"That’s me, by the way, arriving at `prison'—also known as Hills Village Middle School—in Jules’s SUV. The picture credit goes to Leonardo the Silent."
The first-person narrator of the book is a boy nicknamed Rafe who is beginning middle school. This quote is significant as much for what it does contain as for what it doesn't. The whole thing is actually describing an illustration which appears on the next page. The illustration is a black & white line drawing showing a boy in glasses waving and a honking vehicle in motion beneath a school that sits behind a tall fence presided over by an armed guard so that it looks more like a prison. This drawing sets the stage for what will become the addition of many illustrated drawings in the text which visualize aspects of the story being narrated. This illustration is what Rafe—who is identified by name as the waving boy in the drawing—is referring to when he says, "That's me." The more unusual aspect of this quote is that Rafe credits the creation of the drawing to someone with the unusual nickname, Leonard the Silent. This is unusual for two reasons. The most obvious reason is that illustrations in books aimed at young readers are not typically credited to other characters in the story. The second reason this is unusual sets the stage for the first big plot twist that occurs roughly one-third of the way into the book.
"Okay, time out for a second.
I just want to say, it’s not like I was trying to hide Leo from you—or at least the part about his not exactly being real.
I know, I know—what kind of sixth grader still has imaginary friends? But I don’t really think of him that way. It’s just that he’s always been around, and there’s never been a reason to stop talking to him."
Since this revelation occurs in Chapter 25 within a book that ends with Chapter 76, it is not going too far to suggest it is not actually a major spoiler to discuss the significance of this quote. Many popular books exist in which it is not revealed until very near the end that a major character has existed only in the mind of another character. In those cases, keeping this revelation secret is integral to the plot. This revelation is confronted directly in this quote with Rafe's insistence that he was not engaging in the theatrics of a cheap plot twist requiring withholding pertinent facts from the reader that would have allowed them to figure out Leo is an imaginary character. This quote is also psychologically insightful for what actually does become the purpose of Leo's appearances in the story to this point. As an imaginary friend, Leo may be invisible and utterly silent to everyone else, but he exists just as concretely inside Rafe's head as any other character in the story. Rafe may intellectually understand that Leo is not real, but mentally and emotionally he responds to his existence as a voice inside his head as if he were real.
"I decided this was a good time to start thinking seriously about my big Operation R.A.F.E. final project. The rules were that I had to get all the way through the HVMS Code of Conduct before I could move on to the last round, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t start getting ready for it in the meantime."
The centerpiece of the plot mechanism driving the narrative is Rafe's decision to set about breaking every rule in the Code of Conduct of his new middle school. This may not sound particularly ambitious, but it must be noted that the book outlining this conduct is comprised of sixteen sections spread across twenty-six pages. To suggest that the rules and regulations guiding student behavior at this middle school are overbearing and beyond the norm is an understatement. Rafe sets for himself the task of breaking every single rule in the handbook. To suggest that this is an overzealous attack against the oppressive authoritarianism of the school is also an understatement. Operation R.A.F.E. stands for "Rules Aren't For Everyone" and indicates that the book will take as its overarching theme the universal conflict of how to reconcile the necessity of rules for a society to function without imposing rules to the point of absurd restriction of freedom and independence.
