What Does Howard Call Melinda and Her Family
The protagonist of Speak, Melinda begins high school (and the novel) traumatized by a rape that occurred at the hands of upperclassman Andy Evans at a party the summer before. She has non told anyone about the rape, notwithstanding, and her classmates loathe her for calling the law on the political party, while her parents and teachers are disappointed and angered by her sudden depression and apathy. She is smart, just refuses to do her homework, or go to form. She displays aptitude for basketball game and tennis, all the same refuses to make any endeavour to follow through on her skills. Terrified of opening upward to anyone, or of growing up in any real way, Melinda must learn over the course of the novel to overcome her trauma and to find her ain voice. Her inability to tell anyone about her rape manifests itself in an inability to speak at all, but creating art, gaining independence, and standing up to the bullies in her life helps her to regain the ability to clear herself once once again. While she is silent and cold on the exterior, Melinda has a rich interior life. She is funny and perceptive, and has the ability to be both contemptuous and compassionate towards both her peers and the authority figures in her life. By the novel's end, Melinda has begun to come up out of her shell, opening up to her art teacher and to her sometime friend, Ivy. Her growth reaches its peak when she fights off Andy Evans equally he attempts to rape her a second fourth dimension, and after finishes the cartoon of a tree that she has been working on all year. She has regained both her vocalism and her autonomy, and is finally able to move forrard with her life.
Melinda Sordino Quotes in Speak
The Speak quotes below are all either spoken by Melinda Sordino or refer to Melinda Sordino. For each quote, you can also come across the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
I accept entered high school with the wrong pilus, the wrong dress, the incorrect attitude. And I don't have anyone to sit with. I am Outcast.
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My room belongs to an alien. It is a postcard of who I was in 5th grade.
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I look for shapes in my face. Could I put a face in my tree, like a dryad from Greek mythology? Two dirty-circumvolve optics under blackness-dash eyebrows, piggy-olfactory organ nostrils, and a chewed-up horror of a mouth. Definitely not a dryad face up. I tin can't stop biting my lips. Information technology looks like my mouth belongs to someone else, someone I don't even know.
I get out of bed and take down the mirror. I put it in the back of my cupboard, facing the wall.
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I used to be like Heather. Have I changed that much in ii months? She is happy, driven, aerobically fit. She has a nice mom and an awesome idiot box. But she'southward like a dog that keeps jumping into your lap. She always walks with me downward the halls chattering a million miles a minute.
My goal is to get dwelling house and take a nap.
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The cheerleaders cartwheel into the gym and bellow. The oversupply stomps the bleachers and roars back. I put my head in my hands and scream to let out the beast noise and some of that night. No one hears. They are all quite spirited.
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I hide in the bath until I know Heather'south bus has left. The salt in my tears feels skillful when it stings my lips. I launder my face in the sink until there is zilch left of it, no eyes, no nose, no mouth. A slick nothing.
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It is getting harder to talk. My throat is ever sore, my lips raw. When I wake up in the morn, my jaws are clenched then tight I have a headache. Sometimes my mouth relaxes around Heather, if nosotros're alone. Every time I try to talk to my parents or a instructor, I sputter or freeze. What is wrong with me? It's like I take some kind of spastic laryngitis.
I know my head isn't screwed on straight. I want to leave, transfer, warp myself to another galaxy. I want to confess everything, hand over the guilt and mistake and anger to someone else. There is a beast in my gut, I tin hear information technology scraping away at the inside of my ribs. Fifty-fifty if I dump the memory, it will stay with me, staining me. My closet is a good thing, a tranquillity place that helps me hold these thoughts inside my caput where no one can hear them.
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Cooking Thanksgiving dinner means something to her. Information technology's like a holy obligation, part of what makes her a wife and mother. My family unit doesn't talk much and we have nothing in common, but if my female parent cooks a proper Thanksgiving dinner, it says we'll be a family for one more twelvemonth. Kodak logic. Just in film commercials does stuff like that work.
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Applesmell soaks the air. One time when I was fiddling, my parents took me to an orchard. Daddy gear up me high in an apple tree. It was like falling upward into a storybook, yummy and red and leaf and the branch not shaking a chip. Bees bumbled through the air, and so stuffed with apple they couldn't be bothered to sting me. The lord's day warmed my hair, and a wind pushed my mother into my father'due south arms, and all the apple tree-picking parents and children smiled for a long, long minute.
