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 33-36Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 33 Summary
Kaira takes a shower, crying as she worries that no one will “ever like her” (237) for who she is, only for her fame. Jerome knocks on Kaira’s door and when she doesn’t answer, he lets himself in. He is holding the baseball bat, his hands shaking and sweating inside latex gloves. Nervously Jerome waits outside the bathroom door.
Armpit gets back to his hotel suite and listens to a message from Kaira on his answering machine. She tells him that she doesn’t hate him and that he should “go ahead and sell the letter” (239), that she doesn’t care anymore. She finishes with “Just go away. I never want to see you again! You’re right. I don’t have a clue. But neither do you” (239).
Kaira steps out of the bathroom, and Jerome swings the bat, hitting Kaira’s shoulder and throat. Kaira falls and Jerome hits her again across her chest. As she tries to crawl under the bed, he smashes the bat just below the base of her skull. Before Kaira blacks out, she hears Fred come in and sees Jerome hit him with the bat. Fred and Jerome wrestle, and when Jerome gets up, Kaira sees Fred lying on the floor with the cheese knife sticking into his stomach.
Armpit is surprised to see one of Kaira’s double doors open, so he calls her name. He can hear the TV and assumes that she doesn’t answer because she doesn’t want to see him. To reassure her, Armpit calls out that he is just returning the letter, that he’s not going to sell it. She still doesn’t answer, so Armpit says he’s leaving the letter on the bar. He heads for the door saying, “Thanks for the ride. I’ll never be the same again” (242) using Kaira’s song lyrics and hoping for a response. Kaira is unable to move or shout, but she manages to get her fingers around an electrical cord. She pulls the cord with the last of her strength, and the lamp crashes to the floor. Armpit rushes to the dining room, asking Kaira if she is OK. Getting no response, Armpit steps into the bedroom. He sees Jerome as the bat smashes into him, taking him down. As he pulls himself up, Armpit sees Fred, covered in blood. With his last ounce of strength, Fred grabs Jerome’s ankle as Jerome takes another swing at Armpit, giving Armpit a brief opening. Armpit pummels Jerome until Jerome passes out.
Chapter 34 Summary
Police, medics, TV crews, and tour personnel crowd the area. In the chaos Armpit manages to grab Kaira’s letter and throw it into the fireplace. Kaira, unconscious, is carried out on a stretcher. Fred manages to speak enough to confirm Armpit’s innocence, even though no one suspects Armpit (to his surprise). To add to the chaos, an announcement was made to the 20,000 people waiting for Kaira DeLeon in the Berkeley Auditorium that Kaira had just been murdered.
Armpit is questioned by the police, and when he gets back to the hotel he finds Kaira’s entourage milling around, not sure what to do since Aileen is missing. Armpit takes an early flight back to Austin and spends Sunday with Ginny, hiding from reporters hovering around his front door. The story of the attack is front-page news, and Armpit is being heralded as a hero. His mother seems proud of him for once, telling reporters to “respect his wishes” (246).
In addition to the reporters, Detective Newberg shows up to speak to Armpit. She tells him that her superiors have decided that two counterfeit tickets are not worth the effort, so the investigation has stopped. Armpit feigns a lack of interest but cannot hide a smile. Detective Newberg asks if she can sign the cast on his arm, and when he says he does, she asks, “So do you want it to Theodore, or to Armpit?” (248). Detective Newberg and Armpit amicably chat about when and how she knew that he was involved. Armpit tells her, “I thought you were really cool, and smart, and I really felt bad about lying to you and everything” (249). Detective Newberg smiles and replies, “No harm, no foul” (249).
Kaira wakes up in hospital with Fred by her side. She can barely move her mouth or speak above a raspy whisper, but she thanks him for saving her life and apologizes for being “such a doofus” (250).
Chapter 35 Summary
Two months pass, and Armpit still hasn’t heard from Kaira. Ginny, Armpit, and X-Ray are hanging out at Ginny’s house discussing what happened in San Francisco. X-Ray criticizes Kaira’s silence, but Armpit defends her, having read that her life is now “a train wreck.” Kaira is broke, and even though Aileen was arrested, they never recovered Kaira’s money. Worse, doctors have told Kaira that she may never sing again. Armpit looks at Ginny’s stuffed animals and thinks, “Like Hooter, the owl who couldn’t see […], Kaira might be a singer who couldn’t sing” (253).
