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3. Skitter Hitter
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Look Both Ways, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Perspective and Assumptions
Independence, Freedom, and Identity
Joy, Resilience, and Childhood
Fear, Friendship, and Support
Bullying
Summary
Analysis
On her way home from school, Fatima Moss only speaks to one person. She also keeps a checklist of all the things that stay the same, or that have changed, on her journey home.
Fatima’s list of things that change may help her to look at things in different ways. It’s a way for her to feel more in control of her environment.
Themes
The checklist begins with the bell ringing for five seconds and the 29 students who rush out of Ms. Broome’s classroom. Today, Trista and Bit hurry ahead of everyone else. Fatima follows her classmates into the hallway that’s so noisy she can’t hear herself think. It takes her two tries to open her locker, where she keeps this notebook (writing in the notebook helps Fatima hear herself think). Unlike usual, Fatima has homework today: Ms. Broome wants students to imagine themselves as objects.
Fatima doesn’t know why Trista and Bit are in such a hurry, but readers do: they’re on their way to procure ice cream for Ms. Burns. Fatima doesn’t express any emotion or judgment about this because she doesn’t have any backstory. The fact that Fatima mentions not being able to hear herself think suggests that she feels somewhat out of control in the noisy hallway, as though she’s not totally in control of her thoughts unless she has the notebook.
Themes
Then, Fatima walks the 81 steps to the open double doors, where Ms. Wockley is, as usual, yelling at Simeon Cross for running with Kenzi Thompson on his back. There are the normal six school buses and two lines of cars in the parking lot, and after about 84 steps to the corner, the crossing guard, Ms. Post, greets Fatima. Her son, Canton, is sitting at the stop sign with a broom with no broomstick—which is weird, but not abnormal because he’s always there with his broom. Fatima continues straight, not crossing the street, and walks slowly. She counts the signs, hydrants, big cracks in the sidewalk, and the houses. Fatima’s house is the 20th, and she’s certain it’s the same as all the others: boxy, beige carpet, and big windows.
The way Fatima describes the Ms. Wockley’s normal shouting, and Canton’s weird but normal broom gives the impression that the after-school rush proceeds like a well-practiced performance. Even things that might otherwise seem negative (like Ms. Wockley yelling at kids) are comforting to Fatima, because they happen so regularly. But while she seems to enjoy the regularity at school and on her walk home, her tone when she describes her house being like all the others is perhaps a bit resigned. She may crave some more novelty in her life, but as a kid who isn’t in charge of where she lives, she doesn’t have a way to change much.
Themes
Fatima reaches the first sign, which is a school crossing sign. The icon on it is an adult and a child, which is odd, since kids cross alone. Fatima looks both ways, notices the one-way and speed limit signs, and counts the stop signs at the end of each block. Each block has five houses on it, and Fatima knows none of the residents. Maybe they count her every day, and maybe the houses are empty like hers—people have to work to pay for the fancy houses and the green lawns. One difference today is that someone clearly snatched some roses out of the eighth house’s yard. Fatima has counted six big cracks and has perfected the art of looking up and down at the same time. She meets Benni at the usual spot, and Benni is doing what she always does: singing.
Fatima’s observation about the school crossing sign encapsulates the idea that a kid’s walk home is often one of the only times they’re truly independent. Adults might like to think kids are supervised—as the adult figure on the sign suggests—but in reality, as Fatima notes, kids are on their own after school. The way Fatima describes the neighborhood again implies that she’s not too enamored with the lifestyle associated with this neighborhood. It seems sterile to her. Benni then stands in contrast to this with her singing. She’s predictable, like the houses, but she’s also loud and asserting her existence.
Themes
Get the entire Look Both Ways LitChart as a printable PDF.
The list pauses as the narrator explains how Benni and Fatima met on the first day of school. Fatima’s parents had told her to walk straight down Portal Avenue, speaking to no one and looking up the whole way—which is why Fatima tripped on a big crack and fell. She fell and skinned her knees just as a school bus pulled up to the stop sign and kids lowered the windows to tease her for falling. Fatima noticed one boy on the bus who held a notebook in front of his face and was very clearly not laughing. Just as she got up and the bus pulled away, Fatima heard a deep voice singing. The voice was coming from a woman—Benni—who was singing and dancing down the street. Fatima was nervous and flinched when Benni shouted, “Get ready!” at her. Fatima’s flinch stopped Benni in her tracks.
The advice Fatima’s parents gave her seems, at first, to be fine advice: to pay attention to her surroundings and to not speak to strangers. However, Fatima quickly discovers that looking up means ignoring what’s below her feet, something that has disastrous consequences. And her fall also makes her an easy target for kids’ taunts and bullying, making the walk home even more unpleasant. Fatima also seems afraid of Benni, though it's unclear if Benni is just a bit frightening on her own, or if Fatima is nervous because her parents told her not to speak to anyone. The fact that Benni stops so suddenly when Fatima flinches, though, shows Fatima that treating strangers all as enemies has consequences: she’s negatively impacting Benni by expressing her fear.
