Loser

During his visits to Willow Street, Donald chats with a young woman who keeps her toddler, Claudia, on a leash. Claudia tries to give Donald a present each time, usually something she finds in the gutter—a pebble or piece of used chewing gum. Donald graciously accepts these little gifts, and the bubblegum bits coagulate into a lump in his pocket. He pulls it out from time to time, idly rubbing it, and soon it hardens into a stone: “He rubs his lucky pink bubblegum stone, hoping to change his luck” (139). When Claudia disappears one snowy evening, he sets out to search for her and nearly dies of exposure, but he keeps the bubblegum stone in his mouth and gets rescued. Sourced in love and generosity, the stone becomes for Donald a charm that helps him overcome his own limits and, perhaps, even saves his life.

Donald loves his giraffe hat, which was a gift from his father. He wears it to his first day of school, where another kid snatches it and runs off: “The brown and yellow hat bobs on his head like a real giraffe” (21), and Donald is thrilled to see how it looks on someone else. He manages to keep the hat, and his attachment to it symbolizes his love of fun, originality, laughter, and happy engagement with others.

Halftank Hill looms inside the local park. It contains “a grassy, evilly steep slope that commands: Come down me! And they do, kids from all over town, in all seasons of the year. They sled down, they run down, roll down, tumble down, bicycle down, tricycle down, Rollerblade down, skateboard down, trashcan-lid down” (117). Donald loves the hill, too, especially when he runs or bikes down it in summer and sleds on it in winter. It’s a place where he can indulge his love for going fast, the thrill of adventure, and the excitement of the headlong rush.

Donald’s father delivers mail, and his mailbag becomes for the boy a token of honor and adventure. Donald, who has a bad stomach and throws up frequently, learned from his mother always to throw up into something, so one day he throws up into his father’s mailbag. His dad lets him deliver pretend mail on a Sunday, and Donald drags it proudly around the neighborhood, putting his made-up letters into mailboxes and mail slots. The mailbag represents Donald’s yearning to become a “professional” worthy of his father.

Monroe Middle School “is scary, it’s so big. Four elementary schools feed into it. There are no swings in the playground. There’s no playground. No recess” (163). For Donald, the transition is stressful: There are different classes every hour and lots of strange faces, and his social rank descends from “loser” to “nobody.” Somehow, he doesn’t mind.

Donald loves to run as fast as he can. He’s a poor runner, but he doesn’t care. For Donald, the best thing about sports is the running. In second grade, he joins the local soccer team, where he can run with great joy despite being terrible at the game. Although his poor running costs his team the fourth-grade relay championship and earns him the nickname “Loser,” running expresses his high energy and joy of living. In sixth grade he’s still at it, running to catch footballs that somehow always escape his hands.

Donald attends John W. Satterfield Elementary School. He loves the school and his first-grade teacher, Miss Meeks. His second-grade teacher, Mrs. Biswell, doesn’t like him at all, but his fourth-grade teacher, Mr. Yalowitz, encourages him. Satterfield is the place where Donald first struggles to get along with his peers.

Donald’s favorite cookies are snickerdoodles, mainly because they have a funny name. He bakes a snickerdoodle for his new neighbor Andrew, but it falls apart when he presents it to the boy. Donald eats most of it, gives some away to people walking past his house, and finally throws up. The giant snickerdoodle represents Donald’s larger-than-life enthusiasms and his sense of generosity.