Black Swan Green

In his metalwork class Jason gets revenge on Neal Brose by taking Neal’s expensive calculator and crushing it in a vise. Mr. Nixon, the headmaster, questions Jason, asking if his behavior is the result of his father losing his job (which explains his father’s strange mood the day of the carnival, in the previous chapter). Jason says the two facts are completely unrelated; he destroyed Neal’s calculator to get back at Neal for extorting money for “popularity lessons.” As Jason explains, when he refuses to pay, Neal’s friends threaten to beat him after school.

Left alone in the book storeroom as punishment, Jason writes a sort of confession, explaining what happened the night he found Ross Wilcox’s wallet, which he clearly still feels guilty for.

Mr. Kempsey scolds the boys in Jason’s class for not coming forward about the bullying and extortion ring, and Jason knows that Neal’s friends won’t let this go easily. In English, Jason takes Neal’s seat at the front, since Neal has been sent home. The teacher, Miss Lippetts, begins to discuss secrets, specifically when they should be kept and when they should be told. She calls on Jason, who has a moment of victory. He gives as an example Neal Brose’s secret—now exposed, it has cost him his reputation as both a “golden boy” and a “hard knock.”

At home, Jason gets a phone call from Julia. Their mother left Julia an urgent message to return her call. Julia also announces that she has a new boyfriend and teases Jason about his love life. She encourages him to go to the disco that night, even telling him what to wear.

At the disco, Jason is a hero. Floyd Chaceley’s older brother is there to beat up Neal Brose, if he shows up. Jason dances with the other kids and feels unthreatened for the first time in ages. Even Gary Drake is decent to him when they encounter each other in the bathroom. When couples begin pairing off, Jason finds Holly Deblin behind the stage and they kiss. Holly admits to liking him, but she was waiting for Jason to stand up for himself. He slips Holly’s woven band off her wrist onto his, and they kiss again.

At home, Jason’s dad is sitting in the dark. He tells Jason that they need to talk. Jason confesses about what happened at school that day and about breaking his grandfather’s watch. Jason’s dad is surprisingly calm about this. It’s strange to Jason that his mother isn’t home; she doesn’t usually spend the night in Cheltenham. Then Jason’s dad begins his own confession about loving “two people in different ways at the same time” (278).

Shopping in Mr. Rhydd’s for the last time, Jason overhears two women talking his family’s scandal, namely his father’s affair with a woman he has known for years and the loan he took out to support her. Jason’s parents are separating, their house is being sold, and Jason is moving away.

When his father came to collect belongings the previous day, Jason met Cynthia, his father’s mistress, who was surprisingly less attractive than his mother. Jason was friendly to them, although it made him feel disloyal to his mom.

In his final moments in Black Swan Green, Jason returns to the lake in the woods, the opening scene of the novel. He runs into Squelch, who says he has seen swans in the lake and reports that Debby Crombie was rushed to the hospital to have her baby. While they are talking, a swan flies down and lands in the water.

Jason then searches for the house in the woods. A younger man directs Jason to the woman who applied the poultice to Jason’s ankle. Although she is senile and does not seem to comprehend his words, Jason tells her the entire story of Ross Wilcox, from his bullying to his lost wallet to his lost leg. In doing so, Jason both takes responsibility and absolves himself of guilt.

At home, Jason takes out his keepsake box and sorts through the mementoes he has gathered over the past year, beginning with the fossil and ending with Holly’s woven wristband. Julia comes to get him, and they marvel over the fact that each sibling always coveted the other’s bedroom, yet they had never simply swapped rooms. Julia asks him why Eliot Bolivar isn’t writing poetry anymore and encourages Jason to keep at it.

Jason, sick with the thought of leaving everything familiar for a new world that is unfamiliar, begins to cry. Julia reminds him that everything will be all right in the end—and the end isn’t just yet.