One Two Three

Monday is another of the novel’s protagonists, is the middle triplet, and is just as fiercely loyal and intelligent as Mab. She is precise and exacting in her understanding of the world and has a sharp eye for details. Coupled with her photographic memory and exceptional organizational skills, these qualities allowed Monday to assume the role of unofficial town librarian, and after the main library closed, she moved the bulk of its materials to the Mitchell home. Like so many of her fellow townspeople, she is happy to help her neighbors and is always adept at locating the right book for someone, even if they themselves are unsure of exactly what they are looking for.

Monday describes herself as a Track B student: an individual whose body “mostly works” but whose “brain does not” (15). She adds that she is what other students might call “neurodivergent” (15). Even so, these labels do not accurately represent her true nature, for her research skills, intelligence, and excellent memory are essential qualities that allow Monday to help the townspeople of Bourne and aid her sisters and mother in their investigation into Belsum Chemical’s guilt.

Monday’s favorite color is yellow, and she prefers to wear yellow clothing, eat yellow foods, and read yellow books. Although this exaggerated preference for yellow things frustrates her sisters because they perceive Monday as being inflexible, it is ultimately revealed to be a source of hidden strength. During the climax of the novel, Monday and her sisters must use a backhoe to destroy Bourne’s dam and prevent Belsum from reopening the plant. Coincidentally, Monday knows how to operate a backhoe simply because both the guide to operating backhoes and backhoes themselves are yellow. Without her fixation on the color yellow, she and her sisters would never have been able to execute their daring plan to save Bourne.

Mirabel is the third protagonist and the youngest of the Mitchell triplets, and although they are all intelligent girls, Mirabel’s intellect nears genius level. She has far surpassed her fellow students at Bourne Memorial and has designed her own course of supplementary study that includes topics such as advanced greenhouse techniques. Because of a condition called “idioglossia,” Mirabel is not able to form words, but her sisters are able to understand her semi-verbal communication, and Mirabel also has a voice app on her tablet that allows her to type out her thoughts. Like Monday, her congenital abnormalities do not hinder her, and she is a functional and valued member of her family and the town.

Although River is only romantically interested in Mab, Mirabel also falls deeply in love with him. Like her sister, she is an adolescent girl beginning to explore romance and relationships. Mirabel’s emotional intelligence matches her intellect, and when it is revealed that River and Mab have begun to date in secret, she provides an insightful and powerful meditation on love. She realizes all too well that “no one really thinks” that someone like her is capable of the kind of love that Mab experiences (148). She is aware that most of her peers, upon finding out about her feelings for River, would find her “pitiable.” Yet she argues that love does not form because it has the expectation of being returned; instead, she maintains that the brain plays a key role in loving someone else. She is aware of how well her brain works, and so she understands better than anyone around her that she is truly well-equipped to love. Although all of the sisters represent different aspects of Resilience in the Face of Adversity, Mirabel’s character best embodies it. She appears to be the least able-bodied of her siblings, and yet she possesses the greatest intellect, the most emotional intelligence, and the highest level of human understanding of the three. By the novel’s conclusion, she takes over the defunct town newspaper, and although she cannot speak in the traditional sense, she becomes the town’s new voice.

Nora Mitchell, mother to Mab, Monday, and Mirabel, is the town therapist and bartender and loves to bake for her friends and neighbors. Like everyone else in Bourne, she wears multiple hats and is community oriented and generous. She works closely with Pastor Jeff and maintains good relations with all of the townspeople, and in this, she embodies the theme of The Healing Power of Community. Although she has lost her husband, a plant worker, to cancer, she raises her girls with care, instilling in them a strong set of values, ethics, and morals.

Nora has engaged in a one-woman crusade against Belsum Chemical during the 16 years that have passed since the company shuttered its plant, and she still remains dedicated to environmental justice even though she loses the complete support of first her attorney and then the town itself. Like her daughters, she is smart, capable, and hardworking, and because she is sure that Belsum is guilty of knowingly releasing toxic chemicals into the town’s water supply, she is determined to find the evidence necessary to sue the company. In this way, she stands as a key warrior against Corporate Greed and Environmental Justice, for it is her investigation that ultimately defeats Belsum and restores some degree of prosperity to the town.

