Dante suggests they take a walk and tells Ari that he’s moving to Chicago for a year. They discuss that they’re good boys, but they want to be bad. The boys sit outside to watch a rainstorm. Feeling afraid, Ari writes that if Dante knew who he really was, Dante wouldn’t like him.

Later, Ari finds an entry in his journal in which he laments that getting older isn’t fun and another about how nobody talks about Bernardo. She tells Ari that someday, he’ll understand. Following this conversation, Ari and Mom talk a little about Mom’s education and the pain of the war that Dad carries with him everywhere. He resurrects his childhood journal and talks with Dante more about whether or not they’re Mexican enough. His fever returns and Ari begins to feel older and lonelier than ever. That night, Ari has bad dreams about not being able to reach Bernardo and Dante, and others about killing birds. It intrigues Ari when Dante refuses to let him look at the sketchpad. As Ari recovers, Dad admits that he has bad dreams, too, and apologizes for being so distant. Dad rocks and comforts him when Ari has bad dreams.

The next morning, Ari wakes up with the flu. Dante cries and Ari helps him bury the bird, feeling horrible because he’s not sad. One afternoon, Dante sees three boys shooting birds with BB guns. Dante spends the summer waging war on shoes, and as an excuse to destroy his, he invents a game in which he and Ari throw their shoes as far as they can in the street. Ari tells the reader that he’s ashamed, too, but only Dante knows why.Īri and Dante discuss Mexican nicknames, and Dante shares that he doesn’t think he’s Mexican enough. Ari and Dante discuss that they’re budding intellectuals, and Dante says he’s trying to not be ashamed. Ari learns that Dad studied art before he went to Vietnam. A few days later, Dante introduces himself to Mom and Dad, and gives Dad a book of Mexican art.

Dante cleans his room while Ari reads poetry, which Ari is surprised to enjoy. Quintana is “inscrutable.” Ari doesn’t know what the word means, but he thinks that Dad is inscrutable too. Quintana is happy, open, and inquisitive, but Dante says that Mrs. After a few swimming lessons, Dante introduces Ari to his parents. A skinny and squeaky boy named Dante offers to teach Ari to swim. At the pool, Ari doesn’t know how to swim and hates the sexist lifeguards. Ari doesn’t know what crime Bernardo committed. On the walk there, he thinks about how Vietnam changed Dad, and how Dad won’t talk about Vietnam or Ari’s older brother, Bernardo, who’s in prison. In order to escape Mom’s church friends, Ari goes to the pool. Fifteen-year-old Ari wakes up on the first day of summer vacation feeling miserable.

Aristotle and dante books in order