Summary
Castle comments that he has a “school rap sheet” for misbehavior in school. Now that he has his track team membership at stake, Castle must keep a clean record. He says he remains free of “altercations”—the term they use at school—for seventeen hours and two minutes. Once home, he and his mother go to sleep in the living room; he comments that neither has slept in their respective bedroom since the issue with his father and the gun. He likes to make sure he is near her in case he has to protect her.
The altercation happens at lunch. Brandon, a tall kid who likes to tease Castle for being poor, is hassling Monique at the lunch table. Castle holds himself back as long as he can, but eventually he throws his chocolate milk at Brandon’s head and then pummels him with his fists. Mr. Marshall, the principal, gives Castle a suspension. Castle complains that Brandon was teasing him because his mother works in a cafeteria. He asks Mr. Marshall if he’s never been pushed to act before.
The principal says he knows Castle has been through some difficult things, but he needs to behave better. Instead of a full suspension, the principal will just send Castle home for the day. Castle claims he can’t call his mother to pick him up; instead, he can call his uncle. The principal wonders where this uncle, who isn’t on file, has come from, but he lets Castle make a call. Castle pulls from his backpack Coach Brody’s card, which he received the day before.
Coach Brody is confused, but he goes along with the lie and speaks to the principal, agreeing to come pick up Castle. After signing him out, Coach Brody reprimands Castle for lying about being his nephew, which is probably illegal. He says that he’s only known Castle for one day and he just kidnapped him. Castle is careful not to upset him more, as he is grateful the coach bailed him out. They have three hours to kill before practice starts, so Coach Brody tries to get Castle caught up to the rest of the team’s level. He realizes quickly that Castle doesn’t have any proper running gear—just jeans and high-tops. He starts Castle off with stretches, toe touches, jumping jacks, and then makes him run a couple of warm-up laps, which Castle doesn’t understand because he believes it’ll just drain a person’s energy.
The coach calls out for Castle to keep his arms in, which is difficult for Castle to do. Apparently, form is everything in running. At a break, Coach Brody asks if Castle thinks of himself as one of those kids who isn’t afraid of anything or anyone. Castle realizes that he has been very afraid—of his father. He says the only person, aside from his mother, who he is afraid of now is himself. Coach Brody tells him he can’t run against himself, because “ain’t nobody that fast.”
For the rest of the pre-practice, Castle and Coach Brody talk about LeBron James being Castle’s favorite basketball player. Their conversation moves to Usain Bolt, the world’s fastest sprinter, and Coach says he ran the 100-meter in just over nine seconds. Castle says he doesn’t think that sounds all that fast. The coach challenges Castle to try, and Castle runs 12 seconds, then 14. Coach keeps making him sprint, scolding him for being a pain to his principal and mother. Castle realizes that this is his punishment for misbehaving at school.
Eventually the rest of the team arrives, including the assistant coach, who is a young woman. Castle gets the others to call him Ghost, the nickname he gave himself. Castle learns that he and Lu are sprinters, while other people are better at long runs and other “junk in the middle.” As it is Wednesday, the sprinters have to run a “ladder,” going back and forth in a descending number of meters. Castle falls behind the others. Aaron gives him some water during a break, seeing that Castle has no bottle of his own. The others ask him in a hostile way why he is there.
Lu teases Castle’s oversized hand-me-down jeans while Castle pokes fun at Lu's ridiculous running suit, even though privately he is envious. As Lu’s trash-talking escalates, Castle can feel his anger rising: he fears an altercation is coming. The veteran runners tell them to stop and sort it out on the track. During their sprint, Castle keeps up with Lu until Castle’s laces come untied and he trips himself, falling on his hands as he launches out of both shoes.
After practice ends, one of the female runners, Patty, sits with Castle and tells him not to worry: he’s not “the first person to crash out like that.” She also tells him not to pay attention to Lu, who she used to go to school with. She says Lu has a bad attitude because he used to be bullied like crazy for being albino. Castle doesn’t know the word, and Patty explains it means he has no pigment in his skin. She says people even used to call him Ghost.
Patty’s mother, who is white, and her little sister arrive to pick her up. Patty tells Castle that she was adopted, in case he thinks she is “reversed albino.” Castle thinks about these details and the exhausting day on the track while riding in silence in the back of Coach Brody’s cab. He is hardly listening as Coach Brody tells him that tomorrow is a new day and that he shouldn’t dwell on being embarrassed in front of his teammates. Castle knows he should start his homework; he comments on how his mother will also procrastinate her homework for her online nurse training. As soon as he is inside, Castle finds a big pair of scissors and cuts his high-tops down to low-profile sneakers.
Analysis
In Chapter 3, Reynolds further develops the themes of discipline and shame. In narration, Castle discusses how he has a “rap sheet” of infractions listed in his permanent record file at school. If he wants to stay on the Defenders, the first team he has ever been a part of, Castle must maintain good behavior. With this challenge established, Reynolds introduces Castle’s major conflict.
Returning to his humorous tone, Castle explains that he is able to stay out of trouble for only seventeen hours. Despite the promises he has made to his mother, Coach Brody, and himself, Castle is provoked by Brandon Simmons, a bully who makes a habit of shaming Castle for coming from an impoverished background and for having a mother who works in a cafeteria. Although he restrains himself for as long as he can, Castle eventually loses control and unleashes his fury at Brandon, hitting him repeatedly.
The themes of adversity and trauma arise during Castle’s conversation with his principal. Aware of the situation with Castle’s father, the principal understands that Castle’s misbehavior and acting out are a consequence of his dysfunctional home life. In an effort to be lenient in disciplining Castle, the principal decides to only suspend him for one day. In an instance of dramatic irony, Castle pretends that Coach Brody is his uncle and asks that he come pick him up instead of his mother. In this way, Castle continues to misbehave, knowing that if his mother found out about his outburst, she might take him off the track team.
Castle is fortunate that Coach Brody goes along with his lie, but Coach Brody finds his own way to punish Castle for misbehaving. Simultaneously disciplining Castle for getting suspended and bringing him up to speed as a track athlete, Coach Brody makes Castle runs drills for the rest of the afternoon. While Castle is confused by the idea that a “warmup” run doesn’t simply deplete a person’s energy, he will come to understand the importance of following a disciplined practice routine. Being made to run “ladders” so much that he is exhausted also teaches Castle the importance of humility: To understand that he is not necessarily the best athlete on the team helps Castle to develop a more modest view of himself and inspires him to train harder.
The theme of shame arises again when the other teammates join the practice and take shots at Castle for his lack of running gear and exercise clothes. A symbol of his poverty, Castle simply rolls up his thick, inflexible, unbreathable denim jeans, and he runs in no-name high-tops he later cuts down. Castle also has another dose of humility when he trips up while sprinting against Lu and takes a humiliating spill. However, the crueler runners’ attempts at intimidation contrast with Patty’s friendly approach to Castle at the end of the practice. Her befriending of Castle foreshadows the eventual sense of camaraderie Castle will share with all his teammates, including his former nemesis Lu.
