Piper and Russell McNab Character Analysis

Maniac lies between the two brothers, on the bed. Do cockroaches climb bedposts? Unable to sleep, asking himself: What am I doing here? Remembering: Hester and Lester on his lap, Grayson's hug, corn muffin in the toaster oven. Thinking: Who’s the orphan here, anyway?

The door closed. Maniac bounded down the steps and came jogging toward them, grinning. Three kids bolted, sure he was a ghost. The others stayed. They invented excuses to touch him, to see if he was still himself, still warm. But they weren't positively certain until later, when they watched him devour a pack of butterscotch Krimpets.

It was a maddening, chaotic time for Maniac. Running in the mornings and reading in the afternoons gave him just enough stability to endure the zany nights at the McNabs'. When he asked himself why he didn't just drop it, drop them, the answer was never clear. […] In some vague way, to abandon the McNab boys would be to abandon something in himself. He couldn't shake the suspicion that deep inside Russell and Piper McNab, in the prayer-dark seed of their kidhoods, they were identical to Hester and Lester Beale. But they were spoiling, rotting from the outside in, like a pair of peaches in the sun. Soon, unless he, unless somebody did something, the rot would reach the pit.

Mars Bar stared with growing astonishment at Maniac, whose wide, unblinking eyes were fixed on the trestle, yet somehow did not seem to register what was there. Nor did he seem to hear Piper pleading. With the drenched, mud-footed kid clawing at him, he turned without a word, without a gesture, and left the platform and went downstairs. Shortly he appeared on the sidewalk below. He crossed Main and continued walking slowly up Swede, Piper screaming after him from the end of the platform.

"They didn't wanna go home. They stayed all day. My mother babyin' 'em, feedin' 'em. I tell her not to, she swats me away. Sometimes my mom ain't got no sense. She makes me play games with them. […] They're getting out the car, and know what they say to me – I’m in the car too - " He wagged his head. "They ask me to come in and play that game a theirs. Rebels. They, like, beg me. They say, 'Come on – pleeeeese – if you play with us, we'll let you be white.' You believe that?"

Maniac lies between the two brothers, on the bed. Do cockroaches climb bedposts? Unable to sleep, asking himself: What am I doing here? Remembering: Hester and Lester on his lap, Grayson's hug, corn muffin in the toaster oven. Thinking: Who’s the orphan here, anyway?

The door closed. Maniac bounded down the steps and came jogging toward them, grinning. Three kids bolted, sure he was a ghost. The others stayed. They invented excuses to touch him, to see if he was still himself, still warm. But they weren't positively certain until later, when they watched him devour a pack of butterscotch Krimpets.

It was a maddening, chaotic time for Maniac. Running in the mornings and reading in the afternoons gave him just enough stability to endure the zany nights at the McNabs'. When he asked himself why he didn't just drop it, drop them, the answer was never clear. […] In some vague way, to abandon the McNab boys would be to abandon something in himself. He couldn't shake the suspicion that deep inside Russell and Piper McNab, in the prayer-dark seed of their kidhoods, they were identical to Hester and Lester Beale. But they were spoiling, rotting from the outside in, like a pair of peaches in the sun. Soon, unless he, unless somebody did something, the rot would reach the pit.

Mars Bar stared with growing astonishment at Maniac, whose wide, unblinking eyes were fixed on the trestle, yet somehow did not seem to register what was there. Nor did he seem to hear Piper pleading. With the drenched, mud-footed kid clawing at him, he turned without a word, without a gesture, and left the platform and went downstairs. Shortly he appeared on the sidewalk below. He crossed Main and continued walking slowly up Swede, Piper screaming after him from the end of the platform.

"They didn't wanna go home. They stayed all day. My mother babyin' 'em, feedin' 'em. I tell her not to, she swats me away. Sometimes my mom ain't got no sense. She makes me play games with them. […] They're getting out the car, and know what they say to me – I’m in the car too - " He wagged his head. "They ask me to come in and play that game a theirs. Rebels. They, like, beg me. They say, 'Come on – pleeeeese – if you play with us, we'll let you be white.' You believe that?"