68 pages • 2 hours read
John David AndersonPosted
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 2018A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Chapters 15-16Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 15 Summary: “The Bet”
On Wednesday, Wolf doesn’t attend school, claiming he doesn’t feel well. While sticky notes are no longer being physically posted, their words are being used in disagreements and fights. In English, Eric passes Deedee a note asking if Rose visited him yesterday. Before Deedee can answer, Mr. Sword addresses the class, forcing Deedee to hide the note. While Mr. Sword doesn’t send students to the office for using sticky notes, he still doesn’t allow them in class. If he catches someone, he simply tosses their note in the trash without reading it, allegedly to protect his students from punishment. Eric suspects he’s “trying to protect us from more than that” (257).
During lunch, Eric and Deedee go to the bathroom, and their bullies from English class corner them. One tries to dunk Deedee’s head in the toilet, but Rose enters the bathroom before he can. She makes a bet: She and one of the bullies will run the Gauntlet, and whoever makes it the farthest wins. If she wins, the bully has to wear a sticky note the next day that says whatever she wants. If she loses, the bully can dunk her, Eric, and Deedee. The bully agrees. Later, Eric expresses concern, saying Rose won’t make it through the entire Gauntlet because it’s impossible. Rose says she doesn’t have to—she just has to “make it farther than he does” (272).
Chapter 16 Summary: “The Run”
After school, Rose, Eric, and Deedee meet at Eric’s house so Rose can practice for the Gauntlet as she needs his bike. During practice, Deedee recites a list of the Gauntlet’s worst stories, concluding with a child who died. Eric corrects him—the child didn’t die from the Gauntlet. Deedee says he’s just repeating what he heard, and it dawns on Eric that this is what got them into this mess in the first place: “people telling other people what they heard” (280).
Wolf is at the hill waiting for them. He grabs Eric’s bike and starts walking away, arguing that what happened isn’t worth Rose running the Gauntlet and possibly getting hurt. She disagrees, and the two stare each other down. Finally, Wolf relents, understanding this is something Rose feels she must do. The group climbs the hill, and the race begins.
Eric watches the entire run, unable to look away. Rose hits a few obstacles and even goes airborne but manages to stay on the bike. Toward the bottom of the hill, the bully gets knocked off his bike, crashing into the trees. Rose makes it to the bottom, and all the children cheering for the bully go silent. Eric cheers loud enough that he can’t hear anything else because “Rose Holland had conquered the Gauntlet” (296).
Chapters 15-16 Analysis
In Chapter 15, Eric speculates that Mr. Sword is trying to save his students from something other than trouble with the principal. Though it’s never discussed, Mr. Sword likely wants to protect them from the damage words can do because Words Can’t Be Taken Back. He understands that banning sticky notes won’t change anything (as banning cell phones changed nothing), a fact that’s bolstered by the cruel things being said in BMS’s halls. Without technology or paper to air grievances, people say things out loud; while Anonymity Gives People Power, a lack of it won’t stop them from making their messages heard.
The confrontations in this section seem like they would be the climactic action and resolution to the story, but they end up being yet another catalyst. While two different bullies are responsible for Deedee’s near-dunking and the later message on Wolf’s locker (i.e., “TOTAL ROMAN”), the incidents are directly related. The bully who defaces Wolf’s locker likely does so to get back at Rose for humiliating his friend in the Gauntlet. Deedee is what bullies deem an easy target—physically small and unlikely to fight back. Since bullying is often used to mask one’s own insecurities, bullies tend to choose their victims based on who will allow them to feel most powerful. Deedee fits this description, as does Wolf. The incident in the bathroom is an escalation of Chapter 5’s “nudge,” showing how failing to address bullying only causes it to grow.
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By John David Anderson
