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Summary
Chapters 5–8
Chapter 5: Slingshot Maneuvers
A couple weeks after the call with Mamou and Babou, Darius tells his best friend, a Persian girl named Javaneh Esfahani, that he is going to Iran the following day. Darius describes the Persian traditions of Chaharshanbeh Suri (the Tuesday night before Nowruz), which his family usually celebrates at a local park. One traditional event is fire jumping, which Stephen is very good at. He once tried to carry Darius as he jumped, but Darius cried and screamed, causing the family to leave. Now, his dad carries Laleh as he jumps the fire, and she likes it. Darius believes this is another reason his dad is disappointed in him. After lunch, Darius goes to the nurse's office to take his meds and recalls how difficult it was to find the right medication for his depression. He also wonders why he knows nothing about his dad’s diagnosis or his search for the right medication. He only knows that his dad found the right medication in college. Darius imagines it was a much easier process for his dad than it has been for him.
Chapter 6: A Non-Passive Failure
Halfway down the stairs on his way to gym class, Darius hears Chip, one of his classmates who came to Tea Haven, calling him. Chip grabs Darius’s backpack to stop him. When Darius pulls away, his bookbag rips apart and spills its contents. Chip tells Darius that the bike mishap was just a joke and that the tires were in the bushes. He seems surprised that Darius didn’t find them. During gym, Darius laments having to play sports. He plays volleyball poorly, eventually hitting another student in the head. Trent calls Darius a terrorist, and though Darius pretends it doesn’t bother him, it does.
Chapter 7: Intermix Ratio
Stephen picks up Darius at school and asks what happened to his bookbag. Darius, referencing Star Trek, calls it a “structural integrity field collapse,” making Stephen laugh. Darius thinks his father is happy about the ruined bag because he’s been telling Darius to get a new one for a while. Darius then admits that a bully ripped the bag, but Stephen suggests the incident was just a misunderstanding.
Darius feels his dad doesn’t understand because he’s a big, strong white guy who never gets bullied. Darius feels awkward in the car with his dad because they don’t spend much time together. His dad interrupts these thoughts to tell him he needs to get a haircut. They argue and Stephen says that Darius wouldn't get picked on so much if only—but he doesn't finish the sentence. At home, Darius makes Laleh tea, and they drink it together. Darius remembers telling his boss Mr. Apatan about going to Iran, and Mr. Aptan remarks that he will be “going home” even though Darius has never been there.
As the family eats pizza for dinner, the topic of the backpack comes up, prompting Shirin to offer Darius one of Stephen’s bags. Darius regrets having to borrow anything from his dad. That night, they skip watching Star Trek so they can pack. On another video call to her parents, Shirin refers to Darius as Darioush, the Persian pronunciation of his name, a version Darius hides from everyone so they won't make fun of him. Darius has an awkward exchange with his grandparents and says he will see them soon.
Chapter 8: Olympus Mons
Darius wakes at 3 a.m. the day of the trip to find a huge pimple on his forehead. When he pops it, it leaves a noticeable mark. The messenger bag Darius borrows from his father bears the name of his dad’s architectural firm, Kellner & Newton, emblazoned on the side. Irritated that Darius is still packing, Stephen reminds him to pack his medications and passport, which annoys Darius. Darius knows they’re already packed, as he’s double-checked several times. Darius also packs a copy of The Lord of the Rings and some very high-quality tea from Rose City Teas as a gift for Mamou.
Inside the airport, Darius gives Laleh a piggyback ride, and she falls asleep on him. Stephen thanks Darius for watching Laleh. Darius has to wake Laleh to go through security. As he passes through the scanners, Darius imagines he's on Star Trek. When Darius is randomly selected for a security check, the guard says he didn't think “your people did the dot thing.” Confused, Darius asks what he means, and the guard points to his forehead. As the realization dawns on him, a mortified Darius admits it’s a pimple, and the guard laughs heartily.
Analysis
The bullying he faces at school, as well as his insecurity about being unable to speak Farsi, establish Darius’s confusion about his feelings toward his Persian identity. Darius pretends that Trent calling him a “terrorist” doesn’t bother him because that’s how his mother handles such insults, but he also subtly hints that these kinds of jokes really do hurt both him and his mother. Denying his emotions regarding the bullying suggests that Darius is also denying himself acceptance of aspects of his heritage. The perception of Iran as a dangerous place is so ubiquitous that even Darius’s only friend, Javaneh’s, family is afraid to visit. Javaneh is basically forced to be Darius’s friend by dint of being ignored by everyone else. Despite their main connection being their Persian culture, Darius values Javaneh for her bravery in wearing a headscarf, and he tells her about his upcoming trip. Javaneh represents a connection to Persian identity that Darius made on his own in America, separate from his family. Darius doesn't understand why his boss Mr. Apatan calls the trip “going home” even though Darius has never been there. At this point in Darius’s life, the beauty of his culture, like the Persian pronunciation of his name, Darioush, is something he hides rather than celebrates.
One thing Darius doesn’t understand before the trip is that many of his deeply held beliefs are based on assumptions rather than facts. Darius doesn’t talk to his dad openly about either of their depression diagnoses, yet he instinctively believes it must have been easier for his dad, who seems to Darius to handle everything so easily. Darius’s tendency to fill in missing information with negative assumptions is largely a result of Stephen’s inability to talk honestly to Darius about his experiences with depression. Instead, Stephen invalidates Darius’s worries by dismissing them as wrong or misguided, which Darius interprets as blame. Darius remembers the Star Wars game he and Stephen used to play in the kitchen and believes he is at fault that they no longer play it together because he hurt his fingers in the door. In reality, it more likely ended because Stephen was angry at himself for letting Darius get hurt. Darius misreads his dad’s repeated attempts to protect him as critiques. Darius’s tendency to misread others’ feelings about him surfaces again and again throughout the novel. Much of what Darius’s brain tells him about how others feel about him is inaccurate.
Darius’s transfer from his old backpack to a Kellner & Newton messenger bag reflects the changing relationship between Stephen and Darius. Like hanging out with his father, the bag with his dad’s business name emblazoned across the front is uncomfortable and hard to balance at first. Darius finds the bag as uncomfortable as his feelings about the way Stephen treats him. Darius has a tough time squeezing all of his things into the bag when he uses it as carry-on luggage, just as he has difficulty getting his father to accept his whole identity. Having already established his love of The Lord of the Rings, Darius's choice to include a copy of this 500-page tome in his carry-on while he treks across the globe shows a high level of love and respect for the book. It also suggests the book’s importance to Darius and Stephen’s own story. From allusions like Smaug the coffeemaker to the premise of a journey made by a pure heart through another world, the influence of The Lord of the Rings looms large over this entire novel.
