Save Me a Seat

Joe is the other protagonist of the novel. He is a very large fifth grader who towers above most of his classmates and his teacher, Mrs. Beam. He has very large feet and is not coordinated so he does not excel in sports. Joe is constantly hungry and often thinks about his school and his life in terms of food. He likes patterns, as they are easy for him to remember. Joe has problems with his memory because of his APD, which makes it difficult for him to concentrate on people speaking. Joe has lots of issues blocking out extraneous noises and his very sensitive hearing often makes him prefer to wear earplugs. The other kids notice that Joe is different in this way, and some, like Dillon, use Joe’s differences as an opportunity to mock and bully him. As far as kids go, Joe is fairly easy-going and forgives other people’s assumptions readily, although he does not forgive Dillon’s constant bullying, which makes his time in school pretty miserable. Joe reflects: “I don’t get mad that often, but when I do, I always stay mad for a while” (87). A source of tension for Joe within the novel is his mother, who he is very close to but who has taken a job as a lunch monitor at Joe’s school. This provides further ammunition for Dillon to bully Joe, which Joe blames his mother for. Joe has a tense relationship with his father, who does not believe that Joe’s APD is a real condition. Overall, Joe is a bit of a loner, as his only two friends have recently moved to California.

At first glance, Joe appears to be the polar opposite of Ravi, as Joe is a large kid who is very quiet. Unlike Ravi’s tendency towards showmanship and arrogance, Joe is much happier listening to the other people around him. Joe also feels a fair amount of anxiety as a result of school: “Even if [Mrs. Beam] knows about my APD, it doesn’t mean I’m safe. Sometimes teachers think they’re doing you a favor by treating you like you’re no different from anyone else. The thing is, I am different” (54). Unlike Ravi, who repeatedly attempts to fit in, Joe accepts the fact that he is different. He thinks of his difference as an unavoidable fact of life, something that he must deal with every day. Joe also seems fairly mature for his age, which might be a result of his obvious difference from many of his peers. Unlike Ravi, Joe is used to people thinking that he is strange or unfriendly, so Joe is much more adept than Ravi at receiving criticism. Joe works throughout the novel to abide by Mr. Barnes’s advice not to let Dillon bully him and to stand up for himself. Joe eventually turns the table on Dillon, humiliating Dillon by playing a prank on him. However, even this act of revenge is not seen as being cruel, as Joe performs this prank on the behalf of Ravi, cementing their friendship. 

Dillon is the most popular boy in fifth grade at Albert Einstein and the antagonist of the novel. When Ravi first sees Dillon, he thinks Dillon “looks like a movie star straight out of Bollywood. His long, shiny black hair falls over one eye; with a quick jerk of his head, he shakes it away. Then he smiles and winks at me” (8). Ravi mistakenly believes that Dillon winking at him means that Dillon wants to be friends with Ravi; however, the audience quickly learns from Joe that this is not the case. Rather, Dillon always winks right before he tries to humiliate someone else. In essence, Dillon is the classic bully, a jerk who uses his popularity in order to humiliate other students. When Ravi meets Dillon, he thinks that they could be friends because of their shared Indian heritage. However, Dillon exists as a kind of cultural foil for Ravi. Whereas Ravi still holds tightly to his Indian traditions, Dillon is hyper-Americanized in the worst possible way. Their personalities can be seen as being similar, at least, in terms of who Ravi used to be at his old school.

If Dillon serves as Ravi’s cultural foil, he serves as a foil for Joe in terms of his personality. Dillon is needlessly cruel, constantly humiliating other students and always needing to be the center of attention—the polar opposite of Joe, who seemingly would rather suffer himself than hurt someone else’s feelings. Similarly, Dillon has everything: popularity, attention, grades, physical ability; he even comes from a wealthy family. In contrast, Joe has none of these privileges and his parents must work in blue-collar jobs to support themselves. Even with all of the positives in Dillon’s life, he still craves more, existing as a kind of embodiment of human—perhaps American—greed. Dillon even steals the belongings of other kids, such as Ravi’s mechanical pencils: “His parents are loaded, so he doesn’t need the stuff he steals. He just does it for fun” (25). For Dillon, it seems as though the world is not enough, always wanting and consuming more. He represents the worst aspects of American society in a way that almost becomes a caricature and completely differentiates himself from either Joe or Ravi.

