Challenger Deep

Caden reads that pennies are worth so little that the government will eventually phase them out. He wonders if the devaluation of pennies will also devalue his thoughts. 

Caden decides to try out for the track team. His father is excited, and Caden worries that his father believes this is a positive turning point in Caden’s anxiety. Caden makes the team but doesn’t tell his father that he quits after only three practices. He begins running alone for two hours after school so that his parents won’t ask him why he is at home instead of at track practice. It disturbs him that he can lie with such ease. 

The Captain challenges Caden to clean the ship’s bowsprit, a pole that that sticks out from the front of the ship. If he succeeds, the Captain will make Caden part of the ship’s inner circle. He manages to polish the pole, struggling to keep his balance as he straddles it over the ocean. As he climbs back toward the ship he falls. The figurehead, a carving of a woman affixed to the front of the ship, catches him with one hand, saving his life. He looks at her and blushes because she reminds him of girls that he fantasizes about.

She promises to save him if Caden will inform her of plots the Captain and the Parrot may have against her. She says that he can polish her as a reward, instead of the bowsprit. 

Caden joins the team for the mission along with five others: a girl with blue hair, an overweight boy, a girl wearing a choker, a boy who has a bag of bones, and Carlyle, the swabby, who is also there but only observes. The Captain asks each of them what they know about the Marianas Trench. Caden says that he gave a report on the trench once and adds that they cannot explore it without a bathyscaphe. They are on a preindustrial trip. The Captain gives Caden an F for his report and his attitude. He orders Carlyle to brand the F on Caden’s forehead.

The Captain is gentler with Caden after the branding. He blames the Parrot and Carlyle for putting strange ideas into Caden’s head. He also encourages Caden to avoid the crow’s nest and the cocktails that he drinks there. Then he tells Caden that without the maiden figurehead, they are lost. 

Caden’s headache makes it hard to concentrate on his schoolwork. He tells his mother that his forehead is growing an eye, and she looks at him with concern, even after he tells her that he is joking. 

Caden dreams that he is dangling from the ceiling, caught in something like a spider web so big that he doesn’t know what could have created it. When the Parrot appears, he is the size of a man. Caden feels a sting and then he feels numb and peaceful. 

During a science exam, Caden realizes that he knows more science than he finds in the science books. He believes that he knows more science than his teacher and that he understands how the universe works. When he gets his Scantron sheet, he realizes that “the words on the paper aren’t the real exam at all. The true test is something deeper” (70). He fills in the bubbles on the exam, creating constellations with them. 

The Captain makes the girl with blue hair the Mistress of the Treasury. Everyone starts calling the pudgy kid the Lore-Master, and his job is to study the Marianas Trench in books. The Captain makes Caden the ship’s Artist in Residence and instructs him to document their voyage with images. The Navigator tells Caden that the Captain can’t read. 

Caden is confused because he does not hate the Captain, although he thinks he should. He continues to go to the crow’s nest twice a day for his cocktails. A crewman known as the master-at-arms tells Caden that the sludge on the ship is alive. One day Caden will wake up with fewer toes, and then he will understand that the ship has been tasting him. 

In the middle of the night, Caden visits the figurehead. She embraces him and holds him above the water. She tells him that her name is Calliope. Caden says that his name means “Spirit of Battle” (75). She tells Caden that only he can keep her warm, and he hugs her tighter. 

Ms. Sassel, the school counselor, calls Caden to her office. She says that it’s because of his science exam. She shows him his Scantron and says that several of his teachers are concerned about his inattentiveness and his absences. When she asks him to tell her what’s wrong, Caden says that he’s fine. He also tells her that his teacher will drop his lowest grade, and that’s why he did the science exam the way he did; he knows it won’t ultimately count against his grade. 

Caden finds that he cannot make himself stop pacing. In Kansas, a girl fell down a well, and all of the afternoon television programs have been preempted by news coverage of the rescue. He doesn’t want to watch the reports since they’ve made no progress, so he goes upstairs where Mackenzie asks for his help with a video game. After helping her, Caden goes outside and wanders through the neighborhood, even though it’s almost dark. 

Caden wonders what it might feel like to be trapped at the bottom of a well. 

At dinner, Caden is not hungry. His parents watch him push food around his plate and then agree that they will get him some protein shakes. 

