One! Hundred! Demons!

Barry knows a kid named Dean who bags groceries at a store in a bad part of town. He is so used to the store getting held up that it doesn’t faze him anymore. Barry finds Dean incredibly cool. He asks Barry to get high with him, impressed that she can score acid. Barry goes along with it, even though her “drug-taking days were sort of over” (114) and she gets nervous when she trips. They take the acid in Chinatown and talk about their lives. Though Dean has travelled a lot and Barry hasn’t, they both have an interest in exploration and experimentation. Barry withholds a lot of information from Dean: She doesn’t mention her past with drugs, her familiarity with Chinatown, or the fact that the acid is two years old.

The acid hits as they cross into the seedy, strip-club part of town and they laugh at the hilarious imagery. When they both start to freak out under the highway, they retreat to Chinatown. As they come down, Barry spots her mom driving a car. Barry’s mom screams at them in Tagalog, but they run away. Barry tells Dean the truth about her life and admits she is falling in love with him. In response, he mentions some other girl he loves and departs on the bus.

Barry feels anxiety, dread, and excitement when she starts to see back-to-school ads in August. School always represents newness, possibility, and the hope that this year would be better. The summer before 7th grade, Barry discovers the radio—music is a way to connect with her fantasies. She fantasizes about meeting a guy and running around with hippies.

Barry’s friend Gladys is two years younger than her. Gladys worries Barry will ditch her to hang out with other teenagers. One day, Barry and Gladys spot a group of hippies coming down the street. Barry races after them, leaving Gladys behind. Gladys calls Barry a traitor, knowing that the hippies represent Barry’s desire to leave and never come back. Barry keeps looking for the hippies, nurturing a dream to become one. When she learns that the hippies come and go from a halfway house, she follows them there and finds them drugged-out, vomiting, and making crass gestures. Barry runs home, returning after dark. Her mother yells at her violently. Barry starts 7th grade having lost Gladys.

Barry’s first job is working for two hippies she calls “Rippy” and “Scammy” who ride around on a school bus. Rippy and Scammy hire high school kids to help them man a booth at the farmers market selling jewelry and rare ferns they steal from the rainforest. Barry notices that Rippy does most of the work while Scammy sits around trying to “look cosmic” (137). Barry rubs black stuff onto jewelry to make it look antique, while Rippy and Scammy fight about whether to go back to California. Barry is disappointed that riding around with the hippies isn’t as transformative as she’d hoped. They take Barry to a national forest to dig up more ferns.

Barry can’t get the hippies to pay her for her work. Scammy is in the middle of organizing a “fest,” or a gathering of hippies in the woods with a loose theme. Because Scammy lacks the organizational skills to put together much of anything, the fest turns into a muddy, haphazard gathering of drunk hippies in vague animal skin costumes. Rippy and Scammy are unsuccessful in selling any of their wares. Barry hides on top of the bus, waiting for the night to be over. When she finally quits the job, she never gets paid, but she feels satisfied about leaving.