He Really Doesn’t Want To
Palmer really doesn’t want to a wringer. This is made clear from the opening lines of narration. Both literally and metaphorically:
“And more than early, it was deep inside. In the stomach, like hunger.”
A Feeling Known as Dread
A week before Family Fest and Palmer is feeling that desire not to take part and the fear of the inevitability of it all approaching. What he is feeling is known as dread. But he puts into much more colorful metaphorical terms:
“It was as if he could smell into the future.”
Family Fest
Family Fest arrives as it must, however. Dunking booths, funnel cakes, the Tilt-a-Whirl and that omnipresent metaphor looming large over all, turning round and round, slowly but ceaselessly reminding him that Pigeon Day is not far away:
“At times the Ferris wheel seemed to be winching minutes, hauling him ever closer to Saturday and the boom and smell of gunsmoke.”
Dot, Mom
Palmer had been friends with a young girl named Dorothy. Then, not so much. Now he needs her because all the boys he knows are, well, jerks. Dorothy comes back into his life. Mom likes this:
“His mother, thrilled that Dorothy was back in his life, received her like a daughter.”
Nipper
Nipper is a pigeon who appears on Palmer’s windowsill one day and refuses to leave. So he makes him a pet. Keep in mind that Palmer’s whole life at the time is the act of failing back and forth between trying to convince the jerky guys he looks forward to being a wringer and the reality that he does not:
“Nipper observed from a booktop, swinging his head as if watching a Ping-Pong match.”
