56 pages • 1 hour read
Gordon KormanWhatshisface
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 2018A 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 7-12Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 7 Summary: “The Apprentice”
Roddy was born on October 23, 1582. His father, Alistair, was an inventor, and his mother, Mary, was a laundress. When Roddy was seven, his mother died of the bubonic plague. Alistair dealt with his grief by immersing himself in his inventions. Meanwhile, Roddy kept himself occupied by wandering less affluent (and often dangerous) parts of London.
After Roddy describes his father as a great inventor, Cooper retorts that there is no Wikipedia entry for him. Roddy claims his dad laid the groundwork for the school bus and the TV, which Roddy calls a “magical window” (101). If “Wicked Pedia” ignores his father, Roddy proclaims, it is the fault of England’s authorities, who accused him of being a warlock (a sorcerer) and had him executed. Roddy wanted to testify on his dad’s behalf, but his abusive employers, Mannering and Brown, would not let him leave the printing shop. They forced Roddy to labor from sunrise till night, setting type, cutting manuscript material into single pages, and then binding these pages into a book.
One of the few bright spots in working for Mannering and Brown is that their shop introduced Roddy to the art of playwrighting. Consumed by his work, Alistair never had time to take Roddy to the theater. But whenever Mannering would visit the tavern, Roddy could read plays their shop was publishing. Roddy also got the chance to speak with all the playwrights whose work Mannering and Brown were printing. Roddy hoped that writing plays might free him from his wretched life as an apprentice. Contracting the plague cut Roddy’s plans short.
Roddy reasons that he must have been allowed to enter Cooper’s world for the “noble” cause of reestablishing his father’s reputation.
Roddy begins to feel sick. He thinks the plague is back. Cooper tells him it’s low battery instead. Roddy thinks low battery is a disease. The phone dies before Cooper finds the charger. When the phone turns back on, Roddy is back.
Chapter 8 Summary: “They Call Him the Bard”
Jolie skateboards to school. Roddy gives Cooper lines to say to her, but Cooper does not use them because they sound like they’re from the 16th century. Roddy says Jolie is as attractive as Ursula: Rupert Mannering’s daughter and Roddy’s former love.
Cooper learns that Roddy met Shakespeare, as well as Christopher Marlowe, Thomas Kyd, and Ben Jonson. Roddy thinks that all three of the latter playwrights had more talent than Shakespeare. Cooper says many people believe that Shakespeare is the best writer ever, but Roddy labels Shakespeare a “clod.”
The school posts the parts for the play. Jolie has been cast as Juliet, and Brock as Romeo. Cooper has been given the role of the Second Watchman. Like Cooper himself—still known as Whatshisface—his part doesn’t even have a proper name.
Chapter 9 Summary: “Greatest Love Story Ever Told”
Cooper’s character has only one line, which takes ten seconds to memorize. Roddy complains about having to listen to Shakespeare’s “moldy words,” and Cooper worries that Jolie will go from acting like she loves Brock for the play to genuinely liking him in real life.
When Cooper arrives at rehearsal an hour late (he and his sister had to get flu shots), Jolie is annoyed. Brock tries to comfort her by saying that the tardiness of a Whatshisface doesn’t matter. Roddy interrupts Brock’s condescension by starting to recite lines. Cooper goes to the gym to speak to Roddy privately. Roddy says the lines are from his unfinished play, Barnabas and Ursula. Cooper suspects that Shakespeare discovered Roddy’s play after he died, changed some names, and added an ending. Roddy thinks Shakespeare stole his other plays, too.
Cooper calls Roddy a “rock star,” They review the script of Romeo and Juliet later that night. Roddy realizes that Shakespeare turned his play into a tragedy. In Roddy’s version, the families made peace for the sake of their children’s happiness. Yet in Shakespeare’s version, the lovers die.
Roddy compares his love for Ursula to Cooper’s love for Jolie. Cooper thinks that “love” is not the right word to describe his emotions towards Jolie. Roddy maintains the analogy is correct: just as Roddy felt that he was “beneath” Ursula, Cooper feels that Jolie is cooler than him. Roddy promises to make Cooper cool.
Chapter 10 Summary: “Four Full Mississippis”
Cooper routinely lets Roddy out of the phone by shooting photographs. So far, no one has noticed the sparkly cloud that appears whenever Cooper takes pictures. On the bus, Cooper snaps a photo with his GX-4000 so Roddy can experience the vehicle. When Brock makes fun of Cooper, Roddy supplies him with a diss. Hesitantly, Cooper expresses a variation of Roddy’s insults. Aiden and his friends, also classmates, approve of the insult.
During morning rehearsals, Cooper messes up his one line. Brock jeers that he could train his parakeet to properly say the line.
During science lab, Roddy gives Cooper one of his dad’s formulas, believing that this will impress Jolie. Unfortunately, all the resulting mixture produces is smoke and the smell of rotting eggs. Brock says Whatshisface made a “stink bomb.” Jolie glares at him.
Chapter 11 Summary: “Go Big or Go Home”
Roddy apologizes for the science lab fiasco and jokes that now Cooper will be known as He Who Hath Stunk Out the School. During social studies and math, Roddy continues to apologize.
At afterschool rehearsal, Cooper is glad to discover that Brock and Jolie don’t have to kiss. Even so, Cooper is still afraid that Jolie might develop a crush on Brock. Cooper thinks that Brock has a ridiculous “cake-eating grin." Whenever Brock loses the spotlight, he screams silly made-up lines like, “Wherefore art me?”
