section, art will
become a sanctuary, a safe haven, where she can begin to look within herself.
CHAPTER 5 - Espanol
Summary
This section begins with Melinda describing Spanish class: the Spanish teacher is determined to spend the entire
year speaking only Spanish. Melinda thinks this is both useful and amusing – it makes it much easier to ignore
her. The teacher uses playacting to try to get the students to understand what she is saying, but they can’t figure
her out. She ends the class by putting a sentence on the board: “Me sorprende que estoy tan cansada hoy.” They
look the meaning up in the dictionary, but can only translate it: “To exhaust the day to surprise.”
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Notes
This teacher seems, at least, to care about her class learning her subject, but they are so unwilling to learn that
by the end of the period she writes her frustration in Spanish on the board: “It surprises me that I am so tired
today.” For Melinda, this class is just another one where she can find a way to retreat from the world and get
away with it.
CHAPTER 6 - Home. Work.
Summary
This chapter begins with Melinda observing that she has made it through the first two weeks of school “without
a nuclear meltdown.” She now sits at lunch with Heather from Ohio, who even calls Melinda for help with
English homework. Every other person she has known for nine years still ignores her and she is often harassed
in the halls.
Melinda’s mother is a working mom, so she tends to communicate with Melinda and her father with notes.
Melinda says there’s not much to say. Her mother is the manager of Efferts, a clothing store in downtown
Syracuse, and is under tremendous pressure to produce sales and keep staff. Melinda fixes her own dinner and
eats on the white couch whose stains she hides by flipping the cushions. Then, when her father gets home,
everything looks the way he wants to see it and she has vanished to her room.
She notes that her room belongs to an alien. She had decorated it in the fifth grade with roses and the color pink
and now it looks demented. She also has a stuffed rabbit collection and a canopy bed, both of which she refuses
to give up. She knows she has homework, but the bed calls to her. She insists that she doesn’t ever take a real
nap, but only retreats to this halfway place, a rest stop on the road to sleep, where she can stay for hours. She
doesn’t even have to close her eyes. She just stays safe under the covers and breathes. She hears her father turn
on the TV and then, she sees herself in the mirror. She wonders if she could make a tree out of the shapes of her
face and observes how scabby her lips are from biting them. It makes her get up and take down the mirror and
put it in the closet.
Notes
Melinda’s description of her mother and father indicates that they are not exactly quality time parents. She is an
only child and makes us wonder if they ever really wanted her at all. Her mother communicates with her
through notes, while her father doesn’t even call her name to see if she is home. This combined with whatever
happened to her over the summer makes Melinda look for a place where she doesn’t even have to exist other
than breathing. She can’t stand to face reality if she can avoid it, and the sight of her own face is unbearable.
She probably bites her lips to keep herself from screaming in emotional pain.
CHAPTER 7 - Our Fearless Leader
Summary
In this next section, Melinda introduces us to Principal Principal who catches another student who is late to
class. The kid totally confuses the poor man who demands his hall pass. The student says he is on his way to get
one, but Principal Principal insists he can’t be there without a pass. The student responds: that’s why he’s in a
hurry, because he needs to get a pass. The man says, “Well, hurry up then and get a pass.” Melinda notes that
the Errant Student waves and smiles at Principal Principal and the man walks the other way trying to figure out
what went wrong.
Notes
This scene is further proof that Melinda is quite bright. The irony is that this man is in charge and can’t figure
out how a student pulled one over on him. Melinda finds it amusing. However, it’s an example of her world – a
world where she doesn’t fit in, a world where morons like Principal Principal are accepted, while she is Outcast.
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CHAPTER 8 - Fizz Ed
Summary
This chapter describes Gym Class, a class that, in Melinda’s mind should be illegal, because it is so humiliating.
Both Heather from Ohio and Melinda’s former friend, Nicole, are in this class. Heather is so embarrassed to
change in front of others that she wears her gym clothes under her regular clothes, while Nicole is so
unembarrassed that she strips everything off even underwear and bra. Melinda figures that must be a jock thing:
Nicole is the best player in field hockey, the sport they are playing in gym at the moment. She is beloved by the
gym teachers, because she has Potential and she plays with abandon. Melinda knows the class would be so
much easier, if Nicole would just speak to her.
Notes
Melinda really hates gym class, but the class itself would be bearable if she didn’t resent Nicole so much.
Nicole is athletic, loved by the teachers, and nice to everyone. Melinda decides she would be so much easier to
hate if she were only a bitch.
CHAPTER 9 - Friends
Summary
Melinda ends up in the bathroom with her former friend, Rachel, who now insists that people call her Rachelle
and who hangs out with the foreign language students. Melinda tries to be cool and get her to acknowledge her,
but Rachel just speaks in grunts. Melinda feels like grabbing her by the neck and screaming at her to stop
treating her like dirt. She feels betrayed, because Rachel never even tried to find out the truth about what
happened that summer. She thinks, “What kind of friend is that?” Rachel has also started a trend among the
foreign exchange students to “smoke” candy cigarettes, since they can’t smoke real ones in school. She takes
one out in the bathroom and pretends to blow smoke in Melinda’s face. Melinda observes that she needs a new
friend - that she needs a friend, period. She doesn’t want a true friend. She just wants a disposable one so she
doesn’t look so stupid.
Notes
Melinda’s despair is even more evident in this scene. Rachel barely acknowledges her presence and
symbolically blows her off with the pretend smoke rings. It makes Melinda want a disposable friend, too, just
like she has become.
CHAPTER 10 - Heathering
Summary
Melinda rides home on Heather’s bus and listens to her new friend talk about joining clubs. The teen wants to
join five clubs, one for each day of the week, but she knows that she needs to join the ones which have the
“right people.” She tries to get Melinda to commit to joining with her, but Melinda thinks they’re all stupid.
Heather gives her a pep talk about not making the ninth grade mistake of hanging back. She needs to become
involved like all the popular people do. Then, she begins writing down their “plan” and listing their “goals.”
Melinda muses that she used to be like Heather and she can’t believe she’s changed that much in just two
months. Now her goal is just “to go home and take a nap.”
Notes
The title of this chapter is significant in that once again Melinda has a name for something she finds ridiculous,
demeaning, or beyond what she has become. This time, Heather from Ohio is explaining how determined she is
to become one of the popular students. She is like Melinda in that she is also outcast until she proves herself.
Being new to the school puts her at a disadvantage that she wants to overcome. She is unaware of the events of
the summer that have made Melinda Outcast and doesn’t understand that Melinda is in escape mode – she wants
to avoid everyone and everything she can. Sleep is her sanctuary just like Mr. Freeman’s class.
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CHAPTER 11 - Burrow
Summary
The chapter opens with Melinda being yanked from study hall by Hairwoman and forced to complete her
missing homework. The teacher threatens to involve her parents, which Melinda recognizes is not good.
Unfortunately, she doesn’t realize for a while that study hall had been moved to the library and by the time she
gets there, she’s late – again! The librarian is very understanding, however, and doesn’t bust her.
Later, Mr. Neck tracks Melinda through the cafeteria to demand a paper she has not finished for him and she
avoids him by going around a couple making out by the door. By the time he has broken up the PDA, she is in
the Senior Wing – “where No Freshman Has Gone Before.” She turns a corner, opens a door and steps into the
darkness to keep Mr. Neck from finding her. It is an old janitor’s closet now used for old storage. Melinda
realizes that it is abandoned – it has no purpose and no name and so is the perfect place for her. Right after she
discovers the closet (a place that will become her hiding place), she steals a pad of late passes from Hairwoman
and her plan is hatched. She feels ever so much better.
Notes
In this chapter, Melinda is obviously under siege from her teachers for late assignments. It is another piece of
evidence proving how depressed she has become. Her grades had always been good in the past, but now she is
not even doing her homework. Finding the abandoned closet is a godsend for Melinda, because now she has a
hiding place when the world presses down on her. It makes the title more apparent – like a rabbit, she has
created a burrow where her predators can’t find her. No wonder she has a collection of stuffed rabbits – she is
just like them in her fear. Everyone and everything has become stronger than her. She also has a stolen a pad of
hall passes which she can forge when she wants to cut class. She’s smart enough to know how to play the
angles, at least for awhile, but no doubt, it will all catch up to her eventually.
CHAPTER 12 - Devils Destroy
Summary
The Homecoming Pep Rally allows Melinda to plan to fix up her closet. Her plan is to walk toward the
auditorium with the rest of the students and then duck into a bathroom until the coast is clear. However, she is
spied by Heather who is “bursting with Merryweather Pride” and grabs her arm to take her to the rally. Melinda
decides it won’t kill her to go, so she follows along.
Once they find seats with students Heather knows, people around them overhear Heather introduce Melinda and
we are finally told what happened during the summer that made Melinda Outcast – she had called the police at
Kyle Rodger’s end-of-the-summer party. One girl becomes very angry, because her brother was one of the ones
who were arrested at the party and he lost his job because of it. In her head, Melinda hears the voice that
protests that no one understands what really happened, but her actual voice is silent as her throat seems to
squeeze shut. She had worked very hard to forget that party and everyone hates her for what she had to do. She
looks to Heather to defend her, but even she doesn’t offer any comfort. So, Melinda, while the crowd is
screaming for the team, puts her head in her hands and screams to let out some of the emotion that night.
She observes in her pain that everyone is roaring their approval for the same boys who got detention in
elementary school for beating the crap out of kids. Coach Disaster (again her name) spits into the microphone
and no one understands what he says, while the girl behind Melinda knees her in the back and yanks her hair.
Her final thought in this chapter is that the cheerleaders are better at scoring than the football team.
Notes
This chapter is very important, because we finally know why the other students hate Melinda so much. She had
betrayed them, in their minds, because she called the police and many of them were busted at a summer party.
However, her mental protest that she had to do it and that she can’t tell them what really happened, is a sign that
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something much more serious happened there than just a police bust and whatever it is, it has devastated
Melinda’s life.
It is also significant that Heather fails to defend her, even though she hadn’t even lived there that summer.
Obviously, she is more concerned about being accepted by the popular kids than she is about Melinda’s
feelings. She has seemed superficial previously in the story, but now we see just how superficial she really is.
Other students, at least, openly deride Melinda by calling her names or kneeing her in the back, but Heather has
acted like she wants her to be her friend. So much for friendship!
CHAPTER 13 - Cheerleaders
Summary
Melinda introduces us to the twelve cheerleaders, two of whom she names Donner and Blitzen! The blondest of
the blondes, ironically, is named Raven. Melinda observes that, because her parents only raised her in the
religion of Visa, MasterCard, and American Express, she is confused by the Merryweather cheerleaders – it has
to be a miracle, she says, that they can sleep with the entire football team on Saturday night and be reincarnated
as virginal goddesses on Monday!
They are in two universes simultaneously – in one, they are gorgeous, smiled upon by teachers, spoiled by their
parents, and the pride of the Blue Devils; in the other world, they throw wild parties, stink of “Eau de Jocque,”
and get group-rate abortions before the prom. She figures they “never stutter or feel like their brains are
dissolving into marshmallow fluff.” At the end of the pep rally, she is “accidentally” knocked down three rows
of bleachers. She decides that if she ever forms her own Clan, they will be called the Anti-Cheerleaders. They
will not sit in the bleachers, but will wander underneath them, committing mild acts pf mayhem.
Notes
Melinda devotes an entire chapter to her observations about cheerleaders, probably because, even though they
are hypocrites, she has an inner desire to be one of them. This is mostly because they are the darlings of the
school, not Outcast like her. Her sarcastic observation, however, hits the mark. We all know or knew girls just
like the Merryweather High School cheerleaders and their behavior was less than the perfect image teachers and
the community had of them. Melinda might even say to those of us who are out of high school, “How could you
now praise these girls when you remember ones just like them when you were in high school?”
Melinda’s accident at the end of the pep rally is obviously no accident. What she did by calling the police is so
reprehensible to the students that some are even willing to take the chance on hurting her. No wonder she needs
a hiding place! She compensates for this mean act by fantasizing about a Clan she could form – the AntiCheerleaders – which is her wishful way of seeking revenge for the way she is treated.
CHAPTER 14 - The Opposite of Inspiration is . . . Expiration?
Summary
Ever since the pep rally, Melinda has been painting watercolors of trees that have been hit by lightning. One
picture is so dark that you can barely see the trees at all. Mr. Freeman doesn’t comment on them; he just raises
his eyebrows. When the class complains about the subjects they chose, he yells at them to check out the
bookshelves where there are copies of the paintings done by master painters. He expounds about how they
didn’t complain about their subjects, but mined them for the root of their meanings. It makes him complain
about a school board that makes him paint with his hands tied behind his back by not giving him the supplies he
needs. Melinda, like most of the class, zones out on his tirade and tries to sketch trees in her notebook. They are
all unsatisfactory to her and she wonders if he is going to make them thrash around the entire year without
helping them.
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Notes
Melinda’s watercolors after the pep rally reflect the dark state of mind she exists in everyday. Mr. Freeman
must think she is finally beginning to find the meaning of her art, because he doesn’t criticize her at all.
However, she is still dissatisfied with what she is accomplishing which is probably because she is so dissatisfied
with her own life. It is interesting that he points out that great painters mined their subjects for every meaning
they could find there. That is a comment preparing us for what Melinda is going to have to do before she can
find some peace after the summer fiasco. Art will be her sanctuary in more ways than one. The title is also
significant, because it again reflects her despair. If she isn’t inspirational, will she just expire or die, either
literally or figuratively?
CHAPTER 15 - Acting
Summary
On their day off for Columbus Day, Melinda goes to Heather’s house. Heather’s mother is quite excited to see
Melinda and offers to allow them to have a sleep-over with even more friends. She mentions that Melinda could
invite some of her friends. Melinda just smiles and thinks that if she invited Rachel, the girl would slit her throat
on Heather’s new carpet.
Heather’s renovated room is finished and Melinda describes every bit of its perfect organization and beautiful
decorations. She envies her this room, because she can’t figure out how to do the same thing in hers.
Heather mentions that she would like to try out for the musical, but Melinda tells her it’s a waste of time since
the Music Wingers is such a hard clan to break into without talent or connections. Heather still insists they
should try out together. Melinda thinks to herself that the musical would be easy for her, because she has
become such a good actor. She has been acting as if she doesn’t know that people are laughing at her or as if she
has friends. She figures she could be a mime, if she dropped out of high school.
She tells Heather that they wouldn’t be chosen for the musical, because they are nobodies. Heather says it’s just
not fair and that she hates high school. She compares Merryweather High to her old school and just can’t
understand why it’s so hard to make friends here. Then, she blames a lot of her own problems making friends
on Melinda who she labels as negative and moping around as if she didn’t care that people talked about her
behind her back. Heather then begins to sob on her bed. She follows this bit of drama with a half-hearted
apology to Melinda, saying she is the person Heather can trust. Melinda never says a word in response even
when Heather plans that they will first work their way into a good group and make them like them. She knows
that Heather’s plan is hopeless and her stomach is killing her, because Heather’s room isn’t big enough for all
that emotion. She just leaves without saying goodbye.
Notes
The fact that Melinda barely says a word to Heather, even when the conversation is appealing, shows how
immersed she has become in a world of silence. She speaks so eloquently to the reader that we have a hard time
understanding how others, like Heather, might view her silence. To Heather, Melinda is moping and acting
negative. To us, she is a child in a world of emotional pain. As for Melinda’s own observations, she sees little
hope in anything and doesn’t even have the strength of will to respond to Heather.
It’s also important to note with this chapter that Heather was unable to come to Melinda’s defense during the
pep rally, but still relies on her as a friend. We get the sense that if someone better would come along, Heather
would “kick Melinda to the curb.” That then leads us to wonder why Melinda continues to put up with Heather
even though she must be aware of how fickle she is. It just reinforces for the reader the fact that Melinda is
desperate herself for anyone who will accept her, no matter under what circumstances.
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CHAPTER 16 - Dinner Theater
Summary
The concept of acting and theater continues in this chapter when Melinda reveals that her parents are making
threatening noises. She describes her father at the dinner table as doing his Arnold Schwarzenegger imitation
and her mother playing Glenn Close. Melinda’s role is that of the victim. Her interim reports have arrived and
they are angry at how low her grades are. Melinda’s response to their ranting is merely to play with her food
and keep her head down. When her mother orders her to look at her in the Death Voice (the one that means
business), Melinda rises from the table, takes her plate to the kitchen, and retreats to her room. She turns her
music up as loudly as she can stand it to drown out the noise of their arguing after she leaves.
Notes
Everyone in Melinda’s world, including her, is playacting in some fashion. Heather pretends to be her friend,
her other friends dump her even though they don’t try to find out why she really called the police, her parents
pretend to care about her when their whole lives are wrapped up in their jobs, and she pretends not to care about
anything when deep inside, she cares more than anyone. Once again she reacts without speaking as if speech if
something she has denied herself for what happened to her at the party. She is the only one who has no voice
and is the one who a needs a voice most of all.
CHAPTER 17 - Blue Roses
Summary
Melinda describes biology class as a class in which she tries to pay attention. They have real microscopes and
are studying cells. She feels sad for her teacher, Mrs. Keen, whom she thinks could have been a famous scientist
or a doctor, but instead is stuck with them. She is so short that she has to stand on wooden boxes she has placed
all over the room, so the students can see her when she lectures. One day, she wore a purple dress with bright
blue roses all over it and the students talked about her all day. She never wore the dress again.
Melinda’s lab partner is David Petrakis who has the potential to be cute, but makes the teachers nervous,
because he is so brilliant. He looks like a kid who might get beat up a lot, but somehow no one does. She wishes
she knew his secret. The only time he ever talked to her was the day she almost ruined a $300 microscope by
turning the knob the wrong way.
Notes
In this scene, we see that Melinda, Mrs. Keen, and David Petrakis are in some ways very much alike. Mrs. Keen
and Melinda are both the subjects of student gossip while David Petrakis speaks as little as Melinda does, at
least at this point. He doesn’t acknowledge Melinda any more than he does anyone else around him. She
identifies with that, but secretly seems to want him to speak to her. Blue Roses is an apt title for this chapter as
it becomes symbolic for those who are unacceptable by the rest.
CHAPTER 18 - Student Divided by Confusion Equals Algebra
Summary
Melinda arrives late to math and submits a forged signature from her stolen pad. Mr. Stetman (his real name)
stares at it for a long time, but doesn’t comment. She notes that it is impossible to stay focused on algebra which
is surprising, as the year before, she had tested at the top of the class in math. However, she just can’t “get her
head around algebra.” She and every other student in the class ask the teacher everyday why they have to study
it, because it seems to have no practical use. This causes him personal pain, because he loves it so much. He
talks about it like some men talk about their cars.
