Awkward

“Cardinal rule #1 for surviving school: Don’t get noticed by the mean kids.”

The “mean kids” are minor side characters who antagonize Peppi and Jaime. They represent the bullying that often happens in middle school. Peppi makes it her priority not to get noticed by them, because their attention might lead to them making fun of her. The “mean kids” show up at key places throughout the novel. How Peppi reacts to the mean kids here at the beginning of the text versus at the end demonstrates her character growth.

“We haaaaaate the science club. They’re across the hall from us, always causing trouble…but they always get away with it because they win awards and make the school look good.”

This quote characterizes how the art club perceives The Relationship Between Art and Science, as these disciplines are reflected by their respective clubs. The art club members see themselves as in competition with the science club. The art club thinks that the science club gets unfair treatment because the school values the awards they get.

“This could easily be a science project. Tell me, how does this work biologically? Does she breathe air, like dolphins? Or does she have gills, like fish? What’s her skeleton like? Is it half-fish, half-human? Will you draw a diagram and label it for me? Bonus marks!”

Miss Tobins begins to alter Peppi’s perception of The Relationship Between Art and Science. Miss Tobins is generous and creative as a teacher, even though she is also strict. She shows Peppi how a mermaid drawing can unite art and science in a complementary way. Miss Tobins is a key influence on Peppi as she navigates the tension between the art and science clubs.

“I hate to say this, but…he’s right. We’ve done nothing to contribute to the school community. When the drama club asked us to paint the stage backdrops—what happened? No one stepped up, that’s what happened! And that wasn’t the only time! Everyone is always busy playing games or doodling their own things. If we want to be part of the school’s club scene…we have to contribute.”

As Maribella reckons with the fact that the art club has operated in isolation from the rest of the school community, she tries to convince her fellow cub members of The Importance of Academic Community. This quote also provides characterization for Maribella, who is a key side character. Maribella is a natural leader and Peppi is envious of the way that she seems to easily direct the club.

“The problem with having friends only in your circle of interests…is that, outside of that circle? You’re on your own.”

Peppi emphasizes the limitation of having a small, isolated community, rather than a community that reaches out and tries to build bridges with other groups. She is part of the art club, but this group is too insular to work with others. Engaging in collaboration with a variety of people can build understanding, empathy, and key academic and social skills.

Tessa: “Half the science club dorks are here.”

Science club student: “Oh, hey art club! Good luck squeezing education into that single brain cell of yours!”

This quote emphasizes the tense relationship between the art and science clubs. They have ingrained biases against each other; their insults show that these biases are based on stereotypes of artists as unrealistic dreamers and scientists as nerdy and uncool. Neither club really knows the other, but both let their preconceived notions guide their behavior.

“I don’t know how long he talked for…but it felt like we went around the world.”

At the Discovery Center, an explorer describes his adventures for the class. Peppi is extremely impressed. As he speaks, she is fully immersed in his stories and imagines herself in the places he describes. This is one of the moments that reorients Peppi’s opinion about science and her relationship to it.

“Good thing we got stuck with the nerd squad. They’ll solve everything and we won’t have to do a thing. Hey nerds! Do my homework next!”

Peppi and the science club get put on a geocaching team with the “mean kids.” This quote shows the type of bullying that can happen in middle school. Bullying is not deserved and often has no basis in reality. For instance, they lump Peppi in with the “nerd squad,” even though Peppi struggles to complete her science homework.

Peppi: “This is such a cool compass…do you think it’s antique?”

Jaime: “I dunno…but I can use it when I go look for more geocaches.”

Peppi: “There’re more?! Around here?”

Jaime: “Oh yeah. This town has a whole bunch! My dad and I go geocaching a lot! We even hid a couple.”

Jaime and Peppi bond over their shared experience finding the geocache by working together to solve a riddle. By discovering that she is interested in a hobby that Jaime also does, Peppi begins to realize that people from the art and science clubs might have more similarities than differences.

Jaime: “They’re presenting a project on aerodynamics.”

Peppi: “... ‘They’? You’re not part of the fair team?”

Jaime: “...I was. But I asked Miss Tobins to take me off.”

Peppi: “Oh! How come?”