After rehearsal, Cooper apologizes for what happened in science class, and Jolie playfully replies with a line from the play. Roddy insists that Cooper continue apologizing. Cooper does so, but Jolie says it is not a big deal. When Cooper admits that he was trying to impress her, Jolie compliments his honesty. She doesn’t think that enough people say what they mean. She likes that, in Romeo and Juliet, the characters are honest.
Jolie is honest with herself about her love for the thrill of extreme sports. With Roddy’s prodding, Cooper says that he likes extreme sports, too. Jolie invites him to Adventureland to ride the rollercoasters. After Jolie rollerblades away, Cooper tells Roddy that he doesn’t like rollercoasters.
Chapter 12 Summary: “The Loose Nuke”
Cooper arrives 45-minutes early to Adventureland for scouting purposes. Located near Wolfson’s property, the amusement park impresses Roddy. Cooper takes photos so that Roddy can also experience it. His journeys outside the phone are beginning to last longer: up to nine Mississippis. Roddy says he eventually feels a tugging, and that’s when he returns to the phone. He gets Cooper to spend tons of money on Ring Toss Tic-Tac-Toe, and Cooper wins a big pink unicorn. Roddy calls it “worthy of a duke.”
Jolie texts Cooper to meet her at the Loose Nuke, a rollercoaster whose primary drop is as high as a 25-story building. Brock arrives, and he sits between Jolie and Cooper (the stuffed unicorn also goes on the roller coaster). Roddy likens the ride to torture, and Cooper can barely move once it’s over. Brock throws up but wants to ride it again. They ride the Loose Nuke four times, the Decapitator once, and the Cataclysm twice.
Jolie returns to her family, and Brock warns Cooper not to think about trying to date her. Brock is Romeo, while Cooper is the “loser” with only one line. Despite Brock’s threats and the nauseating rollercoasters, Roddy declares the day a success. He tells Cooper that he’ll help him learn the part of Romeo, since Brock might “drop out.”
Chapters 7-12 Analysis
As in the earlier section, the Search for Belonging is intertwined here with a thematic Linking of the Past and Present. Roddy, for instance, never found belonging in the late 1500s. His mother died of the bubonic plague, authorities executed his father for supposedly having practiced witchcraft, and Roddy had to work in an abusive printing shop. Once he died of the plague, Shakespeare stole his play and turned it into Romeo and Juliet. Like his 21st-century friend, Cooper, the 16th-century version of Roddy didn’t have a secure place in the world. That Roddy and his father were both talented and accomplished people who died in anonymity parallels Cooper’s current situation as “Whatshisface” and hints at what could happen to Cooper should he stay anonymous forever. Despite these similarities, Korman clearly shows that Cooper’s situation is much less dire in the modern world than it might’ve been in Roddy’s timeline.
Technology symbolizes the connection between the past and present. Without the GX-4000, Cooper can’t communicate with Roddy. The phone is a critical tool that brings Cooper and Roddy together. Another technological innovation, Wikipedia, similarly brings together information from diverse periods. Explaining the collaborative online encyclopedia to Roddy, Cooper says, “It’s like everything everybody knows about anything—and probably a lot of stuff they’re not too sure about” (56). Yet because Roddy’s dad doesn’t have a Wikipedia entry, he doesn’t have a place in history: he lacks a place in the present. Technology may connect the past with the present, but it doesn’t connect everything about the past with the modern day. Using technology and a voice from the past via Roddy, Korman reveals the fallibility of history.
Cooper’s crush on Jolie further develops the past-present linkage, while also connecting it with the importance of teamwork. Regardless of when a person lives, they can feel like they’re in “love” (Cooper thinks the word is too strong) with someone out of their reach. Of the 16th century girl he fancied, Ursula, Roddy says, “I was beneath her. So I crafted a story to show the world that star-crossed love is a beautiful thing” (56). Updating these social differences for 2018, Cooper calls Jolie “one of the cool people” (77). Establishing the theme of teamwork, Roddy promises to help make Cooper cool, solidifying his role as Cooper’s sidekick or mentor.
Heightening the novel’s comedic tone, not all of Roddy’s ideas as Cooper’s teammate work out. Among other things, the stink bomb fails, as does the excessive apologizing for the stink bomb. Yet even these setbacks ultimately lead to progress. After Cooper says sorry to Jolie too many times, he admits, “I was trying to impress you with how great I was at science” (89). His confession leads to a sincere conversation with Jolie about honesty. Cooper and Roddy fail to learn from this, however, as Roddy immediately suggests that Cooper lie about his interest in extreme sports; this moment sets Cooper up to make another admission to Jolie and to teach him about embracing himself as he is rather than trying to create a persona that he thinks Jolie will like.
Roddy is also instrumental in teaching Cooper how to stand up for himself. When Brock verbally assaults Cooper, Roddy suggests a choice insult to Cooper: “Whatshisface thou might name me, but had my rat hound thy face, I should shave its hindquarters and train it to present itself rearward” (80-81). Revealing the link between the past and present, Cooper turns Roddy’s diss into, “I may be Whatshisface, but if my dog had your face, I’d shave its butt and teach it to walk backward!” (81). Via teamwork, Roddy and Cooper draws on their Link between the Past and the Present to help Cooper use his voice and assert his place.
Korman also develops humor through Roddy’s observations of the contemporary world. By calling TV and smartphones “the magical window” (56) Roddy makes these common and contentious types of technology look glorious. He turns Wikipedia into “Wicked Pedia” (66), and Roddy calls the unicorn Cooper wins at the fair “a truly exquisite beast, worthy of a duke” (94), turning the gaudy commodity into an aristocratic item. The character of Roddy hence demonstrates the potential of humor to satirize and critique social norms, prejudices, and pretensions.
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