No Talking

Lynsey Burgess is the novel’s secondary protagonist who, like Dave, is a talkative hater of all things about the opposite sex. Clements portrays Lynsey as Dave’s mirror, and over the course of the novel the two characters realize that they have more in common that they disagree about. Lynsey accepts Dave’s dare to be silent and organizes the fifth-grade girls into a tightly knit and dedicated team. Though she can babble inanely and displays a capacity for cruelty to friends who displease her, she’s also very smart and capable of thoughtful behavior. During the contest, she sees these traits as well in Dave and begins to admire him. When he sacrifices his team’s hopes of winning the game by standing up publicly to Principal Hiatt, Lynsey realizes that Dave is really a decent human being, and she thanks him by giving a game-ending speech that causes the score to end in a tie. Like Dave, Lynsey grows up a lot in the few days it takes to work with the boys to create the no-talking contest. Lynsey’s progress toward maturity and compassion is facilitated by her own experience of silence, as she finds she likes taking time to consider her thoughts more deeply, rather than rushing to express them verbally.

Laketon Elementary Principal Abigail Hiatt is and efficient administrator who “[demands] results from her teachers, from her office staff, from her custodians, from her cafeteria workers, and from her students and their parents, too” (35). Clements uses Hiatt to explore authoritarianism in educational settings, and critique disciplinary approaches that do not recognize the agency of children. When her efforts to halt the disruptive no-talking game fail, Mrs. Hiatt becomes angry at the students and tries to bully them. After her outburst over the bullhorn in the cafeteria, Mrs. Hiatt realizes she’s made a mistake and apologizes to Dave and the fifth-grade class. After taking the time to meet with Dave and understand the motives behind the children’s game, she completely reverses course, expanding the contest to include the entire school. Principal Hiatt represents academic bureaucrats everywhere who become more concerned with rules than with learning. Through Mrs. Hiatt’s change of heart, Clements proposes the possibility that even those in the highest positions of authority in education can use innovative thinking rather than force to resolve conflicts with students.