Chapter 36 Summary
The following year, in February, Armpit hears a song on the radio. It is Kaira singing a “fragile” but beautiful song, with piano as her only accompaniment. The song references “taking small steps” (255) and “coffee stains splattered on your sweatshirt” (255). The lump rising in Armpit’s throat turns to tears as he listens and thinks about his still-stained sweatshirt. Kaira’s lyrics continue, “And if someday my small steps bring me near you […] Look me in the eye / And let me know I’m real” (256).
Armpit is happy to hear Kaira singing again and is open to the possibility of seeing her. However, he thinks about his “own set of small steps” (257) that he wants to focus on, which include attending the University of Texas to study occupational therapy, and to “Lose the name Armpit” (257).
Chapters 33-36 Analysis
Kaira’s low self-esteem is highlighted when she is in the shower, thinking that “nobody would ever like her for who she was, only for what she was” (237) and in her message to Armpit, “I don’t care. I really don’t! Everyone else makes money off me, why not you? […] I’m not a real person! I don’t have feelings!” (239). Jerome, her mother, and even her band members have treated Kaira as a commodity throughout her childhood and adolescence, which should have been spent with her peers. Being treated as a commodity has been deeply damaging. She has not been able to form her own identity and has difficulty trusting people because she is surrounded by money-hungry adults showing fake “kindness.” Kaira takes her resentment out on her bodyguard Fred, who never talks back to her or puts her down—making him an easy target. Kaira believes Fred is just there for the salary, another bloodsucker, but is proven wrong when he almost loses his life trying to save her from Jerome.
Jerome and Armpit show their authentic selves as the day of Kaira’s attack unfolds. Jerome, weak, anxious, and insecure, overcompensates with false bravado and faces his true nature as he struggles to carry out his attack on Kaira. His evil nature is exposed when, despite his anxiety and fear, he continues with his plan to kill a teenage girl for her money. His anxiety indicates he knows what he is doing—he cannot hide behind an insanity plea. In stark contrast is Armpit’s thoughtful, kind, and honest character. Armpit’s determination to reassure Kaira that he is not going to sell the letter by returning it to her saves her life. Armpit takes responsibility for his and X-Ray’s actions and is willing to face jail rather than make Kaira suffer. Armpit does not expect praise or forgiveness from Kaira for returning the letter, and he respects her wish not to see him again, respect he makes clear when he calls out, “Look, if you don’t want to see me, I understand. I just came to return the letter. I’m not going to sell it. I don’t want anything from you” (241). This selfless act saves Kaira from Jerome’s brutal, selfish plan.
Armpit’s humility is exemplified by his desire to stay away from the journalists hailing him as a hero. He prefers Ginny’s company. The press presence and newspaper headlines finally convince Armpit’s mother that her son is worthy of respect, but it may be too little too late for Armpit to form a close bond with his parents. Ginny’s reaction reinforces the strength of her friendship with Armpit—just the thought of what he went through makes her tearful. Detective Newberg has a soft spot for Armpit; she knows Armpit is a good person in a bad situation. Armpit and X-Ray’s protection of each other, while unhelpful, garnered her respect. When she visits Armpit to tell him the investigation has been dropped, she lets him know in a humorous, non-condescending way that she has known for a while that he is “Armpit.” Newberg, smiling, says, “No harm, no foul” (249) to Armpit as she signs his cast, answering Armpit’s pleading question from the day they met: “I mean, what’s the big deal? Ginny and I ended up getting to sit on the stage. You know—no harm, no foul?” (159).
Armpit does not bear a grudge toward Kaira for not contacting him: He understands that her whole world has crumbled. Armpit compares Kaira to Ginny’s stuffed animals, “like Hooter, the owl who couldn’t see […] Kaira might be a singer who couldn’t sing” (253). Like Ginny’s animals, Kaira draws on her strength and perseverance to work around her disability and sings again, on her own terms, as she had dreamed of doing (albeit in happier circumstances). Kaira’s hauntingly sad song speaks directly to Armpit, asking him to take his own advice if they meet again: “Look me in eye, / And let me know I’m real” (256). Poignantly, Kaira’s lyrics reference Armpit’s answer to her question about his “big dreams.” Armpit had replied, “I don’t have big dreams […] I just take small steps” (150) and explained his counselor’s advice to “take small steps and just keep moving forward” (150). In her song, Kaira tells Armpit that she has taken his advice to heart: “Small steps, / ’Cause I don’t know where I’m goin’. / Small steps, / I just take it day to day. / Small steps, Somehow get myself together, / then maybe I’ll discover / Who I am along the way” (257). The lyrics of Kaira’s song imply she would like to see Armpit again, but Armpit—always humble—doesn’t read too much into it. He is just happy that she is singing, and he is determined not to get sidetracked from his own goals again.
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