During the first week she walked up and down the halls by herself and thought about this. She planned about being with some bunch almost as much as the music. Those two ideas were in her head all the time. And finally she got the idea of the party. (p. 88)
We have followed Mick, the young girl through a few of her days, known her thoughts and her dreams through third person omniscient POV. She’s tough, she’s capable and dependable, yet she has desires and goals for herself that reach for the stars. She’s no girly-girl, and she knows herself well. Now, in her desire to be part of the new class of friends at the high school, she is planning a party and invites forty boys and girls. We wouldn’t have thought this would matter to this loner, and with the knowledge we have of her, fear for disaster ahead. Perhaps with King’s Carrie in mind. Perhaps with the exerience of McCarthy’s Suttree and Steinbeck’s Cannery Row, we hope yet we fear for these vulnerable characters against a world in which they barely belong.
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology