Ella Minnow Pea

“Z” is officially removed from the community and cannot be used else the user or the person in possession of a written use of the letter be punished. Tassie writes to Ella about the fear among the townsfolk in the hills. Tassie’s mother tells her, “I am angry and rebellious. In my head, I am reciting what I recall of my niece’s last letter, allowing the illegal words to baste and crisp. I cook the words, serve them up, devour them greedily. In the sanctuary of my thoughts, I am a fearless renegade” (18).

Several people in Tassie’s village have already committed their first offence of using “z.” “All were speakers of the banned words—words overheard upon the lanes, in schoolyards and church pews, and on the common greens. Neighbor turning upon neighbor, perpetuating old grievances with this new weapon unleashed upon us by the High Island Council” (21).

Ella writes to Tassie about the publisher and editor of the town newspaper contemplating the suspension of his business because of the banned letters. She fears the loss of news to the island and is happy the editor has not suspended his newspaper yet. On the other side of the island, Tassie notes the first person to reach the third offence is a young boy named Creevy. Creevy is banished and the town calls a meeting meant to release tensions and frustration. Tassie tells Ella that she cannot wait to attend.

Shortly after, the letter “Q” falls from the monument. Ella believes the new fallen letter indicates a possible rescindment of the law entirely. However, Tassie fears the opposite: the continuation of their rights being withheld. In the end, the letter “Q” is also removed from their language. Ella writes, “I am in agreement with you that as our anger against the Council grows, it has yet to exceed in potency the abject fear which invades all aspects of our readjusted lives” (29).

In response to the newly removed letter, Mr. Kleeman, the editor and publisher of the newspaper releases the final issue and leaves the island. Ella is devastated, but Tassie has her own troubles—her own mother commits her first offence in front of her students at school. Tassie reveals to Ella that a child from the class told his parents, who notified the authorities.

Upset by people turning on each other, Tassie writes to the child’s family, asking why they deemed it necessary to go to the authorities about her mother’s accidental slip in class. The child’s father responds, “We believe, Miss Purcy, as you obviously do not, that there is full cause and merit to the statutes recently passed by the Island Council. We believe, further, that Nollop does indeed speak to us from his place of eternal rest, through manipulation of the tiles upon his hallowed cenotaph, and that the Council services only as his collective interpreter” (40).

In apparent rebellion and anger, Tassie’s mother writes to Ella’s while overusing the letters available to her. Her reason behind the overuse is to make up for the two letters she has been robbed of. In an unusual turn of events, a man named Nate Warren, who met the boy who had been exiled, Creevy, writes to Tassie’s mother. He wishes to visit Nollop and document the goings on, particularly those surrounding the language events. She agrees he should stay with them under the guise of a “good old friend of the family” (46).

Tassie writes to Ella about the turn of events, but Ella reports another: an entire family is flogged in the streets for demonstrating the use of “Q.” She writes, “And so Mum and Pop and I stood and watched the harrowing and loathsome sight of children being ritually beaten, and the commensurately disturbing picture of frightened onlookers—‘the town baa-baas,’ as Pop has taken to calling our dear neighbors—doing what they do oh so very well, and that is: absolutely nothing. Lifting not even the proverbial finger to remove these high council bastinado-benediced buffoons from their pinnacle of abusive power, nor doing anything otherwise to stop or decelerate their efforts” (49).

Soon after these horrifying events, the letter “J” falls from the monument. Nate Warren, from the mainland, writes to Tassie’s mother, explaining that he has heard the news of the newly fallen letter. He further advises her that mainland chemists got their hands on the previously fallen tiles and found the glue reached a point where it is merely dust. He suspects all the letters will fall off in the coming months and fears the outcome if the Council continues its course of action. Regardless, he assures her that he cannot wait to meet her and will be on the island soon.

The concluding letter of the chapter is written from the Council to the people of Nollop. They explain that Nollop was a man of words, which makes them people of words, and as such, indebted to him. Further, they declare: “The falling tiles can represent only one thing: a challenge—a summons to bettering our lot in the face of such deleterious complacency, and in the concomitant presence of false contentment and rank self-indulgence” (55). The Council advises the citizens that thinking otherwise is heresy, which will be punished.