Summary
During Armpit and Ginny's walk, he tells her that he didn't win the speech contest. Armpit and Ginny connect over their experiences of being treated differently, such as Armpit's speech professor giving him a good grade because Armpit lied and said that he would go out for the football team next year and Ginny’s art teacher giving her an A because she felt sorry for her and was afraid of her seizures. Tatiana tells her friends about her date with Armpit to the Kaira DeLeon concert and learns that they don’t see him as sweet; they see him as a dangerous ex-con. They tease him and attribute his nickname, Armpit, to his being the nastiest-smelling person at Camp Green Lake, which is a false assumption. Tatiana doesn't refute their claims, she only responds by saying that she really wants to see Kaira DeLeon live. When Tatiana sees Armpit at school, she avoids eye contact.
Hours before the Kaira DeLeon concert, Tatiana calls and cancels on Armpit, saying that she forgot about a family obligation. Armpit calls X-Ray and tells him to sell his tickets since Tatiana canceled on him. When Armpit leaves his house, he sees that Ginny is having a breakdown because her father left the family due to her cerebral palsy. To cheer her up, Armpit invites Ginny to the concert and then calls X-Ray just as he is about to sell the tickets for $200 each. X-ray agrees begrudgingly, and shows up to Armpit's home very late to give him his car, the X-mobile, and the tickets. X-Ray tells Armpit to remember to “be flexible“ twice while handing the tickets to him.
Armpit and Ginny arrive at the concert venue and Armpit has to use Ginny's handicapped placard to get parking because of their late arrival. Ginny buys two soft drinks and one bucket of popcorn, which Armpit holds as they head to their seats. Armpit can’t help but think about the last time he held a bucket of popcorn in a public place—the fight that led to his time at Camp Green Lake.
While Kaira gets ready to go on stage, Armpit is approached by a security guard with two people standing behind him. He asks to see Armpit's ticket and Armpit stands up and begins searching his many pockets for the tickets. The security guard sees Armpit as a threat and calls for backup. Armpit finds the tickets and hands them to the security guard, who tells the police officers that he has counterfeit tickets and that he’s refusing to leave. The police officers proceed to slam Armpit onto the ground, pushing his head, torso, and arms violently against the ground. Seeing this happen, Ginny has a seizure. The police officers and security guards think that Armpit gave Ginny drugs and that she's overdosing. It is only Armpit calling out to the mayor who recognizes him that makes the police officers take him out of his handcuffs so that he can help Ginny.
Backstage, El Genius is very amused by the situation between Ginny, Armpit, and the cops happening between the rows. He relays what's happening to Kaira, and tells her that it's the funniest thing he’s ever seen. He explains that Ginny is moving like a goldfish, drooling all over herself and that the cops think she's overdosing when she's having a seizure. Kaira is stunned that El Genius thinks that people misunderstanding her seizure for her being on drugs while Armpit is being abused by the police is hilarious. Kaira goes to find Armpit and Ginny instead of getting on stage. They are in a cot in the security area where medical personnel don’t know how to take care of Ginny, so Ginny remains in Armpit's arms as he comforts her. The policemen and security guard say that Armpit made threatening movements and was resisting arrest. Mayor Cherry Lane cuts in to defend him. She argues that he was only reaching for his tickets and trying to help his friend who was having a medical emergency.
Kaira finds Ginny and Armpit in the cot and invites them backstage. Kaira checks her own prejudice when she assumes that Armpit must work for Ginny since he’s a black man and she’s a white girl. Meanwhile, Armpit is completely oblivious as to why Kaira has apologized for asking him if he is Ginny's nurse. Ginny and Armpit are cleaned up once they’re backstage and sit behind the soundboard where they have a good private view of Kaira's show. When Kaira sings her song about hateful young men who feel that they need to be tough and cruel to be a man, Armpit reflects on himself before he went to Camp Green Lake. He recognizes how angry he was, and how Camp Green Lake didn't help release him from his anger; it was coming home and meeting Ginny that changed him.
When Kaira sings her song “Imperfection,” Armpit remembers how Tatiana didn't come, and he realizes he feels glad that he ended up going with Ginny instead because of how happy Ginny is. When Kaira sings "Damsel In Distress” he listens closely, and again hears her saying his name in the lyrics: “… These jewels, these shoes, this dress, a perfect picture of success. No one would ever guess, Armpit, a damsel in distress.“ (p. 117). Then he thinks he hears her whisper the last lines: “Save me, Armpit. A damsel in distress.”
Kaira is experiencing this concert differently than any of her other performances. Instead of locking the audience out, she invites them in and feels like she’s performing with them. Kaira unexpectedly invites Ginny and Armpit on stage to introduce them to the audience. Kaira asks Ginny what her favorite song is, and when Ginny responds with “Red Alert” Kaira and her band begin playing the song. Kaira sings and looks at the armpit as if it’s him she’s singing about. Once Kaira goes backstage, she receives compliments on her performance for the first time, and even though the band members usually only do one planned encore and then don’t want to do anything more, everyone feels that what happened tonight was special. The band decides to do one more song for the audience, which is a choppy rendition of a Janis Joplin song. While the performance is bad, it is fun for Kaira, the band, and the crowd.
