106 pages • 3 hours read
Gordon KormanSlacker
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 2016A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Chapters 12-16Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 12 Summary: “Daphne Leibowitz”
Daphne is unhappy that the group isn’t helping Elvis. She almost quit when she heard about the garden project, but she decided instead to devote herself to the club so that she could hold influence and steer them toward Elvis.
She arrives at the garden before everyone else and starts weeding, accidentally pulling a prized turnip in the process. An elderly woman scolds her, but Mr. Fanshaw shows up, with Xavier and String in tow, to clarify that Daphne is part of the P.A.G. The woman becomes grateful and forgives Daphne.
Everyone from the club shows up. Each member is paired with a senior citizen to supervise their work. Daphne gets the turnip lady, and she does an excellent job. Xavier gets a cranky old man who criticizes everything, which makes Daphne and Mr. Fanshaw nervous about Xavier’s temper. String treats it like a competition and whips dirt everywhere trying to be the best. Cam and Pavel goof off, but Chuck takes it seriously. A reporter from the local paper, Audra Klincker, stands with Mr. Fanshaw. Daphne is excited because a story about the P.A.G. would be amazing publicity.
Elvis shows up, and one senior citizen chases Elvis with a rake, narrowly missing him. Elvis has been stealing vegetables from their garden. Daphne tackles the man with the rake. String compliments Daphne’s tackle, and Mr. Fanshaw apologizes profusely. Daphne is not sorry because she believes Elvis doesn’t deserve to die for stealing tomatoes. She wants to lay into the man, but she sees the reporter scribbling furiously and decides to back off.
Chapter 13 Summary: “Cameron Boxer”
Despite Daphne tackling a senior citizen, Cameron thinks the work is boring. He asks Pavel to cover for him because he wants a break despite not having done anything. Chuck has already finished two plots and is in hot demand from the senior citizens. Cam sneaks off and enters the lobby of a nearby apartment complex.
While playing his phone game, Cam notices water coming down the apartment staircase. He goes to the second floor to investigate and finds the apartment with water flowing out from under the front door. He knocks and thinks he hears someone inside, but nobody answers. His game dings multiple times, but he ignores it. He returns to the garden to summon help. He’s sure someone needs help inside the apartment.
Cam leads everyone to the apartment door. Xavier uses a fire extinguisher to break the doorknob. Inside, an elderly woman is half-conscious on the floor with her sink overflowing and flooding the apartment. Xavier props the woman up while Pavel turns off the sink. Audra Klincker comes up the stairs. She threatens to call the police, but she is shocked to see the scene when she gets to the apartment door. Xavier tells her to call an ambulance instead.
Chapter 14 Summary: “Melody Boxer”
Melody is tired of Cameron getting away with his “lifestyle.” She thought the ziti incident would be the last straw, but he’s still getting away with his slacker ways. She is even more frustrated to see that the P.A.G. has made the front page of the paper. The article praises Cameron on his quick actions and his modesty for requesting that the reporter not write about the act of heroism.
Melody knows Cam and knows he was just sneaking off to play phone games when he came across the water. She admits that it was amazing he did something about it instead of continuing to play his games.
Melody loves video games too, but she balances her life around other things. She wanted Cam to make a schedule to share their console, but Cam never did. Their parents never stepped in because they were busy with their furniture store. For this reason, Melody goes to Katrina’s house to play video games. Melody and Cam’s parents are proud of Cam and the P.A.G.
At Katrina’s house, Melody notices Katrina has hung up the article about the P.A.G. She asks why Katrina cares, but Katrina is proud of the club and excited for the recognition. She enjoyed working in the garden, and she’s happy about getting to interact with older students. She’s developed a crush on Cam.
Chapter 15 Summary: “Cameron Boxer”
Cam despises the attention he and the P.A.G. have gotten. He’s been stopped in the halls by kids he doesn’t know and personally praised by faculty. The P.A.G. membership has exploded. Meetings move to a larger room to accommodate everyone. Cameron’s carefully curated lifestyle is gone.
Cameron complains about this to Pavel. Pavel says it was always a risk, and Chuck comments on how much fun he had. When Cam opens his locker, the boys smell perfume. Inside, Cam finds a pink note. The note talks about how great Cam is for being a hero. It’s signed by “Your fellow pagger, Katrina Bundy” (107). Chuck and Pavel tease Cam for his admirer. Pavel compliments how catchy the term “pager” is. Cam threatens to not take either of them to Rule the World.
As he’s walking home, Cam is accosted by two teenagers in a red Dodge Charger. The cheerleader in the backseat is Jennifer Del Rio. She’s a well-known senior at the high school, and she demands Cam get into the car. Cam obliges, and the car speeds off.
Jennifer tells Cam that he’s encroaching on her community service territory. She’s a member of the high school organization Friends of Fuzzy, and she’s applying to Harvard. She intends to pad her resume with every possible extracurricular and community service event she can. She’s angry that Cam and the P.A.G. have stolen opportunities from Friends of Fuzzy. The driver, Tony, agrees with Jennifer.
Cam tells her that the P.A.G. is out of his control, but he’s on their side. He doesn’t want it to exist either. Jennifer tells him to take control and do something about the P.A.G. before they steal more opportunities from Friends of Fuzzy. Despite Cam’s protests, the teens drop him off on an empty country road, miles outside of town. Cam walks 45 minutes to get home.
