Flying Solo

“She tried to say it—Tommy Feathers is dead—she reached down inside herself to find those words, but they were cold when she touched them. Frozen. She knew those words could never fly.”

This quote shows how Rachel feels about her speaking ability after learning about Tommy’s death. In the novel, flying symbolizes independence, and after Tommy’s death, Rachel feels like she can never truly be free again. Her ability to feel independent, free, and confident is “[f]rozen.”

“Without the law there would be total anarchy.”

Jessica’s father, a lawyer, talks about the importance of following the law. This foreshadows what could happen to the class when they start to rule themselves: They break the rules by not having a teacher, and one belief is that no rules will turn into chaos. Nevertheless, the class demonstrates self-government, and “total anarchy” never arises.

“In the kitchen Darlene was sipping a cup of coffee and staring out the window. Behind her, on the counter, Sean made a quick count of the empty green beer bottles. Eleven.”

This is a small glimpse into Sean’s home life. Sean lives with his dad’s current girlfriend, Darlene, while his dad’s alcoholism appears untreated. Sean’s life is vastly different from the lives of his classmates, and this quotation underscores the character’s emotional isolation.

“They would have to find a substitute for the substitute.”

The novel’s main conflict arises because Mr. Fabiano is absent and the substitute calls in sick. When the substitute calls to say that she won’t be able to come in, the secretary is frustrated by the situation that they need a substitute teacher for the substitute teacher. In what little time the novel spends exploring adult perspectives, those adults often appear disorganized and noncommunicative. This is a key irony in the story: The adults, who hold all traditional authority, appear less proficient and empathic than the students they govern. This is especially clear with the glaringly incompetent school counselor who loses his patience with a grieving student.

“One of the phone messages fell against the radiator where it got caught, out of sight.”

The school administration loses the message that Mr. Fabiano’s class needs a new substitute, and this quote shows the randomness of this mistake. Something as small as a paper accidentally getting tossed off a desk creates the main plot of the novel. Because it leads to healthy transformation for the students, however, this mistake is ultimately serendipity

“She reached down and quickly touched the surface, running her thumb over the place where a heart had been carved into the wood and the letters T.F. + R.W. crudely cut inside the heart.”

Rachel remembers Tommy, who had a crush on her, while touching his desk. Rachel is still deeply impacted by Tommy’s death and her connection to him. This graffiti, chiseled into a hard surface, is a testament to the intensity of Tommy’s feelings, but its permanency also symbolizes the long-lasting effects of his death, six months after which Rachel still experiences mutism.

“Not just the right to be silent but the right to remain silent. It was a right protected by federal law.”

Rachel’s silence is a choice that she makes every day, and she feels strongly that she has the right to keep her silence. She not only wants to be silent, but she refuses to speak just because other people want her to. Nevertheless, the mutism is complex. She chooses it partly out of self-protection and partly out of guilt; in other words, while Rachel insists on her right to remain silent, this is partly because, deep down, she feels she has no right to speak.

“Karen was one of the brightest, most confident students in the entire school, although today she looked a little unsure of herself.”

Karen lies to the office about having a substitute teacher. Everyone naturally believes her because of her reputation, and none of the adults take the time to investigate why Karen is unsure of herself when she goes to turn in the attendance and lunch orders. This is the beginning of the lie that Mr. Fabiano’s class keeps up for the rest of the day.

“Without her voice she had learned how to watch, how to tune in to a million little things she had never before noticed.”

Rachel is more observant now that she doesn’t talk. Her silence allows her to tune in to others, and she especially notices that nobody pays attention to Tommy’s death. Her heightened awareness is yet another suggestion that silence is a form of power.

“Writing words is like flying, Rachel thought. Words aren’t solid. Words are lighter than air. But even so, they can sometimes give you a lift.”

Rachel’s simile compares writing to flying. Flying symbolizes independence and freedom throughout the novel. Therefore, writing gives Rachel that same sense of freedom.

“Rachel could feel the beginnings of a sound rising from some deep buried place at the bottom of her chest, itching to join in, and it was everything she could do to keep that sound down.”

This quote shows how Rachel works to remain silent. Even when she is tempted to join along with her classmates in music class, she suppresses her voice because she is not ready to speak yet. With so much instability in her life—her parents’ divorce, Tommy’s death—Rachel may feel she lacks control. She can, however, control herself, and this is part of the appeal of choosing silence.

“Sean loved those few minutes when you could go on your own to the bathroom. Those were the only moments in the whole school day when he felt free. Unseen.”

