Mockingbird

by Kathryn Erskine

The bird will be trying to fly but never getting anywhere. Just floating and falling. Floating and falling.

It’s so gray that turning on a lamp is too sharp and it hurts.

Dad says to Look At The Person so I look quickly at a nose or a mouth or an ear but I still don’t remember.

didn’t even know Devon except she watched him play basketball, she says. Twice. I’ve watched the LA Lakers play more than twice. I don’t try to help them.

Mrs. Brook says you can talk with her anytime because her door is always open, I tell Mrs. Johnson. Actually it’s almost always closed. But if you knock then she remembers to open it.

I got it right! I go to the refrigerator and put a smiley face sticker on my chart under YOUR MANNERS. Seven more and I get to watch a video.

The good thing is I can’t talk when my mouth is full because that’s rude so if I keep my mouth full I can be in my own Caitlin world.

Breanna asks her to not talk with her mouth full later on in the book #plothole

I have to use the chart because when I look at real faces I don’t Get It. Mrs. Brook says people have a hard time understanding me because I have Asperger’s so I have to try extra hard to understand them and that means working on emotions.

The character building is starting to seem more like a checklist of symptoms rather than something needed to move the plot along

Not too close to my Personal Space because I’ll use my words to tell her to back off if she gets too close. Say again?

And he tells me what to say and what clothes to wear and how not to be weird so kids won’t laugh at me.

This (and other parts of the book) make it seem as if her Aspergers is a problem that needs to be solved rather than a divergence to be accepted

can’t stand the cowboy song noise.

girl same

And I keep my applesauce and Pop-Tart totally separate because I don’t like food mixing together or colors running into each other.

I still feel like a Fake Item Box that Mario is going to run over any minute now.

Dad says it’s because Josh’s cousin was one of the school shooters at Devon’s school. The one the police caught right away. And killed. But not before he shot Devon.

Blurring is good for the things you don’t want to see but it doesn’t work so well for the stuff you actually have to Deal With.

Dogs are sweet and kind. I’m happy if people think I’m a dog.

What’s great about books is that the stuff inside doesn’t change. People say you can’t judge a book by its cover but that’s not true because it says right on the cover what’s inside. And no matter how many times you read that book the words and pictures don’t change. You can open and close books a million times and they stay the same. They look the same. They say the same words. The charts and pictures are the same colors.

Books are not like people. Books are safe.

A gunshot wound to the Heart is almost always fatal.

When a teacher says she wants you to do something that means you should do it. It’s the same as saying you have to do it. Well why didn’t she say that? It’s a nice way of saying it. No it’s not. It’s a confusing way of saying it. And she should say PLEASE if she’s trying to be nice.

Good possible future advice for when I have students on the spectrum--I tend to word things more like a suggestion than an instruction

Well—how about Emma? Emma? Yes. She’s very outgoing. I don’t like very outgoing. Or efFUSive. Or EXtroverted. Or greGARious. Or any of those words that mean their loudness fills up my ears and hurts and their face and waving arms invade my Personal Space and their constant talking sucks all the air out of the room until I think I’m going to choke.

I lose shoes all the time. But if you know where you lost your shoe why don’t you go back and get it? And if you don’t know Devon always says go back to the last place you remember having it and start looking there. Cinderella should go back to the dance.

Why? I ask. Don’t you have any? Recess isn’t the best place to make friends.

I Look At The Person. All this time I thought I was learning YOUR Manners when really I was learning MY Manners? But then . . . everyone’s manners are the same. Now you Get It!

My arms are atria and my legs are ventricles and I pump the blood all around the right way because there has to be something I can do.

Motif--Caitlin is the heart that brings the community together

How do I get to the state of experiencing an emotional conclusion to a difficult life event?

I thought I was the one who was special and everyone else was normal. I almost ask her what normal people do but I suppose that would not work for me anyway. That doesn’t help. She

It says, OUR HEARTS are still with the families of Julianne, Devon and Roberta. Except OUR HEARTS couldn’t do anything to save Devon’s Heart.

TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

Connection to literature

I guess sometimes it’s good to shoot things. But not Devon.

Black and white is easier to understand. All that color is too confusing.

I wonder if Devon was trying to help someone like me when the bad guy with the bullet stopped him.

It’s wrong to shoot someone who is innocent and was never going to hurt you in the first place.

All I want to talk about is Closure because even though I got to be in my hidey-hole again I still didn’t find Closure.

Scout’s honor? I Look At The Person too. Hard. How does he know my nickname? Scout’s honor? he asks again. I nod. Scout’s honor.

But Devon says that’s exactly what I’m like because I say stuff that’s obvious and people go, Oh, and it makes them think. He says I can solve a lot of problems just by being like Scout.

"Wise fool"--common archetype for people on the spectrum?

And I realize that he taught me everything I know and now I may never Get anything ever again because he’s not here to teach me.

He crumpled on the floor holding his finger tight and his face went red and I realized for the first time that Devon feels pain. And now I wonder if he felt pain on The Day Our Life Fell Apart?

My teacher says we’re getting fifth-grade reading buddies! Will you be my buddy?

:)

And Work At It is VERY hard. I Work At It ALL the time. My whole day is Work At It.

This is good--showing how difficult assimilating to neurotypical expectations is

don’t tell Dad that I didn’t ask Devon if I could have his room when he was gone. I asked him a different way. And Devon said it was a weird way and I shouldn’t say it like that and I asked why. He said people would get upset. I don’t want Dad to get upset. So I don’t say what I really said: Can I have your room when you’re dead? I think maybe I understand what Devon meant. Because now I have a recess feeling in my stomach.

How? someone asks. I was riding past the middle school and I heard sirens and I thought there was another shooting.

I realize they are the first eyes I have ever drawn.

What insurance? I don’t have any insurance.

This could be a signifier of poverty/low income. Would have liked to see more about the family's financial struggles in the book, but with it being told from Caitlin's perspective, it makes sense that we only get this small hint

Empathy can make you feel really sad.

And something else too. They look sad. I stare at Dad’s real eyes and I think I see the sad there too although it’s easier for me to see it in the picture.

Maybe we can make something good and strong and beautiful come out of this.

think about those words and how I haven’t said them lately. I think that maybe now is the day we start to put our life back together.

This is rough, and, This is hard. I know, I say, after he says, This is hard, for the third time. This is what happens when you have a TRM, I tell him. You make a mess. It’s okay. You just have to try harder next time. I am trying hard, Dad says. I know. You get a sticker.

I think this is a really important part--throughout the book, others are telling Caitlin that she needs to put herself in others' shoes and develop some empathy, but here she's pointing out a way someone else could empathize with her.

Coming! I say. But first I do something important. I leave Devon’s door open.

Symbolic of inviting Devon to occupy her dad's thoughts more freely?