Bluefish

Velveeta writes a letter to her former neighbor, Calvin, who has recently died. Velveeta is hanging out in his trailer, which is still empty and to which she has a key. When she arrived home from school, her older brother Jimmy’s truck was in her driveway, and she dislikes Jimmy, so she came to Calvin’s and plans to stay there until Jimmy’s gone. She feels safer at Calvin’s than she does at home or anywhere else.

Velveeta’s mom forgot to buy school supplies for her, and she knows Calvin would have bought them if he were still alive, just like he used to ensure she did her homework. Now that he’s gone, she’s no longer interested in homework.

The following day in Reading, Travis learns he missed the first assignment: Write one page about the best thing he’s read before. He’ll need to make it up. The teacher, McQueen, directs the students to each choose a book from his shelves unless they’ve brought something else to read. Their next homework assignment is to write one paragraph defining “literature.” Velveeta is in the class, along with Bradley Whistler, the kid whose shoe Travis returned yesterday. Travis chooses a book with a fox on the cover.

At lunch, Travis uses his “magic” card to get his free school lunch. To his surprise, Velveeta sits by him and asks what his “story” is as the new kid who disappeared halfway through the first day of school. Travis doesn’t reveal much besides that he recently moved from the nearby town of Salisbury, Wisconsin. Travis shares his cookie with Velveeta.

Velveeta wishes Calvin were here to ask her how school was. If so, she’d tell him about a new stranger she met, Travis. She thinks it’s somewhat morbid to write to a dead person and hang out in his trailer, but it makes her feel a bit better.

Neither Velveeta nor Travis did their homework for Social Studies or Reading. Velveeta says homework goes against her religion. In Social Studies class, some girls are laughing because one of them corrected Travis’s Science paper, which was presumably bad. Ms. Gordon has the students take turns reading passages from the textbook, but they can say “pass” if they don’t want to read aloud. Travis gets distracted and forgets to say “pass,” but he won’t read aloud. Velveeta reads aloud as if it’s easy.

At lunch, other kids ask Velveeta to sit with them, but she chooses to sit with Travis instead. She asks why he talks so little, and he shares his cake with her. Velveeta likes Travis because she saw him give Bradley his shoe back without making a big deal or making fun of him.

Travis walks home after school and stops on a bridge to look at the water and birds. Four older kids smoking cigarettes tease him, but he keeps walking. They don’t follow, but he can feel them watching him, which he doesn’t like. Travis gets to his small house, which is in a part of town that’s more working-class.

Grandpa arrives home and says he knows Travis, like him, misses the woods, swamp, and dog, but they both have to make the best of their new home. He’s going to the Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) meeting and will bring dinner home for Travis afterward. Grandpa quit drinking the previous month when Rosco disappeared, but now he smokes more than he did before. He also talks more than he used to and gives Travis unsolicited advice.

Although Travis still dreads school, he feels a bit better because Velveeta seems to like him and recognized his good deed in returning Bradley’s shoe.

A librarian named Connie, who was friends with Calvin, offers Velveeta a job shelving books and doing basic tasks on Saturdays and Wednesdays after school. Velveeta is only 13, but she can make five dollars per hour in cash “under the table” (23). Velveeta accepts, planning to use the money to get Calvin’s electricity turned back on so she can watch movies in his trailer.

In Reading class, McQueen holds individual conferences with students. He asks why Travis chose this book and if he likes foxes. Travis does—he’s even tracked them before and saw fox pups last June. He generally loves the woods and the outdoors, and McQueen says this is a good book for that. McQueen reads some of the story aloud, and Travis feels like he’s being transported out of the claustrophobic office to the wilderness. McQueen asks how far Travis is, and Travis says not very far. McQueen points out the beautiful drawings at the start of each chapter and offers to help Travis with anything, anytime. Travis looks at the drawings for the remainder of the class. One of them is of a hound that resembles Rosco.

