51 pages • 1-hour read
And Then, Boom!
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Pages 217-288Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Content Warning: This section of the guide contains descriptions of extreme poverty, starvation, injury, and child abandonment.
Note: These pages contain the poems “On the Tip of My Tongue,” “My Favorite Day,” “Not Quite Right,” “Howling Winds,” “Trapped,” “A Big Pile of Poo,” “It’s Just Beginning,” “Lighting Strikes,” “And Then,” “Here It Comes,” “The Tornado,” “Holding On,” “Superman,” “Survived the Storm,” “After A Storm,” “Hurt,” “Take Care of Yourself,” “My Story,” “My Story,” “Bracing,” “All Kinds of Lucky,” “Barely Recognizable,” “Hunger Three-Finger Rundown,” “Clean Start,” “A Lot of Ifs,” “The Suitcase,” “Everybody Knows Now,” “Slushy Manor,” “A Little Overwhelming,” “Phoenix and Olivia,” “The Davisons,” “A Minute to Get Used to All This,” “Surrounded By Food,” “Learn From Each Other,” “The Fifth Chair,” “Taken Care Of,” “Before They Get So Bad,” “My Room,” “Rebuilding,” “My Boy,” “Little Free Pantries,” “Do What You Can,” “The View From Here,” and “Even Superheroes Need Help.”
Pages 217-288 Summary
Uncle Frankie comes back and asks Joey about his mom. Joey almost admits that she left but tells another lie instead, insisting that he is fine. Uncle Frankie invites him over for dinner.
It’s Joey’s favorite day—the sunshine festival. Everything from hot dogs to concerts in the park to swimming at the pool is free. At night, Joey watches the fireworks and admits that today is also his 12th birthday. He imagines that the festivities are for him.
One day, Joey feels an ache in his gut. The clouds darken and the sky turns green, indicating a storm. The dogs behave erratically as the storm begins and quickly intensifies. Joey tries to comfort the dogs, and tornado sirens begin to sound. He remembers Nick saying that the mobile home is not safe in a storm. He and the dogs have to find shelter.
Joey packs his backpack and grabs the folder with all his important documents. The wind blows so hard that he can’t open the front door; he is trapped in the house. He grabs the baseball bat and smashes the window, then puts the pups in his backpack and holds Lucky as he jumps out. He lands on the swing, which collapses and cuts his legs. The dogs bolt.
The sky grows dark. Hail pelts Joey in the head, and his ankle throbs. Suddenly, it is dead calm, but he knows the storm is not over. The dogs paddle through a huge puddle. Lightning strikes a tree, and a limb smashes into the puddle. Joey dives in to save the dogs. He finds one pup, Duck, pinned beneath the branch. He manages to roll it off her and save her.
Joey manages to stuff all three dogs into his backpack and starts hobbling toward the shelter. He sees a funnel cloud touching down and realizes that a tornado is headed straight for them. He realizes that they cannot outrun the tornado, so he wraps a rope around a huge oak tree and ties himself to it.
Debris flies around, and the sound is deafening. The tornado lifts a mobile home and spins it around. A truck flies through the sky and lands standing straight up. Joey’s mind drifts back to the Gingerbread House, and he imagines that the tornado is his mom, breaking everything in sight. He tries to shield the dogs like his grandmother used to shield him. He holds on tight to the tree, but the rope snaps, and as Joey goes flying, the tornado flips his home and flattens it.
The tornado finally lets go, and Joey lands in a pile of debris. The dogs spill out of the backpack and start licking him. They have all survived the storm. The other residents of the mobile home emerge from the shelter. Despite all the carnage, some corners remain untouched. Joey notes that storms, like stormy people, can be impossible to understand.
Uncle Frankie rushes over to Joey and starts crying. Joey tells him that he hurts all over. Fire trucks pull up. The paramedics examine Joey, who will need to go to the hospital. He doesn’t want to let go of the dogs, but Uncle Frankie reminds him that if he is hurt, he can’t take care of the dogs either. Uncle Frankie promises to take care of them and bring them to the vet.
A photographer from the newspaper saw Joey clinging to the oak tree, then flying like Superman. He asks Joey lots of questions while Joey is wheeled to the ambulance. Joey knows what will happen at the hospital. When the doctor asks where his parents are, Joey finally admits that his mom abandoned him 29 days ago. The doctors call Child Protective Services. Joey has a sprained ankle, welts from the hail, and cuts from glass and flying debris. The doctor also removes a nail from Joey’s arm. Joey asks to keep the nail because his friends will think it is cool.
The doctor tells Joey that he is lucky to have survived such a powerful tornado. Doctors notice that Joey is malnourished and that his bad tooth has caused an infection in his jaw. Joey worries about his future in foster care. He sees his emaciated reflection and barely recognizes himself.
Joey learns that his hunger makes him tired and compromises his immune system. He will have to slowly work up to eating more food again while his stomach heals. The nurse helps Joey to shower. His body hurts, but he is clean for the first time in a while.
Joey meets with his social worker, Bashirah. She places him with a family that will allow him to bring his dogs. He will also be able to attend the same school. She asks Joey to tell her if anything is wrong in the future.
Hakeem visits Joey in the hospital and brings him a suitcase so that Joey can avoid the trash bags Nick warned him about. Hakeem found Grandmum’s teacup near the wreckage and packed it up for Joey. In the bottom of the suitcase, Joey finds Grandmum’s quilt. It still smells like her.
Joey turns on the television and sees the footage of him flying through the air. The anchor also announces that Mom is missing and shows her mugshot from her arrest. Now everyone knows that she is gone. Joey’s friends cheer him up, and he feels good to know that their relationship won’t change.