When Melinda cannot or will not solve one of the problems on the board, he calls her up and asks
Rachel/Rachelle to help her understand it. She thinks her head is exploding with the noise of fire trucks leaving
the station – this is a disaster in the making. Rachel easily begins to solve the problem, speaking to Melinda,
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while Melinda stands there helplessly and pulls her entire lip into her mouth, hoping to gobble herself up. She
doesn’t even know that she has been asked to return to her seat until Rachelle nudges her. She can only come to
the conclusion that they shouldn’t spend any time with algebra. It’s a shame, because Mr. Stetman seems like
such a nice guy.
Notes
Once again, Melinda ends up in a less than flattering light before her peers. She can’t understand algebra at all
and becomes a fool in front of the class for inability to solve a problem. Of all people, Rachelle is the one to
volunteer to help Melinda at Mr. Stetman’s urging. However, we can see that her anger at Melinda would make
her use this opportunity to further humiliate her.
Melinda’s description of her head exploding and a disaster about to happen reflects how she is constantly on the
defensive, like a soldier in the midst of battle. She is under siege all the time and so her inability to understand
algebra makes her cannon fodder for people like Rachelle.
CHAPTER 19 - Halloween
Summary
Her parents tell Melinda that she is too old this year to go trick or treating, but she isn’t upset; she’s thrilled. It
makes it possible for her not to admit that no one had asked her to go with them. However, she keeps up
appearances by stomping to her room in pretend anger. While her mother hands out candy downstairs, Melinda
reminisces about Halloween the year before when her clan had all dressed up like witches. They all dressed at
Ivy’s house, because she had theatrical makeup, and they ran through the night like they were really witches.
They ended up with pounds of candy and finished the night at Ivy’s house where they lit a candle and held it in
front of the mirror to see their futures. Melinda didn’t see anything.
This year, Rachelle was invited to a party thrown by one of the exchange student’s host family. Melinda knew
she wouldn’t get an invitation, because with her reputation, she’d be lucky to get an invitation to her own
funeral. Heather had decided to walk with the little kids in her neighborhood so their mothers could stay home.
So, Melinda refuses to spend the night moping in her room and picks up a copy of Dracula with a bag of candy
corn beside her.
Notes
Not being allowed to go trick or treating is thrilling for Melinda, because she doesn’t want to admit that she
wasn’t invited by anyone. However, underneath the relief, she is hurting, because she has been left out. Her
memories of the year before and how much fun she had dominates her thoughts until she decides not to mope
and sits down with a good book. Perhaps, this small sign of rebellion against her despair is an indication that
perhaps she is beginning in this small way to work her way through her problems.
CHAPTER 20 - Name Name Name
Summary
After Halloween, the school board once again changes the name of the mascot. Instead of Devils, they are now
the Tigers. However, the Ecology Club begins a protest, because tigers are an endangered species. Mr. Neck
uses this protest to chastise the entire class for their lack of school spirit and school identity. He has “a steroid
rage.”
In Spanish class, Melinda says she gets “hosed.” Linda means pretty in Spanish and when Mrs. Spanish Teacher
calls out Melinda’s name, the class clown cracks, “No, Melinda no es Linda” (No, Melinda isn’t pretty) and
they call her Me-no-linda for the rest of the period. She thinks to herself that this is how terrorists get started.
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Melinda says she has a theory that explains everything: she was abducted by aliens from the party and they have
created a fake earth and a fake high school to study her and her reactions. It would certainly explain the
cafeteria food, but the other stuff she endures just shows that the aliens have a sick sense of humor.
Notes
Once again, we see how Melinda feels when under siege all the time. Even when Mr. Neck screams at the entire
class, she feels threatened, and when the Spanish class makes fun of her looks, she sees only a sick sense of
humor. They behave like terrorists with no regard for how they are treating her. She is an easy target. She is also
the butt of all the jokes now and shows that in her “theory” that she was abducted by aliens. However, we see
her sarcasm and biting wit in the way she describes Mr. Neck’s tirade and the theory she comes up with to make
herself feel better. It shows how cruel it would be to be the outcast of the school. You would have to find some
kind of humor in the situation or go mad.
CHAPTER 21 - The Marthas
Summary
Heather decides she wants to be part of the clan called The Marthas. Melinda is appalled, because it is such an
expensive clan to run with. They only wear certain kinds of expensive clothes and they invest a lot of money in
being a “helping” clan. They are just like Martha Stewart – very Connecticut, very prep.
Heather becomes a freshman on probation in this group and her first project is to decorate the faculty lounge for
Thanksgiving. She begs Melinda for help and Melinda agrees, because she has never seen the inside of the
faculty lounge. Unfortunately, it is a disappointing little room with dirty windows and stale cigarette smell.
Melinda is supposed to make a centerpiece out of waxed maple leaves and other autumn décor while Heather
sets the table and hangs a banner. Meanwhile, Melinda ruins everything with the glue gun. She is just not
Martha material.
Heather rescues the decorations before Melinda can do permanent damage while telling her how exciting it is
that the Marthas are letting her join. Melinda doesn’t have a chance to respond, because the Senior Marthas
enter with food for the teachers. Heather gets Melinda out of the room by saying she was just helping her with
her homework. Melinda stands outside the door and listens to the older girls question Heather about who
Melinda is and tell Heather she’s creepy. They especially notice Melinda’s scabby lips. She retreats to the
restroom to cry and wash her face until it seems like there’s nothing there – no nose, no mouth, no eyes, just a
slick nothing.
Notes
The description of The Marthas is indicative of this entire clan system in Melinda’s school. You must try to fit
in somewhere and the clan you belong to is a sign of acceptance. Without a clan, you have no place; you are
Outcast – Melinda’s sorry state. The Marthas is a clan filled with rich snobs who have no use for Melinda. Their
mean comments cut her to the quick and she sees herself as nothing, completely unseen, completely abandoned.
CHAPTER 22 - Nightmare
Summary
This is the first time that Melinda gives is a clue about what happened to her at the summer party. She sees
someone in the hall whom she labels IT. IT is her nightmare from which she cannot awake. When IT sees her,
IT smiles and winks. She thinks that it’s a good thing her lips are stitched together or she’d throw up.
The last part of the chapter is devoted to Melinda’s report card. Her grades are mostly C’s and D’s with the
exception of Art in which she earns an A.
Notes
IT is the genderless name Melinda gives a tormenter. IT must be a boy, because he is walking with a
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cheerleader and winks when he sees her. We begin to wonder if Melinda had been assaulted or even raped by
this boy. The fact that she gives him no gender helps her deal with what he did to her, but she still feels
violently ill when she sees him. He torments her with his wink, as if they know a secret that no one else does.
Melinda’s grades reflect the torment she has suffered the entire grading period. They make us wonder if she has
even lower to go or if she will rebound and bring herself peace. The fact that she receives an A in Art
emphasizes how important that class is as a sanctuary for her emotional self.
Part 2 - Second Marking Period
CHAPTER 23 - Go _____________ (Fill in the Blank)!
Summary
Melinda begins by telling us that the Ecology Club won their battle to change the mascot from the Tigers to
something else. The school board decides to allow a “democratic forum” to choose the new mascot. The
students are herded into the auditorium where a discussion is held on what new name will be chosen. Melinda
thinks “Overbearing Eurocentric Patriarchs” would be a good name, but she doesn’t openly suggest it. Instead,
Student Council will hold an election before Winter Break in which the student body will vote for any one of
the following: The Bees, The Icebergs, The Hilltoppers, or the Wombats.
Notes
This little chapter is interesting for the reader, because we see Melinda’s sarcasm and wit once again. However,
more importantly, we see how really silly this school system is. In their attempt not to offend anyone, they are
really just offensive anyway. It heightens our perception of Melinda’s world: how could people this stupid snub
someone like Melinda? They are petty and ridiculous, but until she stands up for herself, they control her.
CHAPTER 24 - Closet Space
Summary
Melinda’s parents order her to stay after school every day in order to get help with her grades. She agrees, but
spends the time in her secret closet. She wants to take down the mirror already on the wall, but since it is
screwed into the wall, she covers it with a poster of Maya Angelou. Melinda knows Ms. Angelou is a great
writer, because the school board banned one of her books. Then, Melinda sweeps and mops and adds a few
books she has brought from home. Most of the time, however, she doesn’t read; she just “watches the scary
movies playing on the inside of her eyelids.”
Melinda relates to us that it is getting even harder to talk, because her throat is always sore and her lips are
continuously raw. When she wakes up in the morning, her jaws are clenched so tight that she has a headache.
She can sometimes talk to Heather, but around her parents or teachers, she has “spastic laryngitis.” She
recognizes that she has some emotional problems which she refers to as the “beast in her gut.” Sometimes, she
wants to “confess everything, hand over the guilt and mistake and anger to someone else,” but most of the time,
she uses her closet to “help her hold those thoughts inside her head where no one else can hear them.”
Notes
This is a very significant chapter, because it reveals that Melinda finds retreat and silence as the only way she
can deal with what has happened to her. The closet, someone like Maya Angelou, and her “spastic laryngitis”
keep her safe from dealing with a problem that is obviously too painful for her to think about. Also, it’s
important to note that Melinda refers to herself as a perpetrator when she says she wants to “confess”
everything. If the reader’s sense that she has been raped proves to be true, it is so sad to consider that this poor
girl would believe she was in any way responsible for what happened to her.
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CHAPTER 25 - All Together Now
Summary
Melinda observes that her Spanish teacher finally resorts to English to warn the class that they can no longer
pretend that they don’t understand the assignments or they will receive detention. Melinda has the solution to
the problem: if the teacher had just taught them all the swear words in Spanish the first day, they would have
done whatever she wanted.
Because she doesn’t want detention, Melinda does the homework: choose five verbs and conjugate them. She
chooses: traducer – to translate; fracasar – to flunk; escondar – to hide; escaper – to escape; and olvidar – to
forget.
Notes
This is yet another small chapter, but one which is very revealing. Melinda again resorts to sarcasm to show
how silly the authority figures around her really are. Her commentary is reflective of her feeling that adults
don’t understand kids her age, nor do they seem to care. The verbs she chooses, of course, are reflective of her
inner turmoil – she has trouble translating her world into one she can live with; she is failing her classes, be
cause she just doesn’t care; she looks for any way to hide from others; she dreams of escaping to a place where
she can find peace; and she strives every day to forget what has happened to her.
Of course, we know that until she deals with her pain, she is doomed to never achieve the peace she desires
most.
CHAPTER 26 - Job Day
Summary
Melinda opens this chapter by stringing together without spaces the phrase, “we are here to get a good
foundation so we can go to college, live up to our potential, get a good job, live happily ever after and go to
Disney World.” Her sarcasm is her way of introducing Job Day and showing her disdain for those in the school
system who think up these events. It begins with a 200 question survey which will help those in charge
determine what careers are applicable to her. She finds out she could have a career in forestry, firefighting,
communications, or mortuary science. Heather’s aptitude is in nursing which makes her jump up and down. She
thinks she could be a candy striper that summer now that she knows she should be a nurse. Melinda is totally
awed by Heather’s ability to know what she will be doing in ten years; Melinda doesn’t know what she will be
doing in five minutes! She just wants to make it out of ninth grade alive.
Notes
Job Day is probably a part of every high school in the United States, so the reader can definitely identify with
Melinda’s contempt for the whole process. Looking at the career choices applied to her, we react with
amusement, because they are so unlike what she might ever do, and irony that she would be good at
communication. She can’t even speak aloud and is very far from telling anyone the horrors in her life.
CHAPTER 27 - First Amendment
Summary
In Mr. Neck’s class, a great debate ensues. He has written on the board the word IMMIGRATION and tells the
class that his family has been in the USA for over two hundred years, has fought in every war, voted, and paid
taxes. He asks a rhetorical question: so why can’t my son get a job? Mr. Neck, whose son had been turned down
as a firefighter, believes it is the result of reverse discrimination. Then, he writes on the board the debate
question: should America have closed her boarders in 1900?
The debate turns into one where there are those who are like Mr. Neck and have been in this country for a long
time and those whose families immigrated after 1900. The suck-ups take his side, also, and argue to throw out
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the “foreigners.” One girl says they are all foreigners and only Native Americans can claim ownership of our
country. She is quickly buried under disagreement. Another student points out that his son may not have gotten
the job, because he might be lazy or not good enough or the other guy was better than him. The pro-immigration
faction hoots and hollers in support of this comment which makes Mr. Neck warn the student to watch what
he’s saying about his son and that everyone should get their books out.
The whole time this debate has raged, Melinda has been listening, but at the same time trying to draw a tree for
the 315th time. So, she doesn’t notice at first that her lab partner, David Petrakis, is standing up. He protests to
Mr. Neck that he can’t close the debate just because it’s not going his way and that everyone, no matter when
they entered this country, has the same rights to speak out. Further, he tells Mr. Neck that he is protesting his
lesson as “racist, intolerant, and xenophobic.” Mr. Neck tells David that he should either sit down or he’s going
to the principal, at which point, David picks up his books and leaves the room. Melinda observes that his
leaving the room says a million things without saying a word and that she has never heard a more eloquent
silence.
Notes
Given that Melinda is unable to find her own voice and protest what has happened to her, she is awe-inspired by
David’s ability to stand up against an authority figure who proclaims racist ideas while stifling any commentary
against him. It’s obvious when she notes to herself that she is going to study David Petrakis, that even if she is
not yet aware of it, she wants to find her voice.
This chapter is also a good example of how those in authority can misuse their power and impact on those
younger and more impressionable in an unacceptable way.
CHAPTER 28 - Giving Thanks
Summary
Melinda discusses Thanksgiving at her house by noting that the Pilgrims gave thanks, because the Indians saved
them from starving, but she gives thanks, because her mother goes to work and her father orders pizza. She
describes her mother’s frenzy at this time of year, given that she must deal with Black Friday, the day after
Thanksgiving or the first day of Christmas shopping. Melinda feels her mother sets unrealistic goals for her
store and therefore, sets herself up for failure. They always beg for her not to cook Thanksgiving dinner, but she
feels pressured to do so, because she’s the “MOM.” This year, she forgets to thaw the turkey until Thanksgiving
morning, and then, she tries numerous crazy ways to get it ready to cook. Meanwhile, the phone keeps ringing
from the store and she becomes more and more stressed.
Finally, after a simmering argument between her mother and her father, her father takes the turkey outside to the
chopping block and whacks it to pieces. Her mother finally leaves for the store and her father tries to cook the
meal himself. Of course, he is totally inept, too, so Melinda parks herself on the couch and watches an old
movie, while he tries to make turkey soup. He ends up burying the mess in the yard beside their dead beagle and
then calls for pizza.
Notes
This chapter is both poignantly sad and hilarious at the same time. The reader can vividly picture the mess these
two adults make of a family Thanksgiving. Melinda, in the meantime, is like a camera catching the hilarious
and silly Kodak moments. But these Kodak moments are not what they seem, because this is a totally
dysfunctional family. We get the sense that Melinda would love to have a regular family Thanksgiving, but that
she has resigned herself to pizza every year. In spite of how funny it is, it is also heartbreaking.
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CHAPTER 29 - Wishbone
Summary
Melinda decides to make a memorial for the turkey: she digs it up and takes the bones to art class. Mr. Freeman
is thrilled. He tells her she is on fire and she is digging for the meaning of commercialism and abandoned
family values during the holidays. She experiments with a couple of ways to arrange the bones artistically, but
Mr. Freeman just frowns and sighs. He returns to the painting he is working on which Melinda describes as very
bleak: a gutted building along a gray road on a rainy day with dirty coins painted on the sidewalk and faces of
school board members in the windows of the building. There are also bars on the windows, turning it into a
prison.
When the bell rings, Melinda looks at Mr. Freeman with her puppy-dog eyes and he agrees to allow her to stay
through Spanish. He also gives permission to Ivy who is trying to conquer her fear of clowns, the subject she
had unwittingly chosen. Melinda uses the time to work on her bone sculpture, using odds and ends from the bin
Mr. Freeman keeps. She uses the head from a Barbie doll, knives and forks, and a palm tree. Mr. Freeman is
delighted with what she has done and asks her to explain it, but Melinda is unable to speak. Because he thinks
she has a sore throat, he tells her what he sees: a girl caught in the remains of a holiday gone bad.
Melinda finishes the sculpture by putting tape over the Barbie doll’s mouth. Ivy says it’s scary, like you don’t
want to look at it too long, but that it’s good. Mr. Freeman says it shows meaning and pain. Melinda hears the
bell and leaves before he can say anything more.
Notes
This chapter reveals the pain of both Mr. Freeman and Melinda. His painting shows his anger for the school
board who denied him the materials he needed to teach and he places them behind the bars of the prison the
school has become because of them. The dirty coins symbolize that their money is tainted and the bleak
atmosphere reflects how difficult his environment is for him.
Perhaps that’s why he understands Melinda’s turkey sculpture so well. She, too, has expressed her pain: she is
the Barbie doll who cannot speak as if she, too, had tape over her mouth. She is stripped bare like the turkey
bones, as Mr. Freeman says, having her carcass picked off day after day. She has finally found meaning in
something totally unrelated to her pain and she has expressed in a profound way. We can now understand that
Melinda has been searching for a way to speak and that the sanctuary called Art class is helping her find it.
It’s interesting to note that she titles her chapter “Wishbone.” It seems to express her wish to find her voice.
CHAPTER 30 - Peeled and Cored
Summary
Melinda tells us about how the class is learning about fruit in biology. Mrs. Keen has spent a week talking about
the reproductive system of fruit which fortunately wakes up the back row. The lab portion of the class involves
dissecting an apple. David, without a word, cuts his apple into eight equal parts, just like a surgeon, Melinda
notes. He has been debating whether to become a doctor or a lawyer. Melinda is fascinated by him and says,
“Ninth grade is a minor inconvenience to him. A zit-cream commercial before the Feature Film of Life.”
The smell of the class as everyone cuts their apples reminds Melinda of a time when she was little and her
parents took her to an orchard. Her father set her up high in the tree and she remembers the sun on her hair and
the breeze blowing it in her face while her mother stepped into her father’s arms and they smiled up at her. It
makes her bite into the apple rather than cutting into pieces. Of course, David goes berserk and warns her that
Mrs. Keen will kill her. So she cuts the apple into four pieces and finds that a seed has split its shell and a white
seedling is reaching upward. It’s “an apple tree growing from an apple seed growing in an apple.” She shows it
to Mrs. Keen who gives her extra credit. David just rolls his eyes while Melinda thinks that biology is so cool.
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Notes
Melinda is so fascinated by David, because he has many abilities she thinks she does not: he is brilliant, he is
able to explore what he wants to do in life, and, more importantly, he can shrug off ninth grade as if it is a minor
inconvenience while she is voiceless because of it.
The memory she has of the apple orchard is very poignant, because it reflects what her family once had: love
and time for each other.
Finding the seedling inside the apple brings Melinda pleasure. This may be because she has succeeded at
something David has not or it might be because it represents her memory when love was still growing in her
family. Also, like the apple, she is peeled and cored with her most wonderful memories as well as her most
horrible experiences, she thinks, exposed to the world.
