60 pages • 2 hours read
Louis SacharSmall Steps
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 2006A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 1-4Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 1 Summary
Theodore Johnson got the nickname “Armpit” after a scorpion stung him while he was at Camp Green Lake Juvenile Correctional Facility. He complained so much about the pain in his armpit that the name stuck. Because of a fight in a movie theater over spilled popcorn, Armpit served 14 months at Camp Green Lake where he dug holes in a dry lakebed. Following a six-month stay at a halfway house after his release from Camp Green Lake, Armpit is back in his hometown, Austin, digging trenches for Raincreek Irrigation and Landscaping. Armpit is landscaping at a house in Austin when Cherry Lane, the homeowner and Austin’s mayor, approaches him. She tells Armpit that she knows about the terrible things that happened at Camp Green Lake and that she admires his perseverance and determination to “turn [his] life around” (3). Armpit shakes the elderly mayor’s hand and smiles as he watches her briefly dance to a song by Kaira DeLeon playing on the radio as she walks away.
Chapter 2 Summary
Armpit’s friend X-Ray pulls up at the mayor’s house in his old car and shouts for “Armpit,” a nickname that Armpit has not shared with his work crew. Armpit and X-Ray met at Camp Green Lake (X-Ray was convicted of selling parsley and oregano as marijuana). X-Ray asks Armpit how much money he has saved. He explains to a skeptical Armpit that he has a “business proposition” that will double Armpit’s investment of $600 in less than two weeks. Armpit doesn’t want to “do anything that might screw things up” (9), but his interest is piqued. X-Ray explains that Kaira DeLeon just added Austin to her tour schedule, and tickets are being released. X-Ray’s plan is to buy face-value tickets and resell them at a profit. However, X-Ray is broke and there is a six ticket per person limit. He wants to partner with Armpit so they can get 12 tickets to maximize their profits. X-Ray tells Armpit that $50 Kaira DeLeon tickets resold for $750 in Philadelphia and assures Armpit that all he needs to do is put in the money, not the work. X-Ray presents a good argument, so after a moment of consideration, Armpit cautiously agrees.
While X-Ray is persuading Armpit to be his partner in Austin, Kaira DeLeon, a 17-year-old Black singer, is waking up in a hotel in Atlanta. Kaira has slept in the suites of 19 different hotels during the previous month of her tour, which explains why she accidentally walks through the wrong door and into her bodyguard’s room instead of the bathroom. Frustrated, Kaira muses on the fact that she has no privacy and no one to talk to. Everything is done for her by managers and a travel coordinator, who once flew across the country to retrieve her beloved, tattered Pillow. Kaira’s band members are over 40 years old and don’t know or respect her, and she despises her business manager, Jerome Paisley (“El Genius”), who is also her stepfather. Jerome invented her stage name, Kaira DeLeon, because there was already a singer with her real name, Kathy Spears. Jerome hired her bodyguard—a “thirty-year-old white guy” Kaira calls “doofus” (10)—after Kaira started getting death threats from an obsessed fan called Billy Boy.
Chapter 3 Summary
Armpit lives on one side of a duplex in east Austin with his parents. His older sister lives in Houston, and his older brother is serving a 10-year prison sentence. Since returning from Camp Green Lake, Armpit’s parents regularly test him for drugs even though he has no history with drugs or alcohol. When Armpit tells his parents that the mayor complimented him at work, their reaction is one of suspicion and concern that Mayor Lane knows about his history rather than one of pride that the she holds their son in high esteem.
Ginny McDonald, a 10-year-old girl with cerebral palsy, lives with her mother in the other half of the duplex. Despite the difference in age, race, and gender, Armpit and Ginny are close, primarily because “[s]he didn’t fear him, and he didn’t pity her” (21). They take daily walks, with Ginny holding onto Armpit’s arm. The daily walks help her strengthen her legs; not long after they begin their routine, she stops wearing her leg braces. A few people tease Ginny, but because she is Armpit’s friend and explains her disability (“I had bleeding inside my brain wh-when I was born” [20]), most neighborhood kids treat her with respect. Ginny loves Kaira DeLeon’s music, so on their walk they happily chat about her songs and current tour.
Chapter 4 Summary
In addition to his job, Armpit is taking speech and economics in summer school so he can graduate high school. Before he leaves for class, Armpit gets a call from X-Ray, who says he now needs $700, not $600. The extra $100 is to cover service charges on the tickets. Armpit replies that he can cover it but worries that his hard-earned savings are disappearing fast.
Tatiana, a girl in Armpit’s speech class, smiles at him. Armpit likes her but is too shy to strike up a proper conversation. The class assignment is to bring in a stuffed animal and present a campaign speech for it. The class will then elect a stuffed animal to be the “ruler of the world” (28).
