50 pages • 1 hour read
Lu
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Chapters 9-10Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 9 Summary: “A New Name for Me: Me (Maybe)”
The next morning, Lu’s mother says she is feeling better and that there are no deliveries scheduled for today. She tells him that Goose wants Lu to spend the day at work with him. Lu goes to see Goose, who tells him that after yesterday it might be good for Lu to see what he does for work.
Goose and Lu arrive at a basketball court in Glass Manor, which is busy with players, their girlfriends, and some people that Lu can tell are “messed up” (172) on drugs. Lu is surprised to see Coach Whit pull up alongside them, and she tells Lu that Goose has been helping her try to help her brother, Torrie “The Wolf '' and get him into rehab. She says that she decided to come see the Wolf in person so that she could read her letter aloud to him. The men on the basketball court greet Goose as they walk over, and Goose introduces Whit and Lu. Goose tells Lu to go sit on a bench in the corner, and Lu’s stomach drops to see Kelvin sitting on the bench.
Lu rehearses a litany of insults he can lob at Kelvin if he starts trouble, but when he sits down next to Kelvin, he says, “Wassup” (177). They sit in silence for a few minutes and Lu notices that Kelvin is wearing a pair of Ghost’s old high-top sneakers. Kelvin offers Lu a handful of sunflower seeds, and Lu notices that there are no longer blue and purple spots on Kelvin’s arms. They watch the game, and Lu teaches Kelvin how to properly open a sunflower seed.
Lu watches his father and Whit try to talk to the Wolf, who only shakes his head as they try to convince him to change his life. As the game ends, Goose calls everyone to attention and has Whit read her letter to the Wolf. Whit reads an impassioned letter asking Wolf to give up the drugs that wrecked his life. She says while everyone struggles with things in life that “it’s time for your mountain to be moved” (180). She reminds him that only he can make the decision to change, and that she will be there to support him. As she finishes, the other men on the court call out to the Wolf, encouraging him to make a change. As Lu listens to Whit’s words, he thinks of his own baby sister and envisions what kind of big brother he wants to be.
Everyone watches as the Wolf walks over to Whit and Goose, and smiles, silently telling them that he is willing to go to rehab. Everyone begins clapping, and Lu looks over at Kelvin, surprised to see tears streaming down his face. They high five, and Lu walks over to Goose.
While waiting for Whit outside the rehab center where they drop off the Wolf, Goose and Lu read detox and 12-Step pamphlets to pass the time. Lu gets stuck on the word “integrity” and asks Goose what it means. Goose thinks for a moment and defines it as “a gold medal…inside you” (185).
At dinner that evening, Goose asks Lu if he has thought of a name for his baby sister yet, and Lu realizes “that there’s only one thing she could be called” (189): Lightning. Lu’s mother is not entirely convinced, but Lu stands firm. Lu tells his parents that he will call her “Light,” and they decide to compromise by naming her Light. Lu goes to bed that night thinking about her.
Chapter 10 Summary: “A New Name for Defender: Family”
Lu wakes up early the morning of the championship meet. Lu stands in front of his dresser, looking at all his gold jewelry. He reflects, thinking about how after the events of the last few days: “It all meant something else now” (194). Lu repeats his mantra to himself and then puts on a single gold chain.
When Lu arrives at the track, he finds Ghost and apologizes for making fun of his shoes when they first met. Ghost laughs it off and tells Lu that he doesn’t need to apologize, but Lu insists that he wants to apologize before “we got old” (198). Whit has the team begin stretching, and someone points out that Coach still has not arrived. Whit goes to call him, telling everyone to focus on the meet. When Whit returns, she delivers the news that Coach’s son Tyrone is in the hospital after a bad asthma attack, and that Coach will not be able to make it.
Whit instructs everyone to focus; they will have to win the championship without Coach. Co-captain Aaron continues to call out warm up stretches, but the entire situation does not sit well with Lu. Lu stops stretching and tells everyone that he will not be taking part in the meet without Coach and that “for real for real, I don’t know how y’all could” (202). His teammates try to convince Lu that Coach does not need them, and that Coach is an adult, but Lu says that even adults need help from kids sometimes. Lu’s friends, Patty, Ghost, and Sunny all chime in that they too help their adult family members.
Lu convinces the team to forfeit the meet in favor of going to see Coach at the hospital, and all are convinced except Aaron, who says he plans to stay to compete in the meet. Everyone else piles into their family’s cars and heads to the hospital.
