Freaky Fast Frankie Joe

Twelve-year-old Frankie Joe Huckaby lives at the Lone Star Trailer Park in Laredo, Texas, where his closest friends are his elderly neighbors: Mrs. Jones, a retired librarian; Mr. O'Hare, a retired mechanic who hunts for meteor fragments in the Chihuahua Desert; and Mr. Lopez, a house painter. When Frankie Joe's mother goes to jail, he must leave Laredo to live with a father he barely knows. His neighbors throw him a going-away party and give him mementos, including a copy of Kidnapped, a field guide, and a strip of custom paint samples.

His father, Franklin Joseph Huckaby, known as FJ, arrives in a van with Illinois plates. Tall and red-haired like Frankie Joe, FJ is a state grain inspector who has already obtained temporary legal guardianship. He mentions that birthday money he sent never resulted in a new bicycle. During the drive north, Frankie Joe learns at a Walmart parking lot in Oklahoma that FJ has a wife named Lizzie and four other sons: Matt, Mark, Luke, and Little Johnny. FJ admits he and Frankie Joe's mother were never married. Frankie Joe consoles himself that this arrangement is temporary, lasting only until his mother's release in about 10 months.

Clearview, Illinois, is a small town near the Wisconsin border with no fast-food restaurants or big-box stores. Lizzie greets Frankie Joe warmly but notes he is "way too thin." The three younger half brothers each announce what they excel at, while Matt, the oldest after Frankie Joe, watches him with silent hostility. When Frankie Joe cannot name what he is good at, Mark calls him a "freak," and the boys mock his salvaged bicycle. Matt whispers that Frankie Joe's mother probably spent the birthday money on drugs. Frankie Joe is given the attic room, isolated from the rest of the family.

School proves humiliating. Principal Arnt discovers Frankie Joe attended only 82 days the previous year and wants to place him in fourth grade despite his age. FJ negotiates fifth-grade placement and enrollment in The Great Escape, the school's after-school program run by Mrs. Bixby, Lizzie's best friend. Seated next to Matt, who is the top student, Frankie Joe struggles to read aloud, fails a geography test, and cannot answer basic questions. His one ally is Mandy, a short girl who becomes his first school friend. That evening, FJ makes Frankie Joe look up "responsibility" in the dictionary, write the definition on an index card, and tape it above his desk.

Exploring a nearby alley, Frankie Joe meets Miss Elsie Peachcott, an elderly cosmetics saleswoman who reveals that Frankie Joe was born in Clearview and that his mother, Martha Jane Elliott, grew up there too. Martha Jane's parents died in an accident, and she was raised by an irresponsible aunt who abandoned her. Martha Jane repeated the pattern, leaving at eighteen and never contacting anyone again.

Life grows harder. The half brothers maintain a shower pecking order that leaves Frankie Joe with cold water every morning. When Lizzie institutes a fair rotation, Matt retaliates by knotting Frankie Joe's shorts and dunking them in the toilet. Matt also publicly announces that Frankie Joe's mother is in jail for dealing drugs. Lizzie begins quizzing Frankie Joe on spelling, gives him his own dictionary, and arranges Saturday tutoring. Frankie Joe looks up "home" and fills in "Lone Star Trailer Park" for every definition, affirming that Clearview is not where he belongs. That night, he begins planning an escape back to Texas, listing supplies and identifying money as his biggest obstacle.

A turning point comes when FJ takes him on a Saturday farm visit to Mr. Puffin, a widowed dairy farmer who mentions missing pizza from town. Frankie Joe impulsively offers to deliver it by bike, and FJ agrees. He names his enterprise "Frankie Joe's Freaky Fast Delivery Service," and his first deliveries earn tips he hides in the attic as an escape fund. A letter from his mother raises his hopes; she mentions talking to a lawyer about an early hearing. His business expands as Miss Peachcott hires him to deliver cosmetics and other townspeople hire him for errands.

When the first Alberta clipper, a severe cold front from the Canadian plains, dumps heavy snow weeks earlier than expected, Frankie Joe pushes his escape date to late March. His fat-tired bike handles the icy roads, and the business thrives through winter. At Christmas, he wins a raffle held by the Quilt Circle, the local quilting group, and sends the handmade quilt to his mother in jail. He buys gifts for the family with his escape money. On Christmas morning, his mother calls, delighted by the quilt but immediately calculating its resale value and mentioning another "sure-fire deal," echoing the reckless pattern that led to her arrest.

Through winter, Frankie Joe's grades improve dramatically, from Ds and Fs to Bs and an A in Math. He takes charge of The Great Escape when the program grows chaotic, organizing fifth-graders to manage younger children. When Mandy pressures him to run for Ice Crystal Prince, the title awarded to an outstanding fifth-grader in the school's annual contest, he refuses rather than compete against Matt and casts his vote for Matt instead. Both Matt and Mandy win.

Then FJ delivers devastating news: He and Lizzie have filed for sole custody and plan to adopt Frankie Joe. Martha Jane knows about the papers. Frankie Joe writes urgently to his mother, begging her to stop it, and resolves more than ever to escape. Matt discovers the supplies hidden in the attic and promises to keep the secret on one condition: Frankie Joe must race him before departing.

Days before the planned escape, FJ tells Frankie Joe his letters have been returned stamped "Addressee No Longer an Inmate." Martha Jane is in town at a lawyer's office. Frankie Joe rushes there, believing she has come to stop the adoption. Instead, she reveals she got out early, raffled off the quilt to fund her trip, and is leaving with Ricky, the man whose deal got her arrested, for jobs in Reno. She signs the custody papers and tells Frankie Joe the trailer in Laredo has been repossessed. "There's nothing there for either of us to go back to," she says. Frankie Joe goes home and tears his escape plan to shreds.

He sinks into a deep depression, refusing food, school, and visitors for days. Matt quietly moves the escape supplies to the shed to protect Frankie Joe from FJ finding them. Nothing breaks through until the postmaster delivers a registered package from the Lone Star Trailer Park containing a meteor fragment, the space rock Mr. O'Hare had searched for in the desert for years. A note from his Laredo friends explains they waited for him to return but learned he would not be coming back. They urge him to visit. Frankie Joe cries, not over his failed plan, but because his mother sold the quilt, his remembrance of home. The release marks a turning point. He begins eating again and gradually resumes his life in Clearview.

By early April, Frankie Joe has embraced his new family, calling FJ "Dad" and saving his delivery earnings for a family vacation to Texas where he plans to visit his Laredo friends. Matt rides out to meet him and steers him past the Clearview town sign, which now lists "Frankie Joe's Freaky Fast Delivery Service" among the official businesses in fresh red paint. Matt challenges him to race home, and Frankie Joe takes off after him, flying past the newly planted fields. In his imagination, he soars above the patchwork landscape, knowing he can always follow the road map of colors back home.