CHAPTER 31 - First Amendment, Second Verse
Summary
There is only a week before Winter Break and all the students are in rebellion mode. There are rumors of
eggnog in the faculty lounge and everyone is getting away with murder.
David Petrakis is also fighting back about the freedom to speak. He comes to Mr. Neck’s class with a tape
recorder which he turns on just as Mr. Neck begins to speak. Because of this, the man teaches the entire period
in a straight manner for once and finally gets to the Revolutionary War. Melinda observes that the lecture is
going to sound great on tape, but the tape will not pick up the anger in Mr. Neck’s eyes and the fact that he
glares at David the entire time. David just stares back.
Melinda goes to the office for a “sound bite” or the gossip concerning David’s tape recorder. She overhears a
secretary tell a PTA volunteer that David’s parents had hired a big, nasty, expensive lawyer who is now
threatening the school district and Mr. Neck for everything from incompetence to civil rights violations. David
is allowed to have a tape recorder in the class to document any potential future violations. Mr. Neck could get
fired and the secretary doesn’t seem too unhappy about that. In addition, David must have mentioned to the
lawyer that Mr. Neck had glared at him the entire class, because the next day there is a video camera set up in
the back of the room. David Petrakis is Melinda’s hero.
Notes
The way that David Petrakis fights back is heroic to Melinda, because he has stood up to authority figures and
has done it legally, using our system of justice. She admires him so much, because she wants to have a voice as
big as his and so far has not found it. He is a role model, however, for her and because of this, there is hope that
Melinda will eventually be able to speak and release her pain.
CHAPTER 32 - Wombats Rule!
Summary
This chapter is Melinda’s exposé of the Winter Assembly, probably once known as the Christmas Assembly.
She sits with Heather who has not been invited to sit with the Marthas and is very “bummed out.” She dresses
like them, however, no doubt hoping they’ll still want her. She gives Melinda little bell earrings for Christmas
and Melinda thinks she’ll get Heather a friendship necklace, because that kind of gift would suit her. There is no
multicultural celebration like Christmas or Kwanza, because the school board won’t allow it. Melinda thinks
that now they’re “no-cultural.”
The high point of the assembly is the announcement of the new name and mascot, which the student body had
previously voted on. The winning name is the Merryweather Wombats. Melinda is amused on the way to the
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bus listening to the cheerleaders try to rhyme words with wombats. She thinks “democracy is a wonderful
institution.”
Notes
This chapter is a perfect example of Melinda’s sarcasm, which is, by the way, nearly always right on the mark.
The idea that the school would allow wombats as a mascot or that there would be no Christmas/Kwanza
assembly in order to be politically correct is terribly amusing to her. However, her sarcasm is still her shield.
She wears is out in front of her to avoid the pain that any other kind of emotional reaction might bring.
This chapter is also a further examination of the stupidities in the public education system. It’s no wonder, from
the ridiculous behavior of the school board and school officials, that students with problems like Melinda’s fall
through the cracks.
CHAPTER 33 - Winter Break
Summary
It is only two days before Christmas and Melinda finds a note from her mother telling her she can put up the
Christmas tree if she wants. So Melinda gets out the tree and begins to sweep out the cobwebs all the while
thinking that Christmas is just not Christmas without “rug rats.” Little kids make Christmas fun. She reminisces
over the traditions her family followed when she was little and it occurs to her that her parents would probably
have divorced if she hadn’t been born. She feels she’s been a disappointment to them, because she’s just like
them – “an ordinary drone dressed in secrets and lies.” She thinks it’s hypocritical to keep pretending until she
graduates that they’re a happy family. They should just get it over with.
She calls Heather, but she’s gone shopping. So Melinda tries to while away the time by imagining what Heather
would do if she were alone in the house and the house didn’t feel like Christmas. She dresses up in geeky snow
clothes and plays in the drifts like she did when was little. She wants to make a wish, but she doesn’t know what
to wish for, so she ties some pine bows together with red ribbon and puts them on the mantle and the dining
room table. She still wishes they could borrow a kid for a few days.
They all sleep in until noon on Christmas and then exchange gifts. One of their gifts to her is charcoal pencils
and a sketch pad, because they have noticed her drawing recently. It almost makes Melinda break down and tell
them the truth right then, because she is overwhelmed that they have actually noticed. They sit there
expectantly, but Melinda cannot get the “snowball” out of her throat. She remembers how, the night of the
party, her parents had come in really late, believing she had spent the night at Rachel’s; they both arrived in
different cars at different hours. She thinks she knows why and the expectant moment just ebbs away.
Notes
It’s obvious from this chapter that Melinda’s family has nearly broken down completely. There is little interest
on the part of her parents to decorate for Christmas or even celebrate with some of the old traditions. Melinda
tries hard to bring some Christmas spirit into the house, but fails. Even the touching gift of the charcoal pencils
and sketch pad is not enough to pull the three of them together. The “snowball” in Melinda’s throat – her
inability to speak – destroys the perfect opportunity to tell her parents what had happened to her at the party.
Once again, we realize that until she gains her voice again, she will exist in this horrible limbo where she feels
utterly alone.
CHAPTER 34 - Hard Labor
Summary
Her parents decide that Melinda cannot just lounge around the house for the entire vacation, so they make her
go to work with them. She has to work with all the returned merchandise at her mother’s store and is stuck in
the basement stockroom. The other employees there are suspicious of her, thinking she might tell her mother
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what they are doing, but as soon as she takes out a book and relaxes, they know she is one of them. On the way
home, she notices that her mother’s face is a flat gray color and she closes her eyes at a stoplight as if her heart
is as weary as her body. Melinda feels badly that she didn’t do more work for her.
At her father’s insurance office the next day, Melinda is expected to stuff envelopes with New Year’s calendars.
Her father spends most of his time making social calls to his friends. It makes her very angry and the anger
grows until she cuts her tongue while licking an envelope. Somehow the taste of the blood reminds her of IT
and the anger just whistles out of her like a popped balloon. Her father gets really angry himself when he sees
how many envelopes she’s bled on. He remarks that she needs professional help. This all actually makes her
glad to go back to school.
Notes
This description of life at her parents’ jobs reinforces how they have allowed their careers to overshadow their
family. Melinda is sent to the stockroom in the basement to work, because her mother doesn’t really see her.
She doesn’t understand how this might be humiliating or how ridiculous it is to even have Melinda there.
However, Melinda does comprehend the tremendous pressure her mother must be under to make sales and how
it’s affecting the way she looks as well as the way she feels. It makes us ache for Melinda and her parents,
because they are shuffling each other aside for jobs that may not be worth the loss they are facing. Her father’s
commentary that she needs professional help is right on the money, but there is no sympathy in his observation;
there is only anger. That just makes Melinda’s loneliness and depression even more understandable.
CHAPTER 35 - Foul
Summary
Once she returns to school, Melinda finds herself in an indoor “fizz-ed” class, because there is too much snow
outside. Ms. Connors, her teacher, begins by teaching basketball, specifically how to shoot a foul shot. Melinda
is amazing at it, putting in shot after shot, and Ms. Connors wants her to meet her there during activity period,
because she is “Going Places with That Arm.” Melinda has nothing to say in response to this observation.
Unfortunately, Melinda cannot play basketball, because her GPA is a “whopping 1.7.” Ms. Connors talks
between practice shots, musing whether she can get teachers to change Melinda’s grades.
Melinda, the whole time, never makes it plain that they couldn’t pay her enough to play basketball or any other
sport. Nevertheless, she likes the sensation of succeeding brilliantly at something. When the boys’ basketball
team comes into the gym, Melinda notes that they are “unbeatable as long as they are the only team on the
floor.” Brendan Keller, the player who was in on her mashed potato humiliation the first day of school, cannot
put in a foul shot to save his life. Ms. Connors calls Melinda over to demonstrate to the boys’ coach how well
she can shoot foul shots. The players can only stare at Melinda’s ability. Ms. Connors and the coach decide that
they’ll make a deal with Melinda: if she’ll teach Brendan how to shoot, she’ll get an automatic "A" in gym.
Melinda just shrugs, not being able to say no, but knowing she’ll just not show up.
Notes
It is totally ironic that Melinda’s first real success in high school would be in sports. She has nothing but
contempt for the jocks in the school and her teachers and the coaches have always just looked beyond her as if
she didn’t exist. Now, because she can shoot a foul shot, they recognize she exists. Unfortunately, Melinda is
not recognized as a real person with thoughts and feelings; she is just an “Arm.” What she can do is more
important than who she is. So, the success she enjoyed for a few moments seeps into the bitterness that has been
building in her the entire school year.
She is still just an Outcast. So the title is totally apropos: there is something foul about what she has just
experienced.
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CHAPTER 36 - Coloring Outside the Lines
Summary
Melinda returns to an Art class that is blooming like a museum full of great works of art. Mr. Freeman himself
is now the most popular teacher in the school and there are rumors that he’ll be chosen Teacher of the Year in
the yearbook. He allows his students relative freedom, as long as they don’t push the rules. Kids stay there late
and come in on their activity periods. It is “Cool Central.”
Mr. Freeman’s painting continues to grow and attracts a news reporter who features it with a picture in the local
paper. It’s the rumored that the school board members recognized their faces in the windows of the school.
Melinda keeps picking away at linoleum squares, trying to sculpt the perfect tree, but she just keeps ruining the
squares and has to throw them away. One day, Principal Principal storms into the room, “smelling pleasure.”
The radio is quickly turned off and a potato chip bag disappears before he can see it. Mr. Freeman calmly asks
the man if he needs something, but there is nothing for him to complain about, so he just storms right out.
Melinda thinks that someday she just might be an artist.
Notes
Mr. Freeman’s Art class fulfills the title of the chapter: he doesn’t easily conform to what is expected of him
and he gives his students the same freedom. He is a living metaphor of his name. Principal Principal is just the
opposite – always looking for some deviation from the norm to pounce on and correct. The students protect Mr.
Freeman and themselves from this demand to follow the rules, because Mr. Freeman offers them something
different from the sameness of their lives. His courage makes Melinda want to be artist just like him. She
somehow intrinsically understands that his art is more than just paint on canvas; it is the ability to create a
secure environment for everyone around him. He offers Melinda a place of safety and creativity she can’t find
anywhere else.
CHAPTER 37 - Poster Child
Summary
Heather leaves Melinda a note in her locker, asking her to meet her at her house after school. She sobs out the
story that the Marthas have warned her that she is not meeting their standards. She had made a mess of the craft
pillows they were making for little kids who were in the hospital and now she needs Melinda to help her with
the canned food drive by drawing the posters. Melinda just sits there wondering how she could say no after
Heather insists that the Marthas will blackball her if she doesn’t do this right.
Notes
Again, we have an ironic situation: Heather wants desperately to be a part of the Marthas, a group that wouldn’t
even consider Melinda for a moment. Yet, she is the one who is needed to pave the way for Heather. The
Outcast is only accepted when she can do something for someone else, just like teaching the star basketball
player how to shoot foul shots.
CHAPTER 38 - Dead Frogs
Summary
In biology class, the students are studying frogs, which they will dissect. David Petrakis is thrilled, because they
are finally studying anatomy. Melinda feels a little faint when it comes time to use the knife to cut open the
frog’s belly. She feels “a scream start in her gut – she can feel the cut, smell the dirt, leaves in her hair.” She
passes out and hits her head on the edge of the table. She has to leave school to have stitches. Melinda wonders
if the doctor can read her thoughts when she stares into the back of her eyes with the bright light she uses. She
wonders if the doctor would want to send her to the nuthouse or call the cops on her. As for Melinda, all she
wants to do is sleep, because she knows that not talking about what happened to her will not make it go away.
She wonders if David Petrakis could cut it out of her brain when he becomes a doctor.
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Notes
This chapter is so poignant, because we understand that cutting into the frog doesn’t make Melinda faint,
because she can’t stand the sight of blood; it make her faint, because it brings back the memory of what
happened to her at the party. She is the dead frog, pinned to the board and unable to escape her fate. She can
smell the dirt and feel the leaves in the hair. The vividness of the memory is what causes her to pass out. Now
she feels that she can never escape the memory just by not speaking about. It is permanently lodged in her brain
until someone cuts it out. From all of this description, we readers must now know that Melinda was raped at that
summer party and the terrible pain cannot be bottled up inside her. She must find her voice; she must learn to
speak again.
CHAPTER 39 - Model Citizen
Summary
Heather lands a job as a model at a department store in the mall and now all the Marthas want to be her new
best friend. She asks Melinda to go with her for the bathing suit shots and Melinda suspects it’s because she’s
afraid to screw up in front of a Martha. Of course, Melinda wants to be a model, too, and paint her eyelids gold.
But instead, she hides her scabby lips from Heather’s mother who stares at her in the rearview mirror.
Unfortunately, Melinda could never be a model, because she likes cheeseburgers too much. Heather has stopped
eating and complains about fluid retention. The building where the shoot takes place is very cold and Melinda
observes that Heather’s goose bumps are “bigger that her boobs.” Heather, however, does very well at
following the photographer’s commands, something that “creeps Melinda out.” She just wants a nap.
Melinda doesn’t buy the gold eyeshadow. Instead, she buys Black Death nail polish to cover her bitten and
bleeding nails and thinks she should get a matching shirt in tubercular gray.
Notes
The author creates in this chapter a complete sense of opposites: Heather is this tiny little cutie who looks great
in a bikini and can fit into a size 1½. Melinda, who, like most girls, would like being a model, has scabby lips
and bitten nails and could never even be considered for such a job. Her comment that she buys Black Death nail
polish and wants a tubercular gray shirt emphasizes that she thinks of herself as being diseased, unfit for the
world where she exists. Her physical imperfections emphasize her emotional pain and suffering. Ironically, her
commentary makes us want to hug her and reassure her that she will get through all the pain eventually. She is
actually more appealing to the reader than pretty little Heather who doesn’t have bitten nails and scabby lips.
CHAPTER 40 - Death By Algebra
Summary
Melinda notes in this chapter that Mr. Stetman refuses to give up trying to convince his students that algebra is
something they will use the rest of their lives. She thinks they should give him the Teacher of the Century
award and send him to Hawaii for two weeks, all expenses paid. She observes how sweet it is that he cares so
much, sort of like a grandfather who tries to fix up two young kids that he knows will make a great couple. The
problem is that they have nothing in common and they hate each other. As soon his current application of
algebra turns into x’s and y’s, Melinda zones out and watches the snow falling outside.
Notes
Melinda’s observation of Mr. Stetman is interesting in that she thinks so highly of how much he cares. For
someone who tries not to care about anything, she admires someone who does. It’s an indication that Melinda
herself would like to feel just like Mr. Stetman does, but just can’t summon the energy.
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CHAPTER 41 - Word Work
Summary
In English class, the students are continuing to write essays, which no one turns in on time. Eventually,
Hairwoman, the teacher, comes to realize that the students will only write about topics they talk about everyday
and that she can sneak in grammar lessons while they write. Melinda decides that “words are hard work” and
that she hopes they send Hairwoman to a conference or something. She’s ready for a substitute!
Notes
This chapter once again focuses on speaking, this time through writing essays. Melinda can’t find her voice here
either. It’s still too hard.
CHAPTER 42 - Naming the Monster
Summary
Melinda spends the next two weeks making and hanging the posters for Heather and the can drive. She is
hanging one up outside the metal shop room when suddenly IT creeps up behind her and whispers in her ear,
“Freshmeat.” IT keeps finding her and she cannot ignore IT. She can smell him again and she almost throws up,
but runs away, thinking in a panic that he remembers and he knows.
Notes
This chapter evokes for us the terrible way this boy treats Melinda, It is not enough that he raped her at the party
and got away with it, but now he tortures her by reminding her about it every time he sees her. Because of her
inability to speak in response to this situation, Melinda finds that her other senses seem heightened: she can
smell him, feel the dirt under her body, and the leaves in her hair. Her pain and fear are unimaginable.
CHAPTER 43 - Rent Round 3
Summary
At dinner at home with her parents, Melinda is bombarded with roaring anger, because the guidance counselor
had called them about her grades. She compares them to volcanic eruptions: “Mount Dad, long dormant, now
considered armed and dangerous and Mount Saint Mom, oozing lava and spitting flame.” She conjugates
Spanish verbs “behind her eyes.” They keep asking her questions which she feels she can’t answer, because
they really don’t want to hear what she has to say. So she is grounded “until the Second Coming.”
She hides in her bedroom and sleeps in her closet while also scratching herself with the sharp edge of a paper
clip. She wonders if a suicide attempt is a call for help, what is the cutting? A whimper or a peep? When her
mother sees the cuts at breakfast, her response is to warn Melinda that she doesn’t have time for this and talks
about suicide as if practicing tough love. She leaves a book about it on the back of the toilet to educate Melinda
who says nothing in response to any of her comments. Her mother has “figured out that she doesn’t say too
much. It bugs her.”
Notes
Melinda’s depression is beginning to escalate. She tries to mask her internal pain with external pain. The cutting
of her wrists is at this point metaphorical for the real thing, but dangerous, nonetheless. The fact that her mother
doesn’t take it as seriously as she should, and, in fact, acts as if it’s an annoyance, reveals much about how
lonely Melinda must be. Her mother is not very good at mothering and even if Melinda had not been raped, she
would have problems anyway. Her parents just really don’t get it. Like the title of the chapter, Melinda may as
well just be a renter in this house, because her parents are acting incapable of raising a child.
CHAPTER 44 - Can It
Summary
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When Melinda arrives at lunch, she sits across the table from Heather who is sitting on the fringe of the
Marthas. They are all dressed alike, except for Heather, whom they hadn’t invited to go shopping with them.
The Marthas proceed to berate Heather for the type of and amount of cans she is turning in. They claim she isn’t
carrying her weight. Furthermore, they ridicule the posters Melinda made and then make her carry their trays to
the dishwasher.
While Heather is carrying trays, some of the Marthas notice that Andy Evans has just walked in. Melinda
reveals that Any Evans is IT. One of the Marthas, Emily, is excited that he had called her the night before. She
says he is gorgeous, rich, and “just the itsiest bit dangerous.” Siobhan, another Martha, points out that it’s
rumored he sleeps with anything. Melinda sits there with her peanut butter sandwich locking her jaws closed.
When he approaches them, she feels like the “Prince of Darkness had swept his cloak over the table.” He stands
behind Melinda’s chair to flirt with Emily and twirls her ponytail in his fingers. She mumbles something idiotic
and runs for the bathroom. She heaves up her lunch and washes her face with ice cold water. Heather never
comes looking for her.
Notes
This chapter creates both sadness and deep anger in the reader. The hypocritical attitude and the criticism of the
Marthas are so ridiculous that we can’t help feeling sad for Heather who wants so much to be a part of them.
She doesn’t see how stupid they are and how much better she really is than they are. Furthermore, they ridicule
the posters which Melinda worked so hard on. They liken them to what a child would do. They don’t know that
Melinda created them, but the pain she feels at hearing their remarks is real.