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I bet they'd be divorced by now if I hadn't been born. I'chiliad sure I was a huge disappointment. I'm not pretty or smart or athletic. I'chiliad only like them— an ordinary drone dressed in secrets and lies. I can't believe we have to go along playacting until I graduate. It'south a shame we can't just admit that we take failed family living, sell the
firm, divide the money, and get on with our lives.
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I most tell them correct and so and there. Tears flood my eyes. They noticed I've been trying to draw. They noticed. I effort to swallow the snowball in my throat. This isn't going to exist easy. I'm sure they suspect I was at the political party. Perhaps they even heard well-nigh me calling the cops. But I want to tell them everything every bit we sit in that location by our plastic Christmas tree while the Rudolph, the Scarlet-Nosed Reindeer video plays.
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I open up a paper clip and scratch it across the inside of my left wrist. Distressing. If a suicide attempt is a weep for help, so what is this? A whimper, a peep? I draw fiddling windowcracks of claret, etching line after line until information technology stops pain. It looks like I arm-wrestled a rosebush.
Mom sees the wrist at breakfast.
Mom: "I don't have time for this, Melinda."
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I rock, thumping my caput against the cinder-block wall. A half-forgotten holiday has unveiled every knife that sticks within me, every cutting. No Rachel, no Heather, not fifty-fifty a silly, geeky male child who would like the inside girl I think I am.
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The side by side time you work on your trees, don't recollect well-nigh trees. Think about love, or hate, or joy, or rage— whatever makes yous feel something, makes your palms sweat or your toes curl. Focus on that feeling. When people don't limited themselves, they die one slice at a time.
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I stumble from thornbush to thornbush— my mother and father who hate each other, Rachel who hates me, a schoolhouse that gags on me like I'grand a hairball. And Heather.
I simply demand to hang on long enough for my new skin to graft. Mr. Freeman thinks I need to find my feelings. How tin I non find them? They are chewing me alive like an infestation of thoughts, shame, mistakes.
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Slush is frozen over. People say that winter lasts forever, but information technology's because they captivate over the thermometer. North in the mountains, the maple syrup is trickling. Brave geese dial through the thin ice left on the lake. Underground, stake seeds roll over in their slumber. Starting to get restless. Starting to dream green.
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I open up my rima oris to breathe, to scream, and his mitt covers it. In my caput, my voice is as clear as a bong: "NO I DON'T Want TO!" But I can't spit information technology out. I'm trying to call back how we got on the basis and where the moon went and wham! shirt upward, shorts down, and the basis smells wet and nighttime and NO!— I'm not really here, I'm definitely back at Rachel's, crimping my pilus and gluing on fake nails, and he smells like beer and hateful and he hurts me hurts me hurts me and gets up
and zips his jeans
and smiles.
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His lips move poison and she smiles so she kisses him wet. Not a Daughter Sentinel kiss. He gives her the notebook. His lips move. Lava spills out my ears. She is not any part of a pretend Rachelle-chick. I can merely encounter third-form Rachel who liked barbecue potato chips and who braided pinkish embroidery thread into my hair that I wore for months until my mom made me cut information technology out. I rest my brow against the prickly stucco.
Related Symbols: Lips
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This looks like a tree, just it is an boilerplate, ordinary, everyday, tedious tree. Breathe life into information technology. Make it bend— copse are flexible, so they don't snap. Scar it, give information technology a twisted branch— perfect trees don't be. Nothing is perfect. Flaws are interesting. Be the tree.
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I am a deer frozen in the headlights of a tractor trailer. Is he going to hurt me again? He couldn't, non in schoolhouse. Could he? Why can't I scream, say something, exercise anything? Why am I and so afraid?
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When I shut the closet door behind me, I bury my face into the dress on the left side of the rack, clothes that haven't fit for years. I stuff my mouth with old fabric and scream until in that location are no sounds left under my skin.
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I just want to sleep. A coma would be nice. Or amnesia. Anything, just to get rid of this, these thoughts, whispers in my mind. Did he rape my caput, too?
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I crouch by the torso, my fingers stroking the bark, seeking a Braille code, a clue, a message on how to come back to life after my long undersnow dormancy. I accept survived. I am hither. Confused, screwed up, but here. Then, how tin I find my way? Is at that place a chain saw of the soul, an ax I can take to my memories or fears? I dig my fingers into the dirt and squeeze. A small, clean role of me waits to warm and burst through the surface. Some placidity Melindagirl I oasis't seen in months. That is the seed I will care for.
