The Running Dream

Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2011

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.

Download PDF

Part 3, Chapters 4-6Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 3, Chapter 4 Summary

As hard as she tries to keep up with her schoolwork, Jessica feels overwhelmed. Her biggest concern is with math, and she reaches out to Fiona for help. But Fiona is unusually busy and doesn’t have time to meet up with Jessica to tutor her. Feeling alone and abandoned without Fiona, Jessica remembers Rosa’s invitation to have lunch in Room 402. She heads there and is welcomed in by Rosa, who offers to help Jessica with the math homework.

With Rosa’s patient, diligent assistance, Jessica figures out the math problems. Rosa offers to help anytime, and even says she can come over to Jessica’s house. In particular, she would like to meet Sherlock. Confused, Jessica asks Rosa how she knew about her dog. Rosa explains that she would see Jessica and Sherlock run past her house. It turns out the girls live near each other, making a visit easier to imagine.

Part 3, Chapter 5 Summary

That evening, Jessica has her running dream again. This time, when she wakes up crying, she remembers something different about the dream. There was a mermaid fountain, the one in front of Rosa’s house, and Rosa was on her porch waving as Jessica ran past. But in the dream, Jessica sees Rosa as “a ghost on the porch, a cloudy vapor to the right” (136). She is curious as to why Rosa has appeared in her dream.

Sherlock nudges Jessica and she promises to take him outside to play fetch after school. Then she thinks that when she gets her leg, she can walk Sherlock over to visit Rosa. This thought makes her feel better about the dream.

Part 3, Chapter 6 Summary

Jessica senses that there is something different about Fiona, but no matter how often she asks, Fiona won’t say anything more than “Kyro has something amazing to show you!” (138). When the girls go to see the coach, he opens his laptop and has Jessica sit in his seat to watch a YouTube video. The video features a race with a runner who has specially designed running prostheses. Kyro tells her that the runner is Oscar Pistorius, a 400-meter runner and double leg amputee.

Watching in amazement, Jessica sees the runner not only walk but also place himself into the starting blocks. The race starts, and she notices that not only can the runner run, but he can also run fast. Pistorius finishes second in the race in a time of forty-six nine, stunning Jessica. Coach Kyro then shows Jessica two other videos, one featuring a woman missing a leg who runs marathons, and another about a teenager who still runs for her school’s team.

Jessica isn’t sure what to think. She’s been intent on hiding her amputation, but these people in the videos “look like cyborgs” (141) and there was no hiding their prosthesis. At first, she’s unsure if she wants to look like that; however, when her coach asks her if she wants a running prosthesis, she says yes. Bluntly, he tells her that this type of prosthesis is costly, so the team has formed the Help Jessica Run campaign to raise money for a new leg. The goal is to have it in time for Jessica’s senior year on the team. Jessica is stunned and afraid to believe that she might someday be able to run again.

Part 3, Chapters 4-6 Analysis

When Fiona is too busy to help tutor Jessica in math, she meets Rosa for lunch. Rosa happily teaches Jessica how to solve the math problems that Ms. Rucker has been going over in class. She also tells Jessica that they should meet up at one of their houses after school sometime, so Rosa can meet Sherlock. She lives nearby and used to see Jessica and the dog run by her home every day.

Jessica has another running dream, but this time she is running past Rosa’s house. She doesn’t clearly see Rosa waving to her from the porch, but she knows Rosa is there. Jessica wakes up crying again but thinks that when she gets her new leg, she will be able to walk Sherlock over to Rosa’s house. The fact that Rosa is presented as spectral—there but not fully so—can be seen as symbol for Jessica starting to come to terms with her own disability, but not fully understanding or possessing that identity yet.

Coach Kyro shows Jessica a series of videos featuring runners who have had a leg amputated and replaced by a running prosthesis. He informs Jessica that the team is going to raise the money needed to buy her this type of prosthetic leg, so she can run during her senior year. Jessica now knows she may be able to run again, and this transcends her initial dislike of the leg’s aesthetic.