While Armpit is learning about the economics of bidding at school, Kaira is learning about her own economic situation. Jerome and her mother deflect Kaira’s direct questions about how much money she has made. “I can’t give you exact figures” (30), Jerome says; “You’re doing very well, sweetie” (31), respond her mother. Kaira suggests that they should charge more for tickets since she heard about the $750 resale price of tickets to her show in Philadelphia. Jerome crushes her by smugly admitting that he planted that story and she “didn’t even sell out in Philly” (32). Kaira is further demeaned when Jerome tells her to let him “worry about the business end of things. You just keep on singing and shaking that sexy little body” (33). Her mother follows up by telling Kaira to listen to Jerome since “[h]e’s made you what you are” (33).
Chapters 1-4 Analysis
These early chapters recap Armpit’s history of digging holes with X-Ray at Camp Green Lake, touching on the abuse and disrespect they experienced. Mayor Cherry Lane is kind and understanding; she knows Armpit’s history, which foreshadows her pivotal supportive role during a racially charged confrontation with police later in the book. Armpit sets five goals for himself (“Five small steps” [4]): “1. Graduate from high school. 2. Get a job. 3. Save his money. 4. Avoid situations that might turn violent. And 5. Lose the name armpit” (4). These goals are all a pivotal part of Armpit’s maturation and commitment to Moving on From the Past by Taking Small Steps. Armpit’s determination to turn his life around, despite The Lure of Easy Money, is a theme that runs throughout the book, starting with X-Ray’s ticket-scalping scheme. Even though Armpit agrees to invest his hard-earned money into the scheme, he feels uncomfortable. He is mostly partnering with X-Ray to support his “best friend”; the profit is tempting but secondary. Armpit’s commitment to staying out of trouble is underscored when he tells X-Ray, “Look, things are going all right for me right now, and I just want to keep it cool” (8). Armpit doesn’t “want to do anything that might screw things up” (9). However, when he caves in and partners with X-Ray, Armpit’s apprehension leads the reader to believe that things will get screwed up. X-Ray is Armpit’s foil: X-Ray’s impulsivity and optimistic risk-taking contrast with Armpit’s caution, honesty, and thoughtfulness. One characteristic they have in common is loyalty; they always have each other’s backs.
Kaira is a lonely teen surrounded by much older people who control her life. Despite having thousands of adoring fans, Kaira has no friends. Her schedule and tight security (artificially amplified by her abusive manager/stepfather) limit her ability to make friends and stunts her social life. Her unhappiness is clear, and her need for stability is illustrated by her attachment to her childhood Pillow. Kaira takes out her loneliness and misery on her bodyguard Fred. When she lashes out and calls him “Doofus,” she is venting her own unhappiness. Jerome hired Fred to isolate Kaira under the pretext of keeping her safe from “Billy Boy.” Kaira foreshadows part of Jerome’s murderous plot when she muses that she, “wouldn’t have been surprised if El Genius had actually written the letters” (13) from “Billy Boy.” Instead of providing Kaira with love and support, her mother and Jerome belittle and patronize Kaira. They refuse to tell Kaira how much money she earns and demean her talent by implying she is just a “sexy little body” (33) who owes her success to Jerome’s management skills. They treat her like a child but expect her to flaunt her body and perform night after night like an adult.
Armpit’s relationship with Ginny is pivotal to the storyline and highlights the power of unconditional trust and friendship, a motif that runs throughout the book. Armpit helps Ginny by seeing her for who she is as a person and not as her disability. He also helps her strengthen her legs with the daily walks until she can remove her leg braces. As much as he helps her, Ginny also helps Armpit. She gives his life purpose and shows him genuine care and respect, two things that his life lacked before meeting her. Together, they are Moving on From the Past by Taking Small Steps. For Ginny, those steps are more literal; for Armpit, he can take steps toward improving himself and working toward his future by showing care to Ginny. Without Ginny, Armpit would not have an incentive to turn his life around. Armpit’s parents lack faith in him and are suspicious of everything he does. At school, other students are wary of Armpit because of both his intimidating physical appearance and his criminal history. Although he has a solid friendship with X-Ray, he knows X-Ray could land him back in trouble. Ginny, on the other hand, is sweet and loving and has absolute faith in Armpit’s ability to do great things. She is not afraid of Armpit and trusts him to take care of her, which he gratefully does—proud to be able to make a difference. Looking after Ginny in a deep and unpatronizing way gives Armpit’s “life meaning” (21) because “[t]ogether they were learning to take small steps” (21)—Ginny in the physical sense, by building her motor skills with Armpit’s help, and Armpit in the psychological sense, by rediscovering his self-worth.
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