Then, the anger begins with the monster, Andy Evans, who continues to torment Melinda while he flirts with
another girl. He is a horrible person and, as readers, we want so much to smash his arrogance and cruelty. We
keep rooting for Melinda to find the voice that will put him in his place and reveal what he has done, but she
still cannot find her voice. She is choking on the peanut butter, she says, but in truth, she is choking on her
inability to speak.
CHAPTER 45 - Dark Art
Summary
Melinda reveals that Mr. Freeman is in trouble, because he gave out A’s to every one of his students when the
school board refused to give him the supplies he needed to teach. He has also stopped working on his painting,
the art room is cold, and his face is a shade of purple-gray. He sits on his stool, “a blue broken cricket husk.” No
one talks to him; they just try to stay warm and work on their projects.
Melinda continues with the linoleum squares and accidentally cuts herself with the chisel. Mr. Freeman rushes
over with a Kleenex to staunch the flow of blood. Then, he washes the chisel and comes back to her table to
return it. Before he hands it to her, he looks at his painting and with one stroke that makes his students gasp, he
rips the entire canvas of his painting, ruining it.
Melinda’s report card is mostly C-‘s and D’s along with her evaluation of her attitude and her clothes. Her only
A is Art and now it is not the peaceful sanctuary it once was.
Notes
The sense of depression fills everything around Melinda, adding to her own despair. The weather is cold and
dark; the clothes everyone wears are turtlenecks where they can hide their faces; and Mr. Freeman is in trouble
and is so depressed he ruins the painting he has been working on all year. No wonder everything seems to be
purple-gray. And in the midst of it all is Melinda, whose pain runs so deep that the reader wonders if she will
ever find her way out of it.
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PART 3 - Third Marking Period
CHAPTER 46 - Death of the Wombat
Summary
Principal Principal arbitrarily vetoes the student body choice of the wombat as the school mascot and instead
chooses the hornets. He says they better represent the Merryweather school spirit than wombats do. Of course,
the wombat costume would have taken money from the prom committee’s budget, which the seniors totally do
not support. It would be better to have a prom at the Holiday Inn ballroom than the school gymnasium! Melinda
thinks it’s a mistake, because she has visions of the opposing teams making giant fly swatters out of papiermâché to humiliate Merryweather. Then, she tells us that she is allergic to hornets whose sting makes her skin
bubble with hives and closes up her throat.
Notes
There is Melinda’s usual subtle sarcasm in this chapter when she makes fun of Principal Principal’s decision to
change the wombats to the hornets, the seniors believing a prom is more important than a new mascot uniform
and Melinda imagining giant fly swatters. However, there is a deeper commentary going on underneath her
sarcasm as well. She is appalled that the student body vote is meaningless and that a prom, which lasts but one
night, could take precedent over that vote (of course, voting for a wombat was just students acting ridiculous,
but Melinda would still believe that choice was given to them in the first place and should be honored).
She also has much more sense than either Principal Principal, the cheerleaders, or the seniors. She sees the big
picture when she imagines the giant flyswatter – why open the school up to even more humiliation from
opposing schools than just being beaten all the time?
Melinda’s final comment is the personal reflection she continues to express to us. This high school and the
students in it, who are obviously silly and petty about the decisions they make, have chosen to label her an
Outcast and she finds herself becoming “allergic” to it and them more and more everyday. She still has no voice
with which to speak about anything that happens to her or around her.
CHAPTER 47 - Cold Weather and Buses
Summary
Melinda misses the bus to school and so waits in the kitchen for her mother to appear and take her to school.
However, Mrs. Sordino refuses to take her, suggesting she wear her boots since it’s a long walk and it snowed
the night before. She notes that this decision by her mother is unexpected, but not harsh, because the walk is a
pretty one through fresh, powdered snow.
She decides to stop at Fayette’s donut shop to get two jelly donuts. Just as she is crossing the parking lot, IT
comes out the door of the shop. She just freezes, describing herself as a rabbit which freezes in the presence of
predators. He shows her his “wolf teeth” in a leering smile and offers her a bite of his donut. She runs then just
like the rabbit would and thinks to herself, “Why didn’t I run like this before when I was a one-piece talking
girl?” She decides not to go to school at all.
Notes
Mrs. Sordino may seem like a mother who just fed up with her daughter’s continual excuses for missing the
bus, but somehow, even though Melinda says her decision is not harsh, she comes across as once again not
understanding her daughter and maybe not caring either. Melinda makes the best of it and enjoys the walk.
However, her luck doesn’t hold when she meets up with Andy Evans. Her metaphor of herself as a rabbit and
him as a wolf is perhaps trite, but is nonetheless true. He is a predator who has so intimidated her that she can
only run. He can afford to continue to harass her, because he knows she is too frightened to tell what really
happened to her. It’s as if the wolf has already snared the rabbit and is slowly and methodically eating it alive.
Rabbits don’t have a voice either, except for a nearly silent baby-like cry when they are in pain. To destroy the
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metaphor, Melinda must become the predator and she can only destroy IT when she stands up to her pain and
speaks out about what he did to her. She must roar, not cry like a baby.
CHAPTER 48 - Escape
Summary
For the first hour of cutting school, Melinda loves it, because there is no one to tell her what to do, what to read,
what to say. Then, it becomes too cold to just walk along the city streets, so she takes a bus to the mall. The
mall is just opening as she arrives and she begins to look for spring fashions, because nothing fits from last year.
She thinks about shopping with her mother, but decides that’s a “conundrum” – she doesn’t want to talk to her
mother and she’d have to wear clothes she picked out.
She sits down on a bench and she sees some birds that have gotten into the mall weaving around the rafters. No
one knows how they got in, but she loves to listen to them sing. Then, she thinks to herself, “I should probably
tell someone, just tell someone. Get it over with. Let it out, blurt it out.” She wishes she were in fifth grade
again – a deep, dark secret she’s never told anyone either – where she can be old enough to play outside without
Mom, but too young to go off the block. It’s the “perfect leash length.”
Melinda spends the rest of the day waiting for it to be 2:48 PM, so she arrives home just about the same time.
Then, she learns her lesson and sets her alarm clock early for the next day. For four days in a row, she gets up
on time, gets to the bus on time, and arrives home on time, but it drives her crazy. She thinks she will need to
take a day off every once in a while.
Notes
In this chapter, Melinda voices to herself the conundrum of her mother taking her shopping for spring fashions.
But the real conundrum is Melinda’s life: she’s afraid to speak to anyone about being raped, but the secrets she
keeps are tearing her up inside. She knows that she should tell, but dreams instead of being in fifth grade again
when she had some freedom to enjoy, but could still return to the safety of home and family. It must be so
horrible for her now to be so alone and yet so in need of comfort. Taking a day off once in while seems like a
good thing. But that is also a metaphor for what she has been doing since the party last summer – escaping from
her pain in any way she can.
Also, the birds she sees in the mall represent freedom, an idea which will be echoed at the end of the novel
when Melinda sketches the birds in flight. They are what she wishes to be.
CHAPTER 49 - Code Breaking
Summary
Melinda opens this chapter describing Hairwoman, her English teacher. She has bought new earrings, one pair
of which has bells. Melinda knows now she can’t wear the ones Heather gave her for Christmas, because she
would look too much like the teacher.
She tells us that they are reading The Scarlet Letter by Hawthorne in this class and it’s filled with
“SYMBOLISM.” She wonders why he couldn’t have been a little more straight forward in what he’s trying to
say, but she doesn’t whine about it too much, because some of it is fun. She sees it as a kind of code and muses
about the “whole guilt thing.” She wonders if the main character, Hester, tried to say no to the minister. Melinda
decides that she and Hester are a lot alike and imagines them living in the woods, Hester wearing her A for
adultery and Melinda wearing an S for silent, stupid, scared, silly, and shame.
Hairwoman tries to get the class to see some of the symbols Hawthorne has created in the book, but they fail to
respond even when she tells them that she shouldn’t have to do this herself. Finally, Rachel/Rachelle points out
that there is a good story there, but she thinks Hairwoman is making all this symbolism up. Hairwoman
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responds by assigning the class a 500 word essay on symbolism. The entire class yells at Rachel/Rachelle as
they leave the room and Melinda observes, “That’s what you get for speaking up.”
Notes
Melinda continues to have nothing for contempt for her English teacher, but does observe that The Scarlet
Letter has some redeeming value. She is intrigued by the character of Hester who was forced to wear a scarlet
letter symbolizing her adultery. The fact that Melinda identifies with this woman is important, because the
character was made an Outcast, too, and must endure her punishment in silence, just as Melinda is doing. Her
image of herself with a scarlet letter S is a further reflection of her pain: she is too silent, silly, scared, stupid
and ashamed to ever be believed. She also points out that Rachel/Rachelle’s comment in class is an example of
how you can be punished if you speak out.
The truth about Melinda, however, is this: she is so frightened and afraid of what might happen if she does
speak the truth about the party that she looks for reasons to stay silent. Hester doesn’t speak the truth in the
novel and Rachel/Rachelle is punished for speaking out. Melinda uses this as shield to hide behind and reinforce
her decision to stay silent. You don’t break the “code of silence.” It might hurt you more.
CHAPTER 50 - Stunted
Summary
Mr. Freeman goes around the authorities again by painting the names of all his students on the wall in the Art
room and evaluating their progress there. There is just a question mark beside Melinda’s name. She is frozen on
her tree, unable to complete anything in the linoleum blocks. She tries a different medium but fails with that as
well. The last time she succeeded was when she made the sculpture with the turkey bones.
Mr. Freeman is having his own problems with art. He has started a new canvas which he has painted a blue so
dark it’s almost black. That is all that’s on it, so Ivy asks him what it is. He answers, “It is Venice at night, the
color of an accountant’s soul, a love rejected . . . the blood of imbeciles. Confusion. Tenure. The inside of a
lock, the taste of iron. Despair. A city with the streetlights shot out. Smoker’s lungs. The hair of a small girl
who grows up hopeless. The heart of a school board director . . . “ Melinda’s observes, as the bell rings, that the
teachers are whispering that he’s having a breakdown. However, she thinks he’s the sanest person she knows.
Notes
Just as she identifies herself with Hester from The Scarlet Letter, she also sees herself as Mr. Freeman. His
commentary on his painting reflects the same despair and depression that Melinda feels. Everything he paints is
dark and sad, but to her, he is not having a breakdown. Instead, he is revealing the truth about life that others
deny and attribute to the rantings of insanity. The title then reflects what life does to those who are in despair: it
stunts their ability to speak.
CHAPTER 51 - Lunch Doom
Summary
Melinda decides that nothing good ever happens at lunch. In fact, the cafeteria is a “giant sound stage where
they film daily segments of Teenage Humiliation Rituals.” Melinda sits with Heather, far away from the
Marthas. Heather sits with her back to the rest of the students eating and talking and making Melinda feel like
an ant crouched by the entrance with the winter wind at her back. Heather hems and haws around for a few
minutes and then finally tells Melinda that she doesn’t want to be friends anymore. She explains falsely that
they never really were friends and that Melinda doesn’t like to do anything she likes. She says, “You don’t like
anything. You are the most depressed person I’ve ever met, and excuse me for saying this, but you are no fun to
be around and I think you need professional help.” Melinda suddenly wants Heather’s friendship more than
anything and points out to her that she was the only person who talked to Heather on the first day of school and
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that friends are supposed to help each other when they’re depressed. Heather just adds to Melinda’s guilt and
depression by making it seem as if she forced her to make this decision.
Melinda knows what the entire crux of the issue is: Heather can choose to get a reputation as a creepy weirdo by
hanging out with Melinda or she can be a Martha. That’s exactly what she chooses, a choice Melinda indicates
she probably would have made, too. Heather picks up her things and goes to sit with the Marthas who “swallow
her whole and she never looks back” at Melinda. Not once.
Notes
This chapter is so cruel for Melinda. She only has one friend and now that friend makes her an Outcast, too.
Everything that Heather says to her is true, but she uses it to cut herself off from Melinda rather than to help her.
Now, her loneliness is even greater.
CHAPTER 52 - Conjugate This
Summary
In this tiny chapter, Melinda conjugates the verb phrase, I cut class, and notes that she cannot say it in Spanish,
but she does it anyway. Her final comment in Spanish translates from “Gracias a dios and hasta luego” to
“Thank God I can see you later!”
Notes
Despite the length of this chapter, there is a world of pain expressed in its five short sentences: Melinda chooses
once again to just escape the world where she is continuously hurt. She thinks there is no one who can help her,
so she runs away.
CHAPTER 53 - Cutting Out Hearts
Summary
On Valentine’s Day, as she gets off the bus, Melinda witnesses a girl discovering that her boyfriend has spray
painted “I love you, Anjela!” in the snow and then is waiting for her with a single red rose. Then, she sees
valentine cards taped to people’s lockers and there’s one taped to hers as well. She’s afraid it might be from
Andy Evans, a cruel joke to further his harassment of her, but she decides that wouldn’t be his style. Then, she
wonder if it’s from David Petrakis, her lab partner, who has been looking at her when he thinks she doesn’t
notice. However, she can’t stand to open it and goes straight to biology.
In biology class, Mrs. Keen uses the day to talk about the birds and the bees. However, she really talks about the
birds and the bees and not about hormones or love. Melinda studies David, who is fighting to stay awake and
wonders if she wants him to like her. Her final thought on that is that she wants anyone to like her. She digs her
nails so hard into her palm at this point in her thoughts that she makes it bleed. David hands her a tissue and she
writes a thank you in her notebook. They spend the rest of the period drawing together a picture of Mrs. Keen as
a robin. When the bell rings, David brushes his hand against hers.
Melinda returns to her locker, hoping the valentine is from David, but when she opens it, it’s a “thank you for
understanding” from Heather. Inside the envelope is the friendship necklace she had given Heather at
Christmas. Melinda finds herself unable to breathe, because the pain is so great it’s a physical thing and she
stumbles down the hallways until she comes to her closet hideaway. She had half forgotten it was Valentine’s
Day and now it has “unveiled every knife that sticks inside her, every cut. No one would like the inside girl she
thinks she is.”
Notes
Melinda has steeled herself against her pain by just forgetting Valentine’s Day. But the activities around her
won’t let her forget – everyone has cards and they secretively pass them around in class or in the halls and they
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give flowers and they write messages in the snow. Of course, she would love this to happen to her as well, so
when she finds a valentine taped to locker, she’s afraid to open it for fear it will just be a joke. Then, when
David Petrakis acts as if he likes her in biology class, Melinda feels able to open the card, hoping it’s from him.
Finally, the cruel joke rears its ugly head – the card is another slap in the face from Heather and she even
returns the friendship necklace from Melinda. She is more than crushed at this blow. She is totally devastated at
the final realization in her own mind that no one could love the girl inside of her.
CHAPTER 54 - Our Lady of the Waiting Room
Summary
When Melinda falls asleep on the bus on the way to school, she discovers Our Lady of Mercy Hospital. She gets
off there, because she thinks maybe she can learn some pre-med stuff to impress David. She falls in love with
the place, because it’s the perfect place to be invisible. She wanders from waiting room to waiting room,
pretending to be a relative of some sick patient. She observes that the heart attack floor is the worst, because
people are openly crying and sobbing there, but the maternity floor is no less comfortable, because there is too
much happiness. She also loves the cafeteria and has her lunch there, sitting beside silver-haired doctors who
talk in words big enough to choke them.
Then, she discovers an enormous basket of green hospital gowns and for a moment, she envisions putting one
on and going to sleep somewhere in the hospital. Sleep has been very elusive for her at home lately. However,
she realizes that there is nothing wrong with her and that the people there are truly ill, so she heads for the bus
stop and home.
Notes
Melinda loves this hospital, because she sees it as a place to be invisible. This is ironic, because a hospital, of all
places, should be a place where anyone could receive the greatest attention. However, she is right and able to
blend into the hospital without anyone being suspicious. She enjoys the day of not being an Outcast, but her
innate kindness and compassion makes her realize that she cannot pretend to be what the patients are: truly ill.
Melinda reveals here that she is a good person, in spite of her despair, and can find within her the power to
overcome her tendency to shrink inwardly and think of someone other than herself.
CHAPTER 55 - Clash of the Titans
Summary
Melinda and her parents have a meeting with Principal Principal, because the adults have noticed that she has a
long list of absences and that she doesn’t talk. The guidance counselor is there, too, because they think, as
Melinda observes, that she is “more of a head case than a criminal.” Her mother twitches with words she’d like
to say, but can’t and insists that Melinda won’t speak, because she is “jerking them around to get attention.” In
her head, Melinda insists that her mother wouldn’t listen to her anyway nor would she believe her. Her father
keeps looking at his beeper, hoping someone will rescue him from this mess.
When the guidance counselor asks if there are problems in their marriage, she hits a sore button, because both
Melinda’s mother and father use less than acceptable language in response. The guidance counselor shuts up
and Melinda wonders whether she understands why she doesn’t speak. Melinda then imagines that the way her
parents act is just like a show tune and that they should jump up on Principal Principal’s desk and tap-dance a
routine. The thought makes her giggle and the reaction to that from her parents quickly pulls her back to reality.
They insist she didn’t learn this attitude at home and must have picked it up from some questionable students.
The guidance counselor comments that Melinda has very nice friends: the Marthas! (This is the greatest irony of
all!) The principal’s reaction to this is, “Those are your friends?” Melinda just shakes her head in amazement –
“Do they choose to be so dense? Were they born that way? I have no friends. I have nothing. I say nothing. I am
nothing . . .”
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Notes
This meeting is totally reflective of how everyone has missed the proverbial boat as far as she is concerned. No
one sees the truth and, in Melinda’s mind, no one cares. The adults in her world judge her, rather than trying to
understand her. They think she is playing some sick game and she is so totally immersed in her own despair and
pain that she still cannot speak even to defend herself. Ironically, they even believe she is a member of the
Marthas, a group that has so totally and openly rejected her and which has taken away the only girl Melinda
thought was a friend. Her final comment says it all when it comes to the reader understanding Melinda – like
the three monkeys who see no evil, hear no evil, and speak no evil, Melinda believes she has nothing, says
nothing, is nothing.
CHAPTER 56 - Miss
Summary
Melinda ends up in MISS or Merryweather In-School Suspension as consequence of her unexcused absences.
She’s also forced to sign a contract created by the guidance counselor which lists everything she’s not supposed
to do and the consequences for each infraction. The “guard dog” in the MISS room is Mr. Neck and Melinda
supposes that this was his punishment for his bigoted behavior in class. Ironically, one of the “inmates” is Andy
Evans, Melinda’s greatest nemesis and the boy who raped her. She takes on the persona of the bunny rabbit
again, because of him, and when Mr. Neck isn’t looking, Andy blows in her ear. She wants to kill him.
