CHAPTER ELEVEN

Summary

This chapter opens with a visit to Terence at the Cook County Jail. It is a 54-acre complex that is overcrowded, and so it releases 25,000 prisoners a year, because it doesn't have room for them. The prisoners are housed in various divisions based on the amount of their bonds. Terence is assigned to the low-to-medium bond division. They are separated from him by glass in which is inserted a circular metal grate through which they must speak. There had once been telephones, but these had been broken and then removed by temperamental inmates. As a result, they have to talk through the grate and put their ears against it to hear. With all the other visitors talking, too, carrying on a......

Notes

This chapter reinforces the idea that the younger children are beginning to learn the truth about the justice system: frequently, poor people of color are imprisoned for crimes they didn't commit and don't have the resources to help themselves. It beats....

CHAPTER TWELVE

Summary

It is the day of Pharoah's spelling bee. Rickey, who could have cheered him on, is spending the period in the principal's office, because he is known to have disrupted school proceedings before. Pharoah has prepared diligently for the competition. He wants badly to win, but he knows he must control his stammer before that can happen. So he establishes a routine for himself. He first sounds out the........

Notes

This chapter is especially poignant, because Pharoah's stutter is the result of living daily with violence and poverty. It does him in for this competition, but any other child of the inner city may have fallen even deeper into an attitude of.......

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