Paper Towns

The three boys return to Margo’s house, where Ruthie lets them in again. Though they remove Margo’s door, after taking some time to figure out how to actually separate the door from the jambs, they find nothing, and head to Ben’s house, disappointed. As they play video games, Ben insists that Margo is waiting for Quentin in New York. He then lays out a grand idea about Margo in which, having faked her argument with Lacey, Lacey is actually acting as Margo’s mole. Then, once Quentin gets on the plane to go find Margo, Lacey will alert her, and she will be standing there waiting for Quentin at the airport when he gets off of the plane. While Quentin and Radar think the idea is absurd, but Quentin finds it compelling. He reasons, however, that he cannot miss school for that long, let alone charge a plane ticket to his parents’ credit card.

Quentin then recalls one of his mother’s patients, a nine-year-old boy who became obsessed with drawing circles on every surface after the death of his father. Quentin’s mother told him that the boy used this behavior as a way of coping with his loss, but that it eventually became destructive. Quentin now understands the kid. He has always found comfort in routine and boredom. It is a way of coping for him. Quentin leaves Ben’s house, but continues to think about Margo and New York, especially his refusal to go to New York to find her.

It has been six days since Margo’s disappearance. Quentin tells his parents about the clues Margo left, and his father says that she will probably be home soon. However, his mother urges caution as she does not want to give Quentin false hope. Later, Quentin hears his parents speaking in worried tones about Margo. Ben calls Quentin later on, as he is preparing to go out shopping for prom with Lacey. Quentin makes fun of him, and Ben admits that he is nervous. He really likes Lacey, and he does not want to screw things up in any way. Quentin ends the conversation, thinking again of his fantasy own prom scenario where Margo returns just in time and the two of them go to prom just to see everyone’s reaction. He jokes that, at least with his prom dream, he doesn’t talk about it out loud, like Ben.

As he thinks about Ben, Quentin recalls the attempt to remove the doors in Margo’s room. He is suddenly struck by another thought: the lines did not refer to Margo’s door, but his. Removing his bedroom door, he finds a piece of paper with an address written on it in Margo’s handwriting. He searches for the address online and finds that it is quite a distance away. He calls Ben to tell him that he plans on driving there that very night. Ben refuses to let him go to a strange address at night by himself. Quentin eventually relents and agrees to wait until morning. He will skip school; he’s tired of having perfect attendance anyway. Ben tells him that he will also be ill the next day so he can accompany him. When Quentin calls Radar, Radar also says that he will not be feeling well the next day either and will go with Quentin and Ben to the address.

Quentin fakes illness by forcing himself to vomit. When his mother comes to wake him up for school, he tells her he feels sick and will stay home to rest. She initially wants to stay home to look after him, but he convinces her that he just ate something bad, which is partly true as he drank orange juice and a granola bar the night before and then forced himself to vomit. His mother finally leaves and soon after her departure, Ben and Radar arrive. The trio head off to the Bartlesville address, feeling excited at the prospect of skipping school and heading out of town with the windows down and music blasting.

As they reach the outskirts of Orlando, Quentin notes the change in the landscape as everything becomes dry and desolate. This is the Florida that tourists imagine. Further on, Quentin notices a patch of undeveloped land with a sign saying “Grovepoint Acres.” He remembers his mother talking about abandoned subdivisions, of which he assumes this is one. She called them “pseudovisions.” Radar announces that they will soon reach their destination. The barren landscape dampens Quentin’s excitement about the trip.

Reaching the address, Quentin is shocked to find that the building is an abandoned strip mall. The windows are boarded up, and the place is badly damaged. As Quentin says, the place was not somewhere one would “go to live. It was a place you go to die” (139). As soon as he steps out of the car, a foul smell hits him. He is genuinely afraid of the smell, terrified of what he might find inside of the building. He thinks back to Margo saying that she did not want kids to find her body, like they had found Robert Joyner’s, and realizes that not wanting kids to find your dead body and not wanting to die are two very different things. He is afraid that Margo really did want to die and that the smell might be hers. Though Radar calls out to Margo, no one answers, and Quentin is almost overcome by the intensity of his fear.

Ben speaks up and says they should leave right away and come back with the police. However, Radar says that they cannot leave until they get inside and discover what Margo wanted Quentin to find. Quentin looks at his friends and feels some of his fear leave him; their presence makes the moment bearable. He realizes that, regardless of what he might find, he must go into the building, even though he no longer knows who Margo is or was.