Sean expresses his desire to be alone and not have the attention on him. He likes to fade into the background, which is also why he appreciates Rachel’s silence. He feels connected to her choice to be silent.

“She closed her eyes but even so she could feel the story spreading through the cafeteria, carried on thousands of whispered words, a fire burning up a forest, jumping from table to table, little flames she could feel licking at her insides. For the second time that day she could feel the pressure of words in her chest, words that wanted to get out but somehow could not come out.”

After feeling the need to sing in music class, Rachel feels the need to speak again at lunchtime when other students are learning about how their class has no teacher. Before, her words felt frozen when she discovered that Tommy died, but now her words feel like fire. The novel shows Rachel having many different feelings about both words and silence, and these feelings often appear contradictory. She, like her classmates, has her own unseen inner conflict.

“He would go through his own kind of quarantine.”

Bastian thinks of how he moves around a lot and how, when his family moves to Hawaii, he won’t know anyone: He will be alone, as though in quarantine. This thought shows Bastian’s empathy for Barkley’s impending situation. Eventually, this leads him to give Sean his dog.

“She wished she had kept her mouth shut. Back then it had never occurred to her that she had the Right. The Right to remain silent.”

Rachel regrets saying anything to her parents about how they argued because she thinks that she caused their divorce. She wishes she knew the power of her silence at that time like she does now. This is another variation on the idea that silence is power.

“It was April 28. The six-month anniversary of Tommy’s death. Was she the only one who remembered?”

Rachel feels like only she remembers Tommy. Nobody else seems to acknowledge what happened and that it is the six-month anniversary of his death, which makes Rachel feel annoyed with her classmates. Eventually, Rachel discovers otherwise; her classmates have their own sense of guilt over their treatment of Tommy. When Rachel learns this, she feels less alone. The class’s collective grieving process moves some characters, like Rachel, from isolation toward community.

“KIDS RULE! Who needs the teacher? Who needs the nurse? Huh? Who needs any grownups at all?”

When Missy bandages Sky’s injured knee without the help of the school nurse, the students in Mr. Fabiano’s class are exultant in their increasing self-sufficiency. This moment illustrates not only their responsibility but their teamwork. The students prove again and again that they can be independent, and this proven independence empowers them.

“If you want to fly you have to know how to read a map, Mr. Fabiano told her one time.”

For Rachel to be independent and free of her guilty feelings about Tommy, she needs guidance. Flying symbolizes independence in the novel, and Rachel needs to be able to reach out and get help from others to feel that freedom. Mr. Fabiano’s words also express, metaphorically, that independence requires wisdom, maturity, and preparation.

“Bastian closed his eyes. He felt the strangest feeling inside him, a sensation that had been growing during the day: a jagged kind of sadness he had never felt before.”

Bastian is normally a tough guy who teases everyone in class. However, the day without a teacher causes him to feel sad in a way that he never experienced before. He moves around so much that it feels normal to leave people behind, but now that is changing.

“The sobs filled the room and they startled the class because they carried the buried sound of a voice they had not heard for half a year.”

Rachel breaks down in tears during the rock ritual when Bastian accuses her of being mean to Tommy. Her breakdown is the catalyst for the rest of the class to reflect on Tommy and his death. Soon after, Bastian himself bursts into tears—an abrupt turn for his usually tough character. Tommy’s death is an agent of transformation.

“Why would we turn him into some kind of saint just because he died?”

A student, Tim, writes about how everyone always wants to say nice things about Tommy but that Tommy was actually really annoying. Nobody wanted to talk about him after he died because they didn’t have nice things to say. Tim’s words may sound unempathetic, but they highlight the common discomfort of speaking openly about the deceased.

“Mr. Fabiano, in a way I feel like I should apologize. But in another way I don’t. It’s kind of hard to explain.”

Karen tells Mr. Fabiano that she doesn’t think that the class did anything wrong by ruling themselves. She knows that logically what they did was against the rules, but the students were independent and responsible, and she is not sorry about that. Her candor with Mr. Fabiano reflects that he is an emotionally safe presence for his students; the narrative holds many such indirect suggestions of his kindness.

“CHARACTER IS HOW YOU ACT WHEN NOBODY’S WATCHING.”

A poster in Mr. Fabiano’s classroom bears this quote, and it inspires the students to write about what happened when they were alone without a teacher. Character is the quality of a person, and Mr. Fabiano points out that the quality of the students is based on how they act when nobody is watching them. The novel highlights gray areas of morality—the nature of breaking rules and lying, for example—but this poster voices an important truth: The students behaved virtuously even without surveillance. Therefore, their character is virtuous, even amidst illegality.