Ginny is invited backstage after the concert, and Armpit follows. Kaira receives pushback from El Genius for ending the best performance of her career with a choppy Janis Joplin rendition. Kaira, unscathed, invites Armpit and Ginny to a smaller room adjacent to her dressing room to have chocolate chip ice cream with her. Ginny tells Kaira about Armpit making up his schooling because he was at Camp Green Lake, and gives Kaira a hint about his nickname. El Genius fires Cotton, Kaira‘s drummer and budding friend after he learns that he told Kaira that performing Janis Joplin is rock ‘n’ roll. However, Kaira believes that he was fired because El Genius doesn’t want Kaira to have any friends.
X-Ray comes into Armpit's room in the morning and as soon as Armpit wakes up, he’s so mad that he could kill X-Ray. X-Ray explains that he had to do what he thought was right. When Armpit asked for the tickets, he already had a buyer, and didn’t want to disrespect the buyer by cancelling. When the buyer offered $300 per ticket, double the rate X-Ray was expecting, he decided to copy the tickets and give the copies to Armpit. This is why X-Ray gave Armpit the tickets late: he wanted Armpit to see the people in their seats and go stand in the back. To X-Ray, telling Armpit to "be flexible" was a warning. Just as Armpit lifts X-Ray by his throat off the ground, his mom says he's receiving a phone call. It's Kaira, and she asks him to meet her at her hotel for breakfast.
Analysis
As we see more of the friendship between Ginny and Armpit, the similarity between their experiences becomes more apparent. Ginny and Armpit both experience prejudice and are treated differently by others because of their appearance. At the concert venue, at first Ginny needs Armpit's help getting up the stairs and we know she would've fallen if he hadn't been there to hold her up (p. 99). However, in an instance of situational irony, the next time Armpit helps Ginny up the stairs— to get on stage when Kaira has invited them up—the text says it isn't clear who's helping who, because Armpit has stage fright and is "leaning" on Ginny's courage (p. 121).
Armpit's focus on taking small steps, a recurring motif throughout Small Steps, includes Ginny. Not only is Ginny helping Armpit in his quest to take small steps and avoid recidivism, Armpit helps Ginny take small steps towards dealing with her cerebral palsy. While Ginny represents "small steps" forward, X-Ray represents the opposite: the life that he is taking small steps away from, and the pipeline to recidivism.
X-Ray comes into Armpit's life while he's working and tempts him with a plan to multiply his work earnings. Additionally, it's because of X-Ray's fake tickets that Armpit was subject to police violence at the concert venue. However, Ginny represents the opposite end, the course away from recidivism. Ginny makes Armpit feel less alone, helps him learn to be courageous, and is the reason he's released a lot of the anger her had in and before Camp Green Lake. Further, in the situation with the troublemakers trying to tempt and tease Armpit into skipping school, it's by using Ginny's tactics that he gets himself out of the situation.
While Armpit and Ginny are on their way to the Kaira DeLeon concert, they listen to one of her songs on the radio. Her music continues to function as a motif that supports the theme of the connection between people,
Well, now's the chance for you to find out!
'Cause I'm the she
You been hearin' about!
This song (p.114) playing on their way to Kaira's concert foreshadows Armpit meeting Kaira.
When Armpit arrives at the concert with Ginny and holds their popcorn, he can't help but think of the last time he held popcorn in a public place. In Small Steps popcorn functions as a symbol that foreshadows violence and prejudicial mistreatment. Shortly after Armpit recognizes the last time he held popcorn in public, Armpit is subject to police violence.
Sachar uses imagery to display this scene as an act of inexcusable brute force, and the imagery in this scene also solidifies it as a key moment of conflict. This violent scene also supports the theme of prejudice by further illustrating how prejudice affects how we see non-threatening situations. We see this in how the security guard immediately calls for backup when Armpit stands up even though it's clear he stood up to check his many pockets for his tickets. We also see it in how the security guard and police officers claim to be acting in response to Armpit's violence, even though, in an instance of dramatic irony, the reader knows that this is false. We know the full truth, and the characters cannot because they're still looking through the lens of prejudice.
When Armpit and Ginny get home from the concern, their parents react in opposite ways, which reveals their contrasting attitudes. Ginny's mother is pleased that Ginny had the best night of her life, while Armpit's parents' are simply mad at him for being late. Armpit recognizes that no matter what he does, his parents focus on what he's done wrong. His parents function as a hyperbolic symbol of how society views Armpit: distrusting him and expecting the worst, attitudes that the counselor at the halfway house warned him about. The relationship between Armpit and his parents seems more like the relationship between a convict and a prison warden. This sense is solidified when Sachar uses vivid imagery to describe Armpit's feelings: "Armpit didn't tell any of that to his parents. He felt like he was under attack the second he walked in the door, and so didn't tell them anything except his name, rank, and serial number." (p. 135).
