Bud not Buddy Chapters 6 9 Chapter 6

Bud, not Buddy! Chapters 6 -9

Chapter 6 O Bud wakes up and runs down to the mission. He sees a ton of O O O people in line so he feels relieved. When he walks to get in the back of the line, a man tells him that the line is closed. Oh, no! Bud sure is going to get hungry. Arguing with the man gets Bud nowhere. The man points out to Bud how many others are worse off than Bud is. But Bud tries again, anyway, and the man comes toward him with a leather strap, intending to hit him. Just then, Bud feels a giant hand wrap around his neck. A man calls him Clarence and asks where he's been. Huh? Bud is totally bewildered and nearly says his name isn't Clarence, but the man shakes him and tells him to get back in line with his mother. Oh, we get it. This is a nice man. He's trying to make sure that Bud can get a bite to eat by saying that Bud's mother is already in line.

Chapter 6 O A woman in line tells him to get back in line right now O O and hits the back of his head. So, Bud finally gets it and stands quietly in line with them. In line, Bud sees a sign hanging over the mission that shows a rich, white family in a car that says THERE'S NO PLACE LIKE AMERICA TODAY (6. 32). Everyone in line talks about it. Inside the mission it's big and quiet. The people serving oatmeal are friendly. Bud's pretend mother gives him some of the brown sugar reserved for his pretend siblings, which they aren't too happy about.

Chapter 7 O In the library, Bud notices the smells and imagines that the powdery smell of the paper puts people to sleep. He looks for Miss Hill. O When he can't find her, Bud asks the librarian who says, "Miss Hill. My goodness, hadn't you heard? " (7. 12) O This phrase makes Bud think about number sixteen of his Rules and Things for Having a Funner Life and Making a Better Liar Out of Yourself: if an adult ever says "Haven't you heard" get ready for tragedy…

Chapter 7 O Bud says that when you hear this phrase, it usually means someone is dead, like a really bad kind of death. O She tells Bud that Miss Hill got married and is living in Chicago. The librarian takes out an atlas to show Bud where that is. She points to Flint, Michigan, and shows him how far Chicago is, and shows him how to calculate how long it would take to walk there. O Bummed out, Bud goes to sit and think about what to do next. O Coming up empty, he leaves and thinks about what his mother said about one door closing and another door opening up.

Chapter 8 O Bud wakes up to a twig snapping and senses a person O O O staring at him. He grabs his knife and is about to attack the person, but the person pounces on him and traps him under his blanket. The person says he's sorry if the guy under the blanket isn't Bud from the Home. Thrilled that he recognizes Bugs's voice, Bud tells him he almost got stabbed. Bugs is startled, too, and says he only did that because Bud sleeps with his knife open and he didn't want to get sliced. Bud guesses why Bugs is there: Bugs is running away, too. After they both calm down, Bud learns that Bugs is heading west to be a picker and will travel hopping trains.

Chapter 8 O Bugs is only interested in finding out about Bud's fight with O O O Todd and calls him a hero. The boys shake with goopy, slobbery hands and Bud calls him his brother. At the mission, the boys find out that they have to go to "Hooperville" to find out about the next train heading west, but no one can tell them how to get there. Following a trail along a creek, the boys come upon some music and the smell of cooking food. They peek inside and see how poor the place is, with cardboard shacks. Then Bugs flips a coin to see which of them should go in to talk to the folks there. Bugs says, "Heads I win, tails you lose" (8. 45). Get it? That means Bud has to go, either way. Which is what happens.

Chapter 8 O When Bud talks to the mouth organ man, he finds out that he is actually in Hooverville and that there a whole bunch of Hoovervilles across the country. That means there a lot of poor people living in shacks in shanty towns all over the United States. O The mouth organ man tells Bud and Bugs they are in the right place if they are from Flint. Bud and Bugs look around and see that Hoovervile is very diverse. The mouth organ man tells the boys that traveling is bad and that Hooverville is home. O The boys agree to do all the dishes for their dinner, which is muskrat stew. Mmm, mmm, good, right? Okay, not so much. O After dinner, two children join the boys and they carry a box of "dishes" down to the creek to wash them. And by "dishes, " we mean tin cans, since nobody here can afford real dishes.

