The Plaster Wall (Simile)
When Sal introduces the parallel stories of her road trip and the family drama of the Winterbottoms in Chapter One, she says, "the story of Phoebe was like the plaster wall in our old house in Bybanks, Kentucky" (3). After chipping and scraping away at the wall for weeks, Sal's dad uncovers a brick fireplace he didn't even know was there. The fireplace is a thing of beauty uncovered after weeks of anxious, tedious work. The metaphor characterizes Phoebe's story—and Sal's involvement in it—as a necessary trial to eventually arrive at a place of peace and reconciliation, symbolized by the brick fireplace.
As Yellow as a Crow's Foot (Simile)
Early on in the book, Sal describes Phoebe's hair as being "as yellow as a crow's foot" (13). Other than being an evocative image, Creech's careful choice of words create a moment of comparison and contrast between Phoebe and Sal, further connecting them as two sides of the same coin, or two iterations of a similar story. While Phoebe's hair is "as yellow as a crow's foot," Sal's hair is as black as a crow. Though Creech never describes Sal's hair in terms of crows, Sal admires crows, and describes them as wise and noteworthy when she hears one cawing.
The Dream Ladder (Metaphor)
One night, while Phoebe is staying at the Hiddles' house, Sal has a dream about her mother. She describes it: "I dreamed that I was sitting on the grass peering through a pair of binoculars. Far off in the distance, my mother was climbing up a ladder. She kept climbing and climbing. It was a thumpingly tall ladder. She couldn't see me, and she never came down. She just kept on going" (169). In the dream, the ladder is a metaphor for the ever-widening distance Sal feels between herself and her mother; the dream makes even more sense when we later learn that her mother has died, and the ladder is then clearly representative of an ascent into an afterlife or some other plane of existence separate from and unreachable to the living.
Like a Magnet (Simile)
For Sal, Phoebe can sometimes be a very difficult friend to interact with, but, she says, "in spite of all her wild tales and her cholesterol madness and her annoying comments, there was something about Phoebe that was like a magnet" (189). This simile is noteworthy because, on the surface, Sal is only describing Phoebe, but by describing her relationship to Phoebe in terms of Phoebe being "like a magnet," Sal also describes herself. Magnets require a compatible surface to trigger a natural attraction. Something about Phoebe is irresistible to Sal, and it likely that it has something to do with the fact that their stories share so many similarities; Sal is able to learn about herself through Phoebe.
The Birds of Sadness (Metaphor)
One of the mysterious notes Mrs. Partridge leaves on the Winterbottoms' porch reads, "You can't keep the birds of sadness from flying over your head, but you can keep them from nesting in your hair" (154). This proverb refers to the importance of distinguishing between things that are in and out of one's control. The birds of sadness represent events in life that are often out of one's control, and the idea of them "keeping them from nesting in your hair" refers to the notion that even when people can't control certain events in life, they can control how they respond to those events. The metaphor is a more poetic way of saying, "Don't let it get to you."
