Summary
THE TURNING
After an infuriating school day of hearing about how Crosses are superior, Callum learns from Shania that Sephy was beaten up. He runs to her house, where Sarah Pike, Jasmine’s nought secretary, confirms that Sephy was hurt. Mrs. Hadley sends Callum away, blames him for Sephy’s injuries, and bans him from the property. Sephy’s older sister, Minerva, tries to get her to share who hurt her, but Sephy refuses—the two have a tense relationship, and Sephy calls her “Minnie” to bother her.
When Sephy returns to school five days later, she joins Callum’s Math class (his favorite subject), but she tells the teacher, Mrs. Paxton, that she can’t sit next to him because she was told not to sit with noughts. Sephy is angry that Callum didn’t visit her, then shocked to learn that he did visit every day, he just wasn’t allowed through the gate. They meet on their private beach that evening, and Sephy apologizes for missing their picnic at Celebration Park. Callum asks her what she remembers about the last time they went, during the summer. She says that it was a lovely day, but Callum’s memory is slightly different.
THE PICNIC
Sephy and Callum each recount the train journey to Celebration Park earlier that year. Callum is always unsure whether Sephy will actually show up; Sephy is annoyed that Callum never looks happy to see her. Sephy buys first-class tickets for them, but Callum is ID’d and interrogated by police officers, who insult him and are about to kick him off the train before Sephy intervenes. The police treat her respectfully, not even looking at her ID when she offers it. Callum tries to not hold Sephy responsible for how all Crosses treat all noughts, but it doesn’t really work. His memory of the day is permanently colored by his treatment by the police. He doesn’t want to hate Sephy, so he pushes his rage down deep.
BREAKDOWN
Continuing their conversation on the beach, Sephy asks if Callum is remembering the train journey. He evades her questions, and she’s annoyed that he won’t just say what he wants to say. When Callum asks, Sephy names the three girls who beat her up. Callum is upset, but when Sephy touches his face, they genuinely apologize to each other.
Callum returns home to find Jude yelling at Lynette—for the first time, Lynette is yelling back. Meggie is out of the house, and Ryan’s attempts to stop the fight fail until he slaps Jude, shocking everyone. Ryan reveals Lynette’s traumatic incident: three years ago, Lynette and her boyfriend were beaten almost to death by noughts because they were an interracial couple. Lynette, bleeding from her altercation with Jed, snaps out of her confusion and asks where Jed is. When he sees how lost his father and brother look, Callum realizes that he shares their hopes, fears, hates, and confusion.
Sephy asks her mother, who is drinking wine as usual, if she can have a birthday party—she plans to invite Callum and do something about racial inequality. Callum hears his parents fighting about Alex Luther (a nonviolent activist), the L.M., and what kind of protest is right. Sephy calls him using their secret phone signal and invites him to her party, and he reluctantly agrees. That night, Sephy realizes that the party is a bad idea; eventually she rescinds her invitation and apologizes to Callum for using him.
At school, Callum gets into trouble in History by arguing with Mr. Jason that noughts contributed to social, economic, and scientific development—they’re just not reported in the history books, which are written by Crosses. He’s sent to the headmaster’s office, where he overhears Mrs. Paxton arguing in favor of making Heathcroft a haven for nought students (which the headmaster, Mr. Costa, is against). Mrs. Paxton reveals to Callum that Mr. Jason is hard on Callum because he’s half-nought himself.
At home, Sephy and Minerva overhear their parents fighting. Sephy learns that her father is currently having an affair, that he has a son from before he met Jasmine, and that Jasmine had an affair in the past as well. Sephy feels like nothing in her life is stable anymore. She runs to the private beach and sees that Callum is already there. Sephy apologizes for Mr. Jason, and they agree that growing up is hard. That night, Lynette talks to Callum seriously for the first time in a while. She doesn’t have much hope that things will change, and she misses being insane.