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I reach in and wrap my fingers effectually a triangle of glass. I hold it to Andy Evans's cervix. He freezes. I push button only hard enough to raise ane drop of claret. He raises his arms over his head. My mitt quivers. I want to insert the glass all the way through his throat, I want to hear him scream. I look up. I run into the stubble on his chin, a bit of white in the corner of his oral fissure. His lips are paralyzed. He cannot speak. That's expert enough.
Me: "I said no."
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IT happened. At that place is no fugitive it, no forgetting. No running away, or flight, or burial, or hiding. Andy Evans raped me in August when I was drunk and too young to know what was happening. It wasn't my fault. He hurt me. Information technology wasn't my fault. And I'k not going to let it kill me. I tin grow.
I wait at my homely sketch. Information technology doesn't need anything. Even through the river in my optics I can see that. Information technology isn't perfect and that makes it but correct.
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"You've been through a lot, haven't y'all?"
The tears dissolve the concluding cake of ice in my throat. I feel the frozen stillness melt downward through the within of me, dripping shards of ice that vanish in a puddle of sunlight on the stained floor. Words float upward.
Me: "Let me tell you nigh it."
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Melinda Sordino Graphic symbol Timeline in Speak
The timeline below shows where the graphic symbol Melinda Sordino appears in Speak. The colored dots and icons betoken which themes are associated with that appearance.
Melinda Sordino begins her first 24-hour interval at Merryweather High School in Syracuse, New York apprehensive and... (full context)
As she enters school, Melinda comments that the school has changed the mascot from Trojans to Blue Devils because "Trojans"... (full context)
Melinda sees her one-time friends, with whom she used to exist in a clique called the... (total context)
At a school associates, after hesitating too long as she looks for somewhere to sit, Melinda is reprimanded by Mr. Neck, her future social studies teacher. Another isolated student, who introduces... (full context)
As the assembly goes on, Melinda catalogues the top 10 lies that teachers tell high school students, such as "We are... (total context)
The school day continues and Melinda describes the periods. She names her English teacher Hairwoman because of her ridiculously frizzy orange-and-black... (full context)
At lunch, Melinda doesn't know where to sit as all of her former friends pretend to ignore her.... (full context)
Every bit Melinda tries to run away, Mr. Cervix stops her. She is unable to explicate why she... (full context)
After lunch Melinda has art, which she calls a "dream." In contrast to Hairwoman and Mr. Cervix, her... (full context)
...to get their object to limited an emotion, and for the outset time that day, Melinda is excited. She gets a tree, and though she believes that the assignment will be... (total context)
Melinda sits in Spanish class, bored once again. She detachedly mocks her Spanish instructor's attempts at... (total context)
Two weeks go by "without a nuclear meltdown," Melinda reports. The talkative Heather has been attempting to befriend her, while all her other former... (full context)
Melinda begins to discuss her home life, which mainly involves avoiding her parents and ordering takeout.... (full context)
As she eats dinner on her family'southward white couch, Melinda relates how she turns the cushions one way to make a mess while she has... (full context)
In her bedchamber, Melinda describes how out of place she feels in it, having decorated it with her friends... (total context)
As her father pours himself a drink and microwaves leftovers, Melinda decides to nap rather than doing her homework. She asserts that she is powerless against... (full context)
Every bit she rests, Melinda bites her lips and looks in the mirror, disgusted by what she sees. She is... (total context)
Melinda hides in a bath and watches as a student who is cut form outwits the... (total context)
Melinda describes gym with loathing, recounting how she has to alter in a bath stall and... (total context)
As the gym class plays field hockey on a muddy, cloudy mean solar day, an unenthusiastic Melinda continues to describe Nicole's athletic skills, and skilful looks, the favoritism she receives from the... (full context)
Melinda encounters Rachel in the bathroom, and scornfully describes how her former best friend has changed... (full context)
Melinda longs for a friend—not a existent, close friend, she explains, but a "pseudo-friend" and so that... (full context)
Melinda goes to Heather'due south business firm, which is pristine and perfectly decorated. They are greeted by Heather'south... (full context)
...more than involved, saying that 9th-graders demand to become a part of their high school community, Melinda remembers how she used to be "happy" and "driven" like Heather. Now, however, she finds... (full context)