Notes
It seems as if the world has taken out a contract to make Melinda’s life as miserable as it can. She finds herself
in this horrible room where she is made to stare at the walls. The teacher who monitors MISS is Mr. Neck, who
has despised her from the beginning. And of course, Andy Evans is in there to continue his systematic torture of
her. We can only sit there with the same reaction Melinda has – we want to kill Andy, too, because he’s such a
horrible human being, but what’s more, we want to take the people who run that high school and submit them to
the same torture they have allowed Melinda to endure. It’s not that they can’t see when their students are
hurting; it’s that they won’t. In this way, we must judge them not just as inept, but perhaps even criminal.
Furthermore, Melinda’s desire to kill at that moment gives new meaning to the motivation behind student
shootings at places like Columbine. What terrible pain do our students suffer and we choose to ignore to our
own peril?
CHAPTER 57 - Picasso
Summary
Mr. Freeman declares to Melinda that her imagination is paralyzed. He sends her on a “trip” into the mind of a
Great One, in this case, Picasso, who Mr. Freeman insists painted the truth. So, Melinda begins to leaf through
the book he hands her, but is uninspired by the first chapters, or the art of Picasso’s early career. However, she
opens the chapter on Cubism and part of her brain begins to scream, “I get it! I get it!” She is amazed by what
the world must have looked like to him. She doesn’t find any sketches of trees, but she draws one in which all
the leaves are skinny rectangles that look like lockers, boxes, shards of glass, and lips. When she lays it on Mr.
Freeman’s desk, he responds to it with a thumbs-up and the comment that now she is getting somewhere.
Notes
This moment in Art class comes just as Melinda needs it. She finally has some success when she discovers
Picasso. Like she says, if he had gone to Merryweather High, they could have hung out. Like her, he sees
beyond the surface and his inspiration helps her break at least one of the bonds that shackle her in that horrible
atmosphere of Merryweather High School.
CHAPTER 58 - Riding Shotgun
Summary
Melinda begins this chapter by noting that she has been a good girl for week by not cutting any classes. She
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admits that it feels good to understand what the teachers are talking about again. Her parents aren’t sure how to
react – happy that she’s behaving or angrier, because they have to be happy about such a minor thing. The
guidance counselor tells them that she needs a reward and they decide to buy her new clothes. The idea of
shopping with her mother continues to annoy her, however. Fortunately, her mother tells her she has to buy
them at her store so they get a discount and Melinda is glad she can just get in and get out quickly, like tearing
off a band-aid.
While she is standing at the bus stop in the freezing weather, Mr. Freeman pulls up and offers her a ride.
Melinda doesn’t say anything in the car, concentrating instead on telephone poles and roadkill. He congratulates
her on the Cubist sketch she made and the growth he has seen in her work lately. She actually speaks to him,
concerned that her trees just “suck.” He reminds her that art is all about making mistakes and learning from
them. Surprisingly, she keeps talking, this time about how she doesn’t know what she’s supposed to feel. Her
words are surprising even to her and she clamps a hand over her mouth. He advises her that the next time she
works on her trees that she not think of trees, but of love or hate or joy or rage. He tells her, “When people don’t
express themselves, they die one piece at a time. You’d be shocked at how many adults are really dead inside –
walking through their days with no idea who they are, just waiting for a heart attack or cancer or a Mack truck
to come along and finish the job. It’s the saddest thing I know.”
He takes her to her mother’s store and as she gets out of the car, she thanks him. He tells her that if she ever
needs to talk, she knows where she can find him. Then, his parting comment is to tell her that she has a lot to
say and he’d like to hear it. Once again, Melinda cannot speak and just closes the car door.
Notes
In this chapter, we see that there really is one adult who cares whether Melinda is happy or not. She has no faith
in how her parents really feel about her as evidenced by her reaction to buying clothes at her mother’s store. So,
Mr. Freeman’s offer of a ride opens her up to something she thought didn’t exist for her. He gives her serious
advice to think about and we know that she needs to keep it front and center in her heart and in her brain. It isn’t
just the same old lecture from the typical adult. It is sincere, helpful observations. Melinda is on her way to
becoming the kind of adult Mr. Freeman thinks is the saddest he knows. She is dying inside and only she can
stop it. He seems to instinctively know this about her and so makes sure she knows he is there for her and
knows she has something to say. Again, we know that she must decide to speak to overcome her despair.
CHAPTER 59 - Hall of Mirrors
Summary
Melinda’s mother is on the phone, so she heads for the “Young Ladies” section to look for a pair of jeans. She is
mortified by how her body is changing and that she has gone from a size 8 to a size 10. She picks out three pair,
hoping to find one before her mother comes out. The third pair is exactly what she’s looking for: they’re much
too large and with an oversized sweatshirt on, no one will know they’re from Effert’s. She stands in front of the
three-way mirror and is not surprised at how bad she looks. She pulls the side mirrors in closer around and she
becomes a Picasso sketch. Her lips are crusted and bleeding, her hair needs washed and her face is dirty.
She remembers reading about a woman who was burned over 80 percent of her body and had to wait for skin
grafts. She essentially ended up with a completely new body. Melissa feels like her skin has been burned off
and that she stumbles from thornbush to thornbush which represent her parents, Rachel, school, and Heather, all
of whom she thinks hate her. She thinks she just needs to hang on long enough for a new skin to graft. It is
ironic that Mr. Freeman thinks she needs to just find her feelings, but how can she not find them when they are
chewing her alive inside like they’re an infestation of thoughts, shame, and mistakes. However, she is
determined to make herself normal and that starts with just a new pair of jeans.
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Notes
The conversation may have been a turning point for Melinda, although she has yet to realize that. Inside the
three-way mirror of her mother’s store, she realizes that she just has to hold on long enough to “grow a new
skin.” This means that she knows she must stay emotionally as sane as possible until she is able to deal with all
that has happened to her. She still believes that all the “thornbushes” still hate her, but without really saying it in
her own thoughts, she knows that Mr. Freeman, at least, cares and believes in what she has to offer. She takes
the first step towards healing: becoming determined to be normal, starting with a new pair of jeans. That’s an
indication that if she is willing to buy new clothes, she may be willing to eventually speak.
CHAPTER 60 - Germination
Summary
Melinda studies hard for her test on plants and seeds. She finds the life of a seed cool: it is very inefficient and
many never germinate. But those that do germinate thrive in the most difficult of situations. And when its
product is picked, it just grows another. Melinda is sure she will ace this test.
Notes
Obviously, this chapter is metaphorical for Melinda herself. She can be like the seed and thrive wherever she
can and when she is attacked, she can, like the plant, grow a new skin and keep on growing.
CHAPTER 61 - Bologna Exile
Summary
Melinda decides to no longer eat lunch from the cafeteria menu so that she doesn’t have to walk through the line
and be observed and judged by all the other students. She leaves a note for her mother to buy her food so she
can brown bag it and her mother is so happy to have her communicate again that she buys her all kinds of junk
food. It occurs to Melinda that she ought to start talking to THEM, maybe just a little bit, but she fears she will
say the wrong thing.
Because she has no friends, she sits alone in the cafeteria and tries to read, but the noise is too distracting, so she
just becomes an observer. She watches the Marthas and thinks disparaging remarks about them and worries that
they might be talking about her. What helps a little is imagining Heather in ten years, seventy pounds heavier
with two children. She sees Rachel/Rachelle sitting with the Egyptian exchange student and wearing clothing
that is Islamic in nature. The exchange student, ironically, wears jeans and a Gap tee-shirt. Her final observation
is that even the other Losers have a group of Losers to sit with while she has no one. She goes to the restroom to
turn her shirt inside out to hide the mustard stain.
Notes
Even though, in the previous chapter, Melinda seemed to be on track to some sort of healing, no one said that
she wouldn’t slide back into her old attitude. For every step forward, there are often two or three back: she
worries that the Marthas are talking about her and she has to imagine Heather looking ugly to make her feel
better; Rachel/Rachelle still seems to hate her; she can’t even sit in the group of Losers; and she has a mustard
stain on shirt. Even with all this negativity, there is still a feeling at this point that Melinda is better than she
was: she is actually considering speaking to her parents, a thought she wouldn’t have even considered a week or
two before.
CHAPTER 62 - Snow Day – School As Usual
Summary
Even though they had eight inches of snow the night before, Syracuse schools are still open. That’s because
they are used to the snow and have the equipment to deal with it. Hairwoman tells them how they cancelled
school for a whole week in the 70’s because of an energy crisis and she looks so wistful when she says it.
Melinda thinks the teachers need a snow day more than the students. She asks the class what snow symbolized
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to Hawthorne and Melinda thinks that he just wanted it to represent cold and silence and when it covers the
ground, it “hushes as still as her heart.”
Notes
Melinda tells us in this mini-chapter that it’s more than her voice that cannot speak. It is her heart.
CHAPTER 63 - Stupid Stupid
Summary
Melinda goes to her secret closet after school, because it is warm and cozy in there. She knows she can catch a
little sleep which she can’t seem to catch at home. At home, she wakes with the blankets kicked off or standing
at the kitchen door, trying to get out. Just as she thinks she is dozing off in the abandoned janitor’s closet, she is
jerked awake by the cheers coming from the basketball game. It’s 8:45 and she has been asleep for hours. She
grabs her backpack and hurries down the hall. However, the game pulls her in and she sees their usually
defeated team win at the buzzer by one point. For a moment, she claps and cheers along with everyone else, but
then she freezes, thinking she’s made a mistake to think she was just like everyone else.
Melinda is then called out to by David Petrakis who unbelievably invites her back to his house for celebratory
pizza. She comes up with every excuse in the book, fearing parties like the plague, but on the way home what
she thinks of as her two personalities war with each other. One is angry that she didn’t go, but the other
comforts her with thoughts that David could have been planning to do something to her and that the world is a
dangerous place. She worries that if she kicks both personalities out of her head, who would be left?
Notes
The title of the chapter is significant in that Melinda could just kick herself for not accepting David’s invitation
even while the voice of fear tells her she made the right decision. She is between a rock and a hard place now as
her desire to be normal keeps peaking out against the side that fears normalcy. She just feels that no matter what
decision she makes, it’s a stupid one.
It’s also interesting to note that sleep is so elusive to her at home. From her description of how she wakes up off
and on all night, she is probably having nightmares she tries desperately to escape. Nonetheless, even as the war
continues within her, she’s starting to win some of her battles.
CHAPTER 64 - A Night To Remember
Summary
That night after the game, Melinda once again cannot sleep. So, she wraps herself in a blanket and crawls out on
the porch roof where she observes the moon by saying, “A fat white seed sleeps in the sky.” And like a seed that
begins to grow, Melinda relates what happened to her at the end-of-the-summer party to the reader. Andy
Evans, a senior, began to flirt with her and then, danced with her. He even kissed her and it was a man-kiss that
nearly knocked her off her feet. He took advantage of that moment (and the fact that she was drunk) and pulled
her to the ground. When she tried to SPEAK, to SCREAM, “I DON’T WANT TO!!” he covered her mouth
with his hand. Then, he hurt her and hurt her and hurt her. As he stood up and zipped his jeans, he smiled.
The next thing she remembered, she was standing by the telephone and calling 911. When she was asked what
her emergency was, she could not speak and the operator just told her they had her location and would send
help. As the cops arrived, Melinda literally crawled out of the room through the legs of people running from the
police while outside “the moon smiled goodbye and slipped away.” She walked home to an empty house
without a word.
She falls asleep on the roof and she knows she will be late for school again. She has bitten her lip clear through
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and there is blood on the snow. She thinks how much she hates winter, especially winter in Syracuse, and she
wonders why anyone stays there.
Her grades for the third marking period are all F’s and D’s except for Art which is an A.
Notes
Despite the fact that Melinda’s nightmarish memories are so sad for her and the reader, we must realize that the
very fact that she remembers them from beginning to end is a kind of breakthrough. If she can think about the
rape, perhaps she is close to talking about it. Nonetheless, it is a painful time for her as evidenced by the bitten
lip and her falling asleep on the roof. She still wants to run away from Syracuse, but she is at least talking to
herself about what happened that horrible summer night. Her grades are terrible, because until the end of the
marking period, her despair had just continued to grow. It’s just a cliché, but a true one that it’s always darkest
before the dawn.
PART 4 - Fourth Marking Period
CHAPTER 65 - Exterminators
Summary
At the last basketball game, the students made up a cheer about the “horny, horny hornets,” so the PTA starts a
campaign to once again change the mascot. The Student Council begins a counter-petition stating that they have
all suffered psychological damage because of the year’s lack of identity. They claim that they are a community
of students, a hive of hornetdom. Melinda notes that it won’t be a real issue until football season, because their
baseball team always stinks.
Notes
This chapter is more of Melinda’s sarcasm about how frequently their mascot name has changed that school
year. She examines it as another example of the stupidity she encounters at Merryweather from both students
and adults. However, it is also ironic that the counter-petition would insist that they are a community of
students, especially given how they all break up into little hives of their own. A community is absurd in a school
this fractured.
CHAPTER 66 - The Wet Season
Summary
Melinda muses on the signs of spring: old cars going back into the garages and new ones coming out, lost
shovels and mittens are found on the ground as the snow melts, winter coats go up into the attic, farmers begin
walking in their fields, seniors begin to agonize over which colleges accepted them, and April Fool’s Day
arrives. She has been going to most of her classes, but she thinks the whole process of education is profoundly
stupid. She also notices that Andy Beast has taken to hanging out with her former best friend, Rachel/Rachelle,
and the exchange students. The observation of this development doesn’t stay in her mind for very long.
Easter comes and goes with the family eating lamb chops for Easter dinner. Melinda misses the days when she
was younger and her mother would hide colored eggs and there would be a big basket of chocolate rabbits. Her
grandparents would take her to church and she would wear stiff, lacy dresses. She thinks now that her
grandparents would be disappointed and frowning in heaven. She tells us that her father complained through the
whole meal while her mother said little and she said nothing,
Notes
The title of this chapter could just be analyzed as Melinda’s way of describing spring, but in truth it seems to
reflect the tears that she and her parents have yet to shed. However, her memories of Easters past can be a sign
of her awakening from her pain. She misses those days, but they were good days to remember. They offer hope
for good days yet to come.
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It’s important to note that Melinda tells us how Andy Evans, her rapist, has started flirting with
Rachel/Rachelle. It’s a tiny bit of foreshadowing that there is trouble yet to come.
CHAPTER 67 - Spring Break
Summary
On the last day of Spring Break, Melinda, with ten dollars in her pocket, heads for the mall, dreaming of no
more than ten dollars worth of French fries. She heads down the escalator and watches little children getting
face paint. She turns when she hears someone say, “What a zoo!’ and discovers it’s Ivy, one of her former
friends. She is drawing the children in the hopes that a clown will show up for her art project. Melinda actually
speaks to her and compliments what she’s drawn. Ivy, in turn, compliments Melinda’s turkey bone sculpture.
Then, together, they draw a tree on Ivy’s sketchbook while Ivy offers her some advice about how to draw the
leaves and tells Melinda she has a great start there. Melinda thinks, “She’s right.”
Notes
This chapter is another step in the process of Melinda’s reawakening: she can speak to Ivy, one of the girls who
had made her an Outcast. She can accept that someone else can help her. And she can realize that she is making
a great start.
CHAPTER 68 - Genetics
Summary
Melinda is totally bored with the final unit in biology, genetics. She thinks she will just copy David’s notes. As
she goes to the pencil sharpener, she reflects about Mrs. Keen saying that we get half of our genes from our
father and half from our mother: if that’s the case she’s not too happy, because the relatives on both sides of the
family are less than appetizing. She thinks about how she used to pretend she was a princess who had been
adopted and that her real parents would someday come and take her away. But as she looks out the window,
there are no limos or chariots or carriages, when she really does want to leave. She returns to her desk and
sketches a willow tree drooping into a pool of water, but she decides to hang it in her secret closet rather than
show it to Mr. Freeman. Some things are just for her.
Then, she looks at David’s notes where he is drawing a family tree. She tries to draw one, too, until she hears
there will be a quiz the next day. She wishes she had paid attention, she wishes she were adopted, and she
wishes David wouldn’t sigh when she asks to copy his notes. She ends the chapter with another list of the ten
lies they tell you in high school. The last one is the most significant: we want to hear what you have to say.
Notes
Melinda has still not accepted her family even as she moves toward healing. Her desire to be adopted because of
the genetic makeup of both sides is reflective of her inability to feel like she belongs anywhere, even in her
family. The willow tree symbolizes her need to weep, to cry out her pain, but she can’t show it to anyone yet,
even Mr. Freeman. The list of lies she makes up are especially symbolic of her hurt – she still hasn’t come to
believe that anyone at Merryweather wants to hear what she has to say.
CHAPTER 69 - My Life As A Spy
Summary
Melinda opens this chapter describing how her former best friend, Rachel/Rachelle, has become obsessed with
the Beast, IT, also known as Andy Evans and Melinda’s rapist. She finds it sickening how they flirt with each
other and Rachel/Rachelle lays all over him. But what’s more important are the arguments going around in her
head: should she worry about Rachel/Rachelle or leave her to Andy’s intentions since she had treated Melinda
so horribly all year long? After class, she follows them into the foreign language wing and watches them make
out. Rachel/Rachelle gives him a wet passionate kiss and Melinda no longer sees the pretend “Rachelle-chick,”
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but only the third grade Rachel who had woven pink embroidery thread into Melinda’s hair and had been her
friend.
Notes
Melinda’s attempt to recover from her rape and the pain it had brought now comes to a screeching halt as she
sees her best friend falling into Andy Evans’ trap. The dilemma is real, because she must choose between what
she knows was once right and good and how it has changed this year. She must choose to stay voiceless until
she finds it for herself alone, or she must find her voice for someone who once meant everything to her. It’s the
difference between selfishness and compassion.
CHAPTER 70 - Thin Atmosphere
Summary
Melinda retreats to her secret closet to try to figure out what to do. The consequences are as real as the dilemma:
there is no one who would believe her and warn Rachel; Rachel herself would never believe her and that might
just drive her further into Andy’s clutches; and if Rachel tells Andy, there’s no telling what he might do to
Melinda. She looks at all the drawings and posters she has on her walls in there and tries to find an answer. The
one with Maya Angelou keeps telling her to tell Rachel, so she concentrates instead on all her art sketches and
the many periods of her life that year. However, they can’t keep Maya from “tapping her on the shoulder.” Her
final decision then becomes a note written backwards so that Rachel won’t recognize her handwriting, warning
Rachel about Andy and how he attacked a ninth grader. She signs it “a friend” and also tells her to tell her
Swedish friend who hangs out with them.
Notes
Finally, Melinda has made a “squeak.” It’s not her actual voice, but her written one; however, it speaks up loud
and clear for what’s right. In spite of her fears that Rachel won’t believe the note and that Andy might find
Melinda and hurt her, she speaks! Now that the pain she feels might fall on someone else, she can forget, at
least for a moment, that it’s all about her. That is major step forward in her healing process.