At school, Callum confronts Mr. Jason about getting a low grade in History despite doing well on tests. He mentions Mr. Jason’s mixed heritage, and Mr. Jason is enraged, saying that every time he looks at Callum, he thanks God he’s not a nought. When Sephy tries to talk to Callum, he dismisses her, and she sees that his expression has the exact same rage as Mr. Jason’s.
That night, Lynette tells the family she’s going for a walk. The McGregors learn hours later from the police that Lynette stepped in front of a bus. Meggie blames the men, and their fight with Lynette the other day, for Lynette’s death. At Sephy’s house, Sephy and Minerva argue before realizing that their mother has taken a bottle of sleeping pills in an attempt to kill herself.
Callum is unable to cry, even when he finds a letter from Lynette explaining that her death was intentional—she just couldn’t take the real world anymore. He rips up the letter and, for the first time, hates his sister. She gave up. Sephy and Minerva wait in a very fancy hospital for news of their mother, and when Kamal’s secretary, Juno Ayelette, berates them for calling 911—making this a public scandal—Minerva breaks Juno's phone and calls her an insensitive cow.
A week later, after no school and no tears, Callum attends a busy funeral for Lynette at his house. Jude is drinking, and Ryan meets with mysterious men who give him a piece of paper. When Sephy arrives to give her sympathies, she’s yelled at by Jude, Ryan, and even Harry, her old driver who was fired after the school riot. Callum doesn’t intervene when she’s told to leave. Callum hears Ryan tell Meggie that his ineffectual days are over.
Sephy and Callum meet on their private beach later, where Sephy apologizes. This is growing up, they decide. After some hesitation, Callum puts an arm around her, and they watch the waves.
Analysis
These three sections cover a lot of pivotal moments for Sephy and Callum, particularly their memories of their picnic in Celebration Park over the summer. Where Sephy remembers a "wonderful" day with one mishap, Callum remembers a horrible experience that ruined his day and forced him to shove his rage deep, deep down. Callum's rage is only calmed by physical touch, and usually by women: Lynny, Meggie, and Sephy (like when she touches his face at the start of "The Breakdown" and he calms down enough for them to apologize to each other). When Lynette kills herself, Callum hates her for giving up, though this rage—like his rage at Sephy—is displaced, and at a larger issue, not his sister.
One device worth noticing in these sections is Blackman's use of parallel scenes. When Callum is experiencing one thing, Sephy is often in a similar situation, with slight changes that emphasize the differences in their lives and perspectives. While Lynette talks to Callum for the first time in a long while, Sephy talks to Minerva about her parents' infidelities. Shortly after, Lynette kills herself, and Jasmine attempts to do the same. These parallel scenes demonstrate that terrible things can happen regardless of privilege, but that the situations around those events are affected by access and social status.
Another rhetorical device used throughout these three sections is mirrored expressions. After Lynette and Jude fight, Callum looks at Ryan and Jude, then catches a glimpse of himself in a mirror. He realizes that his face has exactly the same expression as theirs. Because he sees this, he realizes that he has the same hopes and fears as they do. Visually confronting this fact forces him to identify with his male family members, perhaps foreshadowing all three of their eventual involvements in race-based violence with the L.M. There is a similar moment observed by Sephy, where she sees Mr. Jason's face, then sees Callum and notices that "the expression on his face mirrored that of Mr Jason. Exactly." While this could allude to Mr. Jason's half-nought heritage, it more likely refers to Callum snapping at her in an unfair, reactionary way, much like how Mr. Jason unfairly treats Callum.
Mr. Jason's History class was inspired by Blackman's own experiences. Callum's frustration at noughts not being taught in History is partially inspired by Blackman's real-life frustration at not being taught about black pioneers, scientists, and inventors during her own time in school. All of the African-American/Cross scientists mentioned in that scene were real people, Blackman explains in an author's note, and despite their numerous accomplishments, she learned about none of them.
