- Jeanette catches on fire (age 3) while cooking hot dogs without supervision. Taken to hospital, and treated. Family smuggles her out of the hospital.
- Rex, her father, decides to take the whole family and leave their home (because the FBI and tax collectors are after him. In this section, I think that they moved to 4 different places
- middle of the desert
- Las Vegas
- San Francisco
- Midland --another place in the middle of the desert
- Through each place, we learned more about the characters and their lifestyle.
Okay, so lets start with Jeanette catching on fire. She was 3 years old and cooking hot dogs on the stove, with NO supervision. Her mom was in the other room, painting. She catches on fire and is then rushed to the hospital. She is covered in 3rd-degree burns and has to have skin grafts.
"The nurses and doctors kept asking me questions: How did you get burned? Have your parents ever hurt
you? Why do you have all these bruises and cuts? My parents never hurt me, I said. I got the cuts and
bruises playing outside and the burns from cooking hot dogs. They asked what I was doing cooking hot
dogs by myself at the age of three. It was easy, I said. You just put the hot dogs in the water and boil
them. It wasn't like there was some complicated recipe that you had to be old enough to follow. The pan
was too heavy for me to lift when it was full of water, so I'd put a chair next to the sink, climb up and
fill a glass, then stand on a chair by the stove and pour the water into the pan. I did that over and over
again until the pan held enough water. Then I'd turn on the stove, and when the water was boiling, I'd
drop in the hot dogs. "Mom says I'm mature for my age," I told them. "and she lets me cook for myself a lot."
After a few days, her dad decides that the hospital is filled with white trash and that they don't know what they are doing, so he smuggles her out. After you catch on fire, what do you think your views on Fire are? Well, Jeanette wasn't afraid of it, she was now intrigued; she would steal her father's matches and play with them in the back yard.
One thing that can be said about this chapter is that Jeanette is fearless. I mean really who could have their whole abdomen burned, have skin grafts and still want to play with fire. I just can't believe having no fear after her accident. I also have to say how responsible Jeanette is. She cooks for herself!! She is 3 years old...3! We can also see that her mom is a tiny bit self-absorbed...I mean no time to cook, but plenty of time for painting. (She paints for fun, not for profit, as far as I know.) Somehow though I honestly don't see her mother as a bad person. (or her dad) I'm on of those readers who make excuses for characters because I love them. In this case, I don't love Rose, the kids moms, or Rex, the dad, but I love Jeanette and her siblings. I want these kids to have a good life, so I just keep making excuses for the lack of mature and parental material in Rose and Rex.
Now, Rex says that the FBI (or tax collectors as the mom explains to the kids) are after him so they have to move. Well, as he explains they can't be in places for too long otherwise the 'FBI' will find him. He even smokes his cigarettes backward...in case the 'FBI' is following him. During this section, (30 pages) the family has moved 4 times. They first go into the desert and sleep in the sand, then they went to Las Vegas so Rex could get money. On their way to Las Vegas, Jeanette falls out of the car. (the door flies open when they made a sharp turn. The parents don't turnaround until a while after. Part of this event could be because Rex was sippin' beer while he was driving, but I don't know for sure. While they were in Las Vegas gambling the kids would just play hid and seek in the casinos. After the mafia found out about them, guessing they were cheating, fellow gamblers suggested they leave. Mom decided that they should go live on the pacific ocean. So they drove their car out to the beach and just slept in their car. Then the police told them that they couldn't stay on the beach, and for the final move (in this section), they moved to midland. Rex got a job, and the kids got cats.
Through these events, we can see that Rex and his wife are very adventurous. Well, that can also be a bad thing. I mean these kids don't have anything steady in their lives, they only sometimes attend school. They are in a car whose doors just randomly open, and on occasion kids fall out. These parents while Jeanette loves them and doesn't know any different, aren't responsible or mature enough to be parents.
Repetidly while reading this book, I have to remind myself that this is true. Let's just imagine this: you are reading a FICTION book, and a character just falls out of the car while making a sharp turn. Funny, right? Well, when I was reading this, I was like THIS GIRL IS ALIVE. SHE LITERALLY FELL OUT OF A CAR WHILE HER DAD WAS DRIVING. HER FAMILY DIDN'T NOTICE THAT SHE WAS MISSING FOR A FEW MILES. Like its so completely different to realize that this actually happened.
Repetidly while reading this book, I have to remind myself that this is true. Let's just imagine this: you are reading a FICTION book, and a character just falls out of the car while making a sharp turn. Funny, right? Well, when I was reading this, I was like THIS GIRL IS ALIVE. SHE LITERALLY FELL OUT OF A CAR WHILE HER DAD WAS DRIVING. HER FAMILY DIDN'T NOTICE THAT SHE WAS MISSING FOR A FEW MILES. Like its so completely different to realize that this actually happened.
Wow! That was really long...and just so you know I really haven't included any details. So you will have to read the book for those.
BYE!! :)
