49 pages 1 hour read

Sharon M. Draper

Copper Sun

Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2006

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Chapters 36-39 Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part Eight: Polly - Part Eleven: Amari

Chapter 36 Summary: Should We Trust Him?

The three slaves run frantically and “after what seemed like miles…[stop] by a shallow river to rest” (235). They help themselves to the food in Clay’s bag, and Tidbit, seeing the bread that his mother had made, cries for her.

“They did not stop for two days, moving even during the day” (237). There is no sign of Clay, but when they are about to cross a shallow river, they see a boy their age on the other side. He calls to Polly, asking who she is, and Amari and Tidbit try to hide. Polly tries to play coy, and the boy seems kind. He notices that she’s “dirty…hungry, and [that she looks] lost” (238). He tells her they aren’t far from Savannah, Georgia and asks her where the others are; he admits he saw the “slave girl. The little boy. The dog” (239). He knows that she is an indentured servant and that Amari and Tidbit are runaways. He tells them that his father would turn them in for the reward money but that he thinks “slavery is stupid” and so is willing to help. They follow him.

He hides them in a barn and then brings them a bit of food: bread, cheese, dried meat and apples.