Also, it’s interesting to note that now she has stopped calling Rachel, Rachel/Rachelle. She has stopped seeing
her as someone pretending to be someone she’s not and now Rachel is just the friend she’s had since elementary
school. She’s someone who needs Melinda’s help whether she realizes it or not.
CHAPTER 71- Growing Pains
Summary
It is Art class and Mr. Freeman decides to sit beside Melinda and criticize the tree she is trying to sketch on the
linoleum block. His criticism is so devastating that Melinda throws away the block and lays her head on the
desk to cry. Mr. Freeman rescues the block from the trash and brings it and the Kleenex box to her desk. This
time, he is less harsh and his continuous belief in her makes her try one more time. He has told her, “Be the
tree,” but she still is stuck on what she should do. She doubts that trees are ever told to “be the screwed-up
ninth-grader.”
Notes
The title is especially significant: Melinda is having growing pains, because she is re-inventing herself, slowly,
but surely. In the previous chapter, she acted on unselfish thoughts. Now, because Mr. Freeman won’t let her
give up and where, before, she might have left the block alone in the trash, she tries to live up to his belief in her
and keep attempting to find out how to “be the tree.” It is a tremendous leap forward for a lonely, young girl
who very nearly lost herself. Of course, we know that she has much more growing to do and there will be even
more pain before she overcomes what has happened to her.
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CHAPTER 72 - Gag Order
Summary
Melinda describes at the beginning that David Petrakis’ lawyer has had a meeting with Mr. Neck and has won.
Now, social studies is full of David’s long, drawn-out rambling opinions about what they are studying. The rest
are totally grateful to him for having saved them from Mr. Neck’s lectures, even though they still have tests,
which she continues to fail.
Fortunately, for Melinda, Mr. Neck allows them to do a report on a Cultural Influence at the Turn of the 20 th
Century for extra credit to keep them out of summer school. She chooses the suffragettes. She is fascinated by
these women who fought long and hard to earn the rights they should have had all along. They had a voice! She
writes the best report she’s ever written and even turns it in on time. However, when Mr. Neck receives it from
her, he scowls and tells her that to earn the credit, she has to deliver it orally. Her response to this further burden
is to say nothing.
Notes
Just as we could have predicted, Melinda still has pain to endure before she will overcome. Now she must give
an oral report on women who are, ironically, those she admires most, because they used their voices. She also
admires David Pretrakis, because he, too, has been able to speak when life turned against him. However, we can
only wonder if Melinda will find a way out of this predicament or deal with it as she should. Will she put
herself under a gag order?
CHAPTER 73 - No Justice, No Peace
Summary
Because the oral report was not part of the original assignment, Melinda chooses not to give it. But, because she
needs the extra credit, she turns to David for help and they come up with a Plan. She arrives in class early while
Mr. Neck is still in the lounge and writes what she needs on the board and when she is called to the front of the
class, she walks “suffragette tall,” even as she feels like she’s caught in a tornado.
She rips the poster with a picture of a suffragette sign on it off the wall and allows the class to read what’s
written there for themselves. She has told them that the suffragettes were attacked and went to jail for daring to
do what they wanted and now she is willing to stand up for what she believes: no one should be forced to give a
speech. Then, David hands out copies of her report to everyone in the class as fulfillment of Mr. Neck’s
assignment. She had planned to stand there silently for the full five minutes of the required speech, but instead,
she is hauled off to Principal Principal’s office and ends up back in MISS. She spends the time simmering over
the injustice of the situation. She had done everything right, including doing her homework, showing up for
class, and not cheating on tests and still she got punished. Why should she be punished for not speaking? She
decides she needs a lawyer.
Notes
Even though Melinda still will not speak aloud, she is slowly continuing to find her voice. She stands up for
what she believes and is determined to fight back against being punished.
CHAPTER 74 - Advice From a Smart Mouth
Summary
David Petrakis sends her a note in social studies in support of what she had done and telling her it’s horrible that
her parents didn’t stick up for her like his had for him. Of course, she doesn’t tell him that her parents don’t
know. He meets her at her locker and then explains to her that the D that Mr. Neck gave her was the correct
grade, because she can’t speak up for the right to be silent. It lets the bad guys win. Then, he tells her as they are
heading to class that he might call her. She answers, “Maybe I won’t answer . . . Maybe I will.” She figures he’s
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sort of asking her out, so she decides she will answer if he calls. Only she knows that if he touches her, she’ll
explode. No touching.
Notes
David gives Melinda the best advice anyone could: speak up for yourself or the enemy will win. She needs to
hear this, especially from someone she likes and admires so much. It’s another step towards healing. Of course,
she still can’t stand the thought of being touched after what Andy Beast had done, but she’ll answer David’s
phone call, nonetheless.
CHAPTER 75 - The Beast Prowls
Summary
Melinda stays after school in Mr. Freeman’s room where she feels safe. Ironically, this sanctuary is where the
Beast finds her again. He turns the lights off and then on again. She smells his cologne and imagines that the
name of it is FEAR. She once again takes on the persona of the rabbit, sitting perfectly still, while he asks her if
she has seen Rachelle. She says nothing in response while IT sits on her table and smears her chalk drawing. IT
stares in her face and asks if she is deaf, but Melinda is a deer frozen in the headlights. She wonders frantically
if he’s going to hurt her again and why she’s so afraid.
Just then, Rachel enters the room looking for him as well. She is followed right behind by Ivy, who knows
something tense is taking place. She reveals after they leave that she thinks he’s a creep and “trouble with a
capital T.” Melinda cannot answer Ivy’s comment. She can only pick up her things and head for home. When
she gets there, she runs immediately to her closet, stuffs her mouth with old fabric and screams “until there are
no sounds left under her skin.”
Notes
This chapter leaves us wondering if Melinda is now about to have a major relapse. The voice that David had
told her she must use is stuck again and Andy Beast is able to intimidate her once more. We have to ask
whether she would have been able to fight him off a second time had Rachel and Ivy not come into the room.
She screams a primal scream, an animal terrorized by its predator. The only positive event of the situation is
that Ivy, too, knows how dangerous Andy Evans is.
CHAPTER 76 - Home Sick
Summary
Melinda tells us she needs a mental-health day and that she has learned from her mother to plan ahead when she
wants one. So, she starts coughing and smears mascara under her eyes so it looks like she hasn’t slept at all. The
surprise is that she actually has a fever. She even speaks and tells her mother she doesn’t feel well. Her mother’s
reaction: “You must be sick. You’re talking.” She apologizes for that remark and sends Melinda back to bed
with a promise of a breakfast tray before she leaves for work.
Notes
In spite of the fact that Melinda has taken a step backwards in her recovery and needs to stay home from school,
she takes another step forward by speaking to her mother. Her mother’s initial “bitchy” reaction is followed by
an apology which is also a step forward for Melinda. Speaking has brought her its own reward and should
encourage her to continue.
CHAPTER 77 - Oprah, Sally Jessy, Jerry, and Me
Summary
Melinda spends the day with all the talk show hosts and imagines herself as a guest. She could speak at an
After-School special about How Not To Lose Your Virginity, or Why Seniors Should Be Locked Up, or My
Summer Vacation: A Drunken Party, Lies, and Rape. She then asks herself, “Was I raped?” and imagines Oprah
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exploring the issue: “You said no. He covered your mouth with his hand. You were thirteen years old. It doesn’t
matter that you were drunk. Honey, you were raped.” Her imagination runs away from her with images of these
talk show hosts emphasizing that Andy Beast should be punished and that she can’t keep this inside forever.
Melinda’s response to these continuous thoughts is the need to sleep, to fall into a coma, where she doesn’t have
to hear them anymore. She wonders if he raped her mind, too. She watches Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood instead
and decides a trip the land of make-believe would be nice.
Notes
Melinda’s thoughts are indicative of her gradual move towards speaking out what has happened to her. Before,
when she was most entrenched in her despair, she would never even have had the strength to imagine her
thoughts coming out of the mouths of these television personalities. Now, however, they are voicing what she
herself is really voicing: Andy must be revealed and she must tell someone what has happened to her at his
hands. She no longer wonders whether she was raped without having an answer to the question. She knows the
answer and is coming closer to acting on it.
CHAPTER 78 - Real Spring
Summary
May has arrived and the sun is out and the flowers are beginning to bloom. On a Saturday morning, with her
dad still asleep upstairs and her mother gone to work, Melinda starts to cleans their yard of old leaves, even
bending over and behind the old shrubs to reach the last ones. While looking in there, she sees the green shoots
of something alive which has been struggling under the leaves. She swears she can actually see them grow. Her
father comes outside and observes how hard she has been working and that now he ought to trim the shrubs and
paint the trim and shutters. Through his entire commentary, he pauses often to let her speak, but she stays silent.
There are awkward moments, but what she has done has motivated her father, too, and he asks her if she would
like to go to the hardware store with him. She just shakes her head no and picks up the leaf rake once more.
Then, as he starts to walk away, she “rakes the leaves out of her throat” and asks him if he could buy some
flower seeds.
Notes
Although the events of this chapter are almost a cliché – new growth and change – they are significant in
understanding Melinda’s journey back from the dead. She is willing to get up and do something that will not
only make their house look as good as the rest of the block, but will motivate her father towards change as well.
Furthermore, the idea of growth and new life is an important piece of symbolism: Melinda is re-making herself,
she is regenerating, she is the seed that holds her face to the sun. And she continues her re-generation by
deciding to plant the flower seeds to bring some beauty back into her life.
CHAPTER 79 - Fault!
Summary
In gym class, they are playing tennis, and because Melinda is a halfway decent player (she had taken lessons a
few years before), Ms. Connors pairs her up with Jock Goddess Nicole, also one of Melinda’s former friends.
Nicole aces the first serve, but Melinda jams the next one down her throat. Then, Nicole becomes serious,
because her “womynhood” is at stake. Melinda aces her again, but foot faults. So, even though she calls it “her
wrong foot forward,” she gets a second chance. She blows it by Nicole again and this time with no fault. Nicole
eventually wins the match, but not by much, and Melinda observes, “I’m tough enough to play and strong
enough to win.” She thinks she’ll try to get her dad to play her. It will be the “only glory of a really sucky year,”
if she can beat someone at something.
Notes
Obviously, the tennis match is a metaphor for how far Melinda has journeyed. She stands up against one of the
girls who had labeled her an Outcast and she nearly wins the tennis war against her, winning small victories
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along the way. She knows, finally, that she has the personal toughness and strength to win and that’s her
greatest victory so far.
CHAPTER 80 - Yearbooks
Summary
The yearbooks arrive and Melinda fails to understand the ritual of getting everyone to sign your yearbook. She
finally recognizes that it’s a competition to see who can get the most signatures. She also finally understands
why everyone puts up with a kid named Todd Ryder, who is a “greasy, sleazy, foul-mouthed, unwashed pig.”
He is also the yearbook photographer and if you flip through the pages of the yearbook, you can see who his
favorites are. He has snapped only one picture of her – she is walking away from the camera, wearing her
dumpy winter coat, with her shoulders up around her ears. She decides she will not be buying a yearbook.
Notes
Melinda will not be buying a yearbook, because the one picture of her in it is a symbol of just how horrible her
ninth-grade year had been. She has no face (her back is to the camera) and she seems to be trying to hide inside
that old coat. She was shunned and she has no identity. Who would want a memory book like that?
CHAPTER 81 - Hairwoman No More
Summary
Melinda’s English teacher is changing as well – she gets a buzz cut and her hair is spiky without the fake orange
she had in it before. She also got new glasses and Melinda wonders what has caused it all. The other students
think she did it to confuse them on their final essay, but Melinda is not so sure. She thinks maybe she found a
good shrink or she’s finished the novel she’s been writing forever. She wonders if Hairwoman will be teaching
summer school.
Notes
This scene, too, is another example of how Melinda is growing and changing. She recognizes that something
significant had to have happened to Hairwoman to make her change her appearance so. The best part is not just
that Melinda recognizes the change; it’s that she appreciates it and begins to like the woman just a little bit. She
actually hopes she’ll be teaching summer school.
CHAPTER 82 - Little Writing On The Wall
Summary
While they are in Art class, Ivy accidentally smears colored markers all over Melinda’s shirt. Melinda goes to
the restroom to clean it and Ivy soon follows. Ivy has her go inside a stall so she can wash the shirt in the basin.
Melinda begins to read all the graffiti on the wall about an Alexandra who has “pissed off a whole bunch of
people.” She has been labeled a whore and others have added little details to that. Then, she asks Ivy if she
remembers saying that Andy Evans was big trouble and why she said it. Ivy tells her that it’s rumored he’s only
after one thing and he’ll get it no matter what. She also tells Melinda that Rachel going out with him is only one
of the stupid things she’s done all year. Melinda uses one of Ivy’s pens to write, “Guys to Stay Away From”
and for the first entry under that title she writes Andy Evans. She points to her handiwork and Ivy responds with
a big grin.
Notes
The growth and change continues: Melinda speaks to Ivy and she doesn’t blame her for writing on her shirt. She
learns a great deal about the Beast, Andy Evans, and she has the courage to write a warning about him on the
restroom wall, which unlike the words of the title of this chapter, is not a little writing at all. The strength she
knows she has is emerging greater than ever.
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CHAPTER 83 - Prom Preparation
Summary
Melinda shows her innate sarcastic wit when she describes the week of school before the prom. She mentions
that Rachel is going with Andy and wonders why Rachel’s mother would have allowed her to go, especially
with a senior. Fortunately, she’s double dating with her big brother, which makes Melinda feel better. She also
wonders if Rachel got her note at all or if she has just decided to ignore it. After all, her “social stock” has
soared since she has begun dating him, so ignoring the note would make sense.
Heather comes crawling back to be her friend again and Melinda takes her up to her baby pink room with all the
stuffed rabbits lying everywhere. She knows Heather thinks it looks stupid, but she also knows that Heather is
there for a very specific reason, so she settles back against the rabbits to wait for her sob story. Heather admits
that she hates the Marthas, because they are taking advantage of her and causing her grades to fall. She says her
family is thinking of moving to Dallas and admits that she wouldn’t mind that one bit. She completely ignores
the fact that the Marthas had never accepted Melinda and tells her how smart she was to ignore them and refuse
to be a part of them.
Her ultimate purpose, however, is to convince Melinda to help her decorate the Holiday Inn ballroom for the
prom, a task the other Marthas have dumped on her. She thinks she has Melinda convinced to do it and even
offers to help her redecorate her room. However, Melinda tells her she doesn’t have to help her at all. When
Heather asks why, Melinda considers for a moment how to answer her: should she tell Heather it’s because
she’s self-centered and cold, that she hopes all the seniors yell at her or that she hates the color schemes
Heather’s suggested for her room? Instead, the bunny noses up against her back convince her to be kind and just
say that she has other plans, like working on the oak tree out front and digging in her garden. Then, she tells
Heather she has to leave. Heather doesn’t even say goodbye to Melinda’s mother.
Notes
Melinda finally has a backbone: she refuses to allow Heather to manipulate her into decorating for the prom and
finally recognizes that it was this girl’s fault that the friendship didn’t work, not Melinda’s. She is kind to her,
however, and doesn’t tell her the truth about herself and this time the rabbit is stronger than the wolf.
The rabbit noses pressing up against her back are significant, because even though they have predators, like
Melinda has predators, they are kind and sweet. Another significant point about this chapter concerns the oak
tree Melinda mentions in front of her home. She wants to work on it, just like the trees she has been sketching at
school and just like the metaphorical family tree she has at home. All of that, she knows, is so much more
important than a friendship with someone like Heather.
CHAPTER 84 - Communication 101
Summary
Melinda opens this chapter by admitting she is “on a roll:” she has stood up to Heather, she is planting
marigolds, and she has even asked her mother if she can redecorate her room. She decides the time has come “to
arm-wrestle some demons.” She decides she must talk to Rachel.
She finds Rachel in library during study hall and sits down beside her. Melinda notices that Rachel is writing
from a book about France and learns she is going there that summer with the International Club. That thought
makes Melinda begin talking about when they were kids and they played Heidi and melted cheese in Rachel’s
fireplace. Then, she tells Rachel, now that she’s more willing to talk, that she heard she was going to prom with
Andy. Rachel is totally enamored of him and even feels really sad about what she’ll do when he goes to college.
When the librarian yells at them for talking, Melinda begins to write notes back and forth to Rachel, even
asking her if she is still mad at her. When Rachel softens and says that she just felt that Melinda didn’t need to
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call the cops, Melinda ponders whether to just let the truth die and become friends with Rachel again. Instead,
she writes the truth about being raped. Rachel is appalled and feels really bad for her, because Melinda has not
yet told her who the guy was who raped her. However, when Melinda finally writes the name – Andy Evans –
Rachel stops writing and attacks her verbally as a “twisted little freak” who is jealous that Rachel is popular.
She runs from the room, claiming she’s going to be sick, but not before she tells Melinda that she knows now it
was her who wrote the note.
Notes
Melinda takes on the demon and finally finds her voice by telling Rachel that Andy Evans had raped her.
Unfortunately, Rachel reacts in total disbelief and so, even though what she has done is the right thing, Melinda
is left with Rachel hating her even more. This is also a chapter that foreshadows what will happen when Andy
finds out what Melinda told Rachel.
CHAPTER 85 - Chat Room
Summary
Melinda stands in the lobby at a loss as to what to do now that Rachel had rejected the truth. She had gotten her
hopes up that things would work out, but the door was slammed in her face. She feels again like she’s alone in
the cold. Then, Ivy walks up to her and tells her to take the late bus, because she has something to show her.
She leads her back to the same bathroom where, with graffiti, she had warned everyone about Andy Evans.
Now what she sees under her graffiti is unbelievable: numerous other girls have written their own experiences
with him and how badly he had treated them. They even say the police should be called in about him. Melinda
finally feels like she could fly!
Notes
Just when Melinda feels once again alone in the cold, she discovers she’s not. Many other girls have their own
stories about the Beast and she doesn’t have to be silent anymore.
CHAPTER 86 - Pruning
Summary
It’s a Saturday morning and the tree guys have come to rim the oak in Melinda’s front yard. They cut so much
and the sap runs so heavy that Melinda is afraid they are killing it. However, her father tells a little boy who has
come to watch and is afraid of the same thing that by trimming out the dead wood they are actually allowing it
to live and grow even stronger. Melinda’s not sure she believes him and takes her bike to the gas station to
pump the tires. She rides like the wind until she comes to a barn of the Rodgers property where she had been
raped the previous August. She sinks to the ground and begins to think about how far she has come. She knows
that she has come back to life after “a long, undersnow dormancy” and she has survived. But she wonders how
she can find her way and whether there is “a chain-saw of the soul, an ax she can take to her memories and
fears.” Then, she likens herself to a seed that is warm and bursting to the surface, “a quiet Melindagirl she
hasn’t seen in months. That, she decides, is the seed she will care for.”
