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Dead (p. 21–31)
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Ghost Boys, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Progress, Storytelling, and Justice
Racism and the Law
Childhood
Fear
Education
Summary
Analysis
December 8. School. Jerome’s oblivious middle-school teacher Mr. Myers is introducing a new student, Carlos from San Antonio, at the front of the class—singling Carlos out. Judging from Carlos’s unhappy expression, he knows this will make him a target. Mr. Myers tells everyone that Carlos speaks English and Spanish and then asks Eddie whether he speaks Spanish. Eddie asserts that he speaks “Dominican,” not “Texas Spanish.” The class snickers. When Mr. Myers asks the class to make Carlos feel “welcome,” Jerome—feeling bad for Carlos—says, “Hola.” Mr. Myers sends Carlos to sit next to Jerome, and Eddie makes a threatening gesture at Jerome. Jerome predicts that he and Carlos are going to get beaten up.
Mr. Myers doesn’t recognize that his attempts to make Carlos feel welcome are going to encourage other students to bully Carlos—a detail suggesting that the adults at Jerome’s school don’t grasp how and why bullying happens. Eddie’s claim that he doesn’t speak “Texas Spanish” is an intentionally nonsensical rejection of any shared identity with Carlos, as they both speak different dialects of the same language. Jerome’s fear that Eddie will beat him up for being nice to Carlos again hints that bullying is negatively impacting Jerome’s education.
Themes
No one speaks Spanish while at Jerome’s school, though some students speak it at home. When Eddie’s mom comes to the school, Eddie whispers to her because he believes being a Spanish speaker “isn’t cool.” Jerome would like to be bilingual—the only foreign word he knows is “Hola”—but he feels like he can’t even communicate well in English. Bullies are always calling him “stuck-up” for being polite in class and at recess. Jerome longs to leave school behind; imagining adulthood isn’t always enough to get him by.
Eddie’s belief that speaking Spanish “isn’t cool” hints that he has faced prejudice for being Hispanic, which highlights how racism and bigotry negatively affect many kids at Jerome’s school. Meanwhile, that Jerome only knows one word of Spanish suggests that his school can’t afford foreign language teachers, indicating that living in a poor school district is negatively impacting Jerome’s education. Finally, Jerome’s desire to become an adult is bitterly ironic, since he won’t survive past childhood.
Themes
At lunch, Carlos approaches Jerome and suggests they eat together. Jerome initially tries to dodge Carlos, but he eventually feels bad for the kid, who’s wearing only a hoodie in winter in Chicago, and leads him to quickly grab food from the cafeteria. As they do, Jerome notices that Carlos’s t-shirt has been darned and realizes Carlos’s family might be even poorer than his own. Once the boys have food, Jerome leads Carlos up to the top-floor bathroom, where he tells Carlos to hide in a stall with his feet on the seat so no one can see him inside.
Carlos’s darned t-shirt emphasizes that many children who attend Jerome’s school live in poverty, while Jerome’s complicated ritual for eating lunch undisturbed by bullies emphasizes that the school doesn’t have enough resources to supervise its students adequately and make sure they aren’t mistreating each other.
Themes
Hiding in the stall next to Carlos, Jerome tells him that the middle school, Bearden, isn’t “that bad.” Carlos says he hopes it’s better than his old school in San Antonio, where the students were fearful and fights were frequent. Jerome admits that Bearden has lots of fights too—hence the guards and metal detectors—and knows that Carlos will hear the subtext: Bearden is likely worse than Carlos’s last school. Then he tells Carlos that he didn’t intend to deceive him but didn’t want to depress him either.
Carlos and Jerome have both gone to schools plagued by fear and physical altercations. This means that students attending this school have to focus a lot of their energy on staying safe and avoiding bullies, possibly at the expense of their education.
Themes
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Carlos laughs and says that while perhaps all schools are bad, he’s never eaten lunch on the toilet before. Jerome, laughing too, hits the stall wall. Carlos hits back, and they play a percussion game for a while. Then Carlos asks, “Amigo?” Jerome isn’t sure what to say: being friends means having to fight if bullies attack your friend. Carlos says that he didn’t want to leave San Antonio, but his mom’s pregnant and his dad got a foreman job in Chicago that makes more money. Though Jerome initially feels contempt for Carlos’s optimism about friendship—Jerome stopped hoping to have friends in fifth grade—Carlos blurts that he didn’t have any friends in San Antonio either and it isn’t “fair,” which makes Jerome agree to friendship. He thinks Mr. Myers and Grandma would be pleased with him.
Earlier, Jerome claimed that the only Spanish word he knew was “Hola,” but he clearly knows the word “amigo” (“friend” in Spanish) too. His earlier mistaken claim suggests that he may underrate his own knowledge. Jerome believes that friendship is first and foremost a pact of mutual defense—suggesting yet again that Jerome’s childhood is marked by danger and survivalism, not play and innocence. Yet Carlos’s claim that it isn’t “fair” for a kid to have no friends seems to move Jerome, hinting that Jerome wants an innocent and carefree childhood even if his circumstances make that difficult or even impossible.
Themes
People burst into the bathroom. Jerome recognizes Mike’s boots. Someone hits a stall, and Snap calls that it’s empty. They hit Jerome’s door, but he locked it. Eddie peers under the door, but he can’t see up to where Jerome is perched. Then the bullies hit Carlos’s door. It opens—Carlos didn’t lock it. The bullies pull Carlos out. Jerome rushes from his hiding place and tries to help Carlos, but the bullies grab him. Snap, bending Carlos’s arm, demands that Carlos admit he’s “nothing.”
Jerome tries to help Carlos when the bullies grab him, which reveals that he is committed to his friendship with Carlos. Snap’s demand that Carlos admit he’s “nothing” is disturbing, suggesting that the violence and deprivation the children have been exposed to have made them want to exercise power over weaker children.
Themes
Infuriated, Carlos gets free and strikes at the bullies. Mike knocks Carlos down. While Eddie holds Jerome, Mike and Snap kick Carlos in the gut and head. Jerome yells that he’ll tell on Eddie, Mike, and Snap. The bullies are shocked and enraged. They stop kicking Carlos, but Jerome, terrified, is sure they’re going to beat him up badly. Snap says that Jerome “won’t be telling anybody anything.” Suddenly, Carlos says “Muerto”—and all the boys see that he’s holding a gun.
In this scene, the situation gets progressively more dangerous. First, the bullies start kicking Carlos not only in the stomach but the head, which could cause a concussion or worse. Second, Snap seems to threaten to harm Jerome badly enough to prevent him from “telling anybody anything.” Third, Carlos says “Muerto” (“dead” in Spanish) and brandishes what appears to be a deadly weapon. This escalation shows how childhood conflicts, such as bullying, can become dangerous if children lack adequate supervision or have access to weapons.
Themes
