Summary
On December 8, Carlos waves the gun wildly and points it at the bullies, who try not to act scared. Eddie asks how he got a gun past the metal detectors. As they leave, Carlos warns them they’ll be sorry if they come back. When they are gone, Carlos reveals the gun is a toy. The boys laugh hysterically while sweating. Jerome is less scared, but still nervous. He says Carlos is smart.
Jerome goes to visit Moore’s daughter, Sarah, at her house. It is nicer than Jerome’s family’s place, but not a mansion. Sarah says she has been lonely since her dad shot him, and that her parents fight all the time and are sad. Jerome says they should be sad. Sarah says her dad was scared. She says she is sorry, which makes Jerome angry. She says her dad protects and serves, and was doing his job. Jerome says everybody in his neighborhood knows cops do whatever they like.
Moore enters the room to tell his daughter it’s time for bed. He is skinny and has red eyes. Sarah asks if the boy was really twelve, the same age as her. Moore says it’s a rough neighborhood. He gets angry when she says Jerome was the same height as her. Sarah asks Jerome if her father made a mistake. Jerome says no, he did it on purpose. She wants to be friends, which makes Jerome laugh. But he stays. Sarah says that people at school either think she’s a bad person or celebrate her father for doing something brave. She doesn’t know how to feel, especially when she sees Jerome.
Back on December 8, Jerome feels exhausted following the high-anxiety lunch break. Carlos sits near him in every class. After school lets out, Carlos insists Jerome take the toy gun to play with, saying he can bring it back tomorrow. Kim walks up and warns Jerome with her eyes not to take it. Jerome is always a good boy, but he wonders why he can’t have some fun and pretend he’s a rebel in Rogue One. Kim warns him that Pop will get mad if he finds out. Carlos slips him the gun before leaving. Jerome wonders why he is scared of a toy. Kim takes her brother’s hand as they walk home. In his other hand, Jerome holds the plastic gun in his pocket, saying, “It burns.”
The story returns to the courthouse hearing. The prosecutor (representing the state and, by extension, Jerome’s family) questions Moore about not knowing the difference between a boy and a man in daylight. He asks if Moore has heard of unconscious racial bias. Moore says he isn’t racist. The prosecutor suggests Moore was responding to unconscious stereotypes of Black men as large and dangerous. The lawyer says Jerome is no taller than Moore’s own daughter at five feet; Jerome also weighed 90 pounds. Moore looks surprised. Jerome notices that Sarah sits with a “ghost boy,” seeming to hold his hand.
That evening, Sarah and Jerome discuss how they can both see the ghost boy. Jerome is frustrated to learn Sarah’s father is on paid leave; she has no idea what it’s like in Jerome’s world, where being poor is real and their family has had to take charity from the church food pantry.
Jerome looks through Sarah’s book collection and finds Peter Pan. The ghost boy appears. They learn he died in 1955 and wanted to be like Ernie Banks, the first African American to play for the baseball majors. Sarah asks if there’s a way she can help them both, like Wendy helping Peter Pan. Jerome says he just wants to move on and get away from his family’s pain. The ghost boy leads them to the window. Outside, thousands of shadows appear of other ghost boys. They look up through the window and “into” Jerome’s and Sarah’s souls. Sarah realizes they are all Black boys killed like Jerome. Jerome asks why he needs a white girl looking after him. Emmett says that maybe Jerome is supposed to do something for her.
Emmett and Jerome sit on the church steps. They discuss things that are “real,” like growing up to have a decent job. For Emmett, baseball was real—he loved the crack of the bat and running the bases. Real was going to college, getting educated like his mother, who wanted him to do better than her. Jerome says Black kids want to be basketball stars nowadays; no one cares about baseball.
Emmett says Chicago wasn’t always so dangerous. Emmett says he had polio—paralysis that made his muscles like Jell-O. Jerome asks how he died, but Emmett says Jerome isn’t ready to know. Emmett says he should have gone to Nebraska with his mother, but he went to see his cousins in Mississippi. Emmett says, “Believe this, Jerome. It matters that Sarah can see you.”
Analysis
The narrative returns to the toilet stall confrontation as Carlos scares Eddie, Snap, and Mike away by waving his weapon around. Eddie brings up the good question of how Carlos got a gun past the metal detectors that students must pass through on their way into the school each day; however, the bullies leave without waiting for an answer. Only when they are gone does Carlos reveal to Jerome that the gun is a realistic fake—a replica toy. In an instance of situational irony, Jerome’s fear of the dangerous situation is displaced by his relief that the gun isn’t real.
Rhodes returns to the theme of social and economic inequality when Jerome visits Officer Moore’s daughter at her home. Jerome immediately picks up on the economic disparity between their families when he sees her detached home. When Moore himself enters the room and Sarah questions him, Moore excuses his actions by saying that he killed Jerome in a “rough neighborhood,” essentially admitting that the poverty and crime associated with the area mean he doesn’t see the residents as deserving the same rights he affords people in his own neighborhood. To Sarah, his excuse doesn’t quite answer the question of how he perceived a child the same height and age as her to be an adult.
As the scene goes on, Rhodes builds further on the theme of systemic racism. Sarah speaks of the strange situation she finds herself in, where some people see her father as a murderer and others celebrate his use of excessive force. Upon hearing this, Jerome and the reader discern immediately the absurdity of congratulating a police officer on his bravery when in actuality, he was so frightened of Black people that he mistakenly killed a boy with a toy gun. While Sarah is initially on her father’s side, believing he, as a cop, is genuinely committed to protecting the public, she shows her first signs of losing faith in this fantasy.
At the end of the school day, Carlos tries to solidify his alliance with Jerome by lending him the gun to play with. Although it’s a fake, both Kim and Jerome perceive the aura of danger emanating from the object. In an instance of dramatic irony, the reader witnesses Jerome ignoring his own apprehension and accepting his new friend’s gesture, oblivious that he is innocently and unwittingly sealing his own fate. Jerome’s anxiety is evident when he speaks of the cursed gun as though it literally burns his hand.
The theme of systemic racism comes up again as the prosecutor questions Officer Moore about unconscious bias. While Moore insists he isn’t racist, the prosecutor elucidates the difference between overt racism and unconscious racial bias, which can influence a white police officer’s judgment—especially when it is a white officer on duty in an impoverished Black neighborhood. To prove his point that Moore was influenced by the unconscious perception that Black men are large and threatening, the prosecutor highlights the fact that Jerome was only five feet tall and weighed ninety pounds. In essence, Jerome was the same size as Moore’s own twelve-year-old daughter, and therefore he should have known Jerome wasn’t a man. However, the fact that Jerome is Black led Moore rashly to misjudge his size and project his fears onto Jerome.
The theme of the afterlife returns with the introduction of another “ghost boy” character. Beyond being able to see Jerome, Sarah can interact with the ghost of Emmett Till—based on the real-life civil rights icon who was lynched in 1955. While Jerome is reluctant to assume any responsibility in the afterlife, hoping just to “move on,” Emmett shows him that they are two of many thousands of Black boys killed in unjust circumstances. As the book goes on, Emmett will act as a mentor to Jerome, pointing him toward his purpose in the afterlife.
