Summary
Chapter 8 includes further Fitzman testimony from the SunRay hearing. Fitzman says each gallon contains trillions of ergonyms, and that his challenge was to make an ergonym that could replicate itself. After two and a half years and five hundred million dollars, he created one. It kept duplicating, and its duplicates kept duplicating, creating more and more of the fuel source. His testimony concludes with him singing about the ergies adding to their numbers.
Tamaya arrives home at 5:48 p.m. She is relieved when no one is home—her mother is working late. In the bathroom, she examines her hand, which is covered by tiny red bumps. She washes with antibacterial soap. Her mother phones and apologizes for being late. Tamaya then washes her dirty clothing. She puts some of her mother’s restorative hand cream on her tingly right hand. After they eat pizza, her mother notices the redness. Tamaya says she has a rash but doesn’t mention the woods. Her mother says it was the right thing to put the hand cream on, and they can see how it looks in the morning. Before sleeping, Tamaya thinks about Chad’s threat to her and prays that he finds the goodness in his heart.
Marshall cannot sleep. Thoughts of Chad’s retaliation torment him. His father had expressed disappointment when he’d been late coming home because Marshall was supposed to help look after his twin siblings. Marshall hadn’t admitted why he was late. Lying awake, Marshall imagines Chad attacking Tamaya on their way to school in the morning. Marshall pictures fighting Chad and being celebrated by cute girls in his class as a hero; he also imagines losing. Ultimately, he knows the only hope is for a teacher to step in and break it up before Tamaya is too badly hurt—the pathetic hope of a coward.
In another Senate hearing excerpt, Senator Haltings expresses concern over the ergonym microorganisms escaping. Fitzman says it isn’t a problem because there is no danger of ergies getting out. Just the opposite is true: when exposed to oxygen, ergies disintegrate—poof.
Tamaya wakes at 7:08, thinking of Chad telling her she is next. She discovers a pinkish-brown powder all over her pillow and sheets. Some of the red bumps on her skin have turned to blisters. She covers the rash thickly in her mother’s hand cream and goes to put her bedding in the wash. Her mother can’t see how bad the rash is under the cream. Tamaya’s mother says she’ll make a doctor’s appointment.
Outside, Tamaya meets with Marshall, who is wearing his old glasses, having lost his contact lenses in the forest. Tamaya thinks about how they would have been safer if they’d never gone in the woods the day before. Tamaya feels the panic she woke up with. Close to the school, her friend Monica gets out of a car and walks with her. Marshall goes downstairs to the seventh-grade classroom in the “dungeon” basement, prepared for “whatever torture and misery awaited.”
In another hearing excerpt, Professor Alice Mayfair testifies about potential disasters from man-made organisms introduced into the environment. However, she says the real disaster won’t come from Biolene necessarily, but an unsupportable world population growing to nine billion by 2050. The senators tell her it is beyond the scope of the committee to deal with population control.
In class, Tamaya is instructed to write about blowing up a balloon; the students must write with enough detail that someone who has never encountered a balloon would be able to follow the instructions. Hope asks what happened to her sweater. Tamaya acts as if it doesn’t matter, remembering when Hope called her a Goody Two-Shoes. While writing, Tamaya begins to bleed on her paper. She sees her hand is covered in blisters that have opened. Hope shouts out to the teacher that Tamaya is all bloody.
In the basement classroom, Marshall expects Chad to waltz through the door and tell everyone what happened in the woods. But Chad doesn’t show up. Eventually the headmistress, Mrs. Thaxton, enters to say Chad is missing, having never made it home from school. A student named Cody says Chad told him he was going to beat up Marshall. When asked about it, Marshall claims he doesn’t know anything about it and didn’t see Chad. Other students say Chad has been picking on Marshall all year for no reason because Chad is “just mean.” Mrs. Thaxton tells them to let her know if they remember anything else.
Analysis
In Fitzman’s testimony to the U.S. Senate, Sachar introduces the theme of the climate crisis. When questioned about his invention, Fitzman excitedly gloats about the environmentally friendly alternative to gasoline. The miracle substance in Biolene is not only clean-burning, it is cheap to make. Because the single-celled slime mold–based organisms are self-replicating, the new fuel produces itself. To emphasize Fitzman’s eccentricity—and hint at his scientific irresponsibility—Sachar ends the hearing transcript excerpt with Fitzman singing about the organisms that make up his product.
Meanwhile, Tamaya gets away with coming home late because her mother happens to be working late. When she doesn’t tell her mother the truth, Tamaya feels the negative sensations associated with guilt coursing through her bloodstream. She hopes to be as virtuous and courageous as her school asks of her, but hides the evidence that she followed Marshall into the forest by washing her dirty clothes and concealing the hole in her sweater under her backpack strap. That night, both she and Marshall lie awake worrying about the consequences of what happened in the forest.
Returning to the Senate testimony, Sachar introduces the theme of hubris—excessive pride or self-confidence. When senators bring up the possibility of Biolene impacting the natural environment, Fitzman insists there is no risk of such a thing happening because his “ergies” disintegrate when exposed to oxygen. His excitement is palpable, providing further evidence that he may be blind to the risks of the science he is pursuing because of excessive confidence in his own brilliance.
Sachar juxtaposes Fitzman’s hubris with a scene of Tamaya suffering the consequences of his scientific irresponsibility: traveling beyond the hand she used to touch the fuzzy mud is an aggressive rash that covers her arm. Although the rash is severe, Tamaya attempts to treat it herself with more of her mother’s hand cream. While she admits to her mother she has a rash, she still cannot admit that she got it while in the forest. As the day goes on, the rash gets worse, bleeding even though Tamaya didn’t scratch it.
In the seventh-grade basement classroom “dungeon,” Marshall is also dealing with the consequences of the previous afternoon in the forest. While he is initially relieved to see that Chad isn’t in class, Marshall learns from the headmistress (akin to a principal) that Chad has gone missing. Rather than tell the truth about what happened, Marshall says he didn’t see Chad. In this instance of dramatic irony, the reader knows Marshall is lying because he is too proud to admit that Tamaya saved him. Nevertheless, other students tell Thaxton that Chad has been bullying Marshall. To Marshall’s surprise, the same students who stood by and let it happen are now defending Marshall, informing Thaxton that Marshall has done nothing to deserve Chad’s meanness. In this instance of situational irony, Sachar shows Marshall’s peers act differently when not intimidated by Chad.
