Bud, Not Buddy: Chapter 8 Summary & Analysis

The noise of someone stepping on a stick wakes Bud up. The person seems to sense that Bud is awake and stands very still. Though Bud can’t see them from under his blanket, he gets ready to attack them with his jackknife.

Bud gets ready to pull back the blanket and start “running or stabbing,” but someone jumps on him before he can do anything. As Bud gets ready to aim his jackknife at the person’s heart, he hears the person say, “If you ain’t a kid called Bud from the Home I’m really sorry about jumping on you like this.” From that, Bud realizes it is Bugs.

Bud eventually makes Bugs get off him and tries to catch his breath. He realizes that Bugs is on the run as well and Bugs confirms this, saying that after he heard about what Bud did to the “kid” (Todd), he was inspired to take off too and thought he would find Bud at the library in case Bud wanted to leave together.

Bud asks questions about Bugs’s plans to catch a train the following day, go out West, and pick fruit to make money. Bugs asks Bug questions about the age and size of the kid Bud “beat up.”

After Bugs explains everything from sleeping to peeing on the train to his friend, Bud excitedly agrees to go West with Bugs. They commemorate their decision with a spit-soaked handshake, and Bud is delighted to “finally have a brother.” They decide to go to the mission to ask for advice on how to find the train.

They find out that they must catch the train from Hooperville. They follow a trail along Thread Creek through the woods until they get to Hooperville. When they do, they hear music and people and a crackling fire. Bud is surprised about how small the town is. He notes that a “big wind or even two or three big wolves huffing and puffing real hard could blow Hooperville into the next county,” because it is mostly made of “boxes” and “shacks.”

Bud notices that there are two big fires in use in Hooperville. One man stirs things in a pot over the fire and gives the clothes he brings out of it to a white man. The other fire, which is set apart from the rest of the group, is surrounded by five white people: two kids, a man, a woman, and a baby.

Bugs and Bud flip a coin to see who should ask for food. Bud loses, and Bugs tells him to ask the residents if they are in Hooperville and if they have any extra food.

Bud goes up, waits until he gets the residents’ attention before asking the if he is in Hooperville. One of the white men sitting around the fire is confused, so Bud asks his question again. A man who was playing the mouth organ corrects him by telling him the place he’s actually looking for is called Hooverville, as in President Hoover.

The mouth-organ man tells Bud that this is one of many Hoovervilles, which annoys Bud, because it makes it hard to say if this is the right Hooverville. The man then asks Bud if he’s hungry (Bud says yes), tired (again Bud says yes), and scared of what tomorrow brings (Bud says, “not exactly” because he’s trying to be brave), because as long as he is “in need,” he is in the correct Hooverville.

Bugs appears from behind the tree and the man tells them to look around at Hooverville. Bugs and Bud realize it is much bigger than they originally thought. They also notice that it is very diverse, with “black, white, and brown [people].” Bud notes, though, that the glow of the fire “made everyone look like they were different shades of orange.” The mouth-organ man tells them that all the people are similar to them, and that Hooverville is “nearer to home than [they’ll] ever get.” He cautions them against riding the rails and looking for better things because “they’re singing the same sad song all over the country.” He adds that because the boys are from Flint, this is the right Hooverville for them.

The mouth-organ man invites Bugs and Bud to eat as long as they agree to pitch in by serving on the “KP,” or “Kitchen Police,” and doing the cleanup. Bugs and Bud agree; a woman gives them some makeshift china, and they help themselves to two servings of muskrat stew.

When it is time for the boys to fulfill their cleanup tasks, the woman asks Bud to leave his suitcase while they clean. Bud resists but eventually consents at the end. However, he asks the woman to assure him that no one will touch it, before he leaves it near her feet.

Bud notices that he, Bugs, a girl, and a little white boy will be doing the dishes. The girl is in charge and splits the group into two: she’ll be with Bud, and Bugs will be with the white boy. That way, they can each do half of the dishes.

The girl introduces herself as Deza Malone, and Bud introduces himself. They find a spot at the creek, and the girl tells him that she’ll wash while he dries. As they work, Bud tells her he plans to take the train to Chicago. Deza tells him that her dad plans to take it too to look for work in the West again. Bud notices that though she’s “real fast at washing the dishes,” she is “touching [his] hand a lot” as she gives the dishes to him.

