Absolutely Normal Chaos

Mary Lou accompanies Arvie Jo on his paper route, and he marvels at how bad she is at throwing. He concludes that they do not teach her anything useful “up there in The City” (148). Later, her cousins John Roy and Sally Lynn scare her witless with a story about an escaped convict on Booger Hill. Mary Lou takes off running, but when she gets home she finds that it was all a joke. She cries hysterically and does not leave her room until Carl Ray comes up to visit her. She begs him to take her home, and he promises that they can leave on Thursday.

Mary Lou wakes up with an earache. Rather than take her to the doctor, Aunt Radene offers her a home remedy of olive oil. She overhears her female cousins complaining to their mother about how Mary Lou “doesn’t do a stitch of work” and how they have to pick up after her and make her bed (156). They claim that she is lazy, reading and writing all day, as though she is “Queen of Easton” (156). Having offered to help, Mary Lou is furiously defensive. Instantly realizing how Carl Ray must have felt when he was with them, she regrets her earlier behavior.

Mary Lou goes about the house completing all the chores she can unasked. Afterwards, she walks through the graveyard, which gives her perspective on all the little things she worries about that are not worth the trouble. The graveyard is also a beautiful place that calms her. She falls asleep and has a dream in which Carl Ray walks up to a man with a sheet over his head in slow motion. The sheet comes off, and Carl Ray hugs the man.

After a huge fried chicken dinner on their last night, Mary Lou gets a cake in her honor, as her cousins apologize to her. Though moved by the attention, Mary Lou is still excited to go home.

Before Mary Lou leaves, Aunt Radene is tearful as she wishes her goodbye. Sally Lynn gives her a book about sex.

On the car ride home, Carl Ray tells Mary Lou that he has “unfinished business” in Easton (160). When Mary Lou asks about his frosty relationship with Uncle Carl Joe, Carl Ray vaguely confesses that he had a fight with his father before coming to Easton in the first place. At first, he does not tell Mary Lou what the fight was about, and Mary Lou sulks and pretends to read The Odyssey. She then remembers her dream in the graveyard and realizes that Carl Ray symbolizes Telemachus. She confesses her dreams about Carl Ray and The Odyssey to him. Delighted, Carl Ray is poised to confess his secret.

Mary Lou is interrupted mid-writing and is too tired to finish.

Mary Lou despairs because Alex is still not home.

She recollects the car trip with Carl Ray. He confesses that Aunt Radene told him that Uncle Carl Joe was not his real father. After finding out, he “went sort of crazy” because he was angry that they did not let him find his “real father” (163). Carl Ray knows who his real father is, but he says that he cannot tell Mary Lou until he talks with someone.

When they get home, Mary Lou realizes that Carl Ray has bought everyone a present. Hers is a brand new desk and she is very grateful.

Mrs. Furtz comes over and says that she has to talk to Carl Ray about the ring; Mary Lou cannot imagine why. Carl Ray tells Mary Lou that Mr. Furtz gave the ring to him. Mary Lou cannot believe Mr. Furtz would do such a thing when Carl Ray only worked for him a single day. She wonders if Carl Ray stole it.

While Mary Lou was away, Beth Ann eagerly awaited Carl Ray’s return; she also became a member of Christy’s secretive club, GGP. Meanwhile, Maggie enthusiastically borrows the book Sally Lynn gave Mary Lou about sex. Mary Lou considers the book “a little advanced” for her (168).

Mary Lou asks Carl Ray to drive her to the drugstore. She asks him who his real father is and why he came to Easton. He tells her that his mother told him that his real father lived in Easton. When he does not divulge who the man is, Mary Lou begins to think of potential candidates. She considers with horror that it might be her father; then, she dismisses Mr. Furtz because he did not know Carl Ray until he got a job at the hardware store. Finally, she believes that it might be Alex’s father Mr. Cheevey because he resembles Carl Ray physically and has plenty of money to give away.

Mary Lou is happy that Alex is home. Later, she catches Carl Ray on the phone, but he will not say who he is talking to. Mary Lou decides that she must be more patient with him.

When Mary Lou asks Carl Ray to drive her to Alex’s for dinner, he tells her the truth of his paternity. His real father is Charlie Furtz. Aunt Radene and Mr. Furtz dated a year before the New Year’s Eve party where Aunt Radene met Uncle Carl Joe. That is when Aunt Radene broke off with Mr. Furtz and decided to marry Uncle Carl Joe. When she found out that she was pregnant with Mr. Furtz’s baby, Uncle Carl Joe said that he would adopt him as his own and that no one would know the truth. However, after reading an article about children having the right to know their true parentage, Aunt Radene told Carl Ray that his real father was a man named Charlie Furtz who lived in Easton. Uncle Carl Joe was against this move, as he was jealous of Carl Ray going off to find his biological father; a “real father,” he concludes, is “someone who raises a child as his own” (175).

When Carl Ray approached Mr. Furtz at his hardware store, Mr. Furtz asked some questions and accepted the truth. He offered Carl Ray a job and the ring, which was a gift from his old girlfriend Aunt Radene. He made this offering because he had the premonition that he was going to die. Mary Lou cries with Carl Ray about Mr. Furtz’s loss, even as she criticizes herself for being “so wrapped up in Alex Cheevey that I didn’t see anything right in front of my nose” (176). The inheritance also turned out to be from Mr. Furtz. Mrs. Furtz was relieved to learn about Carl Ray, because when she found a letter from Aunt Radene to Mr. Furtz, she assumed he had been seeing someone before his death and that Carl Ray had the ring because he stole it. She said she was glad “there’s a little more of Charlie left in the world now that he’s gone” (178).

