50 pages • 1 hour read
Lisa GraffLost in the Sun
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 2015A 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 6-10Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 6 Summary
On Friday, Mr. Gorman asks Trent again if he’ll like the kid he meets, and Trent sits out again. At lunch, Trent jokes around and makes Fallon laugh. She invites Trent over to watch Field of Dreams again, and upon realizing that it will make him miss dinner with his dad again, he agrees.
Fallon’s dad is a police officer who leaves Fallon and Trent to watch their movie. Fallon excitedly shows Trent all the continuity errors, and he finds some of his own. She loves movies and wants to be a script supervisor. She can recite movie lines perfectly, which impresses Trent. Fallon wants to watch more movies together and start a club. Trent isn’t sure, but he admits that Fallon is nice company.
At home, Trent learns that his dad was mad that he missed dinner again. He also learns that Aaron won’t be going to their dad’s with Trent and Doug tomorrow morning because he has work. Trent wishes he had the same excuse. Aaron sneaks out later that evening to meet Clarisse, and when Trent asks him about it, he dodges the question.
Chapter 7 Summary
The next morning, Trent sneaks out to the lakeside beach where Aaron lifeguards. Aaron is disappointed that Trent has avoided their dad again and warns him that he’ll have to see him eventually.
Trent wishes that Aaron would save someone and thinks that him saving a life would make up for Jared’s death. Trent tries to ask Aaron about Clarisse, but he’s evasive. On Aaron’s break, they row to a secluded island in the middle of the lake. Aaron talks to Trent about being more patient with their dad, but Trent recalls how their dad was dismissive and unhelpful after Jared’s death. Trent stopped listening to him that day.
Trent goes home and watches baseball, and his mom is surprised to find him there when she gets home from work. She worries about Trent and his strained relationship with his dad. She cancels her evening plans and stays in to watch baseball with him.
Chapter 8 Summary
The next morning, Trent’s mom takes him to work at the store with her. Trent draws a picture of his skates breaking so that he can’t join the hockey game.
Aaron warns Trent that Doug is planning to prank him with extra spicy soup. Since Aaron is in on the prank, he and Trent decide to reverse-prank Doug by having Aaron serve Doug the spicy soup instead. They have to be careful because their mom will be mad if she catches them pulling pranks.
Trent pretends to know nothing as Doug suspiciously cooks dinner. However, he and Aaron are surprised to see Annie there, helping Doug with the prank. Annie also seems surprised to see Trent, and he can tell that she hates him by the way she looks at him. Their mom welcomes her for dinner.
When Aaron serves the soup, Trent makes a show of stirring the soup and smelling the soup before he tastes it. The soup is extremely spicy; Aaron pulled a double-reverse prank. Trent must finish the soup so that no one gets in trouble. He fights his way through it with the whole table watching, and their mom is confused and suspicious. When Trent gets an extra hot bite and starts coughing and choking, Annie reveals that there’s hot sauce in his soup. Trent is furious that she ruined their cover when he was almost done with the bowl. He feels the fire in his chest and slings his bowl across the table, splattering the remaining soup everywhere. His mom sends him to his room. He considers opening his Book of Thoughts but feels that his thoughts are “so screwed up anyway, what [is] the point” (107).
Later, Trent’s mom brings him the phone. His dad has called to yell at Trent for missing the weekend with him. Trent thinks about what his dad could be saying instead, like how he misses him. Trent tells his dad that he won’t be coming to dinner anymore because he’s in a movie club that meets Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays and hangs up.
Chapter 9 Summary
The next morning, Trent’s mom wants to talk about what happened at dinner. She brings up the expression “shooting yourself in the foot” to explain that he is acting in a way that makes it hard for people to be on his side, even though she knows he isn’t that kind of kid. Trent thinks that his mom is wrong and that he is as bad as he acts. His mom is happy to hear about the movie club.
Trent is good in Ms. Emerson’s classes and doesn’t get detention. Fallon and Trent officiate the movie club by watching The Sandlot that afternoon. They have fun finding the continuity errors. Fallon does more movie impressions, and Trent suggests that she should be an actress. She is flattered but rejects the idea, and Trent realizes that Fallon might have given up on acting dreams because of her scar. Fallon eases the tension by telling a bad joke that her uncle used to tell her. For the first time, Trent recognizes that Fallon has a hint of sadness to her.
Fallon asks Trent to draw a picture of her getting her scar from a scuba diving accident. Trent asks for the real story but apologizes when Fallon doesn’t respond. He says that she doesn’t have to tell him, and she responds that she won’t. She makes Trent promise not to ask again.