Notes
The ultimate proof that Melinda has defeated her demons can be found in her own personal philosophy: like the
tree, she has pruned away the damaged parts which have kept her from growing and she can concentrate on
being a seed and continuing to flourish.
CHAPTER 87 - Prowling
Summary
Melinda spends the rest of the day mulching the bushes, raking, edging, and mowing. Her mother is really
impressed and helps Melinda carry the deck furniture up from the basement. They eat pizza with her dad on the
deck and there is no “snarling or biting.”
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She lies down on the couch to watch TV and when she awakes, it’s midnight and someone has covered her with
an afghan. She feels antsy and picks up her bike and begins to ride all over town. She rides past the homes of
her friends and sees lights on inside Rachel’s house as her parents wait for her to come home from the prom.
She continues “to ride like she has wings. She’s not tired. She doesn’t think she’ll ever have to sleep again.”
Notes
Melinda’s activities this day are all about growing. She plants and mulches and has a quiet, comfortable dinner
with her parents. She rides on wings or so it seems and feels exhilarated with life. She finally is no longer
seeking sleep as an escape. In fact, sleep seems totally unnecessary now. She is almost full circle.
CHAPTER 88 - PostProm
Summary
Melinda begins the chapter with a recitation of the drama experienced at the prom. She is her normal, sarcastic,
witty self. Heather has not come to school and everybody is griping about her lame decorations. Rachel is in her
glory: she ditched Andy, because he was all over her during a slow dance and she wanted to slap him at the end.
She spent the rest of the prom dancing with a student from Portugal and Andy has been really mad ever since.
He proceeded to get drunk and pass out at a private party. Rachel burned everything he had given her and left
the ashes in front of his locker. Even his friends are laughing at him.
Melinda observes that it’s almost not necessary to come to school the final two weeks, because even final
exams aren’t going to make much difference in her grades. She thinks that high school is one long hazing
activity: “if you are tough enough to survive this, they’ll let you become an adult.” She just hopes it’s worth it.
Notes
There is a kind of quiet satisfaction in Melinda’s tone when she describes how Rachel treated Andy. She has
become, perhaps, a bit too mature to gloat in a gleeful manner, but it’s good to know nonetheless that he has
gotten his comeuppance. For us, the readers, however, there is a sense of quiet foreboding. Andy must know
that Melinda warned Rachel against him and he’s angry at how Rachel treated him. Furthermore, we have a
sense of foreshadowing that Melinda must face her greatest demon – Andy - and that confrontation has yet to
occur.
Melinda’s final comment about high school being one long hazing activity is a truth we can all share. There’s a
sad tone to this, because we, too, know that many kids don’t survive high school without carrying the baggage
with them the rest of their lives. That’s what she means when she says that she hopes it’s worth it.
CHAPTER 89 - Prey
Summary
The confrontation finally comes. Melinda suddenly realizes during algebra class that she doesn’t need the secret
closet anymore. So, after class, she heads that way to tear it down and close up that part of her life. She follows
Andy and Rachel and the Swedish exchange student down the hall and silently gloats as they repudiate him and
nobody stops to talk to him. She decides to leave some of the stuff in her closet behind in case another student
needs it someday. She finds that there is too much for her to carry back to her locker without her backpack so
she heads out the door. Just as she does, Andy Evans slams her back into the closet and closes the door. She’s
trapped with him.
At first, he just stares at her and then he begins a nasty invective, accusing her of lying about the rape and being
jealous. He calls her ugly and when she tries to leave, he blocks her way and locks the door. Once again,
Melinda cannot speak. Then, he attacks her. Finally, Melinda screams out, “NNNOOOO!!!” and fights back.
She screams and screams and screams, grabbing anything she can to throw at him. When he holds her so tightly
she cannot move and covers her mouth with his hand, she reaches above her and grabs the turkey sculpture and
breaks the mirror behind the Maya Angelou poster. It makes him stop long enough to see what’s happened and
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that gives her time to grab a shard of glass and hold it up to his throat. She draws just a drop of blood and
emphatically declares, “I said no.” He nods as a pounding begins on the door. Melinda unlocks it and Nicole is
there with the lacrosse team who are sweaty, angry and holding their sticks high in the air. Someone runs for
help. Andy Beast is finally subdued.
Notes
This scene is nearly a replay of the summer party. Andy Evans is determined to get his revenge on Melinda and
for a time, she is once again unable to speak. But during the past few weeks, as she has found her inner strnegth,
she has learned that silence solves nothing and she stands up for herself at last. In the end, she becomes the
predator and Andy Beast is her prey.
CHAPTER 90 - Final Cut
Summary
Because he refuses to hand in his grades in on time, Mr. Freeman is still at school on the very, very last day. So,
Melinda goes to the Art room, determined to make one last try at getting her tree right. He is in the process of
covering up the wall where he had recorded all their names and grades with new paint. The only line still left is
the one where Melinda’s name is written. His intent is to paint a sunrise mural there. While she works, Melinda
can hear the final sounds of any school’s campus just before summer vacation, but she turns up the radio so she
can concentrate better.
Two senior girls come in and tell Mr. Freeman goodbye. One looks over toward Melinda and says, “Way to go.
I hope you’re OK.” Now everyone knows what happened, because the lacrosse team spread the word. Suddenly,
Melinda is popular. What’s more, Rachel called and left a message that she wants Melinda to call her.
Melinda continues working on her final tree, adding birds with chalk, drawing flight, flight, feather, and wing,
almost without thinking. She thinks that the birds seem to bloom in the light, “their feathers expanding
promise.” She thinks about IT and accepts that IT happened and she can’t avoid it or hide from it. She knows,
however, that it wasn’t her fault that he raped her and that it’s not going to kill her. She can grow. She begins to
feel tears in her eyes as she realizes that the tree is finally done. It’s not perfect, but that’s what makes it just
right. Mr. Freeman looks it over and once again brings her the box of Kleenex. He tells her she has earned an
A+ and acknowledges, “You’ve been through a lot, haven’t you?” Her words float up, “Let me tell you about
it.” Now we know that this entire story has been Melinda’s revelation to Mr. Freeman at the end of the most
difficult year of her life.
Notes
The title of the chapter is “Final Cut,” because this terrible drama that Melinda has endured is finally over. The
last scene of the play means just to finishing what she began – the tree. The word has gotten out about what she
has endured and others can speak for her now that she has spoken for herself. So she fills in her sketch with the
wings of the birds, because she, like them, has great promise. The realization that she’s finally succeeded brings
tears to her eyes and a voice to her throat and the man who offered a listening ear so many months before finally
hears the story of Melinda Sordino, ninth-grader.
OVERALL ANALYSES
CHARACTER ANALYSIS
Melinda Sordino - She is an extremely witty, sarcastic thirteen-year old who suffers a terrible rape and lives to
speak the truth about it.
In the interim, however, she endures being labeled an Outcast about a trauma that she had to learn was not her
fault before she could be strong again. She examines how silly and ridiculous high school is and how adults
often fail to see the greatest problems young people endure. She bares our souls and our foibles as well as
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baring her own and in the process, she learns some important aspects of growing up and teaches us a few things,
too. Her despair is real and at times unbearable, but she makes us root for her to find her way again. She is
interesting, powerful, and someone we’d all like to know by the end of the story.
Melinda’s Parents - Melinda’s mother is the manager of a clothing store and her father is an insurance
salesman. Both are caught up in their careers and the problems within their marriage. Like most parents, it takes
them a long time to understand their own daughter as she deals with not only adolescent angst, but also with a
real traumatic experience. We are never sure, even at the end, if they know what happened to Melinda, but we
do know that they are better able to deal with their own shortcomings as she becomes stronger and better able to
deal with hers.
Mr. Freeman - Those who grew up in the 60’s and 70’s would definitely label this Art teacher as “antiestablishment.” He is a good man who wants the best for his students, but consistently meets a brick wall
known as the school board. So, when they deny him the supplies he needs to teach, he rebels in subtle ways,
like not turning in his grades on time and in more profound ways, like creating a painting which depicts the
school as a prison and the school board members’ faces behind bars.
He is a constant source of support and belief for Melinda who finds that the Art room is one of the only
sanctuaries she has. He offers her his ear to listen any time she needs one and she never stops trying to please
him when he challenges her. Like most of the teachers and administration at her school, this is probably not his
real name, but it is a metaphor for who he is and how he makes Melinda feel.
David Petrakis - He is Melinda’s biology lab partner and somewhat of a romantic interest. He is very patient
with her and when she is able to speak, it is often to him. He is also a role model, not only for Melinda, but also
for the other students in his class. He is willing to stand up against adults if they speak wrongly, like Mr. Neck
who is a racist. Furthermore, he is a brilliant young man who has a promising future, but he never slights
anyone, no matter how Outcast they might be.
Andy Evans - Melinda refers to him as IT or the beast or the wolf and he is all of those things. He is a horrible
human being who preys on the innocence of young girls who might be impressed with his good looks and
popularity. He needs to be behind bars (Mr. Freeman should have painted his face in the painting he later
destroyed), because he brings danger wherever he goes. Furthermore, he is not satisfied with forcing girls to
have sex or raping them if they won’t give him what he wants, he also must torture and harass them afterwards
as a way of sustaining his power.
Too often, young men like him grow up and are never punished for their crimes, because the women they prey
upon are too frightened to speak the truth. Fortunately, Melinda finds her voice and this beast is finally stopped
Heather from Ohio - This young girl is new to Merryweather High when Melinda begins her ninth-grade year.
Because she is unaware of what happened at the party, she befriends Melinda. However, she has ulterior
motives to become a member of one of the clans – the Marthas – so she can become popular. She uses Melinda
when she needs her talents and help and dumps her as a friend when she becomes inconvenient. Melinda labels
Heather as self-centered and cold and finally has the strength to tell her no.
Rachel/Rachelle - This is Melinda’s best friend since elementary school. They have shared many memories
together and had their own clan in eighth grade which they called the Plain Janes. She attends the party where
Melinda calls the police and because she doesn’t know that Melinda has been raped and believes she has
betrayed their friendship, she makes Melinda an Outcast.
Throughout the novel, it’s obvious that she is trying to decide who she really is, just like Melinda. She goes
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through stages like hanging out with the international students and dressing like a gypsy or changing her name
from Rachel to Rachelle. She, too, becomes involved with Andy Evans a few weeks before prom and when she
goes to the dance with him, she discovers that what Melinda has been trying to tell her is true. She then accepts
her responsibility and tries to repair the friendship. She realizes that she had treated her best friend very poorly
and we are left with the feeling that she is a good person at heart.
Ivy - She shares Art class with Melinda all year long and once was her friend as well. She slowly comes to see
Melinda’s struggle with her art project as an outward sign of inner struggle. She speaks to her and, in the end,
shows her the truth about Andy Evans as she knows it. This makes Melinda feel less alone and it gives Melinda
strength at a time when she needs it most.
Hairwoman, Mr. Neck and Principal Principal - These teachers for the most part are depicted as almost
inhuman. Melinda cannot figure them out most of the time and finds them contemptuous. They are examples of
adults who could care less about the real needs of their students. Only Hairwoman redeems herself in the end by
cutting her hair and getting new glasses. She is growing and changing just like Melinda and so becomes human
in Melinda’s eyes.
The Clans - These are the ultimate reason why high school is so agonizing. They make it imperative to be on
the inside of some group or end up ostracized as a lonely Loser. They all are motivated by different things and
all do some damage to other students in the process. They should be outlawed in any high school, because their
behavior has an adverse effect on the emotional growth of those who belong to them and those who are
repudiated.
PLOT STRUCTURE ANALYSIS
The story is narrated by Melinda as she remembers her ninth grade year of high school. It is divided into four
major sections, each one representing the events which occurred during each marking period. Each marking
period is then divided into individual chapters of varying lengths presenting something profound that either
happened to Melinda or that she observed.
THEMES - THEME ANALYSIS
The theme of strength of character helps the reader understand what it takes for any individual to overcome
major trauma or even just minor setbacks in her life. It is especially geared to young people who are in the
terrible stage known as adolescence. So much changes at that time in our lives that we are often beset with
confusing signals about our place within our environment and the world at large. Throw in major problems like
Melinda’s rape and you must create an even greater strength of character to just survive and look to the future in
this novel.
The theme of growing up impacts the reader, because there are so many instances when Melinda could have
been lost forever. She must find the strength to mature so as to deal with the profound issues that crop up at her
young age of thirteen. It’s not just that she felt isolated among the many clans that existed in her school and it’s
not just her parents who don’t understand her or her problems. It’s that she was raped and her rapist continues to
torment her and get away with it. She needs to find a maturity beyond her years to accept what’s happened to
her and find a way to move on.
Conformity is a significant theme right from the beginning of the story. As we read, we are appalled at how
important it is not to be different, not to stand out from any group so that you belong to no group at all. And yet,
we are also reminded of how high school is the same in every generation. We want it to be different and we
realize that, for the most part, we are powerless to change it until we find away to convince young people that
they don’t need the acceptance of a group and that they are fine just as they are. That is a huge task that no one
seems to know how to tackle with any success. Perhaps this theme intermingles even more with that of growing
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up: teens must find a way to conform and at the same time, grow up relatively unscathed by the concept of the
group dynamic.
RISING ACTION
The rising action begins with Melinda Sordino’s first day of high school and continues through a year so
challenging that even a forty year old would find it difficult to survive, let alone a thirteen year old in a high
school full of cliques. It continues until the scene when Andy Evans tries to get even with Melinda by raping
her a second time.
FALLING ACTION
The falling action involves the last chapter, which takes place during the last day of school, and Melinda’s final
attempt to sketch a tree in Art class. It is her ultimate realization that she has triumphed over all the adversity
she had faced the entire year.
POINT OF VIEW
The entire point of view is from the perspective of Melinda Sordino who relates the events of her ninth grade
year. Because it is told from a first person point of view, the pain she feels and the emotional experiences she
endures are even more realistic for the reader. She uses wit, sarcasm, and even humor to make us feel what she
feels.
GENRE
Fiction/Young Adult/Coming of Age/Rape
OTHER ELEMENTS
FORESHADOWING
There are several other literary devices that pop up at various times in the story. One of the most prevalent ones
is foreshadowing which frequently presents clues of something that will happen later in the novel. Some
examples of foreshadowing include:
1.) The fact that Melinda is sitting alone on the first day of school and other students glare at her is an
indication that something has happened which isolates her.
2.) Mr. Neck’s insistence that he “has his eye on her” foreshadows the problems Melinda will have with him
throughout the year.
3.) Melinda’s indication that it’s easier not to say anything, because no one wants to hear what you have to say
anyway prepare us for her inability to speak all year long.
4.) Melinda’s label of Art class as a sanctuary indicates that she will find relative peace and safety there.
5.) Melinda’s references in the beginning to the end-of-the-summer party prepare us for discovering what really
happened to her that night that makes her an Outcast.
6.) Melinda’s discovery of the abandoned janitor’s closet foreshadows her decision to retreat from reality as
much as possible.
7.) When Melinda refers to one of the students as IT, the reader is prepared for this individual being her greatest
nemesis and that he somehow is wrapped up in the mystery of the party that summer.
8.) Melinda indicates that her lips are always sore from biting them, as is her throat, and her jaws are clenched
every morning when she wakes up. This indicates how traumatic her experience at the party was and how
this same physical pain foreshadows even more emotional pain.
9.) David Petrakis’ courage in standing up against Mr. Neck foreshadows how he will be helpful to Melinda
and become her role model.
10.) The constant changing of the school mascot prepares us for the silly, ineffective way school authorities
deal with Melinda’s problems.
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11.) Melinda’s inability to cut open the frog in biology dissection lab foreshadows the horror she relives
whenever she allows herself to think about the party.
12.) The way Heather uses Melinda to help her with the faculty lounge decorations prepares us for her
rejection of Melinda later so she can become a Martha.
13.) Melinda’s fears for Rachel and her relationship with Andy foreshadows that she will eventually have to
face him to end his terror.
14.) When Melinda rakes and cleans up the yard, it prepares us for her to become like a seed and begin to grow
again.
15.) The graffiti on the restroom wall about Andy Evans foreshadows his final defeat by Melinda.
IRONY
Another element that is important to note is irony – when something happens, or is seen, or is heard that we
may know, but the characters do not, or that appears opposite of what is expected. Some examples of irony
include:
1.) Melinda has known some of the girls at her school her whole life and yet a totally new student, Heather
from Ohio, is the only one who will speak to her on the first day of school.
2.) She chooses an abandoned janitor’s closet for a hiding place. It is abandoned just like her.
3.) She called the police for help, but she is the one busted for betraying her friends.
4.) Her name in Spanish means “beautiful,” but she has become anything but pretty.
5.) Mr. Neck is the social studies teacher and should know better, because he has studied and taught history,
than to express his racist views.
6.) Melinda is the biggest Outcast of the school, but she shoots free throws better than the best player on the
basketball team.
7.) Mr. Freeman has created a fantastic, even publicized, landscape satirizing the school system and yet he
destroys it with a slash of Melinda’s chisel.
8.) Melinda’s English class is reading The Scarlet Letter whose main character, Hester Prynne, hides her
shame behind a wall of silence just like Melinda.
9.) Mr. Freeman begins to have problems creating his own art even though he pressures Melinda to find a
way to express her tree.
10.) Melinda receives only one valentine and it is from Heather who has just broken off their friendship.
11.) Melinda chooses to spend the day at the hospital as a place of safety from her problems. She is sick at
heart so what better place to be than a haven for sick people?
12.) When Melinda’s dad tells the principal that she must have picked up her attitude from the friends she has
at school, the guidance counselor states that she has some great friends – the Marthas, the very group that
actually shuns her and drew Heather away from her.
13.) Melinda is sent to MISS (Merryweather In-School Suspension) for her absences and must share the small
classroom with her tormenter, Andy Evans.
14.) Melinda is determined to have nothing to do with showing her emotions or speaking about how she feels
and yet when the basketball teams wins a game at the buzzer, she is clapping and cheering as loudly as
everyone there.
15.) The school system insists to its students that they want to hear what they have to say, but they never
actually put that promise into practice.
16.) Melinda has spent the entire school year angry with Rachel for ostracizing her, but when she sees she is
dating Andy Evans, she worries terribly about her.
17.) Melinda cannot find her own voice to speak the truth, but she chooses the suffragettes as the topic of her
extra-credit report.
18.) One of the places Melinda feels the safest is the Art room, but it’s here that Andy Beast torments her
again.
19.) When she most needs peace, Melinda turns to nature – cleaning up the yard – where, instead of peace, she
finds the strength to grow herself.
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20.) Heather refuses to have Melinda as a friend, but turns to her for help decorating the ballroom for the prom.
This time, Melinda has the strength to say no.
21.) The first time Melinda speaks the truth, it’s not with her voice, but with her pen, when she writes the truth
about Andy on the restroom wall and to Rachel in the library.
