Summary
Kaira and Armpit are reunited. They go to a gift shop because Armpit assumed California would be as hot as Texas so he didn't bring a jacket. Kaira and Armpit get in a taxi to the Golden Gate Bridge, and Kaira tells Fred to get his own cab. As soon as the taxi is pulling away, Kaira gives the cab driver $50 to lose Fred's taxi, to let them out and continue on to the Golden Gate Bridge. Meanwhile, El Genius enters Armpit's hotel suite using the extra key that Aileen provided him and collects Armpit's DNA samples—strands of hair from his hair brush and one of his blood-encrusted band-aids.
Armpit and Kaira walk around Chinatown and Armpit is entranced by everything he sees. He feels like he’s in a different world, but Kaira isn’t interested in going into any of the shops. When Armpit is shopping for a gift for Ginny, he sees the exact $100 sweater he bought at the hotel gift shop for $19.99. Kaira argues that they’re not the same sweater, but Armpit doesn’t see a difference besides the hood. Armpit buys Ginny a silk scarf with the Golden Gate Bridge on it. Afterward, Armpit and Kaira leave Chinatown and go to North Beach, which isn’t a beach, similar to how Camp Green Lake isn't by a lake. They go to a nice coffee shop and Armpit feels too embarrassed to order a Coke, so he orders the same thing as Kaira and is left to pay the bill. Kaira speaks about how she wishes she could play on a small stage like the one in the coffee shop where people pass around the hat to collect tips. Kaira speaks about Ginny and praises Armpit for being so good with her. Kaira has a hard time around handicapped kids, which surprises Armpit because he rarely thinks about Ginny as handicapped. Kaira then tells Armpit that she is meeting with a child from the Make-A-Wish Foundation because she is the child's wish. Just as Armpit compliments her for doing that, she explains that she dreads it because she gets creeped out being around handicapped children, but she’s doing it for good publicity. Armpit doesn’t judge her, and instead gives her advice: that the young girl isn’t expecting Kaira to cure her, but rather to look her in the eyes to let her know she's real.
Armpit tries to bring up the ticket scalping situation to Kaira, but is cut off by a man asking for her autograph. Once the man leaves, Armpit fumbles with his words because he has caffeine jitters and asks Kaira to write him another letter that is less embarrassing because there's someone who wants to buy it from him for $150. He explains that he needs to keep X-Ray out of prison, but Kaira takes offense and feels like Armpit's just with her for money. He explains that it isn’t about money and that Kaira doesn’t know anything about money because she just charges everything to her room and is used to everyone taking care of money matters for her. Kaira splashes her cappuccino in Armpit's face and leaves as several people applaud her. Armpit walks back to the hotel and considers his options. He regrets asking Kaira for another letter because it wouldn’t have done any good in the end. He realizes that he has taken too big a step, and is probably going to end up in prison, because it’s only a matter of time before Detective Newberg finds out that he is Armpit. He realizes that so many of his actions have revolved around Kaira and regrets doing all this for some famous girl. Armpit realizes that while he's easy to win over—most of the girls at school could win his heart with just a smile—he realizes that he was blinded by the allure of Kaira's wealth and fame. He realizes that he has come to California to live the kind of highfalutin life that she is accustomed to. He hopes that there is more to his decisions than that desire, but he’s not sure.
At the Golden Gate Bridge, Fred is elbowing his way past slow-moving tourists with a look of urgency on his face because he’s lost Kaira for the first time. Through Fred’s point-of-view, we learn that he is genuinely worried about Kaira, and that he isn't in on the plot to kill her. He wants to keep her safe. While he is searching frantically for Kaira, she is in her hotel room getting ready for her concert in a little over an hour. She is crying in the shower, fearful that no one will ever like her for who she is but only what she is. While this is happening, El Genius enters her suite wearing latex gloves and holding the baseball bat that has Armpit's fingerprints all over it from when El Genius asked him to swing it. As Armpit is finally entering the hotel, winded from walking all the way back from Chinatown on foot, El Genius tries to get his nerves under control because he realizes plotting to murder someone and actually murdering them is very different. Armpit listens to voicemails Kaira has left him in which she explains that people don’t regard her as a real person with feelings, but rather just a celebrity that people can make money off of.