Bashirah drives Joey and the dogs out into the country to the Davison family’s two-story blue house. Joey is overwhelmed by the people and pets at his new foster home. He meets 9-year-old Phoenix, 4-year-old Olivia, and a goat named Headcheese. Olivia can’t wait to go to kindergarten and tell everyone that her new brother was on TV. The Davison parents introduce themselves as Iris and Mike. Bashirah pulls out one last surprise: Grandmum’s rose bush, which Uncle Frankie salvaged from the yard. The Davisons promise to help take care of the plant. Bashirah leaves, and Joey is surprised to find that he is comfortable in his new home.
Olivia wants to play with the puppies, but Mike encourages her to give Joey some space to get used to this new environment. The Davisons explain that they have a homestead where they grow food and raise animals. Joey is delighted by the idea of being surrounded by food.
Iris brings Joey fresh baked cookies. Joey calls them “biscuits” and tells Olivia and Phoenix about Grandmum. Joey can’t help but gobble the cookies down. He shares a little bit of peanut butter cookie with the dogs and promises to keep them close. Joey doodles the inviting home, the full pantry, and the table with five chairs.
Joey hears the farm animals in the morning, and the breakfast table is full of food. Phoenix notices how much food Joey eats and remembers being the same way. Phoenix promises Joey that he will learn to trust that there will always be enough. Iris notices Joey wincing and informs him that they made an appointment with the dentist to fix his tooth.
The dentist cleans all of Joey’s teeth and fills his cavity. For the first time in a while, his tooth doesn’t hurt. He will have to learn how to address problems before they become a crisis. Joey has settled into his new room with his teacup and quilt prominently displayed. He and the dogs snuggle and sleep comfortably.
Joey meets with a court-ordered therapist and is surprised to realize how much anger he has been suppressing. The therapist encourages him to believe that healing is possible. Mike hangs up a basketball hoop for Joey, and they play for the first time. Mike encourages Joey to try out for a team this fall. He uses the phrase “my boy,” and Joey is moved to tears.
Joey reflects on all the people who have helped him and decides that he wants to give back to the community. He designs a Little Free Pantry, and Mike teaches him carpentry skills to build a couple different copies of the pantry. He paints the words “in memory of Grandmum” (282) on the pantry doors. Mike and Uncle Frankie tell their friends about the pantries, and they soon fill up with donations. Joey feels hopeful.
Joey goes to the county fair with Nick and Hakeem. On top of the Ferris wheel, Hakeem asks Joey how he is doing. Joey acknowledges that his mom hasn’t been found and that he is coming to terms with the fact that she does not want him. Joey can honestly say that he feels safe. He acknowledges that even the strongest superheroes need help to face the toughest challenges.
Pages 217-288 Analysis
In this section, the tornado symbolizes the plot’s peak moment of external and internal crisis. By this point, Joey is alone and hungry, and he is struggling to care for himself even as he clutches at the fading hope that his mother will return and that his life might stabilize. When he ties himself to the oak tree to survive the storm, this desperate act represents more than physical survival. It also reflects his determination to cling to an identity built on endurance, secrecy, and self-reliance. In his mind, he equates the oak tree to his own last name and sees it, like himself, as something that continues “growing. Adapting. Surviving” (103) despite the turmoil around it. Thus, the tree therefore represents Joey’s determination to weather the storms of his life alone, without asking for help. However, the utter chaos of the tornado soon breaks this illusion. As the rope snaps and Joey is lifted into the sky, he truly loses control, and it is only through sheer good fortune that he and the dogs survive. Later, he reframes his wild flight as a superhero moment, but he does not maintain any illusions about invulnerability. Instead, he sees himself as having the strength and resilience required to survive and to begin accepting the help he needs to thrive.
In this context, the aftermath of the tornado marks a major thematic shift. Once he is hospitalized, Joey can no longer hide his circumstances. His hunger, wounds, and abandonment are now visible to others, and this visibility initiates a transformation. Notably, his fears about disastrous foster homes and worsened circumstances do not come to pass once people know the truth about his life. Instead, his support system grows, and as he finally relinquishes his shame, his community works on Addressing the Social Stigma of Poverty and helps him to find a better, safer place to live. His improved circumstances stand as a quiet refutation of the misguided belief that needing help is a form of failure.
Joey’s placement in foster care introduces a newer, healthier environment that contrasts sharply with the precarious setting of the trailer park. The rural homestead where he is placed offers both structure and abundance. Unlike his former life, the farm is a space of shared responsibility and self-sufficiency where Joey can participate in communal living while also rebuilding a sense of agency. Though the environment is safe and nurturing, Joey’s reaction to it—especially to food—shows how deeply the instability of his previous life has marked him. Phoenix, another foster child, recognizes these responses and helps Joey to see them as normal, not shameful. This shared experience removes the sense of isolation that Joey has carried for much of the novel.
Without the daily struggle to find food and maintain secrecy, Joey reconnects with his empathetic, altruistic personality. His decision to create and install a Little Free Pantry “in memory of Grandmum” (282) signals his emerging identity as someone who can give back to the community now that he is no longer in survival mode himself. His carpentry work with Mike also echoes earlier themes of self-reliance, which are now reframed in the context of interdependence and mentorship. By the conclusion of the novel, Joey undergoes a deep internal shift and learns to ask for help and be more open with others. The loss and trauma that he experienced do not disappear, but they are integrated into a new understanding of himself and his place in the world. Rather than trying to carry everything alone, he begins to recognize the strength in community, the value of vulnerability, and the possibility of healing now that his basic needs are met.
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