Melinda has a difficult twenty-four hour period later existence lectured by Hairwoman over her missing homework (the teacher... (full context)
Melinda plans to use the distraction of the Homecoming pep rally in order to clean up... (full context)
Melinda describes the pep rally, from the band to the cheerleaders to the back-flipping Blueish Devils... (full context)
With sarcasm and bitterness, Melinda describes the school's cheerleaders. She notes their simultaneous promiscuity and purity, and marvels at the... (total context)
Equally the rally ends, someone knocks Melinda downwardly three rows of bleachers. She fantasizes about creating a clique called the Anti-Cheerleaders, which... (full context)
Since the pep rally, Melinda has used watercolors to paint trees that take been struck by lightning. Mr. Freeman has... (full context)
Although she wants to slumber during her Columbus Day vacation, Melinda instead goes over to Heather'due south house, considering Heather begged her and there's "nothing on television... (full context)
Subsequently Melinda tells Heather that they cannot join the musical because "'We are nobody,'" Heather begins to... (full context)
Melinda's parents scold her for her depression grades and poor mental attitude. She imagines her mother as... (full context)
Melinda discusses biological science class, which is taught by Ms. Keen, whom Melinda believes could have been... (full context)
Melinda next discusses algebra, to which she arrives quite late (with the assist of a forged... (full context)
When Mr. Stetman calls on Melinda, she tries non to answer, using one of her fake smiles. Mr. Stetman, however, forces... (full context)
...parents that she is also old to trick-or-treat (she doesn't want to in whatever case), Melinda retreats to her bedroom. Every bit she watches the trick-or-treaters, and listens to her parents' squabbling,... (full context)
Melinda reports that the schoolhouse board has changed the Merryweather High mascot from the Devils to... (total context)
After the Spanish instructor calls on her, the students make fun of Melinda because she has the word for "pretty," "linda," in her name. In Castilian, they tell... (full context)
Melinda develops a darkly comic theory about Kyle Rodgers' party: she decides that aliens have abducted... (full context)
Melinda mockingly describes the Marthas, the clique that Heather is trying to bring together. Information technology is composed... (total context)
...probationary member is to decorate the faculty lounge for a Thanksgiving party. She pleads with Melinda to help, and although Melinda is disappointed with the shabbiness of the room, she agrees.... (total context)
As the Marthas enter, Melinda exits. But she watches every bit the Marthas brand fun of her lips and and then force... (total context)
Alone in the bathroom, Melinda cries. She comments that the "salt in my tears feels good when it stings my... (full context)
On an unspecified date betwixt Halloween and Thanksgiving, Melinda is horrified to see It in the hallway flirting with a cheerleader. As IT passes... (total context)
Melinda reports her grades to the reader; they are generally poor, except for a B in... (full context)
Melinda's parents try to force her to stay afterwards school for extra help from her teachers,... (total context)
Noting that "[i]t is getting harder to talk," Melinda describes how her throat is sore, her lips raw, and her jaw clenched. Although she... (full context)
Merryweather Loftier holds Task Day, which Melinda mercilessly mocks. After taking an aptitude test, she is given a bewildering array of options... (full context)
...claims have kept his son from getting a chore equally a fire-eater. As he fumes, Melinda doodles an apple tree tree, and thinks about the linoleum block that she is trying to... (total context)
...job because he didn't deserve it. Mr. Neck reacts with fury and cuts off contend. Melinda continues to doodle the tree, calling her piece of work "a cheap, cruddy cartoon." She is so... (full context)
Although she is incredibly stressed out by her task and the upcoming winter holidays, Melinda's female parent insists on cooking a turkey for Thanksgiving (despite the fact that this has led... (full context)
...continues as the turkey floats in the sink in a bathroom of warm h2o, and Melinda's mother deals with a crisis at work. Melinda refers to the floating turkey equally a... (full context)
Melinda hides in her bedchamber and reads magazines as her parents fight. When she emerges, she... (full context)
Melinda decides to make "a memorial for our turkey," which she said was "tortured to provide…a... (full context)
Later several attempts, Melinda decides to skip her next course in society to work on her bird artwork, and... (full context)
Inspired, Melinda glues the basic together like "a museum exhibit." She makes knives and forks await as... (total context)
In biological science class, Melinda is studying fruit. The students are instructed to dissect an apple, and while David Petrakis... (full context)
...Petrakis is fighting for his freedom of speech in Mr. Neck's social studies course. As Melinda watches, David turns on a tape recorder every fourth dimension Mr. Cervix speaks, in club to... (full context)