Jaime: “...I don’t really like competitions. I just want to do the science stuff.”

Jaime does not share his club’s competitive nature. The rest of the science club wants to enter competitions and win awards. Jaime doesn’t care about the result as much as the journey. He wants to do science for the love of it, rather than to get awards or recognition. This helps characterize Jaime as a genuine, kind, and easygoing person and friend.

“Art club…you have a lot of talent, but…you’ve been using the school resources without giving anything back. When other clubs asked you to help, you just ignored them. Science club…you’ve made us proud with your accomplishments, but…you’ve become disruptive [...] In the next two months, undertake and complete projects that contribute to the school community. Your projects will then be voted on by the school. And the club whose project is voted most successful…will get the table at the school club fair.”

The principal’s announcement clarifies the ways in which both the art and science clubs are failing to contribute to the larger academic community. However, rather than motivating the clubs to do better, the framing of this challenge fosters a toxic competition between the two clubs. Rather than showing the clubs how art and science can work together, the principal pits them against one another in a zero-sum contest for table space at the fair.

“Actually, I had other plans for today. …Why am I such a pushover? I wish I had Maribella’s go-getting confidence powers.”

Peppi thinks that she is too shy, timid, and unconfident. When Maribella asks her to come over, she says yes even though she had other plans. She sees Maribella as her exact opposite: someone who can stand up for herself rather than acquiesce to pressure. Peppi makes a judgement about Maribella’s character without truly understanding the circumstances that motivate her.

Maribella’s dad: “Yer gonna crush ‘em, right?!”

Maribella: “Yeah! Fight! Win! Put the losers in the trash bin!”

Maribella’s dad: “Ahhh, I’m so glad you take after me and not your lazy b**** mother. Alright, I’ll let you girls work. Don’t disappoint me.”

Maribella, to Peppi: “We have to win this. Let’s work hard.”

Peppi begins to understand why Maribella acts the way she does. Maribella has seemed confident and assertive in a way Peppi envies: Maribella thinks up ideas to help their club and pushes the members to complete their goals. However, here, Peppi finds out that Maribella only does this because she is afraid of what her father will do if she “disappoint[s]” him. Maribella lives in a toxic and emotionally abusive household where her father insults her mother’s character and makes Maribella feel threatened and unsafe.

Jaime’s mom: “...Are you the girl who pushed him?”

Peppi: “...Y-yes. I-I’m really sorry.”

Jaime’s mom: “...You should tell him that sometime.”

Jaime’s mom’s words inspire Peppi to finally understand the importance of Apologizing for Our Mistakes. Jaime’s mom doesn’t judge Peppi for her actions or for hurting her child. Instead, after Peppi expresses how sorry she is, she smiles understandingly at Peppi. Jaime’s mother is a good role model. She understands that people make mistakes and that the most important thing is apologizing to the person you accidentally hurt.

“My mom says…there are bad people who hurt others for fun…and there are good people who do it by accident. Like, they made a mistake? …I think you’re a good person. You just made a mistake.”

Jaime tells Peppi what he learned from his mom about how to deal with people who hurt you. It can be easy to bear a grudge against someone else, but Jaime recognizes that one action doesn’t determine a person’s entire character. People can make harmful mistakes and still be good people. Peppi apologizing to Jaime for what she did proves that she is a “good person” who “made a mistake.”

“Penelope? Thank you. For…not leaving me alone…to deal with this…when things got hard. Other people would have. You’re a true friend.”

Maribella thanks Peppi for helping her with the comics for the newspaper. This quote further characterizes Maribella, who turns out to be much more self-conscious and vulnerable than Peppi first imagined. Even though Maribella seems outgoing and sociable, she reveals to Peppi that she doesn’t have many people in her life who stand by her side through difficult things. The increasing complexity of Maribella’s character shows Peppi that it is impossible to judge someone fully from the outside.

“It’s like we’re part of two rival gangs or something, geez…I don’t feel like it’s okay to even say hi to him.”

As Peppi’s friendship with Jaime grows, the tension between their two clubs becomes more obvious. Peppi uses figurative language in the form of simile to compare their clubs to rival gangs. This comparison demonstrates the clubs’ hostility toward one another.

