50 pages • 1 hour read
Erin Entrada KellyThe First State of Being
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 2022A 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 31-40Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 31 Summary
Michael wakes to a rainy day after crying himself to sleep. He doesn’t want to search for the sumbook. He feels guilty as he thinks about Mr. Mosley saving money in a jar for him—he believes he doesn’t deserve such kindness. Mosley left him $5,000. Ridge suggests investing the money. Michael is reluctant, given the uncertainty of investing, but Ridge points out that “[n]ot knowing is part of life” (214). Ridge is also glad of the rain, because sumbooks can’t survive water. Ridge is too sick to eat, but refuses to see a doctor. He thinks he deserves all his bad karma. Michael disagrees. The EGG turns on.
Chapter 32 Summary
Michael races to find Gibby at the dumpster and tell her about the EGG. He feels better than he has felt in days. They both sprint back to Ridge.
Chapter 33 Summary
Gibby and Michael help Ridge prepare for time travel. If he can return to 2199, he can be easily cured of his deadly cold. He asks them to ensure the sumbook is destroyed. Before he leaves, he writes them a note. Gibby asks Ridge for a memento; he writes his name on the takeout menu (it is the RIDGE mystery document from the future). Gibby gives Ridge her book as a memento. He learns Gibby’s real name is Elizabeth Gibson. He is shocked.
Ridge prepares to leave. Michael accepts that they will never know if he made it home. He confesses that he stole Beejee’s tools. Ridge forgives him before dematerializing.
After Ridge disappears, Michael and Gibby read his note: “Netflix IPO 2002” (222). Neither understand what this means. They hope Ridge returns home.
In a flash forward, it is August 24, 2199. Ridge materializes back to his family and they are ecstatic. They cure his cold. Ridge confesses he lost the sumbook. His mother assures him that nothing in their timeline was affected by his journey. The Sabios realize he met the institution’s founder, Elizabeth Gibson. Dr. Sabio hypothesizes that Ridge meeting her caused her to establish the institution later in life.
Chapter 34 Summary
On August 25, 1999, Michael and his mother visit Mr. Mosley’s apartment. Ms. Rosario picks a movie from Mr. Mosley’s collection as a memento. Michael wants to take food for his Y2K stash. Ms. Rosario gently refuses, explaining that it should be donated to a food pantry. Michael isn’t convinced, but feels guilty about coveting it. His mother reminds him, “It’s my job to take care of you” (234).
Chapter 35 Summary
The narrative flashes back to the events of Chapter 29, when Beejee confronted Michael and took back his clothes. Immediately after this confrontation, Michael surreptitiously follows Beejee and sees him throw away the sumbook. Michael later retrieves the sumbook, telling Ridge it is lost. In the present, Michael opens the sumbook, but there is only nonsense inside.
Chapter 36 Summary
Overwhelmed by emotions, Michael throws the sumbook at his wall. Frustrated, he realizes that the book has been encrypted to protect its information from NTIs. To soothe his anxiety, he attempts to decode the book. He sees the note with Paige’s phone number but forgets about it.
Chapter 37 Summary
Hours later, Ms. Rosario comes home from work and checks on Michael. Michael wants her to leave so he can return to his fruitless decoding attempts. Later, he considers how his mother is careful and deliberate in everything she does, and thinks that he has been careless in comparison. He thinks about Mr. Mosley’s advice: “Before you go to sleep at night, ask yourself: was I the best person I could be today?” (243). Michael remembers every time people suffered for his mistakes. He shuts the sumbook, quietly trashes his notes, and makes a phone call, hoping it isn’t too late.
Chapter 38 Summary
The next day, Michael thinks about his call with Paige and all the things they talked about. He adds his Y2K stash to the food pantry donations at Mr. Mosley’s apartment. He takes Mr. Mosley’s wallet as a memento and promises Mr. Mosley that he will do better.
Chapter 39 Summary
Michael finds a puddle left from the rain. He puts the sumbook in it, and it takes five seconds to dissolve.
Chapter 40 Summary
Michael decides to live in the first state of being. He visits the Princes’ apartment and invites them to play basketball. They joke that Michael might be the “next Michael Jordan,” and Michael agrees, “Yeah [...] What if?” (248).
An informational insert reveals that Gibby, later known as Elizabeth Gibson-Gray, PhD, won the LEGO robotics set from the mall toy store. She discovered both a talent for engineering and an interest in time travel. She received degrees in engineering and physics. She created the first hypotheses about time travel, and became “the founder of spatial teleportation theory” (251). The EGG is named after her. Inspired by the enormous amounts of plastic (hundreds of millions of metric tons per year) that drastically polluted the planet, Michael Rosario and Paige Kaminski-Rosario established the Mosley Conservation Institute to preserve and protect the environment in 2018.