Equally she waits for her guidance counselor in the school role, Melinda eavesdrops on a conversation between a secretarial assistant and a PTA volunteer, and learns that the... (full context)
Heather persuades Melinda to go to the Winter Assembly so that she does not need to sit lonely... (full context)
...have voted for the Wombats, while most of the other votes are "write-ins or ineligible." Melinda mentally mocks the proper name, and is delighted when Raven Cheerleader and Amber Cheerleader are upset... (total context)
With both her parents at work, schoolhouse out, and two days till Christmas, Melinda's mother tells her (via annotation) to put up the Christmas tree. Melinda drags her family's... (full context)
Melinda speculates that if she hadn't been built-in, her parents would probably exist divorced by now.... (full context)
Later on trying and failing to contact Heather, Melinda decides to pretend to be her friend instead, wondering what Heather would exercise if her... (total context)
A wind rustles the branches above Melinda's head, and she all of a sudden feels panicked, her "center clanging like a firebell." The spell of... (full context)
On Christmas, the family exchanges gifts; among Melinda's are a Goggle box for her room, skates, and a sketch pad with charcoals because her... (full context)
Melinda remembers a portion of the night of the party: how she snuck home later that... (full context)
Melinda's parents decide that she can't merely sit effectually the business firm during her Christmas vacation. She... (full context)
The side by side day Melinda goes to her male parent's insurance office, but is angry about how much easier his life... (total context)
Furious with her father, Melinda is given the task of closing calendars into envelopes by licking them. She cuts her... (full context)
The unit in Melinda'southward gym grade is basketball, and she unexpectedly discovers that she has an amazing knack for... (full context)
Ms. Connors and the boys' Basketball Autobus tell Melinda that she will get an A in gym if she coaches one of the players,... (full context)
Back in the fine art room, Melinda describes Mr. Freeman'due south popularity and coolness: the students are allowed to eat in his class,... (total context)
Melinda recalls how Principal Main came by to inspect the room yesterday, just how the students... (total context)
Later receiving a note from Heather, Melinda goes to her business firm to detect her sobbing about disappointing the Marthas at a Valentine's... (total context)
Melinda'south biological science class with Ms. Keene is scheduled for a frog autopsy, and David Petrakis is... (full context)
Melinda needs stitches, and is taken to the infirmary by her mother. As the doc shines... (full context)
Melinda reports that Heather has gotten a job every bit a model at a local department shop... (full context)
Melinda accompanies Heather to a bathing conform shoot, and Heather's mother asks whether she too wants... (total context)
Reflecting that she likes nutrient too much to model, Melinda scoffs at Heather's obsessive dieting. She watches as Heather attempts to model a swimsuit in... (full context)
Mr. Stetman is nevertheless determinedly trying to teach his class algebra; Melinda admires him, but refuses to learn or pay attention, even though he is trying to... (full context)
...only draw them in her closet (rather than in fine art form where people spotter her), Melinda works hard on Heather's posters for two full weeks, drawing "basketball players shooting cans through... (full context)
As she is putting a poster upwards in the metal shop, IT comes in. Melinda freezes, feeling every bit if "flecks of metallic" are slicing through her. When he sees her,... (full context)
Melinda's guidance counselor calls her mother to report her terrible grades. Melinda sarcastically comments that she... (total context)
Melinda does her homework and shows information technology to her parents. Afterwards, however, she writes a runaway... (full context)
Melinda has started to sit with Heather at the edge of the Martha tabular array for lunch.... (full context)
The Marthas suddenly get excited equally Andy Evans—whom Melinda identifies as IT—comes into the cafeteria. Emily reveals that he called her terminal night, while... (full context)
Andy Evans walks over and begins to flirt with Emily while standing backside Melinda. Melinda tries to lean into the table, deafened to his words and utterly paralyzed. She... (full context)
...on his landscape, instead sitting dejectedly on his stool. In the freezing cold art room, Melinda starts a new linoleum block, commenting that her concluding tree looked as if it had... (total context)
Melinda gashes herself with her chisel, getting blood on the linoleum; all the students turn to... (full context)
Melinda reports her terrible grades, even worse than the offset quarter. She even gives herself a... (full context)
...than the wombats, because the mascot costume volition take money abroad from the prom budget. Melinda imagines opposing teams making flyswatters and cans of insecticide for halftime shows. She notes that... (full context)