When Mary Lou goes to see Alex, she ends up blurting out the whole story to everyone in the room, including Mr. Cheevey’s former sweetheart Mrs. Polanski. Then, she and Alex go to see his collection of fishing lures, and he kisses her. Mary Lou, glad that she practiced, kisses him back.

Back at home, Carl Ray tells Mary Lou’s family the story. While everyone tells him how sorry they are about Mr. Furtz, Carl Ray thinks he is lucky that he still has his real father, Uncle Carl Joe—the man who raised him.

Mary Lou rereads over yesterday’s diary entry to make sure it all happened.

Mary Lou continues to see Alex and receives two more kisses from him on each occasion. She notes that school will be starting soon.

Uncle Carl Joe summons Carl Ray back to West Virginia. This time, Dennis is recruited as his driving partner. Mary Lou is frustrated with Beth Ann, who thinks that the fact that Mr. Furtz is Carl Ray’s real father is “disgusting” (185). When Carl Ray refuses to see Beth Ann and goes to West Virginia, she starts sniffling. She then mentions that she saw Derek with another girl. Mary Lou believes that Beth Ann is fickle enough to drop Carl Ray for Derek in a minute and feels protective of Carl Ray.

Mary Lou finishes The Odyssey. She starts calling Alex “Poseidon” and encourages him to call her “Athene.”

Mary Lou’s brain is mushy from her day with Alex and the Cheeveys.

Mary Lou has a nice day with Alex at Windy Rock.

Meanwhile, Carl Ray and Dennis return from West Virginia. Although Dennis faced the same horrors as Mary Lou, Carl Ray and Carl Joe got along much better. Carl Ray goes to the cemetery very late to visit Mr. Furtz.

Mrs. Furtz asks Carl Ray if he would like to live with them and get to know his brothers and sisters. Mary Lou is angry with Mrs. Furtz for taking Carl Ray away from them.

Mary Lou learns that Carl Ray broke up with Beth Ann and that GGP stands for “Girls Going Places” (190).

When Christy invites Mary Lou to a GGP slumber party as a candidate who is “under consideration,” Mary Lou says she is busy. Whereas at the start of the summer she would have jumped at the offer, she knows that “something has happened to me this summer,” changing her (190).

Mary Lou receives a red rose from Alex with a card that reads “To Athene, from Poseidon.” Carl Ray is undecided about moving in with the Furtzes.

Beth Ann has Derek come over to her house after dinner the next night. She wants Mary Lou to tell Carl Ray, but Mary Lou refuses. Carl Ray tells the Furtzes that he will not be moving in with them.

Mary Lou thinks she and Alex have broken up because he does not kiss her goodbye. She feels that she is “dyyyyying” (191).

Mary Lou is heartbroken to have no word from Alex; Beth Ann and Carl Ray are back together again.

Christy says that it is Mary Lou’s last chance to attend a GGP pajama party. Mary Lou refuses.

Mary Lou receives another rose from Alex, accompanied by a card with their mythological names. When she asks him why he did not kiss her the other night, he says that he forgot.

Mary Lou and Alex go on a double date with Carl Ray and Beth Ann. Mary Lou wonders where her Muse has gone, as she can no longer seem to write. Carl Ray tells Mary Lou that he thinks she is “OK” and a good person

While Mary Lou is over at Alex’s cleaning his garage, Carl Ray says there is something he wants to talk to Beth Ann about. Mary Lou cannot guess the subject matter.

After a car accident, Carl Ray is in the hospital, unconscious with two broken legs, one broken arm, and some broken ribs.

Uncle Carl Joe, Aunt Radene, the Furtzes, and the Finneys are all at the hospital praying for Carl Ray to wake up. Mary Lou talks to him and apologizes for her pranks against him. She thinks about him saying “Mary Lou, you’re OK” and her returning the sentiment with a note (195).

The doctor gives Uncle Joe and Aunt Radene the news that Carl Ray might never wake up. Mary Lou finds no words to write.

Uncle Carl Joe stays with Carl Ray day and night.

With Carl Ray still unconscious, Mary Lou looks over her journals and finds that she did not “‘see’ much of anything” with regard to Carl Ray’s homesickness or his relationship to Mr. Furtz (197). She tells Alex that the trouble with liking people is being unable to make things better if bad things happened to them.

Beth Ann reveals to Mary Lou that the night of the accident, Carl Ray came to see her to tell her he was moving back to West Virginia. They had a big fight, and Beth Ann is filled with regret. Mary Lou is kind enough to be sympathetic to Beth Ann and tell her the accident is not her fault. Alex visits Carl Ray in the hospital and brings him a fishing lure, along with the promise to take him fishing when he wakes up.

Carl Ray is conscious, and everyone is thrilled. Mary Lou feels that “Athene has just swooped down and anointed Carl Ray and saved him from being thrashed around in the sea” (198).

Carl Ray is conscious and smiling, and Mary Lou gives him the note saying he is okay. They laugh and joke together.

When Mary Lou hears that her new English teacher is Mr. Birkway, she contemplates that a “complete stranger is going to have to read this journal” (199). School will begin next week

Carl Ray continues to improve. He is hobbling around the hospital and asking the nurses to sign his casts. Mary Lou decides she will finish the journal tomorrow, though she is uncertain if she will turn it in. She does not want a stranger to read about her summer.

While Carl Ray convalesces, the Finneys, the Cheeveys, the Furtzes, and Beth Ann go to Windy Rock to celebrate Carl Ray’s recovery and the end of summer. Mary Lou recalls the ending of The Odyssey, when Athene tells everyone to make peace. She believes it is a fitting end of her journal