Outcasts United: Chapter 24 Summary & Analysis

On October 21, the Under Thirteens pile into the YMCA bus and set out for Athens. Luma follows in her car, but about an hour into the drive, a police car pulls up behind her. She remembers her broken tail light and pulls over while the bus continues on. The policeman informs Luma that her license had been suspended and orders her out of the car. She doesn’t understand why her license has been suspended, and under Georgia law, the policeman has to arrest her.

By this point, Tracy had turned the bus around. Luma convinces the policeman to let her give the team’s player cards to the bus driver so they could play the game without her. She tells the Fugees, shakily, that she wouldn’t make it to the game, but she expects them to win. The Fugees are uneasy—many of them had seen or heard of family members being carted off for minimal offenses. Some of the boys begin to cry.

The Fugees arrive at the game, while Luma arrives at the Walton County Jail. When the clerk notes Luma’s foreign name, she asks, “What are you doing here?” meaning the United States. Luma doesn’t respond. Luma is then fingerprinted, and her possessions are taken from her. Bail is set at $759.50, and Luma is escorted into a holding cell. She begins to feel afraid.

The Fugees look good during warm ups, but then the game begins. Tracy tries to encourage them, but she’s not a soccer coach. The other team, the Valiants, score two goals in five minutes. The Fugees are lost. The Valiants score again and again and again. After the first half, the score is 5-0.

At halftime, the Fugees fight over who should play what position; they replace Eldin in goal with Mafoday. When they retake the field, however, they have no intention of giving up—they go after the ball, and Mafoday is able to make a good save early in the half. Midway through the second half, the Valiants get a penalty kick. Mafoday makes another amazing save, and the Fugees erupt in cheers. At the end of the game, the score is still 5-0. They held their own in the second half.

After the game, Tracy returns to the Walton County Jail and pays Luma’s bail. When she gets on the team bus, the boys tell her they lost 5-0. She tells them that the loss was her fault, and she had no excuse not to be at the game. But the boys tell her the exciting part: Mafoday stopped a penalty kick, and if she had been there, they would definitely have beaten the team.

Back in Clarkston, Luma gets a call from Grace Balegamire’s little brother, who is unhappy at home while his mother is visiting a friend and says he’s “scared to be alone.” She drives to the grocery store, picks up sweet rolls, then visits the boy’s apartment. He tells her that he had a bad day. Luma tells him about her own bad day, but he doesn’t buy it.

The boy wonders how Luma can be at his house if she had been in jail. She says that Tracy paid enough for “five hundred ice creams” to get Luma out. The boy is confused by this system and wonders aloud if anyone can get out of jail if they pay five hundred ice creams. Luma realizes why he is asking: his father is still in prison in Kinshasa, and the government has not issued word on when he might be released.