Summary
Zinkoff walks through the deepening snow, whispering Claudia’s name. The snow covers everything. He wonders if she is hiding under the snow, playing a game. Then he thinks she’s running through the snow, enjoying her freedom. He can’t believe how silently the snow falls. He goes to the unlit network of alleys, wondering if she went not out the front door but the back. He trudges into the darkness, unlit by streetlights, tripping on hidden objects often. He wonders how long a little girl can stay alive in a snowstorm. Zinkoff thinks about when his sister Polly used to run away. He realizes that kids run away because they want to be caught. He knows that Claudia isn’t running, she is waiting to be found.
He goes down another alley, calling Claudia’s name. He keeps the lucky ball of old gum in his mouth, the only part of him that is warm. He looks at the sky and wishes he still believed that the stars fell and became the stickers his mother used to put on his shirt. He trips again. His ears and hands are freezing. He thinks about a warm bath. He thinks of the Waiting Man and wonders if he ever went looking for his brother in Vietnam. He imagines the future: Claudia’s mother sitting in her window, waiting for Claudia to return home.
The slushy snow is becoming crusty. His head is soaking wet as he trundles onwards. He hears “Hey mom I’m taking a shower” and isn’t sure if he says it or thinks it. He falls asleep while continuing to walk, waking only when he walks into a garage door. He gets up and walks on. He hears the old lady call, “Oh, Mailman!” He goes in her house and she gives him hot chocolate in a Winnie the Pooh mug from when he was little. The old lady becomes his mother, putting whipped cream on the hot chocolate.
He sleepwalks into a parked car. He thought he was in the alley but he’s in the street. A siren sounds and he’s glad they’re still looking for her. Freezing rain comes down harder. His teeth chatter. He pretends he is his dad, delivering mail in the toughest conditions. He imagines he is sledding down Halftank Hill with Claudia on his back. Lights blind him. A whistle screams. A voice says, “Hold on, son, I gotcha.”
Zinkoff wakes to the sound of adult voices—his parents and Uncle Stanley—discussing Zinkoff’s propensity for running away and wandering. He is in his parents’ bed. Zinkoff says he was out until one in the morning because he was looking for Claudia. Zinkoff sees his parents' horrified faces and assumes Claudia is dead. But she isn’t: they explain that she was found in somebody’s car in a garage, pretending to drive. She was home by seven-thirty or eight. Zinkoff learns that the sirens and lights were because police were searching for him, not for Claudia. Polly cuts a snowflake out of folded paper. Zinkoff realizes it must be a snow day, and learns he has been asleep for thirteen hours. He wants to go sledding but he is grounded.
Aunts and uncles and neighbors and friends come to check up on Zinkoff, bringing food and laughter to his parents. He has never been touched so much. Somewhere among the ringing doorbells and laugher he looks up and sees Claudia with her mother. Claudia pounces on him and kisses him.
When all the visitors leave, Zinkoff’s parents tell him what happened. Zinkoff didn’t come home when he was supposed to. They started to worry at nine o’clock. The search party was called out again. A man in snowplow found him eventually. He asks to sleep on the couch that night. Once his parents are in bed, he opens the front door and leans his head out, feeling the cold. The stars are still there in the clear sky. He comes back in and sleeps snugly on the sofa.
By Monday much of the snow is gone. It’s an in-service day, meaning the teachers stay inside while the kids play games outside. Some boys, Tuttle and Bonce, make fun of Zinkoff by throwing footballs hard at him. Zinkoff never catches them, the balls hit him in the chest. Janski tells the others boys that he heard Zinkoff was out searching for the lost little girl for seven hours after everyone else had given up.
The boys call a game. Everyone who wants to play comes over and sides are picked by Bonce and Tuttle. Zinkoff is the last one when both sides are evenly matched. But instead of walking away, Zinkoff stares at Bonce and Tuttle. Bonce wishes he would disappear. But Zinkoff doesn’t. His stare hits Bonce like a football in the forehead. It occurs to Bonce that he wants to ask what it was like to be that cold for seven hours. “This is goofy,” he thinks. Finally he points to Zinkoff and says, “Zinkoff.” And the game begins.
Analysis
As Zinkoff searches the dark alleys behind Claudia’s block, he imagines where she might be hiding in the snow. The narrator reveals much of Zinkoff’s interior world, conveying the naivety and imagination that motivates his search. As the temperatures drop and the night sky darkens, Zinkoff’s lack of self-awareness leads him not to realize he is developing hypothermia. In his weakening condition, Zinkoff’s sense of reality blends more and more with his imagination, and he seems to fall asleep on his feet, dreaming he is elsewhere than out in the snow.
During his search, Zinkoff holds the old ball of chewing gum Claudia gave him in his mouth, keeping it as a symbol of his hope and determination. He also keeps himself motivated by thinking about various supportive or significant figures he has encountered throughout the novel: his loving mother, his father, his sister, the welcoming old lady on Willow Street, Claudia’s mother, the Waiting Man. Zinkoff does not know how much time he has spent out in the snow, but he sees the lights of emergency vehicles and so assumes Claudia must still be missing.
Zinkoff’s time in the snow doesn’t end until he is picked up on the road by someone with bright lights and a whistle. Zinkoff wakes the next day at home after having slept for thirteen hours. In an instance of situational irony, he learns from his parents that Claudia was found not long after her mother reported her missing; the emergency vehicle lights Zinkoff saw were illuminated because people were looking for him, not Claudia. Having felt so invisible and generally lacking in self-awareness, Zinkoff had never considered that his disappearance would be noticed.
Even though Zinkoff’s mistaken search for Claudia is just one more in a long line of missteps he makes throughout the novel, the incident results not in shame or humiliation but in awe at Zinkoff’s ability to brave freezing conditions for seven hours while he thought he was saving a little girl. Zinkoff’s kind heart and selflessness shine through his mistake and adults come to celebrate his safe return. Basking in the warmth of his home and these authority figures’ approval, Zinkoff sleeps snugly on his sofa.
The novel ends with a chapter narrated from the points of view of some other boys in Zinkoff’s grade. As with the first chapter, Zinkoff is made a marginal figure, referred to simply as “the kid in the yellow hat.” The boys make fun of him for his awkwardness, throwing footballs at him so hard that they know he won't be able to catch them. However, their attempts to shame and humiliate him do not work. Even when it is clear that neither captain wants Zinkoff on his team, Zinkoff stares back at them, waiting until he is picked.
Zinkoff’s stare unnerves Bonce because it shows Zinkoff is not intimidated, likely because he does not understand the cruelty Bonce has tried to inflict on him. Forced to consider Zinkoff, who will not slink away, Bonce wonders what it must have been like to stay out in the cold for so long. The idea of Zinkoff’s determination and resilience seems to shift something in Bonce’s attitude. Eventually Bonce relents, picking Zinkoff for his team, calling Zinkoff by name. In doing so, Bonce restores Zinkoff to his actual name, no longer able to pretend he doesn’t know who Zinkoff is. The novel closes with Zinkoff being accepted into the game, a metaphor for the greater acceptance that may lie in Zinkoff’s future.
