The Girl Who Fell From The Sky

In fall of 1982, a blue-eyed girl named Rachel leaves a hospital in Portland, Oregon, with her grandmother and boards a bus to go to her new home. Grandma is “the first colored woman” (5) to own a home on her street in Portland. From now on, 11-year-old Rachel will live with her grandmother in the same house where Rachel’s father, Roger, grew up. After Grandma and Rachel’s Aunt Loretta try to comb Rachel’s hair, Rachel goes to bed and thinks about starting at a new school the following morning. She wishes she could go home to Chicago or to the house on the military base in Germany where she once lived with her family.

The following morning, Rachel eats breakfast while Grandma talks to Aunt Loretta about getting a husband. At school, Rachel notices that her teacher, Mrs. Anderson, is her “first black woman teacher” (9) and that most of her classmates are black. Rachel is unsure of where she fits in.

As Rachel adapts to her new school, she notices that she is smarter than the other kids at her school. A Black girl named Tamika bullies Rachel for being too pretty, and Rachel thinks about what it means to have light skin and blue eyes. A Black boy named Anthony Miller kicks her chair in class. Whenever Rachel feels bad about something, she imagines herself putting the feeling into an imaginary blue glass bottle with a cork.

At Grandma’s, in preparation for Picture Day at school, Aunt Loretta curls Rachel’s hair while they talk about Rachel’s blue eyes. During this conversation, Rachel refers to her mother for the first time since arriving to her grandmother’s house, calling her Mor, the Danish word for “mother.”

When Grandma takes Rachel to the Wonder Bread factory store, a woman asks Grandma if Rachel is “Roger’s baby.” Grandma nods as the woman comments on Rachel’s blue eyes. The two women wonder what Rachel’s brother and sister “would look like now” (16).

The novel flashes to a point in the past. A boy named Jamie sees something that looks like a bird fly past his window in the apartment he shares with his mother in Chicago. He carries a library book about birds with him as he runs downstairs; in the courtyard, he sees that “his bird was not a bird at all. His bird was a boy and a girl and a mother and a child” (19). Jamie stands in the courtyard as the police arrive.

A woman named Laronne hears that something has happened to Nella, one of her employees at the library, and goes to Nella’s apartment. Recently, Nella had seemed unusually distant to Laronne, so when Nella did not appear at work, Laronne grew concerned. Laronne had given Nella money so that Nella could take her children to an amusement park. Laronne had felt sorry for Nella, who had left her husband in Germany for an American man she had met in an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. Nella and her children were slowly adjusting to life in Chicago. Laronne remembers when a red-haired man appeared at the library with flowers for Nella. At that point, she had called Nella to tell her not to come into work anymore. 

In Nella’s apartment, Laronne notices that all of the children’s personal belongings need packing. When she looks out the window of the apartment, she sees the police and a crowd of people in the courtyard. Laronne marks a coffee canister with the word “collections” and puts money inside the can “for the lone survivor, the girl” (26).

Back in the present in Portland, Rachel’s Aunt Loretta plays tennis with her boyfriend Drew on Sunday mornings instead of going to church. Aunt Loretta and Roger are the only Black people Rachel knows who play tennis. Rachel likes Drew because he makes Aunt Loretta happy.

At school, when Anthony Miller asks Rachel about her scars, Rachel grows close to tears. She thinks about her brother Robbie and the dreams she has about him. When Rachel screams in the night, Aunt Loretta always comes in to check on her. At these times, Rachel wants her father, who is in Germany. When Anthony Miller talks during class, Mrs. Anderson slams a yardstick onto his desk, breaking it and hurting Rachel’s injured ear.

At Grandma’s house, Rachel notices that unlike her Grandma, Aunt Loretta exhibits classy behavior like reading books. Had Grandma been allowed to go to school, she might like reading more. Aunt Loretta, who works in an office, encourages Rachel to keep studying. Neither Grandma nor Aunt Loretta likes to talk about Uncle Nathan, who used to be married to Aunt Loretta.

Back in the past, in Chicago, Jamie visits the courtyard daily, where he sees a memorial and a coffee can of money. Jamie steals money from his mother’s purse to put into the collections can. Back in his apartment, Jamie’s mother, who has track marks on her arms, entertains a man she calls a new friend in her bedroom. Downstairs, Jamie sees a man with orange hair talking to a reporter. Jamie, calling himself “Brick,” tells the reporter he saw a man on the rooftop push the woman and her children off the roof.

The following day, Laronne visits to the courtyard shrine and remembers talking with Nella about her own son, Greg. When a reporter approaches Laronne, she defends Nella and suggests that the reporter find out more about Nella’s boyfriend, Doug. At home, Laronne feels deep sadness and seeks comfort from her husband David. The next morning’s newspaper article about Nella and her children suggests foul play.

In the present, at school, Rachel’s only friend, a White girl named Tracy, tells Anthony Miller that Rachel likes him. Anthony and Rachel meet under a tree after school, where he kisses her and tells her that their kiss is a secret because he has a girlfriend.

At home, Grandma’s friend Miss Verle comes over for a visit. Aunt Loretta’s friend Helen also comes over, and Helen mistakes Rachel for Aunt Loretta’s daughter. The women talk with their friends; Rachel notices Miss Verle’s grammatically incorrect English, while Aunt Loretta tells Helen about Nathan’s affairs with “my friends, his friends’ wives, and then whatever, woman or man” (55). When Rachel brings tea for her aunt and Helen, they ask her if she wants to be a debutante, and Rachel wonders if the process is similar to confirmation, a ceremony that her mother has described to her. Rachel reveals to Helen that her mother is from Denmark, and Helen laughs to find out that Aunt Loretta’s brother Roger had married a White woman.

As Christmas nears, Rachel meets Anthony Miller in a church, where they kiss until people come in for a service.

At home, Rachel cuts off her textured hair with scissors because she is tired of the tangles. Later, at church with Grandma, she sings the Christmas hymns in Danish. That night, Rachel dreams of her mother and her brother and sister.