“Peppi: “...Do you care who gets the club fair table?”

Jaime: “No. Everyone else does, though. This competition is so stupid.”

This quote characterizes Jaime as a perceptive and thoughtful person. While the rest of the science club argues and fights with the art club over getting the table at the fair, Jaime stays away from the arguments. Jaime does not like pointless conflict. He can see that the toxic competition is bringing out the worst in people, rather than encouraging them to enjoy their respective subjects.

Maribella: “...We’re gonna lose.”

Peppi: “Aww, come on! Our comics are pretty cool…! And…and we’ll be doing the online stuff…!”

Maribella: “...No, everyone’s gonna vote for this. …How am I gonna tell my dad?”

Maribella’s main motivation is her fear of her father. Children who experience emotional abuse at the hands of their parents might feel an increased pressure to succeed in academics or extracurriculars as a way of appeasing their parent’s moods. They also might feel fear or hopelessness if they don’t meet their parents’ expectations. Ultimately, people in this situation, like Maribella, aren’t engaging with their interests for self-betterment, but out of fear. This can have long-term negative effects.

“Should I just throw it out? No one would ever know. …Then they wouldn’t be able to fly their plane. The art club would win for sure, then. …That’s…good…right…? Except it wouldn’t really be…fair. …And we’d be liars and cheaters, just like they said. …We are not liars and cheaters. I’m gonna fix this.”

Peppi has an internal conflict over what to do with the remote that Maribella stole. This quote characterizes the type of person who Peppi is becoming. While she wants the art club to do well, she doesn’t want success at the expense of her morals. Peppi believes in fairness and doesn’t want to confirm the science club’s most negative beliefs about the art club.

Peppi: “It wasn’t us! …Well…it was one of us…”

Jaime: “Who?!”

Peppi: “I…I can’t tell you! She’s a friend!”

Jaime: “You’re friends with a thief?”

Peppi: “...! N-no! It’s not like that!”

Jaime: “Than what’s it like?”

Peppi: “She’s…she’s not a bad person! She just…she panicked! And…made a mistake. You know…like…like I did. When I pushed you.”

Jaime and Peppi get into an argument that tests their friendship. Jaime raises his voice at Peppi, while Peppi won’t tell Jaime who took his remote. In this moment, Peppi struggles to balance her friendships with Maribella and Jaime: She doesn’t want to lie to Jaime, but she doesn’t want to tattle on Maribella. Sometimes, friendships and people are complicated in this way, which can lead to misunderstandings and conflicts like this one.

Miss Tobins: “Did you know that there are artists who are also scientists?”

Peppi: “...Seriously?”

Miss Tobins: “Yep! Leonardo da Vinci was one. He’s a very famous painter who lived hundreds of years ago in Italy. His paintings are considered masterpieces and are exhibited in the world’s best museums…but he was also a scientist, a mathematician, and an engineer. He built flying machine prototypes, studies human anatomy and plants…basically an all-around science geek.”

Peppi: “...! Like my mermaid drawing! When I drew her skeleton?”

Miss Tobins: “That’s exactly right! The intersection of art and science! …Because they really aren’t that different, you know. I wish our clubs could see that.”

Miss Tobins helps Peppi understand The Relationship Between Art and Science. Though Miss Tobins has emphasized their interconnected nature before, here she clearly lays out specific historical examples of people who unified art and science in their work. She then compares Peppi to these impressive people. Miss Tobins’s encouragement inspires Peppi to be like Leonardo da Vinci and think up a project that unites art and science.

“We showed the project to Miss Tobins and Mr. R…and Miss Tobins loved it. (Mr. R mostly looked confused but happy.) They took it to the principal…and after what felt like forever…he said yes, build this, and he’ll uncancel our clubs! He apparently also cried happy little tears…since we said we weren’t going to fight anymore. Which wasn’t easy at first. Of course, there was still fighting. But it got better. Bit by bit.”

Peppi summarizes the process of reconciling the art and science clubs. Though the principal gave the clubs a challenge that put them into competition with one another, he ultimately wants the animosity between them to cease, so he gives the clubs the opportunity to work together. Peppi’s words emphasize that reconciling former enemies is not easy and takes work, but it is possible if everyone tries in good faith.