Just as Kaira exits her bathroom, El Genius closes his eyes and swings his bat against Kaira's throat. Just as she is finding her bearings El Genius hits her again in the chest. After striking her neck, he drags her away from her bed and she recognizes that it’s her stepfather/manager inflicting violence on her. Fred enters the bedroom and lunges at El Genius, but El Genius manages to swing the bat against Fred's rib cage. Kaira is unable to scream for help and isn’t able to even crawl over to retrieve the baseball bat that has fallen. El Genius stabs Fred with the knife from Armpit's fruit and cheese plate and returns to Kaira. As he stands over Kaira ready to kill her, Armpit enters the hotel suite and calls out for Kaira. Kaira is in no condition to cry out for help, so she doesn't respond to his voice. After Armpit sets down the love letter Kaira wrote him he says his farewell. Just before he leaves, Kaira uses a cord underneath her night table to send the lamp down to the floor with a crash to get Armpit's attention. Armpit runs to search for Kaira, and just as he recognizes El Genius, El Genius hit's Armpit's arm with the bat, breaking it on impact. As El Genius is stepping over Fred to attack Armpit again, Fred grabs El Genius' ankle which sends the bat into the television set. This allows Armpit to punch El Genius in the nose, sending him onto the floor. Armpit punches El Genius until he lies motionless, just as Kaira’s hairdresser Rosemary comes into the bedroom and screams.
In the aftermath, with the police, Kaira’s mother, and a TV news crew all hovering around, Armpit throws Kaira’s letter into the fireplace. Fred confirms Armpit's innocence and Armpit is surprised to realize that no one is blaming him and assuming that he is the attacker because of his build. A man mistakenly announces to a stadium of 20,000 people that Kaira DeLeon has been murdered. Everyone’s confused, no one in the band knows what to do and who is going to pay the enormous hotel bill, and Aileen can’t be found because she never checked into the hotel in Portland that she flew ahead to. The hotel worker advises Armpit to leave before he gets stuck with the bill, so Armpit trades his first-class ticket for an economy ticket to return to Austin. Once Armpit returns he tells Ginny everything. They can’t go on their usual walks because news vans and camera crews fill the street, refusing to respect his wishes to not speak about the events that occurred in San Francisco. Armpit is on the front cover of nearly every newspaper in the country and he’s being dubbed a hero, which his mother is secretly enjoying. Armpit receives a visit from Detective Newberg. She is being assigned to another case and told her superiors that all the leads have dried up and that it isn't worth the resources to continue pursuing two counterfeit tickets. Detective Newberg asks to sign Armpit's cast, and she asks him if she should make it out to Theodore or Armpit. She discovered that Theodore is Armpit because the last man to buy tickets from X-Ray said that X-Ray was reluctant to sell them because he promised them to a friend. She believes that Armpit really didn’t know he had counterfeit tickets. Armpit tells her that he always felt bad about lying to her, and she forgives him and signs her name on his cast.
When Kaira wakes up in the hospital, the first person she sees is Fred. There is something wrong with Kaira's vocal cords so she apologizes to Fred for being such a doofus.
All the girls in school want to sign Armpit's cast. Armpit gets an 89 in economics after making up his final exam. Armpit is very aware that if El Genius succeeded in killing Kaira, he would be in jail because his fingerprints were all over the room. However, X-Ray refutes the story that El Genius would used against Armpit: he argues that it doesn’t make sense how Armpit could’ve been able to carry a bat from Austin to California, that Ginny couldn’t have faked a seizure just for them to meet Kaira DeLeon, and that he couldn't have gotten his blood and hair on the Billy Boy letters unless he cut himself while brushing his hair while writing the letter. The evidence that would have been used to convict Armpit is now being used to convict El Genius to prove premeditation. Armpit is slightly disappointed he doesn't have to attend the trial because he would’ve had an excuse to go to San Francisco and see Kaira. He knows from the newspaper that she’s been declared broke because Aileen stole most of the money from her tour and people are still waiting to be paid and reimbursed. But he knows that being broke for someone like her is different than being broke for someone like him. Aileen was discovered in arrested in Belize a few weeks earlier because she bought Armpit's tickets on the same computer that she used to buy tickets to Costa Rica for someone named Denise Linaria. However, the stolen money was never recovered. Kaira is most upset about the loss of her voice because the doctors say she may never be able to sing again, but Armpit believes she will.
