60 pages • 2 hours read
Deb CalettiA Heart in a Body in the World
Fiction | Novel | YA | 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 5-8Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 5 Summary
Annabelle wakes up in the top bunk of Grandpa’s RV, with Grandpa asleep in the bunk below her. Annabelle’s mother wants Grandpa to follow Annabelle in the RV, but they both know this would be difficult and unsafe, because Annabelle’s GPS mostly takes her on back trails and down narrow roads. Annabelle and Grandpa agree that Grandpa will meet her at the head of the Iron Horse Trail at the end of the day.
Annabelle begins her run. Soon, the GPS takes her through a wealthy suburban neighborhood. The neighborhood reminds Annabelle of her ex-boyfriend Will, whom she dated off and on during her sophomore and junior years. Annabelle tries to say “Stop” out loud to stop the memories, but she can’t help the memories from coming back to her.
Annabelle remembers meeting Will at a football game their sophomore year. Will lived in a wealthier neighborhood and attended a different high school than Annabelle. Will’s parents, Robert and Tracie, were both lawyers. One day Annabelle and Will are kissing at his house. Will suddenly stops and says his parents think their relationship is getting too serious and that they should date other people. Angry and hurt, Annabelle leaves Will’s house and ignores his calls for the rest of the night. The next day at school, the new student in Mixed Media Art, whom Annabelle refers to only as The Taker, flirts with her. At lunch Annabelle tells her best friend Kat that she can’t decide if The Taker is “weird or cute” (53). Even though Annabelle thinks he’s cute, Kat warns Annabelle, “Sometimes weird is your gut talking to you” (54).
As she runs, Annabelle can’t stop remembering the day she flirted with The Taker in Mixed Media, when suddenly, “She is felled. Literally” (55). Annabelle trips and scrapes her palms on the sidewalk. A woman runs toward Annabelle and offers to give her a ride, but Annabelle assures the woman that she is fine. Annabelle “can only imagine what the woman sees. A bleeding, haunted girl with a crazy-person hairdo” (57). Even though Annabelle is limping and her hands hurt, she continues walking.
Chapter 6 Summary
When Annabelle meets up with Grandpa and his RV, he sees her injuries and insists they go see a doctor. The doctor bandages Annabelle’s feet and tells her not to run until her feet have healed. The doctor warns Annabelle of the potential long-term effects on her body if she completes her cross-country run, explaining that “[e]motional well-being is critical to physical well-being” and that “the heart is a muscle, too, and it can get as stressed as the others” (60). Annabelle lies and assures the doctor that she has already spoken to her physicians at home.
Back in the RV, Grandpa tells Annabelle that she has “The Agnelli Curse” (60), meaning that lying runs in their family. Annabelle and Grandpa eat dinner in the RV and go to sleep.
Chapter 7 Summary
The next morning Annabelle gets up while her grandpa is still asleep. Even though Grandpa and the doctor want Annabelle to rest for a few days, Annabelle plans to sneak out of the RV and continue her run. Annabelle knows she is lying to Grandpa, but she remembers she has the Agnelli Curse. Annabelle packs a bag with food for the day and leaves a note for her grandpa, telling him where to meet her along the trail at the end of the day.
Annabelle begins to run, her feet covered in antibiotic cream and bandages. The bandages slow Annabelle down and make her feel “like a C-grade zombie” (64). Annabelle gets a text from her friend and cross-country teammate Geoff Graham, who congratulates her on her journey. Annabelle encounters a pitch-black, two-and-a-half-mile tunnel along the trail. She runs through the tunnel, even though it is cold and dark. At one point a man bikes past her, but he only says hello and continues biking.
The text from Geoff reminds Annabelle of another memory: One day after school in late October, Annabelle waits for Kat by her car, watching Geoff and some friends at a nearby car. Suddenly, The Taker walks toward Annabelle, hands her an envelope, and bows. The bow makes Annabelle uncomfortable because “[i]t’s one of those odd actions that Geoff Graham and Trevor Jackson and Zander Khan would never do because they’d know it was odd” (69). Annabelle opens the letter and finds a card apologizing to her for getting dirty water on her shirt during Mixed Media the other day. Although The Taker makes Annabelle uncomfortable, she decides “it’s wrong to judge him without knowing him. So what, he’s awkward—he’s new at their school. He seems sweet” (71).
As she runs through the tunnel, Annabelle imagines all the dangerous things that could attack her in the dark: “she imagines things on the ground, ready to spring at her ankles. She imagines a man, his back flat against the wall, ready to seize her when she passes” (71). Finally, she makes it out of the tunnel.