Trent watches baseball that evening. A catcher misses a ball as it flies right over his head. Trent wonders what happened, and his mom explains that the ball was lost in the sun—he couldn’t tell how close it was.
Chapter 10 Summary
Trent and Fallon continue to watch movies after school. Trent worries because intramural baseball starts soon and he won’t be able to continue movie club. Fallon invites him to her birthday party that Saturday at an amusement park—he is the only person invited.
At the amusement park, Fallon and Trent ride rides until lunch, when they sneak into the closed bumper car ride to eat. Trent tells Fallon that he “thinks” he’s joining intramural baseball. Fallon asks if Trent feels hesitant to join because of Jared’s death. She reassures him that it was an accident that could’ve happened to anyone, but Trent doesn’t think it matters whether it was an accident because Jared is still dead. Fallon tries to encourage him to change his perspective, but Trent argues that he’s supposed to feel bad because he did something wrong. Fallon says that bad things just happen sometimes. Trent asks if her scar just happened, and Fallon replies that someone did that intentionally.
At home that evening, Trent’s dad calls him to tell him that Kari had the baby and that he now has a sister. Trent isn’t sure how to respond, and his mom comforts him.
Chapters 6-10 Analysis
In Chapter 6, Trent’s self-esteem is at a low point with his speculation that Mr. Gorman is giving him “more ‘screw-up’ check marks than any kid in the history of P.E.” (70). This sets the stage for his character development and internal growth throughout the rest of the book. This begins with friendship as Trent decides to give hanging out with Fallon a chance. After his goofing off makes Fallon laugh, he narrates, “I sort of liked when Fallon laughed” (71). Shortly after, when Trent and Fallon begin picking out continuity errors in movies, Fallon is proud of Trent’s skills, and Trent admits, “I was a little proud of me, too” (75). Through hanging out with Fallon, Trent goes from believing he’s a “screw-up” to being happy that he can make Fallon laugh and proud that he can spot continuity errors. With Fallon’s company, Trent’s mental state makes a clear shift from guilt and self-depreciation to comfort. Trent’s growing friendship with Fallon develops the idea of The Healing Nature of Friendship.
However, Trent’s comfort with himself is fragile, and his self-esteem and self-control crumble when confronted with people who resent him, like Annie Richards. In Chapter 8, while fighting his way through the “double-reverse-prank” soup, Trent is uncomfortable with Annie’s presence. This is a combination of Trent’s guilt over her brother’s death and her own body language, which makes it clear that she blames him. The combination of Aaron’s betrayal with the prank and Annie’s unwelcome presence in his home stokes the fire inside Trent again, resulting in him slinging the soup bowl across the room. Since he hasn’t really dealt with his feelings yet, he is still at the beginning stages of his journey of Guilt and Self-Forgiveness. Trent cannot begin to reconcile with Annie because he blames himself so deeply for Jared’s death. When Trent’s mom talks to him about his rude behavior the following morning, she tells him, “I don’t get why you do that. Because you’re not a mean person” (110). Trent believes that she’s “wrong about [him], dead wrong” (110). His response to his mom’s encouraging words shows how his guilt has manifested as self-resentment. During this conversation, his mom also brings up the idiom “shooting yourself in the foot” to explain that Trent is self-sabotaging and trying to “give [people] a reason to hate [him]” (110). This conversation provides key insights into the difference between who Trent is now and who he was before the accident.
As Trent’s friendship with Fallon grows deeper, the theme of The Invisible Struggles of Others emerges. In Chapter 9, Trent realizes that Fallon must think she can’t be an actress because of her scar. He also understands how sensitive Fallon is about her scar because of how she masks the cause with made-up stories. He notices, “There was something about Fallon […] Something sad” (117), creating a new connection between the two. Likewise, Fallon recognizes in Chapter 10 that Trent is hesitant to play sports because of his trauma from Jared’s death. In recognizing each other’s struggles, they try to help each other heal. Fallon tries to help Trent change his perspective and absolve some of his guilt, and Trent learns to be patient with Fallon and not pry about her real story. The realization that everyone is dealing with their own traumas and insecurities sets the stage for Trent repairing his relationships with his father, stepmother, and friends.
In Chapter 9, the titular metaphor of a baseball being lost in the sun is explored. When a catcher for the Dodgers misses a ball because he can’t see it in the sunlight, Trent expresses, “He had it. If he’d just shifted even a little, he would’ve caught it easy” (120). This is a metaphor for Trent’s struggle to see his way out of his distress; he is not taking steps to gain the perspective needed to get things right. In Chapter 10, Fallon tries to explore this idea with Trent, insisting that changing his perspective will alleviate some of the guilt that holds him back. Fallon’s attempts to help Trent continue to develop the theme that friendship is essential for healing.
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