43 pages • 1 hour read
Mike CuratoFlamer
Fiction | Graphic Novel/Book | YA | Published in 2020A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapter 2Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 2 Summary: “Sunday”
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussions of anti-gay language.
After returning to main camp, Aiden’s patrol joins the rest of the troop to build a gate by the main road. They collect fallen branches, cut them to size, and use a variety of different knots to hold it all together. They even construct a drawbridge, and Aiden imagines it being a real castle. In his fantasy, he is dressed like a princess and professes to an armor-clad Elias that he finds women’s fashion more interesting.
After constructing the gate, the troop heads to the communal shower. Aiden hates showering in front of everyone else and doesn’t want to be seen naked. He worries about his pudgy belly and that someone might think his penis is small, but most of all he worries that if he’s caught looking at someone else naked, they’ll think he wanted to look. He showers in his swim trunks and tries to keep his eyes down as he walks through the showers. He’s teased for wearing his trunks, and many of the boys make more anti-gay jokes. Aiden accidentally drops the soap and goes chasing after it. He catches the soap at Elias’s feet, and panics when he starts to get an erection. He pretends he’s hurt his back and runs out of the shower.
Later in the day, Aiden goes to the nondenominational camp service. At his Catholic middle school, he was an altar server, and even stayed on after graduating. He has served almost every weekend since he started and occasionally helps at weddings and funerals as well. He feels that by serving mass he is earning some extra credit to mitigate all the rules he’s been breaking. Father Danilo has encouraged him to consider priesthood, but he doesn’t feel holy enough, and wants to experience what sex feels like at some point. While thinking about the funerals he’s served, he wonders how many people would show up at his, and if it would make people regret tormenting him at school.
After the service, he sits down to respond to Violet’s letter. Ryan asks what he is doing and argues that guys and girls can’t be friends. Aiden tries to explain the relationship, but eventually just gets annoyed and tells him to go away. Aiden met Violet at Christian camp a couple of years before and they immediately bonded over their zany sense of humor. Because they live far away from one another, they became pen pals and share all their secrets with one another. Receiving Violet’s letters is the highlight of his week, and he can’t wait to get home so they can talk on the phone again.
Before bed, Aiden and Elias discuss the merit badge classes they’ll be taking the next day. They’re both taking archery and agree to walk over together. That night, Aiden dreams he is a knight seeking the Holy Grail. When he discovers it, it turns out to be Elias in the shower, who angrily asks him what he is looking at. He wakes up confused and scared.
Chapter 2 Analysis: “Sunday”
Aiden’s daydreams continue to reveal things about his desires and interests. Even in his daydream about being dressed as a princess, with Elias as a knight in shining armor, reality squeezes its way in and Elias questions why Aiden is dressed like a girl. This suggests that while Aiden’s feelings for Elias are continuing to develop, he has also deeply internalized the prejudice he faces on a daily basis and Systemic Discrimination against LGBTQ people, to the point that he can’t even fantasize without being reminded that people don’t approve of the way he is.
Aiden’s mention of Camelot triggers a series of Monty Python and the Holy Grail quotes, which introduces how the book incorporates references to pop culture. For a group of boys who are generally reluctant to share their thoughts and feelings, the references provide a means of connecting. This is especially true for Aiden, who needs the shared point of reference; he has so little in common with the other boys otherwise and often feels like he doesn’t belong.
The communal shower scene epitomizes and exacerbates the problems Aiden faces every day. His saying that “[he doesn’t] want to be seen” can be understood on two levels (72). Quite literally, he doesn’t want people to look at him because he has a negative body image. He worries about his weight, and that people might think he has a small penis. Aiden compares himself to others rather than accepting himself and loving his body for what it is.
The second way that he doesn’t want to be seen is less literal: He worries that others will think he is deliberately looking at them naked and think he’s gay. Given the casual prejudice thrown around by the other boys in the shower, Aiden’s anxiety over being perceived as gay is understandable.
Aiden’s decision to stay on as an alter server, even after graduating, reflects his search for meaning and belonging. However, the depiction of the church makes it clear that it is not going to provide him with either. Father Danilo is stern and uninterested when Aiden asks him a simple question about the meaning of Jesus’s burning heart, and all the candles in the scene are extremely dim. If colored fire symbolizes both Aiden’s repressed sexuality and his life force (as it does at various other times in the text), the dim candles imply a hostility from the church, one that is not conducive to Aiden’s wellbeing. Aiden seems to understand this much when he admits part of his motivation for serving mass is earning extra credit to mitigate all the rules he assumes he is breaking.
The end of the chapter uses the Holy Grail symbolically. The Holy Grail is a treasure that appears in many Arthurian stories and takes various forms. Ultimately it represents something that is elusive and eagerly sought after. The idea of a “Holy Grail” is also often used as a metaphor for something unattainable. Aiden’s terrified expression when he wakes suggests he understands the implications of the dream: Elias is his holy grail—unattainable and elusive.