Chapter 16 Summary: “Mr. Fanshaw”
Audra Klincker contacts Mr. Fanshaw about the P.A.G.’s next project, wanting to follow the group in her newspaper column. Mr. Fanshaw is excited, but when he tells Cameron, Cameron is reluctant to make any moves. Mr. Fanshaw cannot figure out why Cameron is so set on avoiding the P.A.G.
Mr. Fanshaw, on the other hand, is living a dream. He has a large group of motivated students willing to put in work for community service, and he’s getting publicity for it. The only part that isn’t working out is Cameron. However, Mr. Fanshaw soon discovers that the date, time, and place for the next P.A.G. meeting has been posted on the website. He is excited that Cameron has come around.
Mr. Fanshaw thanks Cameron the next time he encounters Cameron in the halls. He believes he’s misjudged Cameron and begins to brainstorm ideas for the P.A.G.’s next project. He’s happy that the town has the P.A.G. to give it a boost, especially after hearing that the freeway exit that leads to the town is being demolished. The only exit remaining after that will be the one that feeds traffic directly into the mall. This is devastating for the local businesses.
On the day of the meeting, the bleachers of the small gym fill with students from all grades and backgrounds eager to be a part of the P.A.G. However, Cameron is missing. Mr. Fanshaw runs through the hallways and finds Cameron along with Chuck and Pavel. Cameron knows nothing about the meeting. Mr. Fanshaw drags the boys to the gym. The crowd cheers for Cam, but he just ducks his head and tries to make himself small. Mr. Fanshaw cannot understand why Cameron acts the way he does.
Chapters 12-16 Analysis
Chapters 12 through 16 see the explosion of the P.A.G.’s membership and publicity, much to Cam’s dismay. These chapters also present Melody Boxer’s point of view for the first time in Chapter 14, solidifying her motivations as another foil for Cam. Additionally, these chapters introduce Jennifer Del Rio and the Friends of Fuzzy as antagonists to Cam and the P.A.G. These chapters also build on the major themes of the novel through the shifting character perspectives and the actions of the P.A.G.
Chapters 12 and 13 detail the P.A.G.’s first project at the senior garden center, culminating in the rescue of an elderly woman who slipped and hit her head in her own apartment. The entirety of Chapter 13 capitalizes on irony as the one person not interested in the P.A.G.’s work, Cameron, attempts to sneak away from the project only to find himself at the right place and the right time to come to the old woman’s aid, resulting in a massive explosion of publicity and popularity for the P.A.G.—a result directly opposing Cam’s original goal. Still, although Cam did not intend for this outcome, the themes of The Importance of Community and Contributing to Something Greater emerge as the P.A.G. comes together to not only aid their local senior citizens with their gardening project but also save one of their lives.
However, the P.A.G.’s first project is not without some flaws. When one man tries to hit Elvis with a rake, Daphne tackles him to the ground, leading to concerns that Audra Klincker will report “about how a member of the Positive Action Group did a negative action like tackling one the senior citizens she was supposed to be helping” (92). These concerns about Audra Klincker’s article foreshadow her later involvement in the P.A.G.’s controversy.
Chapter 14 is told from the perspective of Melody Boxer, whose motivations to sabotage Cam’s scheme with the P.A.G. become clear. Melody “longed for Mom and Dad to see through Cam’s smokescreen” (99). She feels as though Cam has always gotten away with being not only a slacker but a bad brother. Melody recalls trying to “get him to draw up a schedule” for their console usage (102), but Cam disregards it and hogs their system anyway, forcing Melody to go to her friend’s house to play video games. Melody’s motivations for wanting to see Cam and the P.A.G. fail stem entirely from her anger at feeling like a second-class citizen in their home.
Fortunately for Melody, Cam suffers from his success. He is frequently accosted by people he doesn’t know, congratulating him on the P.A.G. and admiring his actions to save that woman’s life. His plan to stay under the radar “was falling apart with every passing hour” (105). While ordinary teens would be excited about the success of their club and the explosion of their own popularity, Cam is characterized by his absolute misery at these things. Cam has more in common with his antagonist, Jennifer Del Rio, who is introduced in Chapter 15. Both Cam and Jennifer want the P.A.G. to go away, creating an ironic situation in which the protagonist and antagonist have the same goal. Jennifer wants the P.A.G. shut down because they are interfering with the Friends of Fuzzy’s own community service goals.
Cam is on board with the idea, but he admits that it’s out of his hands, saying, “If it was up to me, I’d drop it in a heartbeat” (111). Cam understands that the P.A.G. has grown to something bigger than just him, and he makes it clear to Jennifer that he’s not in control of it. Jennifer’s determination to see the end of the P.A.G. develops the theme of Cooperation Versus Competition. Instead of seeing the P.A.G. for the good that it brings to the town, Jennifer would rather have no competition for her own club. Her drive to eliminate her competition leads her to abduct a middle schooler and strand him outside of town, showing how competition can be unhealthy and unproductive when taken too far.
In Chapter 16, Mr. Fanshaw returns as Cam’s foil. While many of the other P.A.G. members are showing character growth, with Xavier interested in the club’s activities and String sharing the P.A.G. with his fellow football players, Cam remains obstinately opposed to the P.A.G. Cam doesn’t know about the P.A.G.’s next meeting until Mr. Fanshaw tracks him down and drags him to it. This chapter also introduces another mysterious foil for Cam. The website set up by Pavel is where the meeting was announced, but no one in the Awesome Threesome made this happen. The mystery of whomever is posting to the website becomes a larger conflict for Cam and his friends as the story continues.
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