Summary
In Chapter 11: Field of Screams, Jordan joins the baseball team as his required sport. He is glad to be on the same team as Drew, but disappointed to be teammates with Andy as well. He learns that no one goes for baseball because of the fearsome coach, Mr. Bumdoody—a man who, legend has it, ate an entire child because they made fun of his rude-sounding name. None of the players like playing in winter either. One day, Ashley runs over to the baseball bench and gossips about Collin’s family being asked by the headmaster to leave the school. It turns out Collin is on financial aid, and the headmaster heard he went to Hawaii over the break with Andy’s family—an expensive trip for a supposedly needy student.
Two weeks later, Drew defends Ramon when Andy makes a comment about his mother cooking chalupas. Drew calls him a jerk. Andy implies that Drew only beat him out for quarterback because he’s Black, but doesn’t say the last word. Drew says Andy is way worse since Collin left the school, and he wasn’t even that nice to Collin. Andy shoves Drew, who shoves back. Andy steps on an apple and falls on a chair, dropping his lunch tray in a scene. Ms. Rawle tries to send Drew to the headmaster’s office, while Drew insists—with support from Ashley—that he slipped on an apple.
Jordan, who is watching with growing anxiety, feels as though he is falling, like at the beginning of the book. In his imagination, he gains the superhero courage to fly, however. This leads him to speak up, telling Ms. Rawle about the sequence of pushes that actually happened. Other stunned students talk too, confirming that Jordan is telling the truth. Andy’s size shrinks as the surrounding people speak up. Ramon shouts that he is Nicaraguan, not Mexican, which he’s been telling Andy since kindergarten. Mr. Garner and Mr. Roche walk over and tell Rawle they believe what everyone is saying. Rawle lets the issue go when Drew and Andy agree to clean up the mess they’ve made. The next page shows the two on their hands and knees cleaning the floor. Soon more students join them to help. Jordan then leaves the cafeteria and runs to the bathroom, where he vomits into a toilet. On the bus home after school, Jordan holds his stomach in alarm and pain. He suddenly reaches for his bag and discovers that he doesn’t know where he left his sketchbook.
Jordan worries all night about what’s happened to the sketchbook. In homeroom, he sees that Rawle is looking through his comics. In one she focuses on, Jordan writes about how frustrating it is to be called by the wrong name because it means someone hasn’t thought about you long enough to register you as a unique human. She is sketched in a panel calling Drew “Deandre” and Jordan “Maury.” She tells Jordan she found it in the cafeteria during the ruckus the day before. She says she is surprised he is so angry at the school and “at life.” He pictures himself as a shirtless, tattooed gangster version of himself. He says, “What are you talking about? I’m not angry, I even kinda like it here.” She says, “I beg to differ. This book is a polemic against everything this school stands for. And me.” He looks up polemic: the definition is “a strong verbal or written attack on someone or something.”
Jordan defends his comics by saying it’s not an attack but a point of view, like an editorial cartoon. She disagrees again. Jordan says it’s not an attack when these things really happen to him and Drew all the time. He says, “It’s not always easy being so different!” She says being different is a blessing that makes him special, and he should embrace the school and allow it to embrace him back. Jordan says, “Oh, I see… It’s okay that this stuff happens to us… It’s just not okay for us to complain about it.” He asks, “Would you teach at a school in my neighborhood? You know, so you could be special?” The bell rings and students walk in. The angel from Jordan’s shoulder drops a microphone and smiles.
In art class, Jordan is surprised when Ms. Slate brings in figurative paintings. He asks if she did them, and she says of course she did. She asks if he thought she did abstraction because she couldn’t do anything else. He admits he did think this. She encourages him to “let it all hang out” and try painting something outside what he normally does. While painting, Jordan thinks about the things that annoy him about RAD. Ms. Slate praises how his colors blend and clash, saying that it’s like “beneath this calm exterior lies this storm.”
Two weeks later, Jordan chooses Ashley as the one person to tell why Alexandra wears a puppet over her burned hand. Ashley takes the information and gossips to all her friends about it, just as Jordan predicted. At school the next day, people swarm Alexandra and ask to see her burn. The excitement dies down when they see it is a tiny scar. She confronts Jordan, saying she was mad at first, then she realized he did it to help her, and so she wants to hug him. She thanks him and goes off.
The next few weeks pass in a blur of studying and taking finals. On the last day of the school year, Jordan wears the salmon shorts Liam gave him. Ms. Slate presents Jordan with the yearbook, revealing that Jordan’s abstract painting was used on the cover. Everyone congratulates Jordan on the cover as they sign each other’s books and wish each other a good summer. Liam thanks Jordan for being his friend and invites him to join his family for some of their summer vacation. On the way out, Jordan and Drew discuss whether they’ll be back next year. Drew says he doesn’t know: he came there to learn a lot, which he did, but he also nearly got suspended despite being on the honor roll every semester. He says his grandmother is old school, though, and she’ll want him to tough it out. While Drew goes to get something from his uncle’s car, Jordan sees Andy sitting alone, disappointed no one wanted to sign his yearbook. Jordan signs it, making Andy happy. When Drew returns, he gives Jordan a book and thanks him for having his back all year. Jordan pranks Drew by gripping his nose with Alexandra’s hand puppet frog, which she has given up wearing.
