Simon Sort of Says

Grin and Bear It (GNB) is a small town, and the junior high/high school only has about 100 students in it. Simon dreads his first day, which happens to be in mid-February, but he assures his dad that he can handle it on his own. He walks past various groups of kids, some of whom stare, and into the school office, where he meets the principal, Ms. Snodgrass. She welcomes him to the school after checking his file, and Simon hopes that she doesn’t assume anything about where he came from or why. Simon goes to homeroom, where he meets his teacher, Miss Rose, and she introduces Simon to the class. Full of nerves, Simon rambles on about his dad’s sackbut (a type of trombone) skills and his mother’s funeral home. The students seem interested in hearing about the funeral home and about Omaha, but Simon doesn’t make any friends right away. He does spend time talking to a boy named Kevin Matapang. When the school bell rings, it jars Simon, reminding him of danger, but nobody seems to notice except his teacher. She looks at him almost with pity, which Simon hates.

Two weeks into school, Simon has a routine and sits in a secluded spot on some old bleachers. One day at lunch, a girl named Agate van der Zwaan, with bright orange hair and a notably large frame, comes to sit with Simon. She tells him something gross and asks him to tell her something gross, and then she invites him to ride bikes with her after school. Simon thinks about this and knows that his parents will say yes but will be anxious the whole time. Agate introduces herself and tells Simon that her dad is a truck driver and that her mother raises Angora goats.

Agate almost immediately invites Simon to create a fake message from space for the astronomers, hoping to renew their hope, and Simon asks why she chose him. Agate explains that Simon is the only one who isn’t on any particular side yet. By sides, she means the two camps of people that make up GNB: the farmers and naturalists who came for a quiet life and the scientists who are searching for life in space. It’s not as though the two “sides” never speak to each other, but it does make for different sets of priorities. Simon wasn’t interested in picking a side but notes that Agate ended up doing that for him anyway.

Since Simon never agreed or disagreed with Agate’s plan, Agate comes over to Simon’s house unannounced one day. The house doubles as a funeral home, and the front portion is much fancier than the back, where the family’s quarters are. The gate screeches when it opens, and it conveniently sounds like a male peacock. When Simon’s parents bought the house, a peacock already lived there and came as part of the décor. They nicknamed him “Pretty Stabby” because of how sharp his talons are. Whenever the gate opens, Pretty Stabby thinks it’s a male peacock and charges. Unaware of the peacock, Agate comes in wearing the same colors that female peacocks tend to have and attracts Pretty Stabby’s attention first with the gate and then with her clothing. Simon’s dad has to wrangle the peacock to allow Agate to pass by safely. Simon’s dad is thrilled to see that Simon is having a friend over.

Simon is happy to see Agate and invites her up to his room, which is at the top of the house’s turret. Agate asks about living in a funeral home, and Simon makes some jokes about how the bodies often fart. When Agate asks if he ever goes into the basement, Simon admits that he does, but he spends as little time there as possible. Agate puts out some cheese and crackers, explaining that she keeps them separate because she has autism and it’s just one of her “things.” Simon is surprised to hear Agate being so open about having autism, but it makes him feel a little better about his own mental health, as he realizes that he’s not alone in being neurodivergent. Agate brings out some textbooks on the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) and points to a female student scientist named Jocelyn Bell, who invented a homemade radio telescope. She picked up a repeating signal from space that was labelled “LGM-1 […] Little Green Men” (33).

Simon only has homeroom and English class with Agate, so he makes another friend in Kevin, a boy with green hair who noticed that Simon was wearing an Omaha football jersey on his second day there. Simon isn’t really into football, but Kevin and Simon both like Minecraft and relate over that. Simon likes Kevin because Kevin is trusting and doesn’t notice when Simon gets anxious. When Kevin first tells Simon that he has computers at his house, Simon starts to panic at thinking about someone in town having Internet, but Kevin clarifies that they’re not connected to anything. Kevin invites Simon over one day, and Simon gets to meet Kevin’s mom and sister. Kevin’s mom works at the SETI project on the largest radio telescope, and she is strict about her children’s academics. Kevin’s sister pokes her head in to remind Kevin of this often. Kevin shows Simon a large cage with two computers and a microwave inside. The cage keeps the radiation in so that it doesn’t interfere with the telescope signals. Simon enjoys having Hot Pockets for the first time in a while but misses his own Minecraft world.

The next day, Simon comes home to find that both his parents had horrible days at work. Simon’s mother asks him to go to the local coffee shop near the SETI project (called Hello Hello) and get her a fancy drink. Kevin’s dad works at the coffee shop and Kevin is there helping him, so Simon and Kevin get special ice cream desserts, and Kevin tells Simon about how funding for SETI is at risk. Simon thinks about what it might mean if SETI were to shut down, including the possibility of the Internet being introduced in GNB. The worst possible scenarios run through his mind, and he dreads the thought.