Deza asks him about his family, and Bud tells her his mother died and he believes his father lives in Grand Rapids. Deza tells him that family is the most important thing there is, and Bud responds that his mother used to say something similar to him. Bud stops talking abruptly when he believes he’s said too much.

After Deza presses him a little more, Bud decides to open up after all. Bud remembers how his mother would tell him “that there had never been a little boy, anywhere, anytime, who was loved more than she loved [him].” Deza tells him that he’s different because he carries his “family around inside of [him],” and Bud agrees that he does carry them inside—and “inside [his] suitcase” as well.

Deza asks Bud why he doesn’t go back to the orphanage, and finally Bud comes clean and tells her that he’s on the run; he asks her not to tell anyone. Deza then warns him about the railroad police and how he’s “going to have a bad surprise tomorrow morning.”

Deza asks Bud if he’s ever kissed a girl at the orphanage. Bud worries that he has to kiss her to prove himself, and so he does. After, Deza puts her hand in Bud’s and he leaves it there. Together they listen to a song called “Shenandoah.” Deza tells him it reminds her of her parents. Eventually Bud pulls his hand away. Deza tells him she’ll “never forget this night,” and though he doesn’t say anything, he knows he’ll always remember it as well because it was his first kiss.

They reunite with Bugs and his dishwashing partner and begin walking back. They pass the group of white people with a coughing baby, and Bud asks if “they aren’t allowed to sit around the big fire ‘cause [the] baby’s making so much noise.” Deza tells her it’s actually because they claim that as “white people,” they “ain’t in need of a handout.”

When they get back to the main fire, Bud retrieves his suitcase and is happy to see it hasn’t been tampered with. Bud and Bugs go to sleep to prepare for tomorrow. Bugs falls asleep quickly, but Bud can’t. Instead, he takes out and “opens his jackknife and put[s] it under [his] blanket.”

Bud wonders if it’s a good idea to go to California given that it made “a whole lot more sense to think that they were somewhere around Flint instead of out west.”

Eventually, Bud goes through his suitcase to make sure everything is still in it. He looks through the “five smooth stones” that he found after the ambulance took his mother away. However, he is unable to decipher the codes on them, like “flint m. 8.11.11.” and “gary in. 6.13.12.” He then makes sure his mother’s picture is still in its proper place.

Bud saves the flyers for last. He takes a closer look at the “blue one” and thinks that Momma must have been more bothered by this one because the man in it is his father—after all, “Why else would Momma keep these?”

After using a trick of breathing deeply to help him fall asleep, Bud then pretends Momma is reading him stories. He dreams first about the “man with the giant fiddle,” from the photo, then Herman E. Calloway, and then Deza Malone.

Bud wakes up to man loudly screaming that “they’re trying to sneak it out early.” Bud runs outside and someone tells him and Bugs that the train is “trying to sneak out before [they] get up.” Bugs urges Bud that they have to get on the train, so Bud hastily packs up his suitcase.

However, a boy gets Bud’s attention and he realizes he has forgotten his flyer. He runs back and gets it, before joining the “million men and boys running in the same direction.”

When they get to the train, Bud tries to find Bugs and pushes through the front of the crowd; however, he realizes that people have stopped because of the four cop cars. The cops tell the crowd to disperse but it continues to get bigger.

The crowd of people attempting to get on the train continues to get bigger making one of the cops give up on controlling the crowd by throwing “his cop hat” and “billy club to the ground.” The train whistle, meanwhile, picks up steam, as more cops follow the example of the first cop and throw their hats and clubs down.

The engine gets louder and the crowd rushes to the train. Bud starts running and sees Bugs. He throws him his suitcase, but the flyer falls. It lands in Bud’s hand and he slows down and puts it in his pocket. However, he is unable to join Bugs on the train as a result, so Bugs throws Bud’s suitcase back out of the train, and Bud walks to retrieve it as the train speeds away.

When Bud heads back to Hooverville, he hears gunshots and hides in the woods. From his hiding place, he sees a blazing fire and the cops throwing “wood and cardboard and hunks of cloth into the middle of it.” Bud looks for Deza but can’t find her.

Bud takes these last-minute events as a sign that he should maybe stay in Flint. He takes out the flyer again and wonders again if Herman E. Calloway is his father, especially since it’s a really similar name to Caldwell.

Bud realizes he can’t stay and look for Deza because “it was too hard to hear all the people crying and arguing,” so instead he hurries to get breakfast at the mission.