22.) Melinda’s writing on the restroom seemed like just a way for her to finally express what she’s held inside
for a year. But it turns out to be greater gesture than she thought when dozens of girls write disgusting
pieces of truth about him under Melinda’s first comment.
23.) Melinda’s yard work proves to be more than just therapeutic for her: her parents join in the work and they
begin to heal as a family.
24.) Melinda determines to finally tear down her secret closet, where she had felt safe from her problems, but
it’s there that Andy traps her again and tries to rape her a second time.
25.) Melinda’s voice finally soars only after she completes her Art project.
QUOTES / IMPORTANT QUOTATIONS
(Puffin Books, The Penguin Group and Penguin Books for Young Readers, 1999)
The following quotations are important at various points in the story:
1.) “I am Outcast.” (page 4)
Melinda expresses to the reader immediately at the beginning of the novel the terrible situation she finds herself
in as her ninth-grade year begins – no one likes her and she is ostracized wherever she goes.
2.) “It’s easier not to say anything . . . Nobody really wants to hear what you have to say.” (page 9)
In this comment, we see that Melinda has decided to deal with what happened to her at the end-of-the-summer
party by closing off her voice.
3.) “This is where you can find your soul, if you dare. Where you can touch that part of you that you’ve
never dared look at before. Do not come here and ask me to show you how to draw a face. Ask me to help
you find the wind.” (page 10)
This is Mr. Freeman’s description of his class and it will be one of those elements in her environment where
Melinda finds strength to go on.
4.) “My room belongs to an alien. It is a postcard of who I was in fifth grade.” (page 15)
In this comment, Melinda reveals how she has not changed in all the years since fifth grade and lets the reader
see that the journey she must take is toward maturity, just like us all.
5.) “I pull my lower lip all the way in between my teeth. If I try hard enough, maybe I can gobble my
whole self this way.” (page 39)
Melinda indicates that she would like to destroy herself. This is a horrible example of how much she hates who
she has become.
6.) “Melinda no es Linda.” (page 41)
This insult from a classmate in her Spanish class reinforces how ugly everyone around her sees Melinda and
echoes how she sees herself.
7.) “IT is my nightmare and I can’t wake up. IT sees me, IT smiles and winks. Good thing my lips are
stitched together or I’d throw up.” (pages 45 and 46)
Here Melinda makes reference for the first time to the person who hurt her at the party. It allows the reader to
see how terrible the pain is that she carries.
8.) “Maya Angelou . . . she must be a great writer if the school board is afraid of her.” (page 50)
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Melinda’s observation of censorship is an example of her sarcastic wit as well as the problems that exist within
her school district.
9.) “This has meaning. Pain.” (page 65)
Mr. Freeman’s evaluation of Melinda’s turkey sculpture is a dead on description of what she feels.
10.) “David Petrakis is my hero.” (page 68)
David uses the power of the law to expose Mr. Neck’s racism. Because he can stand up and speak out for what
is right, Melinda idolizes him. He can do what she cannot.
11.) “I’m just like them – an ordinary drone dressed in secrets and lies.” (page 70)
This is Melinda’s description of her family and her place within it. It emphasizes how dysfunctional they are.
12.) “I like the sensation of succeeding at something – even if it is just thunking in foul shots one after
another.” (page 76)
We see from this commentary that Melinda has failed at so much that she grabs at and holds tightly to her heart
even the smallest and silliest successes.
13.) “Maybe I’ll be an artist if I grow up.” (page 78)
Melinda has just finished describing Mr. Freeman and his on-going canvas. She admires him so much, but the
tiny word IF in her comment is frightening. Most kids would say WHEN they grow up. Melinda’s despair is so
overwhelming that she doesn’t think in terms of a WHEN.
14.) “He slices the canvas with my chisel, ruining it with a long, ripping sound that makes the entire class
gasp.” (page 92)
Mr. Freeman deliberately ruins the painting he had been working on all year which showed the school as a
prison. It makes the reader wonder whether he reacts out of his own despair or whether he has decided that a
work so dark and negative should not exist on canvas.
15.) “I want to be in fifth grade again . . . old enough to play outside without Mom, too young to go off the
block. The perfect leash length.” (page 99)
This is Melinda’s longing to return to happier days, when she felt some freedom, but still had the safety of her
Mom’s watchful eye. This is understandable given the horror her ninth-grade year has become.
16.) “Some teachers rumorwhisper he’s having a breakdown. I think he’s the sanest person I know.”
(page 104)
Melinda’s description of Mr. Freeman emphasizes how much she admires someone who will stand up against
“the establishment.” She wants to be able to do the same.
17.) “Do they choose to be so dense? Were they born that way? I have no friends. I have nothing. I say
nothing. I am nothing . . .” (page 116)
Melinda’s parents, the principal, and the guidance counselor cannot see the truth about her and her mind
screams at them to notice that she has become a nothing.
18.) When people don’t express themselves, they die one piece at a time. . . . It’s the saddest thing I
know.” (page 122)
Mr. Freeman makes this comment in an attempt to make Melinda see how she’s hurting herself by not speaking.
19.) “I need to hang on just long enough for new skin to graft.” (page 125)
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Melinda describes herself in terms of a seriously burned person who needs a new skin to survive. It is a
metaphorical description of her need to lose the “skin” that identifies her as an Outcast and a Loser.
20.) “Be the tree.” (page 153)
Mr. Freeman gives this advice to Melinda in hopes that she’ll be able to express the feelings behind the object
and therefore, express herself.
21. ) “I stuff my mouth with old fabric and scream until there are no sounds left under my skin.” (page
162)
This is Melinda’s reaction after Andy Beast traps her in the Art room. No matter how much he torments her, her
screams are silent.
22.) “Pale green shoots of something alive have been struggling under the leaves. As I watch, they
straighten to face the sun. I swear I can see them grow.” (page 166)
Melinda cleans up her yard at home and discovers plants trying to grow under piles of dead leaves. She looks at
them with wonder and internalizes the fact that she can be just like the shoot.
23.) “I rake the leaves out of my throat. Me: ‘Can you buy some seeds? Some flower seeds?’” (page 168)
Melinda speaks to her father for the first time in a long time and when she does she asks for something that she
can help make grow, just as she is trying to do for herself.
24.) “I’m tough enough to play and strong enough to win.” (page 170)
Melinda has very nearly defeated Nicole, a natural athlete, at tennis. The accomplishment reinforces the new
Melinda that is beginning to grow and flourish.
25.) “Guys to stay away from – Andy Evans.” (page 175)
By writing this on the restroom wall, Melinda begins to find her voice once more.
26.) “The time has come to arm-wrestle my demons.” (page 180)
Melinda’s determination to overcome her pain begins when she decides to tell Rachel the truth.
27.) “He’s not chopping it down. He’s saving it . . . By cutting off the damage, you make it possible for the
tree to grow again.” (page 187)
Mr. Sordino’s explanation to the neighbor boy is a metaphor for Melinda and how she can change her life.
28.) “Is there a chainsaw of the soul, an ax I can take to my memories or fears? I dig my fingers into the
dirt and squeeze. A small clean part of me waits to warm and burst through the surface. Some quiet
Melindagirl I haven’t seen in months. That is the seed I will care for.” (pages 188-189)
This is almost a contract Melinda makes with herself as she sits on the ground where she was raped. She knows
now she can survive and grow.
29.) “Sometimes I think high school is one long hazing activity: if you are tough enough to survive this,
they’ll let you become an adult. I hope it’s worth it.” (page 191)
Melinda’s final assessment of adolescence and high school, this sentence mirrors her fears that there will be
some kids that never make it.
30.) “A sound explodes from me. ‘NNNOOO!!! . . .Me: ‘I said no.’” (pages 194-195)
Melinda finally finds her voice as Andy Beast tries to rape her again. She has found her strength and stands up
for herself against the tormenter of her ninth-grade year.
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31.) “I draw them without thinking – flight, flight, feather, wing. Water drips on the paper and the birds
bloom in the light, their feathers expanding promise.” (page 197)
Melinda’s final sketch for Art class mirrors who she has become – she is a bird who has wings and can fly!
SYMBOLISM/MOTIFS/IMAGERY/SYMBOLS
Other elements that are present in this novel are symbols and metaphors. Symbols are the use of some
unrelated idea to represent something else. Metaphors are direct comparisons made between characters and
ideas. There are many symbols and metaphors used by the author such as:
1.) Outcast with a capital T is the name Melinda uses to label herself after her friends ostracize her.
2.) The names Melinda gives her teachers are metaphors for their behavior or their looks.
3.) Sanctuary is a metaphor for art class and the secret closet.
4.) The tree which Melinda struggles over in Art class all year is a metaphor for her. As she grows and breaks
the silence the tree grows as well. This is further emphasized by the old oak in her front yard which her
father has pruned so it can grow and flourish even more.
5.) The clans are metaphors for the terrible need to belong and be accepted that every high school student faces.
6.) The stuffed rabbits, which Melinda has in her bedroom, are metaphors for -especially because they do not
speak and they stand still in hope that their predators don’t see them. This is what Melinda does every time
Andy is in her presence.
7.) IT, Beast, and the wolf are all metaphors for Andy Evans, the rapist.
8.) Mr. Freeman’s painting is a metaphor for the school as a prison, a feeling Melinda really relates to.
9.) The constant changing of the school mascot is an outward comparison for how inept the entire authority
system of the school district really is.
10.) The poster of Maya Angelou is a metaphor for Melinda’s need to speak in order to save herself, as well as
the necessity of doing the right thing.
11.) David Petrakis and Mr. Freeman are metaphors for the necessity of speaking up for what is right.
12.) Melinda’s turkey sculpture is a metaphor for the bare bones that her life has become.
13.) Hester Prynne from The Scarlet Letter represents Melinda who also remains silent about the truth.
14.) The hospital represents a place of safety and invisibility.
15.) A woman seriously burned over 80 percent of her body and receiving skin grafts to survive is
representative of Melinda’s need to burn away her old self and find a new skin in which to grow.
16.) Seeds represent Melinda’s new growth and the discovery that she can survive.
17.) Melinda’s sketch of a willow tree drooping into a pool of water represents how she wants to pull herself
up out of the pool of silence she has created for herself, but can’t find the strength yet.
18.) The suffragettes report is a metaphor for Melinda’s need to speak the truth and fight against what is
wrong.
19.) Andy Evans’ name on the restroom wall represents Melinda’s first successful attempt to speak the truth.
20.) Heather represents self-centeredness and coldness.
21.) Birds represent freedom.
22.) The only picture of Melinda in the yearbook shows her as a dumpy, faceless nobody. Because it’s not who
she wants to be anymore, she doesn’t buy one.
IMPORTANT / KEY FACTS SUMMARY
Title: Speak
Author: Laura Halse Anderson
Date Published: 1999
Meaning of the Title: It refers to what the main character – Melinda Sordino – cannot do for much of the
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novel, but she gathers the strength to do by the end. She had been raped and she stopped speaking afterwards,
because no one seemed to want to listen. It is only in finding her voice that she saves herself.
Setting: Syracuse, New York, present day
Protagonist: Melinda Sordino
Antagonist: The students at Merryweather High who ostracize Melinda; IT, the beast, Andy Evans who rapes
her; also Melinda’s emotional turmoil which she must overcome to be able to grow and survive.
Mood: At times, the mood is tragic, filled with despair, and very sad; at other times, it is amusing and sarcastic;
finally, it is triumphant.
Point of View: First person (Melinda tells the entire story it seems by the end to Mr. Freeman, her Art teacher.)
Tense: This story is written in the past tense since Melinda tells it in flashback. At the end of the novel, it seems
as if it is the written narrative of the events of Melinda’s ninth-grade year as she tells it to Mr. Freeman.
Genre: Fiction/Young Adult/Coming of Age/Rape
Rising Action: It occurs from the beginning of the novel when Melinda tells us that she has been made an
Outcast until the end when Andy Evans tries to rape her again.
Exposition: Melinda Sordino explains her ninth-grade year of high school and the terrible pain she must deal
with after Andy Evans rapes her at an end-of-the-summer party. She is ostracized by her fellow students and she
stops speaking, because she feels no one will listen. It’s only after she learns how to grow and overcome what
has happened to her that she is able to “arm-wrestle her demon” – the evil young man who had raped her and
tries to rape her a second time.
Climax: Melinda is trapped in the secret closet by a very angry Andy Evans who tries to rape her again. She
fights him this time and finally finds her voice to scream, “No!” She is saved by a piece of broken glass from
the mirror in the closet, which she holds against his neck, as well as the members of the lacrosse team who
come to her rescue.
Outcome: Melinda is able to finish her tree and with her newly-found voice, she tells Mr. Freeman the whole
ordeal of ninth grade.
Major Theme: Strength of Character
Minor Themes: Growth and Conformity
Symbols / Motifs - The stuffed rabbits, the hospital, etc. See the Symbolism section of this guide.
STUDY QUESTIONS - MULTIPLE CHOICE QUIZ
1. How does Melinda label herself as the story begins?
a.) Ostracized
b.) Outcast
c.) Ignored
2. What class becomes a sanctuary and what other place is a safe one for Melinda to use at school?
a.) English class and the basement of her house
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b.) Social Studies and the biology lab
c.) Art class and the janitor’s closet
3. What does the changing of the mascot four times show us about the school district?
a.) They are inept.
b.) They are concerned for student morals.
c.) They are being sued by the company that made the mascot uniforms.
4. Why does Melinda admire David Petrakis?
a.) He is brilliant and wants Melinda to take her own notes.
b.) He doesn’t want to get involved with a bigot like Mr. Stetman.
c.) He stands up to Mr. Neck’s racism.
5. Mr. Freeman is such a good teacher, because
a.) he makes the students remain in specific boundaries he sets.
b.) he plays the radio during class and challenges the students to find the emotions behind their art.
c.) he uses brand new materials purchased by the school board to challenge the students to find the
emotions behind their art.
6. Hairwoman is
a.) the guidance counselor
b.) the English teacher
c.) the social studies teacher
7. The Scarlet Letter is fascinating to Melinda, because
a.) she recognizes how much she is like Hester Prynne, the main character.
b.) she loves the idea of finding symbols in literature.
c.) she thinks symbols are just something English teachers claim are found in good writing.
8. Melinda is worried for Rachel/Rachelle, because
a.) the girl is failing math and she won’t let Melinda help her.
b.) she has become involved with Hana from Egypt who has a bad reputation.
c.) she has started dating Andy Evans who raped Melinda.
9. Melinda’s first attempt to find her voice comes when
a.) she writes Andy’s name on the restroom wall as someone to avoid.
b.) she writes notes back and forth with Rachel telling her Andy raped her.
c.) she cleans the yard and tells her dad to buy flower seeds.
10. The oak tree in Melinda’s front yard is a metaphor for her, because
a.) like it, she needs to prune away her damaged parts and grow again.
b.) like it, she is tall and spindly, but beautiful.
c.) like it, she is damaged and will never grow right again.
11. Telling Rachel about Andy is the right thing to do and Melinda likes to think that she was encouraged to tell
by
a.) Ivy
b.) Mr. Freeman
c.) Maya Angelou
12. Rachel reacts by calling Melinda a liar, but she learns that Melinda was telling the truth when
a.) she reads all the comments about Andy on the restroom wall.
b.) she is nearly attacked by him at the prom.
c.) Mr. Freeman pulls her aside and says Melinda is right.
13. Melinda hopes Hairwoman will be teaching summer school, because
a.) even though she didn’t like her at first, she comes to admire her for being able to change.
b.) she loves to torment her.
c.) she loves the novels she teaches since they have symbols she can learn from.
14.) Melinda is trapped in the secret closet by Andy but is rescued by
a.) a piece of broken pottery held to his neck
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b.) a piece of broken glass and the lacrosse team
c.) Mr. Freeman
15.) In the end, Melinda becomes popular, because the students discover
a.) she is a lot of fun when they let her talk.
b.) she has endured tremendous pain and overcome her tormenter.
c.) she has painted a great painting of a tree and received the only A+ Mr. Freeman gives.
ANSWER KEY
1.) b 2.) c 3.) a 4.) c 5.) b 6.) b 7.) a 8.) c 9.) a 10) a 11.) c 12.) b 13.) a 14.) b 15.) b
ESSAY TOPICS / BOOK REPORT IDEAS
1. Analyze what happened to Melinda at the end-of-the-summer party from her viewpoint, Andy’s viewpoint,
and the viewpoint of all the kids at the party. How does hiding the truth make matters worse?
2. Discuss Melinda’s character before the rape, during her ninth-grade year, and after she confronts Andy, by
detailing how she grows and takes back her power.
3. Discuss the character of Andy Evans, also known as IT, the beast, and the wolf. Why is he more dangerous
than a criminal behind bars?
4. Discuss the environment of Merryweather High School. In what ways does it damage its students and
contribute to their loss of self-esteem?
5. Discuss the character of Mr. Freeman by relating what kind of man he is and how he is a pillar of strength
for Melinda.
6. Discuss how David Petrakis becomes Melinda’s hero. Why can we assume he will become a very good
man?
7. Why are Melinda’s parents unable to help her overcome her pain? How does Melinda help them in the end?
8. What event encourages Melinda to find her voice? What does this tell us about her innate character?
9. Why does Melinda label high school as “one big Hazing activity”? What does she mean by this and how
does it make the reader identify with her?
10. In the end, why did Melinda ultimately have to confront Andy Evans in order to heal? How does she do this
and what does she think about the memories of what he has done to her?
COMMENT ON THE STUDY OF LITERATURE
The study of literature is not like the study of math or science, or even history. While those disciplines are based
largely upon fact, the study of literature is based upon interpretation and analysis. There are no clear-cut
answers in literature, outside of the factual information about an author's life and the basic information about
setting and characterization in a piece of literature. The rest is a highly subjective reading of what an author has
written; each person brings a different set of values and a different background to the reading. As a result, no
two people see the piece of literature in exactly the same light, and few critics agree on everything about a book
or an author.
In this set of PinkMonkey Literature Notes, we at PinkMonkey.com have tried to give an objective literary
analysis based upon the information actually found in the novel, book, or play. In the end, however, it is an
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individual interpretation, but one that we feel can be readily supported by the information that is presented in
the guide. In your course of literature study, you or your professor/teacher may come up with a different
interpretation of the mood or the theme or the conflict. Your interpretation, if it can be logically supported with
information contained within the piece of literature, is just as correct as ours; so is the interpretation of your
teacher or professor.
Literature is simply not a black or white situation; instead, there are many gray areas that are open to varying
analyses. Your task is to come up with your own analysis that you can logically defend. Hopefully, these
PinkMonkey Literature Notes will help you to accomplish that goal.
Copyright ©2005 TheBestNotes.com.
Reprinted with permission of TheBestNotes.com. All Rights Reserved.
Distribution without the written consent of PinkMonkey.com and TheBestNotes.com is strictly prohibited.
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