Drew’s parents arrive to pick him up, saying his body language seems different: like a new kid. He says he kind of feels like a new kid. In the car, Jordan unwraps the gift-wrapped book from Drew: it is The Mean Streets of South Uptown. Jordan laughs out loud. At home, Jordan’s friends from the block ask him if he wants to play basketball. They ask about his pink shorts. He nearly says they’re salmon, but admits they’re pink. Kenny offers to lend him a pair as they set off. The book ends with Jordan thanking him and saying, “My grandpa always says that friends are like training wheels for a bike. They always keep you from falling down. That’s a metaphor. I learned about them in English.” His friends correct him, pointing out that it’s actually a simile. They add: “C’mon, ‘Private School,’ everybody knows that!”
Analysis
The themes of white privilege and racial microaggressions return with the students starting a new semester. In an instance of situational irony, Jordan learns Collin was also a financial aid recipient. However, whether he needed aid or not comes into question when the school learns that he took an expensive Hawaiian vacation with Andy’s family over the break. The controversy leads the school to assume his parents were claiming financial hardship in bad faith, and Collin is kicked out of RAD.
Without his one friend around, Andy becomes increasingly provocative in the way he speaks to other students—particularly students of color. Drew loses his temper when Andy once again bullies Ramon for being Latino. The argument that ensues ends in even further conflict when Andy acts as if Drew was the sole aggressor; in truth, Andy shoved him first and then slipped on his apple. However, Andy’s lifetime of white privilege has led him to believe he can get away with lying to the teacher.
Andy is nearly correct in his belief, as Ms. Rawle’s established bias against Drew works in Andy’s favor. However, Jordan overcomes his shyness and finally speaks up, telling the truth. This emboldens other students to correct Ms. Rawle’s interpretation of what happened. In the scene, Drew also takes the opportunity to point out to her that he and Deandre look nothing alike. The theme of bonding comes up when Andy and Drew are forced to clean the cafeteria mess they made. Rather than leaving them to work alone, the other students get on their hands and knees to help, united in their sense that the punishment is not justified.
The book reaches its climax when Jordan loses his sketchbook only for Ms. Rawle to confront him about it. Throughout the novel, Jordan has used his sketchbook as a creative outlet for his frustrations and opinions about life at RAD. They are private entries, like a diary, but Ms. Rawle’s bad-faith interpretation is that his comics amount to an attack against everything she and the school stand for. Jordan understands that this hyperbolic interpretation of his drawings comes from Rawle’s unconscious bias against Black students, who she is inclined to see as troubled and liable to undermine her authority.
While Jordan has previously been shown to be too anxious to speak up when he notices a small injustice, a shift has taken place: now, Jordan defends his right to express himself in his sketchbook, and he points out the hypocrisy of a white teacher at a mostly white school telling a Black student to embrace that they are “special.” In this exchange, Jordan draws attention to Rawle’s white privilege: it is easy for her to tell him to just accept that he is out of place, because she does not know what it feels like to be out of place. To get her to think outside herself, Jordan suggests she might consider what it would be like to be the only white teacher in a class of ethnically diverse students in a lower-income neighborhood like his.
Despite the microaggressions Jordan has had to deal with during his first year at RAD, by the last day of the spring semester, he recognizes that a change has taken place. No longer reluctant to go to school, he appreciates the valuable relationships he has made with his closest friends. Having bonded with his core group of Drew and Liam, Jordan’s capacity to make friends and find points in common with others has expanded, and he ends the year giving affectionate farewells to Alexandra, Ashley, Ruby, Alex, and even Andy. The book’s title takes on an additional ironic meaning when Jordan’s parents come to pick him up. No longer just the new kid at school, Jordan seems different to his parents, who recognize that he has adjusted to RAD. Now, he is a “new kid” in a metaphorical sense: it is as though he has been reborn.
But despite the change that has taken place within Jordan, he can still bond with his old friends from the neighborhood. The book ends with him trying to express his appreciation for the supportive role they and other friends play in his life. However, a condescending tick (which we saw earlier when he corrected one of his old friends’ grammar) prompts Jordan to explain that he is using a metaphor when he says friends are “like training wheels.” In an instance of situational irony, his public school–educated friends point out that it’s actually a simile—a comparison made using “like” or “as.” With this closing joke, Craft shows how Jordan’s elite education does not make him infallible.
