Bud, Not Buddy

Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 1999

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-4

Chapters 5-8

Chapters 9-12

Chapters 13-16

Chapters 17-19

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Vocabulary

Essay Topics

Quiz

Chapters 1-4Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 1 Summary

It is 1936, during the Great Depression. Ten-year-old Bud Caldwell waits for breakfast in an orphanage. The “Home” is anything but homelike; children wait in line for meals, share crowded rooms, and suffer paddling for misbehavior. A caseworker in high heels arrives to tell Bud and another orphan, six-year-old Jerry, that new temporary-care families offered to take them. The caseworker explains that Jerry will go to a family with three girls while Bud will go to the Amoses, who have a 12-year-old son. Bud consoles Jerry, telling him he will receive attention from the three girls. Bud used to cry when he received word of a changed home assignment; now, although he feels emotional, he does not cry: “But the tears coming out doesn’t happen to me anymore. I don’t know when it first happened, but it seems like my eyes don’t cry no more” (3). Because his first two foster homes were not positive experiences (in one location, an adult hit him for talking back), Bud is wary of what might happen at the Amoses.

Bud packs his only other set of clothes in his suitcase. Unlike many of the orphans at the home, Bud has his own suitcase; he checks his treasured possessions in it every night. They include a blanket and several flyers that advertise a musician and band, Herman E. Calloway and the Dusky Devastators of the Depression. The blue flyer is the most treasured to Bud. It is different from the other flyers because of its performance location: Flint, Michigan. Bud recalls that the flyer made his mother troubled and that she could not stop looking at it. Shortly after his mother brought the flyer home, Bud “knocked on Momma’s bedroom door, then found her” (8). Bud was six when his mother died. Bud is convinced that the man in the photo on the flyer, a tall musician with a “droopy, dreamy look on his face” (7) must be his father, whom he has never met.

Chapter 2 Summary

Bud wakes in the middle of the night because Todd Amos is shoving a Ticonderoga brand pencil up Bud’s nose eraser-end first. Todd is amazed that the pencil goes in up to the “R”; he never had this much success with “the other little street urchins” (12). Bud smacks Todd in the face, leaving a print of his hand; the two fistfight in the bedroom. Bud is trying to get away when Mrs. Amos comes in. Todd lies, telling his mother that Bud started it and that he, Todd, only wanted Bud to use the bathroom so he would not wet the bed, as “Mrs. Amos hated bed wetters more than anything in the world” (14). Mrs. Amos believes her son. Bud is impressed with the job Todd does of lying: “I’m not bragging when I say I’m one of the best liars in the world but I got to tell you, Todd was pretty doggone good” (11). Mrs. Amos says she intends to call the Home and return Bud the next day for attacking her son, that Bud will spend the night sleeping in the shed out back, and that she and Mr. Amos will hold his suitcase to ensure that Bud will not run away. He can tell by the incorrect way the twine holding it together is tied that the Amoses have opened the suitcase and gone through its contents.

Mrs. Amos tells Bud he must apologize to avoid “the strapping of [his] life” (16). Bud eagerly apologizes to Todd, Mr. Amos, and Mrs. Amos. He begs to stay, but he thinks this will guarantee his hoped-for return to the Home. Bud keeps a mental tally of “Bud Caldwell’s Rules and Things to Have a Funner Life and Make a Better Liar of Yourself” (17). Rule #118 suggests giving adults a decoy they can remove as punishment; “That Way They Might Not Take Something Away That You Really Do Want” (17).

Todd warns Bud of vampire bats, spiders, and centipedes in the shed and tells him the last foster child disappeared after going there, leaving behind only a stain of blood. Bud is scared when Mr. Amos puts him into the shed, as there is indeed a dark stain on the floor, but he does not beg to return to the house. Mr. Amos padlocks Bud inside the shed.

Chapter 3 Summary

Bud is afraid and his breathing is loud. He reaches for the door and is scared by three “monster heads.” He then realizes they are three dried fish heads with sharp teeth that are nailed above the doorknob. Nervous about roaches crawling into his ears (which happened to Bud’s friend at the Home, subsequently nicknamed Bugs), Bud places his blanket on a woodpile to lie down. He tries to scrape the newspaper from the adjacent window and manages to see a light on in the house. The window moves only a small amount when he tries to open it. Bud sleeps for a while. When he wakes up, the light from the house is off. He sees an object hanging in the shed rafters. Thinking it is a vampire bat, he whacks it with a rake as hard as he can. The object turns out to be a hornet nest. The hornets sting Bud as he tries to escape. He cuts his fingers on the fish head teeth in an attempt to break down the door. Finally, he tries the window again, and this time it opens. He climbs out and rolls away. As the pain from his stings and cut fingers fades, he sets his mind on getting back at the Amoses: “I sneaked up the back porch steps to get inside the house. […] the only thought on my mind was. ‘Aha, you doggone Amoses, that hurt, but now I get my revenge!’” (30).

Chapter 4 Summary

Bud climbs in the open kitchen window, rescues his suitcase from under the table, and goes out the back door to pre-set his suitcase on the back porch steps in case he needs to make a “quick getaway.” Bud lifts the double-barrel shotgun Mr. Amos keeps near the icebox and imagines shooting it in Todd’s room. He intends, however, to hide the gun on the back porch instead so that the Amoses cannot shoot it at him: “I felt a lot better when it was out of my hands” (33).

Bud fills a jelly jar with warm water and sneaks into Todd’s room, where he dips the sleeping boy’s hand into the jar to try to get Todd to wet the bed. It doesn’t work at first, but when Bud pulls the covers back and pours the warm water onto the front of Todd’s pajama pants, Todd “soak[s] his sheets!” (35) Bud leaves the Amos house with his suitcase, enjoying the thrill of running away.

Chapters 1-4 Analysis

The author establishes Bud’s character in these opening chapters through a series of events in which Bud goes from a passive acceptance of the foster care system to the more active pursuit of evading it. At 10, Bud has no choice but to go to the Amoses, despite a foreboding feeling that comes from having been through bad foster placements. Bud’s sense of empathy is well-developed for his age; although he worries for both himself and Jerry, he pretends for Jerry’s sake, indicating that he, Bud, is “[…] the one who’s going to have problems” (3). Bud also has no choice but to allow the Amoses to take his suitcase when he arrives, and silently stews when he sees that they opened it. Razor-toothed fish heads and hornets in the shed, however, are enough for Bud, and once he gets back at Todd, he leaves the Amos house before dawn. Notably, this moment marks Bud’s stepping out of his “Ordinary World” of disappointing foster and orphanage care and marks the start of his adventurous quest.

Bud’s character traits are evident from his own interior monologue, especially his anecdotes and guidelines for “a funner life.” He shows a youthful fascination with the story of fellow orphan Bugs’ cockroach; this innocence is juxtaposed with the wise lessons Bud learns in his life as an orphan. For example, about fighting Todd, who is bigger and older, Bud thinks “Being this brave was kind of stupid” (13). He also realizes he can trick grown-ups by manipulating their ideas of what he thinks is important, as he states in Rule #118. Bud also demonstrates a naive openness to new situations and adventure, eagerly departing from the Amoses without a firm plan: “Man! I was on the lam, I was just like Public Enemy Number One” (35).