Eleanor and Park: Chapter 17 Summary & Analysis

On Monday, when Eleanor steps onto the bus, she can’t help smiling all the way down the aisle to Park. When she sits down next to him, he takes her hand and kisses it. Park whispers that he missed Eleanor all weekend, and she feels tears spring to her eyes. Neither of them say anything else on the ride to school, even as they squeeze each other’s hands the whole way. At school, Park walks Eleanor to her locker. When the bell rings, he springs one of her curls before he heads off to class, telling Eleanor that he’s going “Back to missing [her]” until he sees her again.

Eleanor is pulled out of homeroom to meet with her counselor, Mrs. Dunne, who wants to know how Eleanor is doing. Eleanor says she’s doing well—and Mrs. Dunne tells her that she looks good. Mrs. Dunne tells Eleanor that she’s getting A’s in almost all of her classes, and expresses how proud she is of Eleanor. She tells Eleanor that the reason she called her down to the office is because Eleanor’s father called the school looking for her—Mrs. Dunne offers Eleanor the use of her office phone to call him back. Mrs. Dunne stands up to leave the room, telling Eleanor that she should feel free to use the phone anytime she needs to.

Eleanor calls her father, who asks how she is—and why she never calls. Eleanor feels there’s no use telling her dad that there’s no phone in the house—there’s no use, she thinks, in telling him anything about what’s really going on. Eleanor’s dad invites her to come over and babysit her half-brother Matt while he and his fiancée, Donna, go to a wedding on Friday night. He tells her that he’ll pay her 10 bucks—and let her order pizza and spend the night. Eleanor agrees, and her dad says he’ll pick her up from school on Friday at 3 p.m.

Before the start of English class, Park tells Cal that he’s not going to homecoming. Cal begs Park to tag along to help Cal “bait […] [his] Kim trap.” Park is distracted when Eleanor walks in the room and smiles widely at him; he smiles back, but then Eleanor drops her gaze “self-consciously.” Cal begs Park once more to at least ahead the homecoming game—Park sighs and nods.

Eleanor is on cloud nine all day. She can’t stop thinking about the fact that Park likes her—and misses her when she’s not around. Eleanor doesn’t even get stressed when the girls in gym class are mean to her. She feels Park has cast a kind of protective “force field” around her.