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Monday, November 27–Thursday, November 30

Summary: Monday, November 27

Today is the day Luis warned that he and Antoine planned to come to the school to get back at Erik. Paul’s mother, thinking he’s ill from when he fainted, makes him stay home. Paul waits at home thinking about what’s going to happen with Erik. When Erik comes home unscathed, Paul knows something’s wrong. He wonders if Luis and Antoine changed their minds and thinks that maybe the attack might happen at the Senior Awards Ceremony the following Friday night. At the ceremony, a laurel tree will be planted in memory of Mike Costello.

Kerri calls Paul. She says she realizes he’d never make the first move, so she asks him if he’d be her date to the ceremony. Paul accepts. Mrs. Fisher needs the phone to make calls to invite neighbors to another HOA meeting. Paul snoops into Erik’s college file on his father’s computer. He notices that some schools have been crossed off the list. Paul listens in to the HOA meeting later that night as the attendees discuss how the mosquito issue has been solved by the recent drop in temperature and they’ll no longer have to call Wayne to spray the neighborhood. They also note that the cold temps mean the end of storm season. They look to Mr. Donnelly to remove his unsightly lightning rods. They also discuss another issue: a recent string of robberies from the homes that are being fumigated.

The last issue discussed is the recent missing koi in the pond at the center of the community. The expensive koi were purchased and brought in as an attraction. No one can figure out who is taking the koi, and they come up with wild theories. Paul interrupts, annoyed. He says the ospreys have been taking the koi. When some attendees ask him if he’s ever actually seen an osprey take the koi, Paul explains that he sees the birds carrying orange fish in the sky. The final agenda item is about surveying the land the entire community is developed on. People worry that their homes stand on problematic ground, just like the sinkhole. Everyone looks to Mr. Fisher, who appears frazzled.

Summary: Tuesday, November 28

Paul finds out at school the next day that Luis is dead. Henry D. tells him that his father found his body in the field and that he had been dead for hours of an aneurysm. People speculate that a branch fell on him while he worked to protect the trees from the freeze. Paul immediately feels ill and calls his mother to take him home. Paul’s mother actually believes he’s sick, and Paul cannot believe how easy it is to fool his mother or how little she notices. Paul goes online to “Ask-a-Nurse” to ask a nurse about how an aneurysm can kill someone, suspecting that it wasn’t a branch but the blow from Arthur that killed Luis. When she answers his questions, he realizes the truth. Paul thinks about how many people Luis helped and how many people will be at his funeral, and he grows even more despondent.

Summary: Wednesday, November 29

Theresa calls Paul to tell him he shouldn’t come to Luis’s funeral. She’s worried that her brothers will harm him. Paul realizes that they know, that Luis told them about what happened with Erik. He realizes that this kind of communication in other families is normal. Paul goes out to sit by the koi pond. A five-year-old boy on a bicycle rides up to him. He points to the pond and tells him there’s an alligator in it that eats kids. Paul realizes that the boy’s parents told him that story to keep him away from the pond. Paul tells the boy that his parents lied to him “to keep him scared.” The boy responds by declaring that his parents never lie to him. Paul, overwhelmed, lets loose on the boy. He rattles off a list of common tall tales parents tell kids to keep them safe, and the boy listens, confused. Paul ends his rant by asking him if he’s ever heard of the kid “who stared at a solar eclipse” too long. The boy pedals away, scared.

Summary: Thursday, November 30

It’s the day of Luis’s funeral. Paul puts on the same suit he wore to Mike Costello’s funeral. He goes out onto his patio and looks across his backyard. He begins pulling up the sod, revealing the white sand underneath. He thinks about how he lives on the beds of dead tangerine trees and this sand. He thinks about how Luis will soon become a part of the earth. He cries and then thinks about how Luis has become a part of him too through his tears and the white sand beneath his feet. Paul goes back inside, tears off his suit, and puts it in the garbage.

Analysis: Monday, November 27–Thursday, November 30

As Paul’s memories continue to become unearthed, so too does the world around him. At the community meeting, Paul listens as the attendees talk about the recent issues, which include a string of robberies, missing koi from the pond, the termites, the mosquitoes, and Mr. Donnelly’s lightning rods. They believe that several of their problems will be resolved with the recent frost, only showing how complacent they are with easy truths about the realities of their unsolvable situation. The mosquitoes will return again, as will the muck fires, the lightning, and everything else. The Lake Windsor Downs community is not living in congruence with the natural world, and so their assumptions are limited and self-serving.

It is Paul who steps in to solve their mystery of the missing koi. While they come up with a theory about an “outsider” stealing the fish, he tells them it’s something that’s been living under their nose the whole time—the ospreys. The community of Lake Windsor is unable and unwilling to see what’s happening around them, including Erik’s mother, who will later find out it’s her own son Erik who commits the robberies. She is “blind” to the realities around her, while Paul, though literally blind, can see life’s truths more clearly. Furthermore, Paul notes how easy it is to lie to his mother about being ill. She’s satisfied with his ruse, barely noticing whether Paul is actually sick.

Luis’s death directs Paul’s consciousness squarely on the truth. Will he tell the truth about what he saw the day Arthur hit Luis with a blackjack on Erik’s behalf? And does he have the strength to face his brother Erik? Paul’s parents have given him a life based on denial and suppression, but he has now been exposed to another way of living, a more honest one, through his experiences in Tangerine Middle School and on the Cruz family farm.

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