Bud, Not Buddy: Chapter 11 Summary & Analysis

The car stops after “thirty giant steps,” and the “vampire” catches up to Bud. He asks Bud to roll down his window, and Bud does in a way that only “their words could get in and out but [the vampire’s] hand or claws couldn’t.”

The “vampire” asks him to explain, and Bud tells him that he’s read the box. Moreover, Bud tells him he knows how to kill vampires and that his knife is “solid twenty-four-karat silver.”

Bud asks the man to show him his teeth, and the man does. Finally, he explains that he has to get the blood to a hospital in Flint for an operation. So, Bud finally unlocks the driver’s door—though he also opens his side of the car in case “[the man] had any tricks up his sleeve.”

On the way to Flint, the man asks Bud questions about his family, so Bud tells him that his mother is dead and that his father is “Herman E. Calloway.” The man is surprised at first but, tells Bud that everyone knows his father. The man even notes the resemblance between them. Bud agrees with him and tells the man that people “say [he’s] the spitting image of [his] old man.”

Bud asks the man for the rest of the food. The man gives it to him and introduces himself as Mr. Lewis, or Lefty. He tells Bud to call him Mr. Lewis since Bud is still so young. Lefty teases Bud by asking him if anyone has ever referred to him as a “little peanut-head.” He’s disappointed though when he thinks Bud does not understand that he’s teasing him.

Soon, Lefty Lewis asks Bud to share the soda but notices that Bud has backwashed quite a bit, so he hands it back to him, noting that it’s “nothing personal.”

The man asks Bud if he’s tired, and Bud realizes that he can pretend to fall asleep to avoid answering more questions. So, the man tells him to get some sleep and gives him his jacket to use as a blanket.

Bud believes he’s safe because he’s “never heard of a vampire that could drive a car and [he’d] never seen one that had such a good sense of humor.” So, Bud falls asleep to the scent of the jacket’s “spice and soap,” and the sound of the frogs.

Bud wakes up with the sensation like he’s “at the bottom of a well that someone had filled with tons of thick chocolate pudding. He hears a woman calling his name but remembers that “rule 29” states that when one wakes up with people around them, they should pretend to be asleep until they can figure out what’s going on. So, Bud pretends to be asleep and listens to someone tell the woman that he was walking from Grand Rapids to Flint. With that he remembers he was with Lefty Lewis.

With his eyes still shut, Bud listens to the conversation and hears the woman refer to Lefty Lewis as “Poppa.” The woman pulls back the blanket they put over Bud, and Bud is embarrassed to realize that he is in a bed and his “knickers” are off—they must have partially undressed him before tucking him into bed. He thinks he will have to pretend to be asleep even longer until he figures “a way out of being so embarrassed.”

Bud continues listening, trying to learn something about his dad, Herman E. Calloway. Eventually he pieces together that his father “was married to someone before he married [his] mom.” Bud also learns from Lefty Lewis that Herman E. Calloway has “got a reputation for being no-nonsense.” Lefty also mentions the possibility of Bud having a “half-sister,” that’s probably “full-grown by now.”

The woman finally wakes Bud up with the promise of food, and Bud gets up and greets her and Lefty. Lefty teases the woman—who is, in fact, his daughter—about her food and teases Bud for his peanut-shaped head again, earning a smack from his daughter.

The woman introduces herself as Mrs. Sleet. She tells Bud to go wash up while she gets him clothes that no longer fit her son. She also tells him she has a special breakfast of pancakes, sausages, toast, and orange juice that he can have as he meets Kim and Scott Sleet.

When Bud comes out of the bathroom, he sees Mrs. Sleet has put new clothes on the bed for him. Because they are slightly too big, Bud rolls them up and is happy to have his “first pair of trousers.”

Bud uses his nose to find the food; he notices that the Sleets have a whole room dedicated to eating. One of the two children at the table gives Bud a look that sizes him up. Shortly after, Lefty Lewis introduces his grandchildren, Kim and Scott Sleet, as his “favorite”—and only—grandkids.

Bud introduces himself to Kim and Scott as “Bud, not Buddy.” When Lefty Lewis leaves the table, the boy asks Bud if he ran away from home. Because Bud takes too long to answer, the boy asks if he ran because his father beat him, prompting Bud to respond truthfully that his “daddy never laid a hand on [him] in his life.” The boy presses Bud for more information, so Bud responds that he ran away simply because he “didn’t like where [he] was.”

Afterwards, Kim tells Bud that the sausages will be coming out soon and they’re going to share the food with Bud because Mrs. Sleet said that Bud is their “special guest.” Kim asks him if she’s treating him nicely and he responds that she is, so she makes a deal with him. She’ll sing him a song for the chance to ask him a question that he has to answer truthfully.

Kim sings, and Bud thinks it’s horrible. After she finishes, she asks Bud how his mother died and Bud wonders who told her that in the first place. He responds that Momma “got sick [and] died real fast”—so fast that she didn’t even have time to close her eyes. Kim responds by wishing that “her mother never dies.” Soon after, Bud tells her that “everybody’s got to die [and that] it’s not sad unless they do it real slow and suffer.” Kim and Scott are surprised by this.

Mrs. Sleet returns with what Bud assumes are sausages. Then after Kim and Scott say grace, people start passing the plates. Bud watches to see how much food everyone takes so he can mimic them. He also watches how much the children put on their fork as they eat.

Bud notices that it’s harder to eat with the Sleets because they talk a lot and they want him to talk too. This is hard for Bud because the Home taught him to eat quietly after grace. He notices that the Sleets laugh a lot too.

As they all talk, Mrs. Sleet mentions “redcaps,” so Kim asks her mother to explain what a “redcap” is to Bud. She explains that redcaps “load” trains and carry people’s luggage to their cars; she reveals that her father is one while her husband is a Pullman Porter, meaning he attends to the clients on the train.

Towards the end of the breakfast, Lefty Lewis teases Mrs. Sleet about her cooking again, prompting her to smack him on the head once more.