Melinda misses her autobus because of the winter darkness, but her mother refuses to drive her... (full context)
After deciding to go to a bakery chosen Fayette'south for donuts, Melinda sees Andy Evans (Information technology, as she calls him) in the parking lot. She freezes on... (full context)
Every bit she runs, Melinda remembers what she was like when she was "eleven years quondam and fast." She imagines... (full context)
Reveling in her freedom, Melinda walks down chief street, despite the icy weather. She feels as if her insides are... (full context)
Melinda decides to shop for leap clothes because none of her dress from last year fit.... (full context)
...she should tell someone nigh what happened to her on the nighttime of the political party, Melinda wishes to be in fifth grade once again, when life was easy and simple. A mall... (total context)
For the adjacent 4 days, Melinda sets her alert early and makes it to school, all the time wishing that she... (full context)
Melinda mocks Hairwoman'southward choice of earrings, and reports that her English language class has started to study... (full context)
Melinda wonders whether Hester ever tried to say no (presumably to her lover Reverend Dimmesdale's sexual... (total context)
...class in a conversation about the symbolism of glass inside the novel, and Rachel (whom Melinda now calls Rachel/Rachelle) responds that she doesn't believe in symbolism. To Hairwoman's dismay, Rachel claims... (full context)
...Freeman is evaluating them every week in a painted list on his wall. Adjacent to Melinda's proper name is a question marker. Her tree, she reports, is "frozen." She claims that a... (total context)
Melinda looks at a book of landscapes brimming with trees and plants. She recalls that Mr.... (full context)
Commenting that a loftier school cafeteria is a place meant for "Teenage Humiliation Rituals," Melinda sits with Heather, but not at the Marthas' tabular array; instead they sit close to the... (full context)
On Valentine'south 24-hour interval, Melinda sees various displays of affection, and remembers the different phases of Valentine's Day (from elementary... (full context)
Every bit Ms. Keen teaches a class about the literal birds and bees, Melinda aimlessly wonders whether David has sent her the menu. She chews her thumbnail so hard... (total context)
Melinda writes a annotation that says "'Cheers!'" to David. "'You are welcome,'" he writes back. It... (total context)
At last mustering up her courage, Melinda opens the carte, calling it "a white patch of hope"; it is from Heather to... (full context)
Melinda cuts school once again, and afterwards falling asleep on the double-decker, ends up at Lady... (full context)
After seeing a patient bleeding at the neck, Melinda returns the gown. In that location is nothing incorrect with her, she thinks. "These are actually sick... (full context)
Later on having her absences reported, Melinda and her parents have a coming together with Principal Principal, as well every bit the guidance counselor.... (full context)
Melinda's father recalls the "sweet, loving piddling daughter" who Melinda was "last year," and threatens Principal... (full context)
Melinda imagines her parents and the guidance counselor performing a song-and-dance routine about her. She giggles,... (full context)
Melinda is forced to attend Merryweather In-School Pause (MISS); her guidance counselor, has created a contract... (full context)
When Mr. Neck is preoccupied, Andy blows in Melinda's ear, and she fantasizes almost killing him. (full context)
Melinda feels useless in art class, and Mr. Freeman tells her that her "'imagination is paralyzed.'"... (total context)
Afterwards beginning her assignment skeptically, Melinda is bugged when she gets to Cubism, marveling at the mode that Picasso slices up... (total context)
Inspired, Melinda draws "a Cubist tree" which looks like "glass shards" and "lips with triangle brown leaves."... (full context)
Melinda is playing the part of a "good girl," going to class and even paying attending.... (total context)
Rather than get to the mall together (an activity that they both hate), Melinda's mother decides that her daughter will accept the motorcoach to her store, Effert'south, to store.... (full context)
As they approach Effert'due south, Melinda chews a scab on her pollex. She thanks Mr. Freeman awkwardly, and he responds past... (full context)
Melinda enters Effert'south, only to discover that her mother is on the telephone. She grabs a... (full context)
Examining herself in a three-way mirror at the store, Melinda adjusts it so that she tin can see "reflections of reflections, miles and miles of me."... (full context)
Remembering a movie in which a desperately burned woman had to be given new peel, Melinda puts her scabbed mouth shut to the mirror, and "[a] thousand bleeding, crusted lips push... (full context)
Melinda studies for a biology examination almost seeds, and finds herself interest in the topic, noting... (full context)
Since she is friendless, Melinda has begun to bring brown handbag lunches to school in order to avoid the cafeteria... (total context)