At lunch, Bradley thanks Travis for returning his shoe, then goes to sit with some boys. Travis compliments Velveeta’s scarf, and strangely, she walks away.

Velveeta brought her collection of scarves to Calvin’s trailer so her mom can’t use them to clean up beer spills. Calvin is the one who gave her the scarves. She wonders if Calvin is reunited with his wife, Janet, now that he’s dead like she is. Velveeta knows Calvin can’t read these letters, but she wants to keep writing them so she won’t turn into the person she would have been if Calvin had never been in her life. Her mom saw her coming to the trailer earlier, which she thought was “creepy,” but she used to say that even when Calvin was alive because he was old and Velveeta is a child.

On Saturday morning, Travis wakes from a dream about Rosco. Grandpa’s already at his job at the bakery. Travis goes on a walk and recalls the last time he saw Rosco a few weeks prior. He wanted to find some fox pups and knew it would be easier to approach them without the dog, so he told Rosco to “stay” in the driveway. Even without Rosco, Travis didn’t find the pups. When he returned home, Rosco was gone. Grandpa and his truck were also gone. Grandpa never took Rosco anywhere besides the vet, so Travis assumed this was where they went. When Grandpa came home, he said he didn’t know where Rosco was and assumed he was with Travis. Grandpa said sometimes old dogs just leave home and never return. Travis searched the woods for Rosco but didn’t find him, while Grandpa went to a bar. When Grandpa returned home, Travis lunged at him without touching him, which made Grandpa fall over.

Travis searched again but couldn’t find Rosco anywhere. Grandpa left again, and Travis thought maybe he should try Grandpa’s alcohol if it really makes the pain disappear. However, the fridge and liquor cabinet were empty, which was unusual.

When Travis was three, his mom died in a hospital, and then his dad died shortly afterward in a car accident. Rosco then became like Travis’s parents. Now, Travis misses the dog terribly, as if he’s lost his entire family all over again. He doesn’t feel like Grandpa loves him as much as Rosco did.

On his walk, Travis sees an aggressive-looking dog guarding his driveway. Travis backs away carefully and avoids being attacked. Travis finds it easier to interact with dogs than people. He didn’t want to move because he thought Rosco might still come home one day and be confused if they were gone. Grandpa said that was unlikely but alerted the new tenants in case they saw a dog appear. Travis plans to bring a snack for the aggressive dog next time he takes a walk.

On Velveeta’s first day of work, Connie sends her to the bakery to get treats to “lure” people to the library. Velveeta also does her laundry at the nearby laundromat while at work. As she’s leaving, Travis appears and asks what’s in her wagon (laundry); she won’t say. He also asks what the building is that she’s leaving, and she says “library” as if it’s obvious (because there’s a sign). Her tone seems to offend Travis, and he starts walking away. She offers him a donut hole, and he acts like donut holes are disgusting but talks to her a bit more and smiles before they part ways. Velveeta can’t tell what color his eyes are because he looks away a lot.

Monday morning, Grandpa asks if Travis finished his homework, which he normally doesn’t ask about, but he claims he cares now that he stopped drinking 30 days ago. Travis asks when he’ll quit smoking, too. Grandpa tells him to leave, so Travis walks toward school. On the way, he stops to give the aggressive dog a donut. The dog doesn’t eat it until Travis starts walking away, but he’s slightly less aggressive. He recalls running into Velveeta over the weekend and almost looks forward to school because she’ll be there. At his previous school, he was bullied for being a “bluefish,” which was meant to make him feel stupid.

Velveeta and Travis are partners for their Social Studies project, but he keeps shooting down her ideas and not contributing any of his own. Also, at lunch, he’s even quieter than usual. She thought they were becoming friends, but now she’s not sure. She doesn’t have many real friends; most people just expect her to make them laugh. Other kids rarely invite her to birthday parties, and her best birthday was when Calvin put party hats on a bunch of stuffed animals from Goodwill.