Chapters 3 and 4 Summary and Analysis

In Chapter 3: Empathy, Betsy, a friend of John's mother, was visiting and mentioned that the son of another friend died. Betsy was angered when she saw that John, now 12-years-old, was smiling. She asked him how he could smile at something like that. John didn't think his reaction was wrong. After all he didn't know the person who died. He wasn't dead and his parents and brother weren't dead. From that incident and from other similar ones, he realized that he had to have "appropriate" reactions even if they weren't genuine ones. He's taught himself to act normally. But as he matured, it was difficult for him not to blurt out what he was thinking and began to find himself getting into more and more trouble.

In Chapter 4: A Trickster Is Born, John found that being a clown endeared...