Flying Solo

Many chapters are from Bastian’s perspective. As a child who moves around the world a lot because he has a military parent, Bastian has a tough exterior. He is never in place long enough to form long-lasting friendships, so instead, he teases everyone. The one character who makes him the most emotional is his dog, Barkley, whom Bastian learns he must quarantine alone for months when his family moves to Hawaii.

Throughout the novel, Bastian constantly thinks of Barkley and how terrible it would be for Barkley to be isolated. By the end of the novel, after his argument with Rachel about how they both treated Tommy, Bastian realizes that he loves his dog more than he loves himself. His love for Barkley means that he can’t bring him to Hawaii to be quarantined because that would be selfish. Instead, he gives the dog to his classmate Sean. Bastian’s selfless act shows that he can think about more than just making himself look good by bringing down others with his teasing.

Karen Ballard is the leader of Mr. Fabiano’s class. Even though she is known as a responsible student, she takes advantage of that reputation to lie to the school staff about their class. She leads the class through their lessons for most of the day, and everyone seems to accept that she has the right to be their leader for the most part. Even Mr. Fabiano sees her as the class leader, and she is the student whom he calls over the weekend to learn more about what happened on Friday. Karen doesn’t feel the class did anything wrong, because they acted responsibly and did all their work, which shows her understanding that good leadership involves more than just who is an adult and who is a child.

Jessica is one of the only students who are outspoken against the class running itself. Her father is a lawyer, and Jessica plans to be a Supreme Court justice one day. Jessica’s upbringing around the law means that she was taught that there are some things that are right and some things that are wrong—not in an ethically nuanced way but in a rules-based one—and she struggles with the idea of the class leading itself; legalistically, adults should be in charge, while children obey. Although she does the right thing by doing their work, the lack of adult leadership is still wrong to Jessica, and she consistently voices and writes about her worries that they are breaking the law.

Sean’s character is a foil to many characters throughout the novel. Foils are characters with contrasting personalities, and the contrast highlights the characters’ qualities. For example, Sean’s home life appears dramatically more challenging than his classmates’. His dad is ex-military and is drunk and passed out most of the time. His dad’s current girlfriend is the one mostly taking care of Sean, but even then, Sean must figure out his lunch himself and wear dirty clothes to school. While most of his classmates make quite an excited commotion at the prospect of spending the day without adult supervision, this independence is something Sean practices regularly in the absence of reliable caretakers.

As a kind of outsider, Sean shows a penchant for peace and solitude, which may be part of why he is drawn to Rachel, who is quiet and, in her own way, a bit of an outsider by virtue of the isolation her mutism brings her. He is mostly quiet and keeps to himself while thinking of how he likes Rachel and accepts her silence. His upbringing is vastly different from the lives of his classmates, and his quiet kindness directly contrasts with Bastian’s aggressive teasing.

Missy is Rachel’s best friend and the one person through whom Rachel speaks. When Rachel needs to say something, she signals to Missy, and Missy will read what Rachel wrote to the class. However, Missy is Rachel’s “voice” in other ways; at Rachel’s request, she passes Rachel’s potato chips to Sean in an act of kindness. Missy is a great friend because she accepts Rachel’s silence and doesn’t make Rachel feel terrible for choosing not to speak. Her presence is generally healing, which finds symbolic expression in how she bandages Sky’s injured knee without the help of the school nurse.

Tommy Feathers is the boy in Mr. Fabiano’s class who died unexpectedly. He had a crush on Rachel White, and his death was the catalyst for Rachel’s select mutism. Throughout the novel, it is revealed that several students disliked him and found him annoying.

Though Tommy is absent in the narrative, his classmates create his presence through their preoccupation with his death and their conflicted feelings about how they treated him. His death leads to inner transformation for his classmates; they all must confront themselves for how negatively they viewed and treated him, but, consequently, they all find deeper self-understanding and are drawn together as a community in the process. Tommy’s last name, Feathers, alludes to the idea of flight, which is the novel’s thematic symbol of independence and freedom.