Melinda tries to read as she eats lone, just can't concentrate because of the noise. She... (full context)
Eight inches of snow have fallen in Syracuse, just Melinda does non take a snow day. Hairwoman reminisces nearly the free energy crunch in the 70s,... (total context)
As the class discusses snow'southward symbolism in Hawthorne, Melinda mentally asserts that snowfall symbolizes "[c]sometime and silence." She contemplates the fury of a blizzard... (full context)
Melinda goes to her closet after school rather than ride abode on the bus with her... (full context)
Waking upwardly, Melinda realizes that she has slept until the final basketball of the season. She intends... (full context)
Melinda freezes at the thought of a party, and excuses herself immediately, mentally commenting that she... (full context)
After the game, Melinda can't sleep, so she climbs out of her window onto the porch roof, comparing the... (total context)
Looking upward at the moon, Melinda recalls that information technology "looked closer back in Baronial." She flashes back to Kyle Rodgers' end-of-the-summer... (total context)
Suddenly a senior (Andy Evans) walked out of the copse, called Melinda cute and asked her to dance. Drunkard, featherbrained, and excited, she danced with him, and... (total context)
Her memories even so blurry, Melinda recalls dialing the phone and calling 911. Seeing her reflection in the window, she was... (total context)
Melinda recalls silently walking home to her empty house. She reminds herself that it is winter... (full context)
Melinda relates another report carte du jour—her grades are worse than ever, and she gives herself an F... (full context)
...arguing that the students take suffered "psychological harm" because of the "yr's lack of identity." Melinda reacts with apathy. (full context)
Melinda reports that jump is close, and lists various signs. She notes that the seniors are... (full context)
Comparing herself to a canis familiaris, Melinda comments that she has been going to classes and passing tests. Andy Evans (or Andy... (full context)
Noting that Easter has come up and gone, Melinda remembers how her mother used to make an Easter Egg hunt in the house for... (full context)
Spring Break has come and gone, and Melinda feels as if her house is shrinking. She goes to the mall and decides against... (full context)
Melinda zones out as Ms. Keene discusses the last unit of biology: genetics. She thinks nearly... (total context)
Rather than pay attending, Melinda sketches "a willow tree drooping into water" to tape on the inside of her closet;... (full context)
Melinda reports "10 More Lies They Tell Yous in High School," including "Y'all volition use algebra... (total context)
Melinda is horrified to observe that Rachel and Greta-Ingrid have gone to the movies with Andy,... (full context)
Melinda follows Rachel and her friends to the foreign linguistic communication fly, and watches as Andy flirts... (full context)
Retreating to her closet, Melinda works through her options, wondering how to warn Rachel abroad from Andy, and discarding option... (full context)
Melinda looks at the walls of the closet, which are filled with pictures of trees. She... (total context)
Melinda opens past calling Mr. Freeman "a wiggle" considering he is criticizing her tree. Although she'due south... (full context)
Melinda remembers that she played a tree in a second-grade play because she was bad at... (full context)
...announces that all students who have failed his tests must write an extra-credit essay, and Melinda chooses to focus on the suffragettes, American women who fought for the correct to vote.... (full context)
Melinda is proud of her report, calling information technology "the best report always," and even hands it... (full context)
Melinda is enraged that Mr. Cervix is forcing her to read her report just to slap-up... (total context)
In MISS, yet furious, Melinda wonders why adults presume to know what is going on inside of her. She describes... (total context)
Melinda tells David Petrakis that Mr. Neck gave her a D on her report. He comments... (total context)
David awkwardly flirts with Melinda, saying that he might call her; Melinda appears receptive, telling him that she doesn't know... (full context)
Melinda stays later school to do creating chalk drawings of her tree, while Mr. Freeman goes... (full context)
Melinda doesn't respond; instead she walks straight dwelling, hides in her ain sleeping accommodation closet, buries her... (full context)
Melinda decides to pretend to be sick, only to discover that she actually does have a... (full context)
Feverish and partially delirious, Melinda imagines her life as a talk show, and wonders if she was in fact raped.... (full context)
Feeling even sicker, Melinda wishes for a blackout or amnesia to go rid of her trauma. "Did he rape... (total context)
Melinda reports that it is May at last, and that it's finally stopped raining—the lord's day is... (full context)
Melinda'south father comes out and is impressed past her work. He tries to encourage her, but... (full context)
Her father offers to take her to the hardware store, but Melinda refuses—likewise many people for her taste. As he leaves, she imagines "rak[ing] the leaves out... (full context)
