Bud, not Buddy! Chapters 10,11,12

Chapter 10 After beginning his walk westward, Bud notices that beyond the city of Flint, there are woods. He sees signs that mark the town lines, and he jumps, "In and out of Flint seven times" (10.2). Hey, maybe seven is his lucky number. As Bud walks, he notices all the sounds of nature and thinks about what is happening out there. Along the side of the road, Bud walks and ducks into the bushes when cars pass. But he gets pretty tired and stops doing it every time.

Chapter 10 Then a car that is passing by stops, and a man gets out to look for Bud in the bushes. Bud thinks this man must be in the army because of the look of his hat, and also because he is black. If he were white, Bud thinks, he might look like a cop. Hmmm, Bud is suspicious. The man calls out to Bud and says that neither of them should be in Owosso at two thirty in the morning. Seems dangerous.

Chapter 10 The man talks nicely and honestly to Bud and bribes him to come out with a sandwich and soda. Bud tries to convince him to leave the food and take off again, but the man doesn't buy it. Then Bud remembers his eighty-seventh rule from his Rules and Things for Having a Funner Life and Making a Better Liar Out of Yourself: if an adult ever tells you they need your help, get ready to be tricked…

Chapter 10 The man's problem is that he feels scared about being out in Owosso at night, and so he asks Bud what he is doing out there. He also asks Bud where is from and if he ran away from home. Bud thinks up a good lie and tells the man that he's from Grand Rapids. Bud goes ahead and drinks the soda.

Chapter 10

Chapter 10 The man grabs Bud's arm and walks him to the car, but they go back to get Bud's suitcase. Then Bud sees a box of blood in the front seat and wants to run away, thinking that the man is vampire. In the car, Bud locks his door and scoots over to the front and locks that door. Quick as a flash, Bud puts the car in gear and figures out how to go forward with the man chasing him.

Chapter 11 Well, the car only goes thirty feet and then conks out. So much for that plan. The man comes up, knocks on the window and asks what is going on. Sticking up his little knife, Bud says that the man must be a vampire. The man is frustrated and tells Bud he cannot be a vampire because he had a sandwich and pop. And he has no fangs. Bud lets him back into the car but unlocks his side of the car in case the man pulls anything funny. They head toward Flint for the night.

Chapter 11 Trying to figure out what to do with Bud, the man asks him lots of questions about his family, and Bud tells him his father is Calloway. The man, Mr. Lewis, knows him. He is famous. While they drive along, Bud requests that Mr. Lewis let him finish his meal before he asks any more questions. Bud backwashes into his soda, and Mr. Lewis teases him about it. He is one funny guy. Actually, he is also a grandfather. In the back seat, Bud passes out for a long time, a deep, deep sleep, and wakes up to a woman shaking him awake.

Chapter 11 Uh, oh. Bud thinks about number twenty-nine of his Rules and Things for Having a Funner Life and Making a Better Liar Out of Yourself: when you wake up and don't know where you are, pretend you're still asleep... While Bud fake-sleeps, he hears Lefty Lewis and his daughter talk about how skinny and tattered Bud is, and then about how Bud might have a sister that is much, much older than he is. Bud finally decides to "come to" when Lefty's daughter says there's breakfast.

Chapter 11 The nice woman, Mrs. Sleet, gives Bud some old clothes from her son and fixes a big breakfast. Lefty Lewis teases Bud about his head looking like a peanut. When Bud puts on the clothes, he realizes this is his first pair of long pants, instead of shorts. At the breakfast table, Lefty's two grandkids, Kim and Scott, ask Bud prying questions about what he was doing and why.

Chapter 11 Then Kim makes Bud a deal to swap her made-up song for his truthful answer to a question she gets to ask him. Kim sings a pretty awful song and then asks how Bud's mother died. Bud tells her straight: she died quick and painless with her eyes open, no suffering. We wonder what happened to her… Everyone sits down to eat, pray, and talk a whole lot during breakfast, which Bud notices is so different from breakfast at the Home and the mission.

