Melinda Sordino begins freshman year at Merryweather High as a complete social outcast, abandoned by all of her former friends.

Melinda sits next to a new girl named Heather at the first school assembly and forms a cautious, tentative friendship.

Art teacher Mr. Freeman assigns a year-long project, and Melinda randomly draws the word 'tree' from a broken globe.

While hiding from a teacher in the hallway, Melinda discovers an abandoned janitor's closet and secretly claims it as her hideaway.

Melinda spots senior Andy Evans in the school hallway and begins referring to him only as 'IT' in her mind.

Melinda brings Thanksgiving turkey bones to art class and assembles them with a Barbie doll head into a sculpture representing herself.

During the biology class frog dissection, Melinda faints after the sight of the pinned-down body triggers memories of her assault.

Andy Evans approaches Melinda in the school cafeteria, twirls her ponytail, and taunts her while she sits frozen and speechless.

Melinda's parents and the school principal meet with a guidance counselor, resulting in Melinda receiving an in-school suspension.

Heather tells Melinda at lunch that she is too negative, needs professional help, and can no longer be her friend.

Melinda stays home sick and, while watching talk shows, uses the word 'rape' to describe her experience for the first time.

Melinda writes a warning about Andy Evans on a school bathroom stall door to protect other girls from him.

Melinda passes Rachel a written note in the school library revealing that Andy Evans raped her; Rachel accuses her of lying out of jealousy.

Andy Evans traps Melinda in the school closet and attacks her; she holds a shard of broken glass to his neck and screams for help.

Melinda completes her final tree artwork in the art room, earns an A+ from Mr. Freeman, and resolves to tell him everything.

Melinda Sordino enters freshman year at Merryweather High as a complete social outcast after calling the police at a summer party where she was raped. With no friends and a secret she cannot voice, she finds fragile companionship with new student Heather and a rare sense of refuge in art class with Mr. Freeman. As the year progresses, Andy Evans—her rapist—continues to harass her at school, and her collapsing grades trigger confrontations with her parents and school administration. Melinda slowly builds the courage to warn others about Andy and eventually tells her former best friend Rachel the truth about what happened, though Rachel initially rejects her completely. In the novel's climax, Andy attacks Melinda in her hideaway closet, but she fights back with broken glass, screams for help, and is finally rescued. The school year ends with Melinda completing her tree artwork and making the decision to break her silence with the one adult who has always listened.

The core story of Melinda's year-long struggle to survive and speak out.

Melinda collides with a tall student in the cafeteria on the first day of school and ends up covered in potatoes and gravy.

A librarian consoles Melinda after she arrives near tears at the wrong room and explains the school's late-pass system to her.

Heather asks Melinda to help decorate the school teachers' lounge for the Marthas but tells her to disappear before the girls arrive to inspect.

Melinda hangs a Maya Angelou poster inside her school closet over the mirror, hiding her own reflection from herself.

David Petrakis calls Mr. Neck racist and xenophobic during a social studies class debate and walks calmly to the principal's office.

David Petrakis brings a video camera to social studies class to capture Mr. Neck's intimidating glares and prejudiced classroom behavior.

Students vote in a school-wide poll, and the principal announces the new team name as the Wombats at a winter assembly.

While hanging canned food drive posters in the hallway, Melinda freezes when Andy Evans sneaks up and whispers 'Freshmeat' in her ear.

Melinda's parents discover her failing grades and erupt at her; that night Melinda uses an unfolded paper clip to cut her wrist.

Melinda's mother notices the paper clip cuts on her daughter's wrist the next morning but dismisses them, saying she has no time for this.

Melinda finds a Valentine's Day card on her locker and hopes it is from David Petrakis, but discovers Heather sent it.

Melinda runs into Ivy during spring break at the mall, and the two reconnect by taking turns sketching a tree together.

Melinda works up the courage to refuse Heather's request for help with a Martha prom project and asks Heather to leave her house.

After prom, Melinda learns that Rachel ended her relationship with Andy Evans mid-prom after he tried to advance on her physically.

Nicole and the lacrosse team hear Melinda screaming inside the locked closet and rush to her rescue after Andy Evans attacks her.

Alongside Melinda's central struggle, a host of significant secondary events define her social world and daily survival throughout the school year. Her one-sided friendship with Heather, her quiet admiration of David Petrakis's courage against a prejudiced teacher, and her fragile reconnection with former friend Ivy all mark the ebb and flow of her isolation. Melinda's self-harm escalates in private while the adults around her fail to respond meaningfully, and school life delivers more cruelty than comfort—from Andy's whispered hallway taunts to a Valentine's card that only underscores how alone she is. Spring brings small but real renewal as Melinda reconnects with Ivy at the mall and finds the courage to say no to Heather for the first time. Prom night finally exposes Andy Evans's true character to Rachel, and the school year closes with Melinda's rescue by her lacrosse teammates—a moment made possible only because she found the courage to scream.

The supporting events, relationships, and smaller battles that shaped Melinda's year.

Melinda stares at herself in her bedroom mirror during the first weeks of school and no longer recognizes the girl looking back.

Melinda paints her first trees in art class as watercolor lightning-struck forms that are barely alive, unconsciously expressing her trauma.

Melinda's Thanksgiving spirals as her father destroys the frozen turkey in the backyard and the silent family ultimately orders pizza.

Melinda receives a sketch pad and charcoal for Christmas but cannot bring herself to speak even to thank her parents for the gift.

Melinda spots Andy Evans at a bakery while walking to school, sprints away in fear, and decides to skip school for the day.

Mr. Freeman places a Picasso art book before Melinda, and she discovers cubism as a way to express her shattered inner world.

Mr. Freeman drives Melinda to a clothing store and tells her that people die one piece at a time when they stop expressing themselves.

Melinda tries on jeans in a store changing room, stares at a thousand mirror reflections of herself, and resolves to grow new emotional skin.

Melinda finally narrates in full detail the events of the night Andy Evans raped her at the summer party when she was thirteen.

Melinda writes a suffragette protest on the classroom board rather than reading her report aloud, openly defying Mr. Neck for the first time.

David Petrakis tells Melinda that the suffragettes fought to be heard, not to stay silent, and that she must speak up to make any change.

Melinda fakes illness to stay home and surprises her mother by saying 'I don't feel well,' one of her first spoken phrases in months.

Melinda rakes the yard and speaks to her father for the first time in months, asking him to bring home flower seeds.

Ivy shows Melinda that dozens of other girls have added their own warnings and stories about Andy Evans to the bathroom stall door.

Melinda studies her finished imperfect tree sketch and understands that its scarred branches and new growth perfectly reflect her own story and survival.

Pool 3 traces the internal milestones that mark Melinda's gradual healing from trauma, beginning with the moment she no longer recognizes herself in a mirror and ending with her acceptance of her own imperfect, scarred story. Her art evolves from barely-alive watercolor trees to a cubist expression of her fractured self, guided by Mr. Freeman's wisdom that unexpressed emotion kills a person piece by piece. The novel's most pivotal revelation arrives when Melinda finally narrates the full details of her rape, breaking months of suffocating silence for the reader. As spring thaws the world around her, Melinda begins speaking again in small, careful steps—a phrase to her mother, a request to her father—while David Petrakis's pointed challenge forces her to understand that real recovery demands an actual voice. Her final imperfect tree sketch stands as the ultimate symbol of her transformation: scarred, still growing, and finally honest about everything she has survived.

The turning points, revelations, and emotional breakthroughs that drove Melinda's healing.

Laurie Halse Anderson

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