Chapter 8 Summary
When Annabelle meets up with Grandpa and his RV at the end of the day, he is furious with her for leaving without warning. Annabelle takes off the bandages on her feet, and even though her feet are in rough shape, they can both tell her feet are healing. Grandpa explains that they’ll have to move the RV to a nearby state park for the night. Before they start up the RV, Grandpa and Annabelle notice a beaver carrying branches back and forth to the river. Annabelle notes that the beaver’s task looks impossible—the branches look too big for him to carry—but Grandpa explains, “We don’t know what he’s doing, but he knows what he’s doing” (75).
At the state park Grandpa tells Annabelle that an older woman, another camper, invited him over for a cocktail. Grandpa invites Annabelle to come along, saying the woman has a grandson, but Annabelle insists that she wants to stay back at the RV. Grandpa changes clothes and leaves Annabelle alone in the RV for the evening.
Annabelle uses the time to return calls. First, she calls her mother, who explains that she called Annabelle’s school, which will excuse her absences. According to Gina, Grandpa told her Annabelle would be home in 12 days, after crossing Idaho. Annabelle tells her mother that Grandpa lied—Annabelle has no intention of quitting her cross-country run after 12 days. Malcolm, Annabelle’s brother, takes the phone and tells her the GoFundMe account has raised $600 so far. Annabelle is surprised by people’s kindness, but her brother explains, “Don’t you get it? People want to help” (80). Malcolm explains that Olivia is taking on the role of her publicist, while her friend Zach oversees the finances, and Malcolm handles logistics. They have arranged for Annabelle to be interviewed by a local high school reporter in three days.
After she gets off the phone, Annabelle takes a shower, but when the hot water hits her body, her whole torso stings. Annabelle realizes her skin is sore from the fabric of her loose cotton shirt rubbing against her all day. Finally, Annabelle gets into bed and tries to go to sleep.
Chapters 5-8 Analysis
Caletti uses a play on words when she describes how Annabelle is “felled” in Chapter 5. While Annabelle is running, she remembers a flirtatious encounter between herself and The Taker. Suddenly, “She is felled. Literally. Her toe catches on the tipped edge of the sidewalk, and down she goes” (55). Lost in her memories, Annabelle trips and falls on the sidewalk. Here, “felled” describes both how she fell for The Taker—developing a small crush on him while they were flirting—and how she literally falls on the sidewalk. Annabelle often becomes absorbed in memories while she runs, in part due to her ongoing struggle with PTSD. By using a play on words in this moment, Caletti demonstrates how Annabelle’s intrusive memories interfere with her everyday activities.
The symbol of the heart is introduced in Chapter 6. While getting her injuries checked out at a local clinic, the doctor tells Annabelle that “[e]motional well-being is critical to physical health” and that she “must remember that the heart is a muscle, too, and it can get as stressed as the others” (60). Throughout the novel Annabelle struggles with physical and emotional challenges. Physically, she is attempting a dangerous and exhausting cross-country run, and emotionally, she is coping with the trauma she experienced nine months before. The heart is a common symbol for love and emotion, as well as a physical muscle in the human body. In this novel the heart symbolizes Annabelle’s grueling physical challenge, her ongoing struggle to cope with her emotional well-being, and the intersection between the two.
The tunnel in Chapter 7 is another symbol. Annabelle must run through a dark, two-and-a-half-mile-long tunnel along the trail. She notes that “[t]wo-and-a-half miles is a long way in complete darkness. Of course, she’s gone a lot farther in places much darker than this” (67). The tunnel symbolizes difficult and uncertain times in her past that Annabelle has had to overcome. When Annabelle finally makes it out of the tunnel, she “wants to feel victorious, like she faced that freaking tunnel and won. She is, after all, out in the sun, with the tunnel behind her” (72). Instead, she can’t help feeling that “way down in there, inside of her, the something-someone still chases. It does not have the immediacy that it did in the tunnel […] but he still lies in wait” (72). Annabelle’s emergence from the tunnel into the light represents challenges that are difficult but can be overcome. Nevertheless, just because she is past the tunnel doesn’t mean that she is over whatever unseen difficulties and challenges came with it. It is evident that Annabelle experienced trauma in her past, and even though the traumatic incident is over, there is still lingering emotional trauma that she must overcome. The tunnel represents both a literal challenge she can overcome and the unseen challenges that still lie in the darkness.
Finally, the beaver is used as a symbol in Chapter 8. As Annabelle and Grandpa get ready to move his RV, they see a beaver carrying a branch that looks too big for him. Annabelle observes, “What he’s trying to accomplish—it looks impossible. He doesn’t look all that smart, to be honest, choosing something so huge,” but Grandpa states, “We don’t know what he’s doing, but he knows what he’s doing” (75). The beaver represents Annabelle and the ambitious cross-country run she has undertaken. A lot of people, such as the doctor and Annabelle’s mother, don’t understand why Annabelle wants to complete this run, thinking it is ill-advised, dangerous, and impossible. However, Annabelle knows that it is something she must do, even if she can’t articulate why. Just like the beaver, Annabelle is motivated to complete her task and confident that she can do it, despite doubts from others.
