60 pages • 2 hours read
Louis SacharSmall Steps
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 2006A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 17-20Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 17 Summary
Unsure of what to do after the concert, Ginny and Armpit start to leave, only to be stopped by David, who takes them to Kaira’s room. They find Kaira being scolded by Jerome; he is upset about their spontaneous second encore. In Kaira’s tiny dressing room Kaira, Ginny, and Armpit share ice cream and get to know each other in a relaxed atmosphere. Ginny tells Kaira about Armpit’s time in Camp Green Lake and threatens to share his nickname. Instead, she just hints, “it was a p-part of the b-body” (134). Cotton knocks on the door. When Kaira introduces him as her drummer, he says “not anymore” (131). Jerome fired him for doing the Joplin song and, Kaira believes, because she confided in him. Kaira shares that she is lonely, watching TV and playing video games all day by herself. Kaira doesn’t get along with her mother and despises her stepfather/manager. Kaira also tells Armpit and Ginny that “[i]t’s so great that you can be such good friends, when, you know, you’re so different” (133). They happily chat until David brings back Armpit and Ginny’s freshly washed shirts before they head home.
Chapter 18 Summary
Armpit’s parents berate him as soon as he steps in the door, claiming that Ginny’s mother was worried, so he goes straight to bed without sharing the events of the night. Armpit has just dropped Ginny off and knows her mother is thrilled that Ginny had such an amazing night. X-Ray wakes Armpit up the following morning and asks how the concert was. Armpit, remembering the counterfeit ticket fiasco, threatens to kill him but stops when X-Ray pulls out a pile of cash and explains why the tickets were fake. X-Ray had a buyer willing to pay $250 a ticket, but he refused and said his friend wanted them; the buyer begged X-Ray and offered $300; while trying to decide, X-Ray saw a Copy King, which gave him the idea to create the counterfeit tickets. X-Ray tells Armpit that he thought his code “be flexible” (138) was clear and assumed that when Armpit noticed their seats were taken, he would understand and find empty seats elsewhere—none of which happened. Armpit is still furious with X-Ray, but their fight is interrupted by Armpit’s mother holding the phone out to him. It is Kaira, inviting Armpit to join her for breakfast and reminding him to give her fake name, Samantha Stephens from Bewitched, at the hotel reception. Armpit’s anger toward X-Ray disappears. He picks up the money, and asks X-Ray for a ride to the hotel, casually mentioning that he’s meeting Kaira DeLeon for breakfast.
Chapter 19 Summary
As punishment for the phony tickets, Armpit doesn’t answer any of X-Ray’s questions about Kaira. X-Ray doesn’t believe Armpit is meeting Kaira, but he drops Armpit off at The Four Seasons hotel anyway.
Armpit forgets Kaira’s code name, so he stops a family in the lobby to ask who the lead character in Bewitched is. The father is wary of Armpit, but they remember the name Samantha Stephens. Kaira, with her bodyguard Fred in tow, meets Armpit in the lobby and greets him as “Knuckles” as she tries to guess his nickname. They go to the café, choosing a table for two so Fred must sit away from them. They chat, but the conversation is stilted. It was easier for Armpit to relax when Ginny was there too. Kaira asks loudly whether Armpit would like to see the view from the patio—a ruse to get outside with Armpit without Fred following them. On the patio, Kaira asks Armpit whether he would like to play “ditch the Doofus” (147) before taking her shoes off and running down the sloping lawn. It takes Armpit a second to realize that she is evading her bodyguard and wants him to follow. He runs after her, catching and spinning her as he reaches the bottom of the hill. As they stand close, Kaira tells Armpit why she has a bodyguard, explaining about the letters from Billy Boy (which she suspects Jerome might be sending to control her) and all the marriage proposals. When she asks Armpit what his big dreams are, he says instead of big dreams, “I just take small steps” (150). As they chat, Kaira tries to guess Armpit’s nickname. Armpit makes a deal—if he tells Kaira his nickname, she must touch him there. Laughing, she agrees and works her way up his arm until she reaches his armpit. Just as they are about to kiss, Fred appears behind Armpit, ruining the moment.
