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Lyle Orlik
Teddy was once Lyle’s best friend, but over the course of the novel, he becomes Eli’s nemesis. Early in the novel, Teddy and Lyle work together for Tytus Broz, selling and delivering heroin all over the Brisbane suburbs. Teddy looks like Elvis, and he’s kind to Eli and August. But Eli’s relationship with Teddy starts to get complicated when it becomes obvious that Teddy is falling in love with Mum. Eli eventually comes to see Teddy as cowardly and selfish. Teddy is the one to tell Tytus that Lyle is dealing heroin behind his back, and Teddy doesn’t try to help Mum, Eli, or August when Tytus and Iwan Krol come to take Lyle away and cut Eli’s lucky finger off. But while Eli and August openly detest Teddy, this doesn’t change the fact that Teddy is the only one to visit Mum in prison—so upon her release, Mum moves in with him. Teddy, however, is verbally and physically abusive. By this point, he’s driving fruit trucks up and down the coast, a career move Eli figures necessary since Tytus no doubt refused to work with a “rat.” This career change brings different drugs with it, which Eli thinks contribute to Teddy’s violence. Mum leaves Teddy’s house once due to the abuse and returns, and she leaves him for good after Teddy knocks her front teeth out.
Teddy Quotes in Boy Swallows Universe
The Boy Swallows Universe quotes below are all either spoken by Teddy or refer to Teddy. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Boy Loses Luck
Quotes
I don’t know what I expected from drug dealing. More romance, perhaps. A sense of danger and suspense. I realise now that the average street grunt suburban drug dealer is not too far removed from the common pizza delivery boy. Half these deals Lyle and Teddy are making I could make in half the time riding through the south-west Brisbane suburbs on my Mongoose BMX with the gear in my backpack. August could probably do it even faster because he rides faster than me and he’s got a ten-speed Malvern Star racer.
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Boy Takes Flight
Quotes
August and I wait for her smile because her smile is the sun and the sky and it makes us warm. We smile at her as we rush closer to the phone booth. She has nothing. No bags. No shoes. No purse. But she will still have her smile, that brief celestial event, when her lips open from right to left and she curls her upper lip and she tells us in that smile that we’re not crazy, we are correct about everything, and it’s just the universe that is wrong. And she sees us and she beams that smile and it turns out the universe is right and it’s the smile that is wrong because Mum is missing her two front teeth.
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Get the entire Boy Swallows Universe LitChart as a printable PDF.
Teddy Quotes in Boy Swallows Universe
The Boy Swallows Universe quotes below are all either spoken by Teddy or refer to Teddy. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Boy Loses Luck
Quotes
I don’t know what I expected from drug dealing. More romance, perhaps. A sense of danger and suspense. I realise now that the average street grunt suburban drug dealer is not too far removed from the common pizza delivery boy. Half these deals Lyle and Teddy are making I could make in half the time riding through the south-west Brisbane suburbs on my Mongoose BMX with the gear in my backpack. August could probably do it even faster because he rides faster than me and he’s got a ten-speed Malvern Star racer.
Related Characters:
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Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Boy Takes Flight
Quotes
August and I wait for her smile because her smile is the sun and the sky and it makes us warm. We smile at her as we rush closer to the phone booth. She has nothing. No bags. No shoes. No purse. But she will still have her smile, that brief celestial event, when her lips open from right to left and she curls her upper lip and she tells us in that smile that we’re not crazy, we are correct about everything, and it’s just the universe that is wrong. And she sees us and she beams that smile and it turns out the universe is right and it’s the smile that is wrong because Mum is missing her two front teeth.
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