The ship turns to copper after Caden said it was too old fashioned. There are no more bolts or rivets; a black sludge holds everything together. The Navigator liked it better when the ship was made of wood. On deck, the Captain shows him a diving bell, a replica of the Liberty Bell. Through a hole cut into the middle, Caden sees the face of a sailor trapped inside. 

That night, Caden visits Calliope and finds that she is now cold. He tells her that she now feels like the Statue of Liberty. Callie tells him that a girl on a pedestal is always lonely. 

Caden walks through his neighborhood on Saturday morning. He sees an advertisement on a bench at a bus stop, and the ad copy asks if he wants a Whopper. He walks to the nearest Burger King and buys a Whopper.

The next bench is an advertisement for upgraded service at Verizon. The nearest Verizon is far away, but Caden walks there anywhere, and then talks to a clerk for 20 minutes without any intention of buying a phone. He can’t remember when the signs began giving him instructions. 

Caden believes there are black widows in the garage because he can identify their webs. Their webs are messy and patternless; he wonders if black widows lack the skill to make more intricate webs or if the lines of their webs have meaning that only the spiders can see. Caden sympathizes with them. 

Caden talks with Max as Max works on his science project: a fictional earthquake scenario in Miami. Caden keeps asking Max if he has ever had an out-of-body experience, all the while saying “I’m not entirely in myself” (89). Caden tells him that he feels like he is in the computer, the walls, and even in Max. Max becomes scared and leaves.

Caden’s father learns that Caden is not on the track team. He asks Caden why he lied and where he goes after school. He feels concerned that Caden goes walking for so long, alone, and says that this behavior is uncharacteristic for him. Caden shouts that walking is not a crime and leaves. 

A few years prior, Caden was in the car while his father was driving. His father was distracted, and he kept saying that something he was having a hard time driving. Caden noticed that the rearview mirror had fallen off and was by his feet, which was what had been bothering his father. Caden understands the feeling of not being able to pinpoint exactly what is wrong. He wishes that he always had an answer as simple as a mirror lying at his feet. 

Caden tells his father that a boy at school wants to kill him, and it is not the same kid as before. As his mother enters the kitchen, Caden explains that it is not what the boy has done that worries him, but what he is planning on doing. He also worries that the boy might be targeting Caden’s parents. His father takes out the previous year’s school yearbook and asks Caden to show the boy to them. Caden believes that they are merely humoring him, and do not believe him. He decides that he can no longer tell them anything. 

Caden realizes that what he thought were rats on the ship are actually brains. Carlyle says they escape from peoples’ heads when they are asleep. The brains are unusually small for humans, and Carlyle’s job is to push them into the sea. Then Carlyle says the Captain finds other things to fill the sailors’ heads with once their brains are gone.

Caden visits Calliope as a storm approaches. She tells him that when she looks at the stars, she can see all potential futures simultaneously but does not know which one will come true. She says, “The stars are right. It’s everything else that’s wrong” (99). 

Max and Shelby no longer visit to work on the game, although Shelby continues to talk with Caden at school. She asks him what’s wrong, and says that he can talk to her about his problems. Caden gets angry and tells her that he is not on drugs. 

Caden remembers a kid from second grade. Whenever the kid got mad, he would bang his head against his desk, against a wall, or against whatever was nearby. Caden had enjoyed moving the kid’s pencil or nudging his desk, trying to get the head-banging response out of him.

One day, Caden saw the kid playing alone on the playground at recess, content. He realized that the kid’s behavior had left him friendless, but the kid had never known anything else, so it didn’t bother him. Today, Caden wishes he could tell him that he understands. 

Caden believes the other kids at school spread silent messages to each other, planning when they will do something terrible to him. After his first class, he leaves and runs across the street to a strip mall. He realizes that the terrible thing will happen at home, and if he doesn’t get there in time to warn his family, they may die. He begins begging strangers to let him use their cell phones and is chilled when they ignore him. 

Caden gets home and his panic subsides. He looks out his bedroom window. A voice in his head tells him that people in a passing car want to hurt him, and that his neighbor’s sprinklers are snakes. The voice tells him to go kill the snakes, but he resists and continues looking out the window. His mother enters the room and asks why he is still awake. It is midnight and Caden has been at the window for hours. She says that she and his father want him to see a therapist.