38 pages • 1 hour read
Ralph FletcherFlying Solo
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 1998A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 5-8Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 5 Summary: “7:19am—Mrs. Muchmore”
Mrs. Muchmore is very sick, though she is supposed to be the substitute for Mr. Fabiano’s sixth grade class today. When she tries to get up, she feels sicker and decides that “they would have to find a substitute for the substitute” (18). She calls the school and learns from the secretary that she is supposed to call the Registry if she cannot come in, but the secretary will make a note of it.
Chapter 6 Summary: “7:56am—The Principal’s Office”
Principal Peacock is in his office, meeting with the president of the P.T.A., Mrs. Ransom. Mrs. Ransom complains about how all of the sixth-grade teachers are bad. Principal Peacock tries to look like he’s listening to her, but he hates these meetings and wishes she would leave. He tells her there is nothing he can do about the teachers, especially at the end of the school year. She storms out of the office and knocks a bunch of phone messages on the floor. One message gets caught against the radiator, “out of sight” (22).
Chapter 7 Summary: “8:12am—First Bell”
At school, Mr. Fabiano’s sixth grade class discovers that he wrote a note on the board telling them they’re supposed to have a substitute teacher. Rachel realizes this first because she likes to go into the classroom early to spend time with Mr. Fabiano before school officially starts. While waiting for the other students to arrive, Rachel touches Tommy’s desk, “over the place where a heart had been carved into the wood and the letters T.F. + R.W. crudely cut inside the heart” (24). Missy comes next into the classroom. Missy is Rachel’s best friend because she understands Rachel better than anyone, even though Rachel refuses to speak. Other students come into the classroom and begin talking about having a substitute teacher. One of the students is Bastian, who Rachel thinks is mean. Another classmate is Sean, who Rachel notices is wearing the same shirt that he wore the day before. After the morning announcements, a substitute teacher still has not arrived. Karen, the class president, takes attendance and says that she’ll tell the main office that there is no substitute when she goes to drop off the attendance list.
Chapter 8 Summary: “8:45am—Main Office”
In the main office at school, secretary Helen Pierce feels stressed. There is “a nagging splinter in her mind, someone she was supposed to call, something she had to do” (32), but she can’t remember. She looks over her messages and knows that she took care of all of them. Principal Peacock asks her to help him plan a school assembly for that afternoon, so the secretary leaves a parent volunteer in charge of the front desk. Karen, the class president of Mr. Fabiano’s class, comes in to give the attendance. When asked if there is anything else she needs, Karen says no and hurries out of the room.
Chapters 5-8 Analysis
Chapters 5-8 set up the plot. No longer in the individual student’s homes, the setting moves to the school. Starting with the perspective of the substitute, Mrs. Muchmore, the reader learns that she is ill and won’t be coming in to class. Her conversation with the secretary foreshadows the main conflict. The miscommunications, especially once Mrs. Ransom knocks over Mrs. Muchmore’s message outside the principal’s office, show how the students will be left alone. Using dramatic irony—which is when the reader knows more than the characters in a story—the author heavily hints that no substitute will cover Mr. Fabiano’s class. The substitute is sick, the paper is lost, and then, in Chapter 8, Karen lies and tells no one that a substitute did not show up to class.
Because each chapter is from a different character’s perspective, the reader doesn’t get an entire backstory for each character but instead gets small snapshots of their lives and what others think about them. However, this section of the book, particularly in Chapter 7, puts all the characters from Chapters 1-4 together in the same room. The reader thus sees how they interact with each other in new ways, and this illuminates the characters much more fully than was done previously through isolated narratives. For example, in Chapter 7 from Rachel’s perspective, the reader sees how Bastian can be mean—something that is not apparent in Chapter 2, where Bastian’s isolated perspective shows him mostly concerned about his beloved dog.
