Summary
Narrated in the first person by the novel’s protagonist, Castle “Ghost” Crenshaw, Ghost opens with Castle commenting on peculiar world records: most balloons blown up with one’s nose, owning the most rubber ducks. Castle believes he may hold the record for eating the most sunflower seeds, which he buys from Mr. Charles’s “country store,” which is an odd name because they live in a city.
Castle buys his dollar’s worth of sunflower seeds from Mr. Charles and goes to the bus stop, where he sits and watches people working out in the gym across the street. It amuses him to see them almost pass out from exertion. Castle comments that he eats sunflower seeds because it’s something his father used to do. He claimed the seeds were growing in his stomach, but sunflowers are made of two good words—sun and flower—and his father “ain’t got two good words in him.”
Castle explains that his dad “lost it” three years earlier: his alcoholism would turn him into a mean person. Castle was in the habit of sandwiching his head between his mattress and his pillow when his parents were fighting. But one night his mother yanked him out of bed and said they had to leave, immediately. As Castle and his mother were leaving, Castle’s dad fired a pistol at them.
Castle and his mother ran as fast as they could to Mr. Charles’s store, which is open 24/7. He hid Castle and his mother in his storage room and called the police. Castle says the police turned up at their house to find Castle’s father sitting on the steps drinking beer and eating sunflower seeds, his gun beside him. It was as though he was waiting to be caught. Castle doesn’t know if he is happy about his father being given a ten-year prison sentence.
He sometimes wishes his dad was home on the couch, eating sunflower seeds. Regardless, Castle learned to run that night as he fled for his life. The chapter ends with Castle leaving the bus stop to watch kids running on the track at the park. He says running isn’t something he has ever had to practice: it’s just something he knows how to do.
Castle watches the middle-school track practice, commenting on how he’s never heard of famous runners, unlike in basketball. The turtle-resembling coach shouts at the runners about how they are part of the Defenders, one of the best teams around. Three “newbies” do sprints, and the fastest by far is Lu, a boy with Black features but white skin. Annoyed by Lu’s cocky swagger, Castle rolls up his jeans and tucks in the laces of his high-top sneakers before lining up to race Lu.
The coach tells Castle it’s a private practice and that tryouts were last week. Castle ignores him. Eventually the coach says he can do one race and then has to leave. Castle can’t explain what happens during the race—he simply runs and runs and runs. People cheer at the end, and neither boy knows who won. The coach says it was too close to call. Satisfied that he has made his point, Castle goes to grab his backpack and leave.
The coach comes over and introduces himself as Coach Brody. He ascertains that Castle doesn’t run for any other team and so invites him to join the Defenders. Castle says, “Nope,” claiming his sport is basketball, and track is “just running.” He also says his mother would probably say no anyway. Coach Brody says if he runs with the team, his legs will get so strong he’ll be dunking by next year. Castle believes this is a lie, as he doesn’t know of any eighth graders who can dunk.
Coach Brody convinces Castle to let him ask his mother directly if Castle can join the team. Castle doesn’t trust the coach, but he hangs around until the end of practice. Castle sees the coach staying to talk with the mothers and it looks like they know each other well, and are even hugging. This makes Castle trust him more, because he knows mothers don’t trust anyone around their kids. Castle is surprised to see that Coach Brody’s car is a cab. It turns out he coaches because he loves it, but to make money, he is a cab driver.
Although most people treat Castle “funny” when they find out he lives in the impoverished Glass Manor neighborhood, he tells Coach Brody the area and they begin driving there. Coach Brody talks to his wife on the phone most of the ride. They happen across Castle’s mother, who is walking in her white cafeteria-worker scrubs. She is surprised to see her son in a cab, but she gets in the backseat at the coach’s prompting. Skeptical at first because she thinks Castle needs to focus on school, Castle’s mother accepts the coach’s claim that Castle has potential as a runner. He promises that Castle will get his homework done and not mess up in school even once. For the first time in Castle’s life, he is on a team.
Analysis
In the opening pages of Ghost, Jason Reynolds establishes the casual and often humorous voice of the novel’s twelve-year-old narrator and protagonist, Castle “Ghost” Cranshaw. However, the boy’s quotidian interest in learning about obscure world records and eating excessive amounts of sunflower seeds from Mr. Charles’s store contrast with the serious turn his narration soon takes.
Using Castle’s passion for sunflower seeds as a transition to discussing his father, Reynolds introduces the major themes of trauma and adversity. Castle comments on how his father, three years before the events of the novel, turned violent one night while drunk and tried to shoot Castle and his mother. The traumatic episode is significant because it taught Castle that he is capable of running incredibly fast. In this way, that night, as terrifying and unwanted as it was, precipitated Castle’s discovery of his natural talent for track running.
However, because Castle thinks of running as something he simply knows how to do, the idea that other kids would practice track running is absurd to him. Castle watches the Defenders run drills from a skeptical distance, finding their running gear and tiring exercises ridiculous. Castle’s frustration at Lu’s cocky attitude and the way the coach inflates Lu’s ego prompts him to challenge Lu to a sprint. In an instance of situational irony, Castle matches Lu’s skill despite the fact that he has no formal training as a track athlete and lacks appropriate running attire.
Having achieved his goal of putting Lu to shame, or at least proving that he can run equally as fast, Castle is prepared to walk away from the track practice victorious. However, Coach Brody sees something special in Castle, and wants to hone the boy’s natural talent. Still skeptical, Castle dismisses the idea that track is a real sport and pretends that he is a basketball player, while in truth the older players at the public court don’t let him join any games.
The theme of trust enters the story when Coach Brody convinces Castle to let him try to convince Castle’s mother to let Castle join the team. Weary of strangers, Castle’s mother is inclined to distrust Coach Brody and question why the man has her son in his cab. However, the notion that Coach Brody will ensure Castle stays on top of schoolwork is appealing to Castle’s mother, who knows that her son struggles with discipline.