Melinda'south gym form has moved on to a tennis unit, and Ms. Connors pairs Melinda against... (full context)
Yearbooks have come out, Melinda reports, signifying the end of the year. She watches students, especially cheerleaders, as they compete... (total context)
Hairwoman has gotten a buzz cutting, and Melinda wonders what has acquired the transformation. She discusses the terminal essay—a option between "'Symbolism in... (full context)
While Ivy and Melinda are working in the art room, Ivy accidentally gets magic marker on Melinda's shirt. Melinda... (full context)
The two girls try to wash the shirt in the bathroom. As Melinda waits in a stall wearing her bra while Ivy scrubs the shirt, she reads the... (full context)
Melinda comments sarcastically near the ridiculous behavior surrounding Senior Prom, and reacts in atheism when she... (full context)
In another plough of events, Heather has showed up at Melinda'southward firm, to Melinda'southward mother's delight. Feeling self witting about her babyish bedroom, Melinda listens as... (full context)
Heather finally gets to the indicate: she wants Melinda to help her decorate the Vacation Inn ballroom, where prom is going to exist held,... (full context)
...upward to Heather, planting marigolds, and asking her mother if she tin can redecorate her bedroom, Melinda attributes her newfound confidence to the jump weather. She decides to talk to Rachel. (total context)
Finding Rachel in written report hall, Melinda engages her in conversation; when Rachel reports that she'll be going to France that summer,... (full context)
Seeing the initials R.B. + A.E. (Rachel Bruin + Andy Evans) on Rachel's notes, Melinda asks Rachel about the senior; Rachel responds happily, until Melinda asks what the two volition... (total context)
...for talking, the 2 girls begin to laissez passer notes, with Rachel "melt[ing]" and asking if Melinda likes anyone. The conversation moves on to Kyle Rodger's party; Rachel says that she's not... (total context)
Melinda writes a note explaining that she was raped at the party "under the trees", calculation... (full context)
A discouraged Melinda waits in the high school lobby, too upset by her chat to go home. Suddenly... (full context)
On a warm and sunny Saturday morning, Melinda watches as arborists come to cure the sick tree outside her business firm past trimming off... (total context)
...her father, who is pretending to know more than almost the tree-pruning process than he does, Melinda takes her bike out and rides away, although she doesn't remember the concluding time she... (full context)
Melinda bikes to the befouled where the party took place, and walks to the tree-filled spot... (full context)
Starving from the exercise of riding her bike when she gets home, Melinda eats a large lunch and and so gets to work gardening for the entire afternoon. Her... (total context)
Later napping, Melinda takes the bike out at night, riding by Heather, Nicole, and Rachel's houses. Information technology is... (full context)
On Monday morning, Melinda hears all about prom drama. In addition to various scandalous pieces of gossip, she learns... (full context)
Melinda comments that gossip is the only point of going to course. She imagines high school... (full context)
On a warm day in algebra form, Melinda realizes with a kickoff that she doesn't want to hibernate in her cupboard anymore. After... (total context)
After school, Melinda goes to her closet to collect her belongings, including the poster of Maya Angelou and... (full context)
Andy accuses a horrified Melinda of lying to Rachel about having been raped. He tells her that she "wanted information technology,"... (full context)
Feeling assaulted by even his words, Melinda tries to leave, but he locks the closet door. Calling her a "foreign bitch" and... (full context)
As Andy lets go of Melinda's wrists to give himself a gratuitous hand (presumably to unzip his fly), Melinda at last... (full context)
Wishing that she could "hear him scream," Melinda realizes that Andy's "lips are paralyzed. He cannot speak." She tells him that she said... (full context)
Mr. Freeman won't manus in his grades, Melinda reports. She takes advantage of the delay to work on her tree ane more than fourth dimension;... (total context)
"My tree is definitely breathing," Melinda reports. She tries to create an imperfect tree with initials in its bawl, and a... (full context)
Seniors walk in to say adieu to Mr. Freeman, and Melinda calls them "girls" only to right herself to "women." One of the seniors is Bister... (total context)
Melinda decides that her tree is missing something, and uses chalk and water to draw birds... (total context)
Although there is "a river" in Melinda'south eyes, she tin see that her tree is perfect in its imperfection. Mr. Freeman comes... (total context)
Melinda imagines the tears "dissolv[ing] the last cake of ice in my throat," and feels herself... (full context)
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Source: https://www.litcharts.com/lit/speak/characters/melinda-sordino
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