Girl, Interrupted: Chapter 24 Summary & Analysis

Susanna is eating when something happens in her jaw, and her cheek begins to swell. By the time she gets back to the ward from her meal, there is a swelling the size of a Ping-Pong ball on the side of her face. Valerie takes one look at Susanna, knows that she is having trouble with a wisdom tooth, and takes her over to see the dentist in a separate building. The dentist tells Susanna that she has an abscess and offers to take the tooth out. Susanna tells the doctor that she will not let him. Valerie suggests the dentist control the infection with antibiotics, and he agrees.

After several days of taking penicillin, Susanna’s swelling has gone down, but she has broken out in a rash. Valerie tells her that there can be no more postponing the tooth extraction, and warns her never to take penicillin again, as she is clearly allergic. When Susanna refuses to go back to the dentist at the hospital, Valerie offers to take Susanna to her own dentist in Boston.

At the dentist’s office, the dentist tells Susanna to lean back in the examination chair and count to ten. Before Susanna can get to four, she is sitting up with a hole in her mouth. She wants to know where “it” went, and the dentist holds up her bloody tooth. Susanna, though, was not asking about her tooth—she was asking about the time. She has been dropped into the future, and is deeply unsettled. Susanna begs to know how long the procedure took and how much time was taken from her, but neither Valerie nor the dentist will answer her directly. In the cab, Valerie holds up Susanna’s tooth. Susanna thanks Valerie for stealing the tooth for her, but explains that she still really needs to know how much time she lost during the procedure. Then she breaks down in tears.