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 20-24Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 20 Summary: “1:20pm—D.E.A.R.”
Bastian and John (who was skipping school until Bastian told him about there being no teacher) show up to class wet from the rainstorm. It’s time for the class to do independent reading, but John pulls out a copy of a video game and says they should play that instead. All the boys go to the back of the room to play on the computer while the girls read. Rachel is reading A Beginner’s Flight Manual, “the most detailed book she had ever read on how to become a pilot” (93).
Chapter 21 Summary: “1:35pm—Exploration”
Next on the class schedule is Exploration, which is learning and practicing map skills. Rachel thinks that map skills are boring, but Mr. Fabiano told her, “If you want to fly you have to know how to read a map” (95). Because it is Bastian’s last day of school before moving to Hawaii, the students vote to do a “rock ritual” instead of Exploration.
Chapter 22 Summary: “1:40pm—Rock Ritual”
The students get ready for the rock ritual for Bastian. In the rock ritual, the class sits in a circle, the student who is leaving picks a special rock, and the students pass the rock along while sharing a good memory about the departing student. Then, the student who is leaving gets to keep the special rock. Rachel remembers that the class tried to do a rock ritual after Tommy died, “but nobody had anything to say” (99). Bastian thinks about how he is going to miss the class even though he has only been there for eight months. Sean sits next to Rachel in the circle, and it reminds her of how Tommy used to make sure to sit next to her in the circle, too. Students start to share their memories with Bastian. Sean shares that he remembers when Bastian got his dog, and it becomes clear to Bastian that it would be unfair to put Barkley through quarantine. Bastian decides to give Barkley away, and “no decision had ever felt more right” (103).
When the rock gets to Rachel, she writes down: “I remember how you teased Tommy Feathers” (104). She continues to write how Bastian was mean to him, and Bastian gets defensive because he teases everyone, not just Tommy. Rachel keeps writing furiously, and Bastian reminds everyone of how Rachel blew Tommy off when he asked if she would be his girlfriend, and he yells at her to shut up. He throws Rachel’s pen across the room, and Rachel balls up her paper and throws it at Bastian before starting to sob. This startles the class because the sobs “carried the buried sound of a voice they had not heard for half a year” (106). Sean reads what Rachel wrote on the crumpled paper: how Bastian gave Tommy a Nerf football and how Tommy looked up to Bastian. Bastian starts to cry, throws his rock out of the window, and runs out of the room.
Chapter 23 Summary: “2:01pm—Tommy Feathers”
The class talks about how it is the six-month anniversary of Tommy’s death and how they never really talk about him anymore. They never write about him, either. The class decides to take the time before the school assembly to write about Tommy. Missy writes about how he was an amazing cook and would bring in baked goods from his family’s bakery for everyone. A boy named Tim writes about how Tommy had an unnaturally large head. Jasmine writes about how Tommy used to wake up early on weekends to help at his family’s bakery. She went to the bakery before Christmas, and his parents looked so sad. Christopher writes about how Tommy wasn’t perfect and wonders, “Why should we turn him into some kind of saint just because he died” (111)?
Instead of writing about Tommy, Rachel writes a letter to Bastian apologizing for what happened. She admits that she wasn’t kind to Tommy, either, and that she doesn’t know if she’ll ever forgive herself for that. Bastian returns to the room and starts to write. He ignores Rachel when she gives him her letter. The announcement for the assembly comes over the loudspeaker, and the class gets ready to go to the assembly. On the way to the auditorium, Sean asks if he can walk Rachel home today, and she smiles at him.
Chapter 24 Summary: “2:25pm—School Assembly”
On the way to the assembly, Bastian hands a letter he wrote to Mr. Fabiano to his best friend John so that he can give it to him on Monday. Bastian also talks to Sean about giving him his puppy to care for since he will not be bringing him to Hawaii. Sean agrees to take Barkley after school.
When the class reaches the auditorium, the other sixth grade classes “looked over, winking, giving them the thumbs-up sign, clapping softly” as if they were famous (116). Mr. Peacock, the principal, begins the assembly by introducing the guest speaker. The guest speaker asks for four teacher volunteers, and Mr. Peacock asks Karen about their substitute. With everyone in the auditorium looking at her, including the guest speaker and a professional photographer, Karen admits that they had no substitute; “all hell broke loose” (118).
Chapters 20-24 Analysis
The novel comes to a climax in this section. The prior rising action leads to Rachel and Bastian’s argument, as well as to the assembly revelation that the class had no teacher for the day. Rachel’s guilt—her struggle to admit that she cannot forgive herself for how she treated Tommy—comes to light during the rock ritual for Bastian. She condemns how Bastian treated Tommy, but Bastian throws her accusations back at her. Up until Bastian yells about how Rachel rejected Tommy, nobody had honestly talked about Tommy in their class. When the class tried to do a rock ritual for Tommy after he died, “nobody had anything to say” (99). The students were too frightened to say anything negative about Tommy because he had died suddenly, and many students felt guilty over how they had treated him.
Rachel and Bastian crying over their guilt shows how, even though they are both very different people, they have similar emotions and thoughts about what happened. Tommy annoyed both of them, and they both treated him unkindly; something they both still think about. Rachel and Bastian’s outburst also leads the class to write about Tommy, and their writing reveals that most people didn’t much like him and found him odd. Christopher writes about how Tommy wasn’t perfect and wonders, “Why should we turn him into some kind of saint just because he died?” (111). The class’s silence about Tommy after his death is a result of not knowing how to speak of the dead; nobody wanted to tell the truth about how they felt about Tommy after he died, so nobody spoke about him at all.
The rock ritual helps Bastian come to the selfless realization that it would be unfair for him to take his dog, Barkley, to Hawaii, because the four-month quarantine would be cruel for such a sweet and energetic puppy. Although Bastian teases his classmates ruthlessly, he is capable of caring for others and showing empathy. Bastian gifting his beloved dog to Sean, who does not have an ideal home life, shows Bastian’s thoughtfulness, which does not dramatically appear until this part of the novel. Like Bastian, Karen also does something seemingly out of character by revealing to the assembly that the class has no teacher. The entire day, she was able to lie to adults, but being asked with everyone watching her causes her to confess; in front of her peers, she can lead easily—but when the pressure builds, Karen will do the right thing and tell the truth.