In late February Armpit hears Kaira's voice on the radio. Her voice sounds fragile, like fine crystal, but it is still clear. Her new song is a lot more vulnerable and understated than her past pop music. The song is about her time with Armpit, and the chorus is about her taking small steps. She references spilling coffee on his sweatshirt, and his advice to look people in the eye to let them know they're real. Armpit cries during the song and realizes that it’s still unclear whether he’ll ever see her again, but he does realize that he can’t let his life revolve around her anymore. He has a new list of small steps to take: graduate from high school, attend two years of Austin Community College, do well enough to transfer to the University of Texas to possibly study occupational therapy to help people like Ginny, don’t do anything stupid, and lose the name Armpit.
Analysis
While Armpit is walking back to the hotel from his public blowout with Kaira, he reflects on how he's undermined his redemption. The motif of taking small steps represents the theme of redemption, which is Armpit's primary motivation. When he realizes there's nothing he can do to prevent Detective Newberg from finding out that he's Armpit, he uses the metaphor of having taken too big a step to allude to the advice the counselor at the halfway house gave him. He recognizes he has been swept up in the life of Kaira, and in doing so has worked against his own redemption by increasing his likelihood of recidivism.
Sachar uses imagery in the last chapters of Small Steps to develop the rising action. Sachar's use of imagery begins with his describing El Genius breaking into Armpit's suite with a key card Aileen gave him to collect Armpit's DNA samples. The vivid description in this scene lets the reader know that what is happening is important, and that El Genius is successfully collecting evidence to frame Armpit for Kaira's murder. Sachar also furthers the characterization of El Genius being desperate when he initially picks up and considers whether to take Armpit's sweat-soaked sock. This characterization as well as the theme of ego is further developed by El Genius smiling at himself in the mirror when he finds Armpit's blood-encrusted band-aid (p. 223).
Sachar's use of imagery in El Genius's attempted murder of Kaira further develops El Genius's desperation and jealousy while creating suspense during this climactic scene in Small Steps. His switching between Kaira, Armpit, Fred, and El Genius's points of view furthers the suspense. We see every scene in high definition, with Kaira moving her speaker to the side of the sink while El Genius accidentally shakes the bed frame because of his involuntarily shaking hands. Armpit enters the hotel as the violence ensues between El Genius and Kaira.
Sachar broadens the theme of the harsh reality of celebrity life through the audience of 20,000 people's reaction to hearing the mistaken announcement that Kaira DeLeon has been murdered. Previously they were all chanting, "We want Kaira!" but once they heard the news, "some people cried, while others were desperately looking for the ticket stubs." (p. 245). Sachar uses this metaphor to compare the gap between how people regard Kaira. The audience screaming "We want Kaira" takes on a different tone once we know that some of them have a parasocial relationship with her, while others want something from her. This represents how in Kaira's life, some people care for her, such as Frank and Rosemary, while others see her only for what she can do for them, such as El Genius and Aileen. Sachar's use of the audience as a metaphor exaggerates the dynamic we've seen Kaira struggle with throughout the book.
When Armpit leaves San Francisco, he exchanges his first-class ticket so that he can get an earlier departure date. The only option is an economy ticket because there are no first-class tickets available. The first-class ticket is a symbol of Kaira's world, a world of luxuries Armpit didn't know were possible. However, after leaving San Francisco, Armpit doesn't care about the first-class ticket and is only concerned with going home. The economy ticket, then, becomes a symbol for Armpit's return to normalcy and re-entering his own life after getting swept up in the life of a celebrity and learning the truth about what it's really like.
