Bud, Not Buddy: Chapter 15 Summary & Analysis

Miss Thomas introduces Bud to “Grand Calloway Station,” just as she parks the car in front of a big house. Bud grabs his suitcase and asks her about the name of the house. She says that Herman named it after the New York City Grand Central Station.

They walk in and Miss Thomas takes Bud to where he’ll be sleeping. Bud sees a chair, a little table, and a picture with a “skinny little black horse” on it in the room. She tells Bud that Herman needs to clear out the closet and tells him to put his suitcase on the table.

Miss Thomas tells Bud where her room, Herman’s room, and the bathroom all are. She is about to leave when Bud asks her if the closet doors are locked. She tells him they aren’t but reassures him all that’s in the closet are “girl’s clothes and toys.”

Bud asks about whether the girl will be annoyed that he’s in her room and Miss Thomas tells Bud the girl is gone. He remembers “rule 28” of his guide and knows that “Gone=dead!” Bud becomes scared of staying in the room of a dead little girl. He realizes he won’t sleep very well. Shortly after, Miss Thomas tells him she’ll see him in the morning and leaves.

Bud uses the chair to push against one of the closet’s doorknobs, but a conversation between Miss Thomas and Herman interrupts Bud. Bud hopes Herman wins so he can sleep somewhere else.

Herman enters the room angrily, but Bud isn’t worried because he sees Miss Thomas. Herman takes out a key and locks both closet doors. He tells Bud that Bud doesn’t fool him and that he’s going to send Bud “back where [he] belong[s].” Herman slams the door on his way out but comes back in to warn Bud not to steal anything because he’ll know it if Bud does. Then he slams the door again.

Bud thinks that Herman sounds like a white lifeguard he remembers from the YMCA who used to warn the kids from the Home not to pee in the pool unless they wanted to be severely burned, claiming that they added some “new kind of magical chemical in the water” that burns all those who dare to urinate in the water. The lifeguard would also tell the kids—whom he addressed as “you people”—that if they did urinate in the pool, they would get locked up in jail and be banned from swimming anywhere else in the world.

Bud thinks Herman shouldn’t worry because he’s a “liar, not a thief.” He’s only ever stolen food from a garbage can. Bud wonders how “someone who was so suspicious could ever be kin to [him].” He thinks that “even a hard-up thief wouldn’t find” anything to steal in a dead girl’s room. He notes that the “best thing in the whole room” was a wall full of pictures of horses from magazines.

Bud thinks that there’s something valuable in the closet—though he can’t get inside. Instead, he looks inside a drawer and sees only thumbtacks and pencils. Bud goes back and “flops” on the bed and is pleasantly surprised to find it’s really soft with two sheets like “Toddy boy’s.”

Bud no longer feels scared of the girl who “kicked the bucket” and instead feels at home and content. He’s too tired to get under the two sheets but he even hears his mother’s voice before falling asleep. He realizes he is no longer afraid of any possible monsters because “nothing could hurt [him] now.”