In a nod to both Mr. Mosely and the RIDGE document, the insert also reveals that Netflix was established in 1997 and offered its first initial public offering (IPO) in 2002. If someone invested $5,000 in Netflix in 2002, they would have $1.4 million by January 2020.
Chapters 31-40 Analysis
The final section of the novel includes the climax of the plot and the falling action. As such, it also concludes development of the novel’s themes and symbols. The Relationship Between Guilt and Grief continues to be one of the most important themes of the book as Michael learns at last to make peace with both. Michael becomes increasingly guilty as the consequences of his mistakes catch up with him: He confesses to stealing Beejee’s tools, and though his theft of the sumbook remains a secret, he destroys it like Ridge asked. Most importantly, he donates his Y2K stash to those in need, rather than taking Mr. Mosley’s food to add to it. By doing so, he is finally able to let go of the guilt he has carried about disasters in his life. In the process, he recognizes The Importance of Living in the Present: Rather than hoarding food against the possibility that he might need it in the future, he donates the food to those who need it in the present. As a result, he finally gains the peace of mind that he has been seeking. Ridge also lets go of his own guilt about the consequences of his actions by focusing on getting home. In the end, not only is his trip home successful, but he is also immediately cured of his deadly cold.
Now that Michael has real experience taking care of someone, as he has wanted for most of the book, he understands The Mutual Nature of Caregiving. With Ridge gone, Michael is finally able to fully face his grief for Mr. Mosley and openly talk with his mother about his concerns. By being vulnerable, Michael learns that it’s okay to cry and that even if he is capable of taking care of himself and/or others, even adults need to be taken care of sometimes as well. By moving away from his guilt, Michael can also better accept the care his loved ones offer him: “It’s my job to take care of you,” his mother says (234).
As Michael lets down his walls, he begins to think more clearly about the future. Rather than depending on his ill-gotten Y2K stash, Michael can instead focus on more meaningful preparations. In doing so, Michael adopts Mr. Mosley’s mentality. Rather than looking outwardly for an impossible degree of certainty (the sumbook), Michael begins looking internally and asking questions: “Before you go to sleep at night, ask yourself: was I the best person I could be today? [...] If the answer is no, do better tomorrow” (243). Because of this change, Michael is at last able to let go of the sumbook for good, and watches it dissolve “[a]s if it had never been” (246).
The Power and Responsibility of Knowledge is also a significant theme in this section. For Michael, that means coming to terms with the reality that it is impossible to plan for everything—even the best plans can go awry (e.g., the sumbook’s unexpected code). He is finally able to reflect upon his actions and understand the dangers of knowing too much; as a result, he can accept responsibility for destroying the sumbook, signaling that he has finally learned the lesson that Ridge has been trying to teach him.
Ridge learns that despite all the fail-safes, it is impossible to completely prevent the future from influencing the past: His friendship with Gibby leads to the creation of the future as he knows it and even his own name. He also tells Michael to invest in Netflix in 2002. Thus, although knowledge comes with power and responsibility, the consequences of (carefully) sharing that knowledge are not necessarily all bad.
Ridge’s actions here raise questions about the tension between fate and free will, and the RIDGE document symbolizes that tension. For Ridge, the document that gave him his name has always been a mystery, an unexplained blip of history until he inadvertently creates it. The fact that the document already exists in 2199 suggests that he cannot choose not to sign it in 1999, implying that free will may be an illusion. Everything Ridge and his new friends do in 1999, in fact, lays the groundwork for Ridge’s life in 2199, suggesting that the common understanding of history—as a succession of choices and their consequences—needs revising.
Both Ridge and Michael have made progress in understanding The Importance of Living in the Present. Ever since the failed time machine, Ridge has been increasingly sinking into the third state of being with his guilt and “what ifs.” Returning to the future actually returns him to the first state of being (his present), now with lived experience rather than an idealized fixation on the past. For Michael, letting go of his guilt and grief allows him to set down his burdens and fears for the future. By doing so, he can take Ridge and Mr. Mosley’s advice, and live instead in the first state of being, the present, without fixating on the “what ifs.” As a result, Michael is finally able to emerge from his self-imposed isolation and form new social connections with Paige and the Prince brothers. Having accepted that the future will always be unknown, Michael can now feel more comfortable and confident in the present. After all, no one can predict the future, so he might as well live to the fullest in the present. Remembering Ridge’s assertion that “[e]very breath we take, we’re contributing to history” (94), Michael resolves to make history in the present.
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By Erin Entrada Kelly
