Wringer

That morning, the boys show up at his door. Beans demands to know who Nipper is, and holds up a basketball with Nipper’s name on it that he stole from Palmer’s room. Beans also demands to know where Palmer was last night. For the first time, Palmer stands up to Beans and says, “Where was I? Where were you?” (175).

Beans drags Palmer outside so that he can get The Treatment from Farquar. They finally find Farquar, and he asks Palmer to roll up his sleeve. Palmer says no, “No Treatment! No wringer! No Snots!” (179). Then he runs away. Beans screams after him.

Palmer hides from the boys in an alley. A worker in a store comes out, sees Palmer, and hands him a soda. Finally, he runs home, deciding that he needed to get there before Nipper. He rushes into his room to see Panther, Beans’s cat, sitting on his bed. Nipper is at the window. Palmer realizes that only a screen is separating Nipper from certain death, which brings him to the sinking awareness that “his pigeon must go” (183).

Dorothy cries when Palmer tells her they must get Nipper as far away from town as possible. He explains it’s the only way to save Nipper’s life; Beans will certainly kill Nipper at the first chance he gets. He doesn’t want to ever be separated from Nipper, but he would rather save his life than keep him.

The next day they ride Nipper out of town in a basket attached to Dorothy’s bike. They go as far out of town as they can and let their bird go. When Palmer gets home that night, Nipper is already back at his window.

Dorothy wants to keep Nipper, but Palmer says that Beans will use “Slingshots. BB guns. Maybe even poison” (189) to kill Nipper. He knows Beans will never stop trying.

The next night, Palmer’s mother confesses she and his father have always known about Nipper. He falls into his mother’s arms, relieved, realizing “how much he had missed his parents’ support” (192). He confesses he hadn’t told them about Nipper because he feared they would be mad, considering his father’s pigeon-shooting background. She reveals that his father is changing his mind about pigeons because of him.

His mother says Palmer should keep Nipper, but his fear of the bird’s death is too much for him. When Dorothy leaves for a family vacation, he asks her to take Nipper and let the bird go far away.

Palmer doesn’t want to get out of bed the next day because he misses Nipper. When he finally does, the boys “mocked and taunted him,” and act “as if he had never been one of them” (196). He lets Henry come into his room, to see for himself that Nipper is gone. He thinks if Henry reports back to Beans, maybe he will leave him alone. When Henry is in his home, he finally learns that Henry’s real name is George. He asks him to quit the group, but Henry runs out the door.

Beans, Mutto, and Henry finally leave Palmer alone. He feels “as dry and empty as the cicada husks on the trees” (199) without Nipper. He still sometimes plays with his toy soldiers, and one day his father shows him how to arrange the soldiers according to realistic battle. After a big imaginary battle between the soldiers, Palmer buries them in the backyard.

Palmer’s father takes him to a baseball game. He catches a foul ball. On the way home, Palmer holds the ball, imagining he “felt a heartbeat” (203).

Nipper’s absence lifts Palmer’s anxiety, but the “price of peace had been high: expelling himself from the gang, proclaiming himself a traitor, banishing his beloved pet” (205). He wants to feel peace, but he misses Nipper too much. This sense of longing for Nipper materializes in nightmares. Palmer attends Family Fest but stays by his parents.

Palmer finds himself at the Family Fest pigeon shooting. He is sickened to see so many pigeons being shot and killed by the wringers. He hates that the pigeons are shot before they’ve even been given the chance to fly, and thus they’re “denied the elegance of a long fall” (211) as they die. Dorothy is there with him. He finally finds the courage to ask her where she released Nipper. She says near the railroad tracks. Palmer gets angry because that’s where they find the pigeons for the shootout.

Palmer is convinced that Nipper is somewhere in one of the boxes, waiting to be shot by the Family Fest pigeon shooters. He wanders around, bewildered, trying to recognize Nipper from among the thousands. Suddenly, a bird flies up, but it circles instead of flying away. Palmer knows it’s Nipper. He walks into the shooting range without thinking, and Nipper lands on top of Palmer’s head. Beans rushes over and grabs Nipper from Palmer’s head. He throws the bird at the shooter’s feet and begs him to kill it. Palmer runs over and “plunged facefirst, landing, sliding through the gray softness into his hobblywobbling bird” (227).

Palmer holds Nipper close and leaves the shooting field with his pet. A little boy in the crowds asks if he can have a pet pigeon too.