Chapter 11 While plates are passed, Bud watches closely to see how the family eats so that he can do the same. As everyone eats, Bud notices how much they talk and laugh. He learns about trainman work and redcaps. Lefty teases his daughter about her cooking, and she hits him with a spoon.

Chapter 12 After breakfast, Bud and Lefty Lewis get in the car to head to Grand Rapids. Suddenly, Bud says someone stole the box of blood, but Lefty tells him that while he was deeply asleep, they dropped it off at the hospital. Bud thinks that is funny because usually he is a light sleeper. It turns out that Mr. Lewis has sent a telegram to Bud's "dad" saying that Bud is coming home. Uh-oh. Bud is nervous. Bud and Mr. Lewis run errands around Flint. On their way out of town, they get pulled over by a police car. Bud thinks the police are after him.

Chapter 12 Lefty acts very odd, telling Bud to "listen very carefully" and to "do exactly as I say," which makes Bud suspicious that Mr. Lewis is a criminal on the lam like he is, since the name Lefty sounds like an alias for a mobster. So Bud thinks about number eight of his Rules and Things for Having a Funner Life and Making a Better Liar Out of Yourself: if an adult tells you to listen carefully and talks in a calm voice, run away… While waiting for his moment to make a break for it, Bud pretends to listen carefully.

Chapter 12 As they sit in the car, Lefty tells Bud to slide a little box under his seat and not to say anything. Then Lefty walks back to the officer. Bud tells himself he is going to count to ten and run. He counts to ten, but stays in his seat. Then counts to ten again. Still there. Bud is about to muster up the courage to run when the cop and Lefty return, and the cop looks in the trunk and asks about Bud's suitcase. Outside, Bud hears the officer tell Lefty that they are looking for labor organizers that may be sneaking in from Detroit.

Chapter 12 They are free to go, and on the go again, Lefty explains what a labor organizer is and how the factory workers are trying to make a union, which is like a family. Bud is confused: he doesn't understand why the cops would be after people trying to build a family. Lefty tells Bud to look inside that box he hid under his seat. As he lifts the lid slowly, Bud is about to look, but Lefty smacks the lid shut and warns Bud that what is inside is dangerous. Hmmm. Bud doesn't want to get in trouble looking at whatever it is. Scared that he'll see a gun or something, Bud says he'd rather not look and suggests he take a nap instead. Lefty tells him to go on and look, but Bud insists he doesn't want to see it.

Chapter 12 Bud finally looks inside, and there are just papers with writing on them. They are flyers announcing a secret meeting for a Pullman Porter Union. So, Lefty isn't a labor organizer, but he is delivering flyers to organize a sit-down strike. Lefty tells Bud the sit-down strike is happening so that the big bosses won't be able replace striking workers with other workers. (If the workers are sitting down on the job, there won't be any room for new workers.) That way, the bosses have to listen to what the strikers want to say.

Chapter 12

Chapter 12 After such a long talk, Bud feels super sleepy and conks out again. When Bud wakes up, he and Lefty are at the Log Cabin, a club advertising Herman Calloway's band. Thinking quickly, Bud knows he can't let Lefty meet his "dad," so he makes a deal that he'll go in alone and leave his bag in the car. In five minutes, Bud will come back out for his bag. When Bud walks inside, there are two sets of doors, so he waits behind the first set for a few minutes and then walks back out, lying to Lefty that he talked to his dad.

Chapter 12 Before leaving, Lefty tells Bud he needs to be more careful because it is really dangerous for a black boy to walk around Michigan. He also says that his "dad" may not be great, but he is a lot better than when it was just Calloway and Bud's "sister." Then Mr. Lewis takes off. Bud walks in and finds the band on the stage talking. Calloway tells the guys about boxing and then says something that proves to Bud this must be his father: Calloway says that during one fight, he realized that "enough was enough," which is exactly what Bud had thought when he fought Todd.

Chapter 12 But what is weird is that Calloway is really, really old. Bud walks onto the stage anyway. Once up there, the band stops and asks him what he's doing in here. When Bud replies that he's here to meet his dad, and points to Calloway, the old man gets serious and denies it. Bud is really glad that his eyes can't cry tears, because otherwise he would have been bawling.