Mrs. Beam is Ravi and Joe’s fifth-grade teacher. She does not seem to have the strongest personality. Very little is mentioned of Mrs. Beam regarding her characterization besides her eyebrows: “Mrs. Beam is short and round. When she smiles, her eyebrows touch each other” (6). Both boys notice and reference Mrs. Beam’s highly expressive eyebrows. Joe is surprised at her apparent youth and finds it odd that his teacher is shorter than he is, almost as though he believes that adults must be a requisite size. Like many other elementary school teachers, Mrs. Beam seems alternately patient and frustrated with the actions of her students, such as when Joe refuses to participate or when Dillon interrupts class for attention, although Mrs. Beam does end up being pretty encouraging as the novel progresses.

Initially, however, Mrs. Beam exists as a point of conflict for both Joe and Ravi at the novel’s beginning. She does not know the boys and so unintentionally misunderstands them. Mrs. Beam is neither mean nor rude, but both boys blame her for various things that go wrong during the school week. Mrs. Beam does not seem familiar with Joe’s condition, and so she causes him anxiety by calling on him in class, which creates conflict when Joe refuses. Similarly, Mrs. Beam repeatedly mispronounces Ravi’s name and does not give him the attention he feels like he deserves. She is a source of constant humiliation for Ravi and a source of anxiety for Joe, both of whom are used to their teachers acting in a certain way. Joe repeatedly compares Mrs. Beam to Mr. Barnes, whereas Ravi does not understand her seemingly lax discipline and her inability to understand him. Towards the end of the novel, both boys see that she is putting in the effort to try to understand them, even if she falters from time to time. Mrs. Beam exists in order to show both protagonists’ difficult transitions into how they view authority figures: from mentors who can do no wrong to fallible human beings, much like themselves. Other than this, Mrs. Beam exists as a kind of stock character, the quiet voice of authority who exists in the background.

Miss Frost is the resource room teacher for Albert Einstein. She helps Joe complete exercises to make his brain and ears work in tandem so he does not get as overwhelmed with sounds. She is one of the first adults who recognized that Joe might have APD; as such, Joe feels like she is one of the few people who understands him: “Miss Frost understands what’s going on. But pretty much nobody else does” (54). But Miss Frost’s knowledge extends vastly beyond Joe; she more or less exists as the embodiment of knowledge and understanding. She is very patient and careful not to make assumptions and cautions other students, like Ravi, not to make assumptions as well. She never throws a kid under the bus; for example she does not tell Ravi that it was probably Dillon who tripped him; instead, she just tells Ravi what she knows of Joe. Miss Frost exists as Ravi’s voice of reason, attempting him to help build empathy in the short time she spends with him.

Miss Frost exists as a kind of foil to Miss Beam, especially to demonstrate the importance of children building one-on-one relationships with adults. Whereas Mrs. Beam must teach a classroom of students, Miss Frost demonstrates how students can benefit from individual engagement with adults, whether she is helping Joe mitigate his APD or helping Ravi to learn empathy. However, Miss Frost also demonstrates the importance of the bifurcated narrative. For Ravi, Miss Frost is a source of tension, someone other than himself that he can blame for his unfortunate first few days at school. In contrast, Miss Frost represents a sort of relief for Joe from the stressful classroom environment. This differentiates the character of Miss Frost from Miss Beam, who exists as a source of tension for both Joe and Ravi to demonstrate their similarities. The boys’ differentiated reactions to Miss Frost illustrate their differences, just as their interactions and relationships with her demonstrate how, despite their similarities, they are still different people: Joe has also developed a relationship with her for a while, whereas Ravi is just now interacting with her. Miss Frost all but disappears by the end of the novel, existing only as the voice of reason in Ravi’s head in the same way that Mr. Barnes exists as a mentor for Joe.