Tooth Fairy

One summer Rant and his friend Bodie, with their Scout kerchiefs tied around their necks, went out to collect old paint cans. They told Bodie's mom that it was for a recycling merit badge. They would walk around with a wheelbarrow and knock on doors to ask if they could take away any rusted cans of old, dried paint. Rant would say it was for a Cub Scouting scrap-metal project. They take them and pile them up it Rant's parent's barn. The boys would then use screwdrivers to pry open the lids. Usually they only found old forgotten paint, but in one can they found yellowed newspapers wrapped around little glass bottles. They began finding cans stuffed with coin money. To hide their own fortune they started to give other kids some of the coins, which cost over thousands of dollars. Rant would tell the kids to say they got the money from the tooth fairy if adults questioned them.

Rant

I am now reading Rant by Chuck Palahniuk. It's about Buster "Rant" Casey who is apparently the best serial killer of the time. The story starts out after Rants death, with his father getting on a plane to go to the funeral. It then has different people telling what they remember of Rant. There's a group of people in an urban demolition derby and the call themselves the party crashers. Rant was the leader of this group. After his death they were driving around Middleton to find the place where Rant was born. So I'm guessing that means they weren't childhood friends but instead met after he moved to the city.

Back in Kentucky

The last few chapters I've read were about Pecola's parents. At first it told about her mother, Pauline's childhood and how when she was two a rusty nail went right through her foot leaving her with a crooked, arch less foot. As a child she felt separated and unworthy, she blamed these feelings on her foot. One day after her family had move to Kentucky Pauline was leaning on a fence. She heard someone whistling in the distance. The whistling grew louder but she didn't turn around. She then felt something tickling her foot. She looked down to see Cholly Breedlove tickling her broken foot and kissing her leg, she could not stop laughing. It then goes on to tell about their life together, how they were happy loved each other. Eventually they grew apart, Pauline got lonely and Cholly started drinking and got mean. She tried to leave him but just couldn't do it. She got pregnant twice, when she told Cholly about the first child he was pleased, he drank less and was home more often but that didn't last long. It then went on to tell about Cholly's childhood. His mother tried to leave him out to die but his aunt caught her and took him in and raised him. When he was 12 after his aunt died he ran away to find his father. He did end up finding him but he never told him that he was his son.

Down Twenty-first Street to Broadway

There is a new girl in school, her name is Maureen Peal. Frieda and Claudia are the only two people in school who don't like her. They called her Six-finger-dog-tooth-meringue-pie behind her back. Maureen was assigned a locker next to Claudia's, so she and Frieda decided they were going to be her friend. One day all three of them walked home together. On the way out of the school they saw a group of boys harassing Pecola. Frieda went over and hit one of the boys over the head with her books and yelled at them to stop it. The boys then started picking on Frieda and Claudia too but once they saw Maureen they went away. Maureen introduced herself to Pecola and was being very nice to her on the walk home, she even offered to buy her ice cream. The girls started talking about menstruating and babies, then Maureen asked Pecola if she had ever seen a naked man. Pecola got defensive and said she wouldn't even look at him even if he did see him and how nobody's father would be naked in front of his own daughter. Maureen wanted to know why she said "father". Frieda and Claudia got mad at Maureen for saying that, Claudia tried to hit her but missed and Maureen ran away.

Big Blue Pretty Eyes

I am reading The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison. The story is about an eleven-year-old girl named Pecola Breedlove. She is an African American who has a love for blond, blue eyed children. She wishes that her eyes would turn blue so that she will be beautiful. Pecola does not have a good home life, her father is a drunk and her parents fight often. They lived in a storefront below the apartment of three whores, China, Poland and Miss Marie. Pecola visited them and did errands for them. Pecola is now staying with Claudia and Frieda's family, her mother is staying with the woman she works for and her brother Sammy is with some other family because Cholly, her father, is in jail. Frieda and Pecola are the same age and Claudia is younger.