Chapter 8 O A little girl, Deza Malone, divides the washers up into teams O O O and she picks Bud to wash with. Deza asks Bud if he is getting on the train headed west (he is), and he asks if she is going (no, her dad is). Deza and her mom are going to wait for her dad. While doing the dishes, Bud notices Deza's hand touching his hand a lot. When Deza asks about Bud's dad, he brushes her question off, just as he brushed off the question about his mom. Deza calls his bluff and tells him to quit pretending everything is okay. Deza tells Bud that there is nothing more important than family. Without realizing it, Bud says that his mother told him the same thing, but then he stops himself before he says too much to a stranger. Deza wants to know more and eggs Bud on.

Chapter 8 O Bud tells Deza that his momma used to say that he was the most loved boy O O O in the world. Deza says that her mother calls poor kids who hop trains "dust in the wind, " but she says that Bud is different because he "carries his family around inside" of him (8. 142). Then Deza points out how innocent Bud still is and says that he must not have been on the road long, especially since he doesn't think about how the police may be around the train he is going to hop. Then, out of nowhere, Deza asks Bud if he's ever kissed a girl. What? Bud is shocked and asks her if she's kidding. Nope. So does he do it? Yup, he kisses her all right. Then they sit holding hands and listen to the mouth organ man pay "Shenandoah" in the background. Bud doesn't think it's very pretty. Bud and Deza see a white family with a sick baby sitting apart from the black families. Bud asks why they're sitting separately from everyone else. Deza tells him it's because the man refused to take a handout from black people.

Chapter 8 O Bud has second thoughts about going to California. He thinks that O O O O he might be able to find some family if he sticks around Flint. Bud checks inside his suitcase to make sure everything is there. Then he slips some rocks out of a sack. The rocks have strange words and numbers on them, but one does say "flint m. " on it (8. 202). Bid doesn't know what any of this means. Bud looks at the old picture of his momma and then counts the flyers. Bud feels convinced that the man on the flyer must be his father. Once he is ready for bed, Bud tricks himself into falling asleep by smelling his old blanket and remembering how his momma read him bedtime stories. Bud dreams about Herman Calloway, the man who must be his father, walking away from him, and about Deza Malone. Then a screaming man wakes him up. The train is trying to leave early, before train hoppers can make it there. All the men get busy grabbing their things and running for the train. Uh-oh.

Chapter 8 O Last night, Bud fell asleep with his blue flyer in his hand. He doesn't O O O want to fold it up and put it into his pocket, so he slides it between the twine and the suitcase. Once they all make it to the train, the men stop because there are eight cops blocking them from getting on the train. The main policeman tells the travelers to go back home. The poor men tell the cops to go back to their cars. Once the Hoovervillagers' side grows to about four hundred men, some of the cops say this fight isn't worth it, and they leave. Hoovervillagers 1: Cops 0. The train begins to move forward and the Hoovervillagers rush the train. It is moving pretty fast now and Bud throws his bag up to Bugs who is on the train, but his flyer blows out of his suitcase and lands right in his hand. Bud puts the flyer in his pocket and then runs as fast as he can, but he can't catch up. So Bugs tosses Bud's suitcase out.

Chapter 8 O Bud walks back to Hooverville with a few other folks who didn't make it onto the train. He hears four gunshots and peaks through the woods to see cops with guns burning down the town. O Deeper into the woods, Bud puts his flyer away and thinks that maybe it really is true that Calloway is his father since the flyer came back to him from the train. O Then Bud thinks that maybe his mother changed his name to Caldwell since it is awfully close to Calloway. Sort of like a criminal alias. O Bud decides to hurry back to Flint for breakfast at the mission.

Chapter 9 O Bud eats breakfast alone and sets his stuff under the Christmas tree. O O O Then he visits the same librarian who helped him before. Inside the library, Bud borrows a pencil and paper. The librarian remembers him and his momma and says she has a surprise for him. At a little table, Bud figures out that it will take him about twenty-four hours to walk from Flint to Grand Rapids. The librarian surprises Bud with a big book about the Civil War, which he spends the whole day looking at. Later, the librarian notices that Bud never left to eat, so she gives him a cheese sandwich. Bud says that ideas are like seeds, starting as tiny seeds and growing into giant trees. Bud remembers that his idea about Calloway being his father began when Bud saw the flyers and grew while Bud was being teased by Billy Burns, the Home bully. Billy Burns bet Bud that he didn't know who his dad was, and Bud lied and said that his dad was a big fiddle player.