Themes
When Fatima’s parents got home from work that night, Fatima had already cleaned and bandaged her knees. Fatima told Fatima’s mom that she tripped and kids laughed at her, but she didn’t mention Benni—if her parents heard about Benni, they might not let Fatima walk anymore. And a difficult walk, Fatima reasons, is worth it to be home by herself in the afternoons instead of with a bunch of other whiny kids and a babysitter. Home alone, she can pretend to be a flight attendant like Fatima’s dad, running through the pre-flight safety presentation that she’s had memorized since she was little.
What Fatima wants more than anything is to feel independent and to convince her parents that she’s ready for the responsibility that comes with walking home alone. This is why she deals with her knees all by herself. Fatima isn’t at all interested in giving her parents the chance to deem the injury too serious to risk repeating and then forbid her from walking home again. And though Fatima was nervous around Benni, she also doesn’t seem to see Benni as a real threat now that she’s had some time to think about it. Her parents might, but again, Fatima’s desire for independence wins out over her desire to please her parents.
Themes
So, Fatima took Fatima’s mom’s advice to look both ways and “all ways,” even down, to heart the next afternoon. She looked at the ground with such concentration that she didn’t notice the clouds gathering until they started to pour rain on her. Again, the kids on the school bus—except for the boy with the notebook—laughed at her. And again, Benni came dancing and singing toward Fatima, this time wearing a tuxedo and carrying a closed umbrella. Benni extended the umbrella to Fatima and asked if she played the guitar. Fatima was confused, but she took the umbrella, opened it, and kept walking. Benni walked along beside her, encouraging her to keep playing her guitar solo.
Fatima is figuring out how to navigate her world, this time by focusing all her attention on staying upright. As she discovers, this means she misses all sorts of important information, such as the impending rain. But this time, Benni isn’t frightening—she’s Fatima’s rescuer with an umbrella, even if talking about Fatima’s guitar solo is a bit confusing for Fatima. It’s only Fatima’s second day walking, but she’s already starting to trust Benni and to see the woman as an integral part of her walk home.
Themes
That night at dinner, Fatima’s mom, an environmental scientist, told Fatima that no big things change: houses stay the same and the cracks won’t move. Fatima’s dad said that “Routine lessens risk,” which spoke to Fatima. She needed the walk to be safe and predictable, so she thought of the boy with the notebook. The notebook seemed to make the boy less exposed, so Fatima decided to start her own notebook, in which to observe the things that change and the things that stay the same. She’s doing just what her mom does with her science experiments. Benni has been exactly the same since then, in that she’s wearing and singing something different every day.
This passage confirms that Fatima wants to feel in control of her environment. She gains some control by observing everything on the walk home so closely, and this makes her feel safe and secure. It turns the walk home into a science experiment in its own right, and Fatima into a scientist. This helps Fatima feel adult and independent as well. Benni seems like the only element of the walk that changes meaningfully every day, but this no longer makes Fatima nervous. Rather, Benni’s differences show Fatima that it’s not bad when things change.
Themes
Returning to the list, Fatima writes that Benni is wearing a black wig, a blue dress, and boots, and she’s singing a new song and performing different dance moves. Benni calls Fatima “Fatima the dreamer,” and says she saw a school bus fall from the sky (which is typical of Benni). When Benni asks what’s different today, Fatima tells her about Trista and Bit, about her homework, and about Ms. Broome’s writing assignment. She points to the missing roses, half expecting Benni to pull the roses from behind her back to use as a microphone.
The falling school bus references the bus that fell in the beginning of “Water Booger Bears.” But Fatima expects Benni to say nonsensical and outlandish things, so she brushes Benni off—readers, however, are left wondering whether to believe Benni. This mystery, though, is one the collection will return to later. Benni and Fatima’s conversation shows that the two have formed a friendship over the last few months. Fatima lets Benni into her life by telling her the things that have changed, and she appreciates Benni’s spontaneity and happiness.
Themes
Benni nods—and then starts mumbling, and then screaming, “But how you gon’ change the world?” Fatima ignores Benni and walks for several more blocks. She ignores the passing school bus too (she doesn’t want to know if anyone is laughing at her or Benni), and Fatima can barely hear herself think. Benni usually leaves Fatima at house 15, but today, she leans on a stop sign and asks again how Fatima is going to change the world. Fatima looks both ways and considers Ms. Broome’s assignment. Could she change the world by becoming cement to fill the sidewalk’s cracks so nobody trips, or by becoming an umbrella to keep someone dry? Fatima doesn’t think those things would do much, so she says she doesn’t know how to change the world. Then, she asks Benni if she could borrow an instrument.
Fatima now realizes that she has some power over the kids on the school bus: if she ignores them, their teasing doesn’t matter as much, and she can pretend it isn’t happening. Benni encourages Fatima to think of Ms. Broome’s assignment as an opportunity to figure out how she’s going to give back to the world. But it’s interesting that Fatima doesn’t think it would change the world to help keep others from tripping, or to keep them dry. These things would have helped Fatima’s first few days walking, after all, so Fatima is underestimating the power of small actions like fixing sidewalks and offering someone an umbrella. However, Fatima does cement her friendship with Benni by asking for an imaginary instrument. She’s now willing to play and be silly with Benni, which speaks to Fatima’s comfort in her own skin and in her own neighborhood.
Themes
