Falling Over Sideways

Claire is in a slump—she’s fifth chair in band, still in “baby” classes at dance school, and feels like she’s always competing with her “perfect” brother. As a result, “I decided I needed to do something fun, different, and flashy to cheer myself up” (110). Claire expresses this decision in the form of a history assignment from Mr. Evans. This labor-intensive project helps her sidestep helping out around the house with her father.

The assignment is “Miserable Deaths of the Explorers,” a topic Claire loves, so she decides to make posters with an explorer’s name on one side and their gruesome death on the other. She then makes a song to accompany each poster. Claire thinks most of the other projects are boring (and Mr. Evans’s facial expressions seem to agree), but she likes Roshni’s morbid account of explorers giving Native Americans smallpox, and Regina’s illustrations of a saying by Cesar Chavez about overcoming adversity. Claire mistakenly thinks that Cesar Chavez is Regina’s relative, and though Regina distrusts Claire looking at her work, Claire admits that she thinks Regina is a good artist.

Claire’s history project eventually becomes so popular that the entire school uses it to joke about accidents. When someone falls, for instance, it’s a “Cabrillo” moment. When the grade has to go to the pool for physical fitness—an embarrassing time for both boys and girls—Ryder gets in trouble for shouting “HELP! I’m getting Verrazano’d!” (118), when there isn’t an emergency. After getting in trouble, Ryder yells at Claire for starting her stupid game. Regina makes fun of Ryder and Claire as they argue, suggesting that they’re bad at flirting.

Claire’s father spends his time watching television in the living room, though she isn’t completely sure that he understands what he’s watching. For now, the family avoids allowing friends over. Claire avoids spending time with her father, making excuses even though both Matthew and her mother spend most of their waking time with him. On one occasion, Claire avoids her father by completing a family tree assignment. She muses that “[…] none of the words that had described him before were true anymore” (122).

When Grandpa takes Claire to the orthodontist for a seemingly ordinary visit, Claire ends up having to get braces. Annoyed, Claire chooses blue and purple rubber bands, knowing that, regardless of the colors she chooses, showing up to school with braces is a death sentence. At school, her friends Desi and Jennifer don’t like her choice of colors, noting that she chose boy colors. When Claire reacts negatively to this assessment, Desi and Jennifer retort that they knew Claire was too emotional to handle the truth. Claire storms off, but runs right into Leigh Monahan, who also comments on her blue braces. With Leigh’s pronouncement, Claire now has to face the curiosity of the entire school coming up to her and gawking. Though Ryder says nothing to her at lunch, he piles his tray full of foods that Claire can’t eat anymore and offers them to her, and Regina reminds Claire that she can no longer eat Skittles so she might as well hand them over.

Claire flees to the band room, where she starts crying. Mrs. Jones comforts her and offers to assist if Claire feels depressed about her father. When Claire finally goes home, her father, whom Matthew and Claire’s mom are attempting to feed, says “Shiny Piggy!” (129) when she smiles. Claire’s mom says she “forgot” Claire’s braces appointment was for that day. Claire takes offense that her mother knew about her braces, but still packed all the wrong food for her lunch. When Claire says that the day was the worst of her life, her mother looks like she wants to strangle her. Claire sees Matthew’s annoyance, realizes her mistake, and runs to her room.

Claire hasn’t told anyone at dance school about her father’s stroke, and she wonders how long she can keep her private life separate. Fellow students often study her father’s books in their classes, so girls talk to her about her father. When Alanna and Katherine query her about her father’s work, they bring up the Dad’s Dance, which Claire completely forgot about. To make matters worse, Alanna reminds Claire about her parent’s annual Halloween party. Claire fears that in response to the invitation Claire’s mom will naturally mention the stroke, and when she does, everyone will know that her father is “a broken shadow of his former self” (134).

Claire tries avoiding the Halloween party invitation until it’s nearly Halloween. Then she queries Matthew about how he’s handling telling his friends. Her question both shocks and annoys Matthew because everyone in his life knows about his father’s stroke. He broke up with his girlfriend to spend more time at home, he stopped playing soccer, his grades are slipping, and he’s always crotchety now. Claire realizes that she’s being selfish, a point Matthew underscores when he mentions that their dad never made up a nickname for him. Both siblings feel guilty about their father’s stroke because both treated him poorly on the morning it happened. But Matthew declares that Claire has to get over feeling sorry for herself and help out more. She tries, allowing Matthew to study while she unloads her dance drama to her father.

Claire’s suffering continues when she distances herself from Jennifer and Desi (still angry that they talked about her braces), who are part of Roshni’s group in science class. Claire doesn’t have a group, so she ends up grouped with Regina, Leigh, Christopher, and Ryder, who makes fun of her even more now that they must also audition for jazz band. Christopher is an autistic student who loves glue. The group can’t focus on their project—testing the density of rocks—because they’re at each other’s throats.

Later, Mrs. Jones instructs Claire to play jazz pop songs to better prepare, which Claire does by bringing a large book of tunes home. When she plays, her father immediately responds to the 1960s music. Claire also plays some of his favorite Beatles songs, and by the time her mother and brother return from an errand, her father is singing along and attempting to clap.