Chapter 20 Summary
The following morning, in Ginny’s kitchen, Armpit tells Ginny about his breakfast with Kaira. As they are chatting, Armpit sees a car pull up. A lady gets out and knocks on Armpit’s door. The woman, Debbie Newberg, introduces herself and explains that she is from the Austin Police Department and has come to talk to Armpit about the counterfeit tickets. Debbie, who is young, pretty, and friendly, asks Armpit how he got the tickets. Armpit mentions the ad they placed in the newspaper with X-Ray’s number on it, but quickly changes his story from a newspaper ad to a flier that he has already recycled. When Armpit asks why this is a “big deal,” since everything worked out, Debbie tells them that the mayor “wants to get the guy” (159) who caused so much trouble for Armpit and Ginny. Debbie is thorough, asking question after question, tying Armpit in knots. When asked for a description of the seller, Armpit says he was “[k]ind of black […] Iranian […] name was Habib” (161) and that he had a moustache, elaborating too much on his story. Debbie gives Armpit her card and tells him to call if he remembers more details. As Armpit watches her leave, he doesn’t worry for himself, but for Debbie: “It was hard to imagine her out in the world, fighting criminals. He worried she might get hurt” (163).
Chapters 17-20 Analysis
Jerome crushes Kaira’s high after her performance when he scolds her for “butchering” Janis Joplin’s song and then fires Cotton simply for supporting Kaira. Jerome’s obsessive need for control over Kaira has seemed to be simply another unpleasant aspect of his personality, but Jerome’s affair with Aileen and the comments that Kaira makes about the letters from Billy Boy foreshadow the real reason behind his behavior. When Armpit asks Kaira whether she writes her own songs, Kaira replies that she wrote “Angry Young Man” and “Damsel in Distress” (150), both songs that touched Armpit, but that Jerome “has people fix” (150) the other songs. Jerome is squashing Kaira’s natural talent even as he profits from that talent. When Kaira talks about Jerome, she has no idea how close she is to the truth. She tells Armpit, “[Jerome’s] such a control freak. Sometimes I think he’s the one who’s sending me the Billy Boy letters, just so he can have even more control over me […] He’s also married to my mother […] I bet he just married her to have more control over me” (151). Kaira doesn’t dwell on Jerome for long as she turns her focus to the developing relationship with Armpit, finding comfort and safety in Armpit’s gentle, down-to-earth nature beneath his intimidating appearance.
The depth of Kaira’s loneliness is revealed by her quick attachment to Armpit and Ginny and the wistful envy she expresses about Ginny’s relationship with her mother. Kaira admires Armpit and Ginny’s friendship, commenting, “It’s so great you can be such good friends, when, you know, you’re so different. I mean, different ages” (133), tripping over herself to avoid the obvious difference, which Ginny bluntly points out, “Different colors, too” (133). Ginny does not avoid facts that are simply that—facts. She provides facts when people comment on her disability and fills in the blank that Kaira leaves about race. This simple comment speaks to an assumption that Black and white kids are rarely “good friends.”
X-Ray’s character develops in this section. Up to this point. X-Ray has been a loyal friend and a good person, albeit proud and fond of risky behavior. When Armpit finds out that X-Ray gave him and Ginny counterfeit tickets, his confidence in X-Ray’s good character is shaken, especially considering X-Ray is close to Ginny as well. However, when X-Ray explains the sequence of events that led to him making copies of the tickets, it becomes clear that X-Ray was trying to keep everyone happy—and make a profit while doing it. X-Ray is not intrinsically bad, but he is impulsive, makes bad decisions, and (because of his optimistic nature) does not consider the consequences. Not knowing how close Armpit came to being arrested and Ginny came to getting her stomach pumped, X-Ray asks Armpit the following day, “Maybe your seats weren’t quite as good, but at least you got to see the show, right? No harm, no foul. Right?” (136), underscoring his naivete.
Detective Debbie Newberg is another character whose physical appearance causes people jump to the wrong conclusions. Debbie is white, young, and pretty. She blushes easily and is very friendly, so neither Armpit nor X-Ray is initially intimidated by her. However, Debbie is an excellent detective who uses her approachable demeanor to get information out of both Armpit and, later, X-Ray. Instead of worrying about the police investigation, Armpit worries about Debbie as he watches her leave: “She was nice. She had a sweet smile. It was hard to imagine her out in the world, fighting criminals. He worried she might get hurt” (163). While Armpit’s sentiment is well intentioned, it is still patronizing and assumes she is weak because she is young and pretty. Debbie is a professional detective, yet unconscious bias causes others to judge her based on her appearance.
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