At the hospital, Ghost’s mom, who works there, tells the receptionist everyone is there to see Coach and inquire about his son. Each of Lu’s friends has a connection to the hospital: Patty’s aunt enters the waiting room, having just gotten a cast off. The doctor that escorts her is Gramps, Sunny’s grandfather, and he tells the waiting crew that he will go get Coach. Aaron and his mom also arrive, showing that he eventually forfeited to support Coach.
Coach enters the waiting room, shocked to see his entire team and their families waiting there. He tells his athletes that Tyrone is going to be okay, and that he has a surprise for them. Coach pulls out his gold medal, no longer hanging from its ribbon. He tells the team that since getting the medal back, it has become even more meaningful to him. It represents that “if we push, if we aren’t scared to be scared, if we’re not terrified of being uncomfortable [...] and can accept a little help [...] we can be…good” (214).
He then pulls out the medal’s ribbon, cut into strips, and instructs everyone to take a piece and hand it to the person next to them and Coach states: “I call us family” (214). The teammates pass pieces of ribbon to one another, until Ghost takes his piece, passes it to Patty, who passes it to Sunny, who passes it to Lu. Lu takes his piece, and then passes the final piece to Aaron, who thanks him.
Chapters 9-10 Analysis
In the final chapters, Lu decides what kind of person (son, brother, and friend) he wants to be, and he uses his integrity to guide his decision-making and overcome obstacles. An important lesson Lu has learned is the importance of making amends to overcome past hurt. Lu practices this when he resolves his past issues with Kelvin, enabling him to find compassion and understanding for his former bully.
At the intervention for the Wolf, which occurs on a basketball court, Goose instructs Lu to go to the sidelines and wait for him. Lu nearly freezes when he sees Kelvin already sitting on the bench, but he listens to Coach Whit’s impassioned plea to her brother: “We all have a mountain to climb. But, Brother, it’s time for your mountain to be moved” (180). Lu experiences a shift. He looks at Kelvin and sees the tears streaming down his face like “his skin had been peeled back, and whatever was underneath was what connected him, somehow, to what we were all watching” (182). Lu realizes that Kelvin has had to overcome his own obstacles, and this realization causes Lu to really see Kelvin as a flawed person, not a one-dimensional villain. The scene echoes his mother’s earlier lesson that if someone does not deal with their past hurt it can harm them later. Developing compassion for Kelvin, allows Lu to release his resentment and anger.
The basketball court intervention also makes Lu think about what kind of brother he wants to be. Listening to Whit plead with her brother to get sober, Lu thinks: “I wanted to be a real big brother [...] And not just when she was little, not just when I was teaching her [...] but when we got old, too. Gotta finish strong. All the way through” (181). Despite his earlier anxieties about having a sibling, this quote illustrates how Lu interprets his role as a big brother differently now. This is also seen in Lu’s decision to name his sister “Light.” He says, “And now, I had Light. Light to look for. To look after. To keep on” (190). Light represents hope, illumination, and understanding, which Lu now has for his family and views as his duty to protect.
This new role correlates with Lu learning the meaning of the word “integrity.” As Goose thinks of how to explain the definition of “integrity,” he lands on recalling how Coach’s gold medal’s shine never faded over time. He tells Lu to “think of integrity as the gold medal… inside you” (185). By carrying this gold medal, integrity, with him in whatever decisions or difficulties face him, Lu realizes that he can never lose.
Lu’s integrity manifests in the final scenes when Lu encourages his teammates to forfeit the championship meet to be there for Coach at the hospital. Lu proves that he is the true leader of the team when Aaron resists and Lu states: “If we run and win, he’ll be proud of us, and he’ll know we’re the best athletes. But I don’t think that’s what he cares about. If we show up for him when he needs us, he’ll know we family [...] We’ll know we family” (204). His teammates listen to him and follow the lead of Lu’s integrity. Coach echoes Lu’s statement when they arrive at the hospital, and he feels surrounded by the love of his team. He says to them: “What we learn is that if we push, if we aren’t scared to be scared, if we’re not terrified of being uncomfortable, if we can trust ourselves and be honest about where we fall short [...] and can accept a little help [...] we can be…good” (214). This illustrates much of what Lu has learned: people can only overcome obstacles by confronting them and are good only when they can admit their wrongdoings and accept help from others.
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