Pastor Jeff is both the town’s clergyman and its physician. He is a deeply kind, generous, and caring man who provides an assortment of basic services to the townspeople from his church. He operates a copy machine, makes keys, teaches yoga, and tries to fill in as many resource gaps as he can in a town where so many businesses have been forced to close. In this way, he embodies the theme of The Healing Power of Community, for he dedicates his life to his neighbors and works tirelessly to strengthen the town as a whole.

Pastor Jeff also works with students at the high school, and he brings the same level of commitment and dedication to this as he does to his other work. Monday seeks out his council when the academic company contracted to provide science instruction backs out of their contract, citing the “special needs” and position “on the spectrum” of so many of the students (19). Monday has never heard these terms before, and Pastor Jeff explains to Monday that this terminology is an outdated way of classifying people and that such classification systems are better suited to objects than people. He tells her that everyone has individualized or “special” needs and even reframes what even her siblings see as a problematic fixation on the color yellow as an asset. He tells her that her preference for yellow things helps her to make decisive choices. This is a prescient observation, for it is her preference for the color yellow that steers her toward the guide on how to operate backhoes, and this knowledge ultimately allows the sisters to destroy the dam. It is Pastor Jeff who insists that Bourne Memorial High should avoid terms like “normal,” and, in doing so, he thinks beyond traditional binaries and teaches the young people of Bourne to see themselves as worthy, able, and valuable, no matter what health issues they may have due to Belsum’s reckless production practices.

Omar is the town mayor. Like his fellow townspeople, he does much with little and works tirelessly to help the citizens of Bourne. His main characteristic is that he always does what he thinks is best for the town, even if that is not the most popular choice with the townspeople. He is an ally of sorts to Nora, although their relationship is tested multiple times. Nora feels betrayed when she learns that Omar gave Belsum the right to use the land where their plant is located for 100 years. He does explain that he did so because, at the time, the decision seemed in the town’s best interest, as it was designed to encourage Belsum to remain in Bourne rather than relocating if they found a more lucrative site.

Nora enlists Omar’s help when she learns that Belsum does not actually have full rights to the dam, and it is Omar who finds the dam’s deed to confirm this. However, true to form, he explains to Nora that it is not their decision to make alone, and he allows the town to vote on whether or not to allow Belsum to reopen the plant. Because the townspeople do not yet know that Belsum is still lying about the toxicity of its products, they vote in favor of allowing Belsum another opportunity in Bourne, and he abides by their decision even though he does not agree with it. Although Nora perhaps did not always agree with Omar’s political choices over the years, Omar does put the community before his own interests.

The son of Nathan Templeton and grandson of Duke Templeton, River initially serves as an unlikely ally for the Mitchell girls in their quest to bring down Belsum Chemical. He has the “face of a movie star” (54), and for this reason, he becomes a love interest for both Mab and Mirabel. Although his father and grandfather are both captains of industry, River is more interested in magic tricks and has given himself the stage name “Raging River.” Like his father and grandfather, he is intellectually gifted and enjoys spending time with the Mitchell sisters because they are also intelligent.

River is a complex character, and his allegiances shift throughout the narrative. He is initially unwilling to believe that his father and grandfather could have been complicit in poisoning the local water supply, and when Mab first tells him the history of Bourne, he verbally lashes out at her and runs away. He is picked on by his fellow students because he is a Templeton, and the girls are initially unsure whether his offer to help them find evidence against his family is genuine or just a ploy to get the girls to intercede on his behalf at school. Although he and Mab kindle a relationship, he ultimately fails to keep the secret of her family’s plan and tells his father that the town has found new evidence against Belsum. Like the girls, he is young and inexperienced, and although he is able to understand his family’s moral turpitude, he is not entirely unable to escape his family bonds. As Mab and River part ways in the aftermath of this betrayal, Mab initially interprets his goodwill gift of a college admissions catalogue as patronizing. However, when the catalogue turns out to contain evidence that his grandfather was college roommates with the man whose company has supposedly conducted “independent” testing of Belsum’s reformulated chemical, the narrative implies that River knew he was providing them with key evidence. Ultimately, he has a positive impact on the lives of the Mitchell sisters and does learn and grow as a character throughout the course of the narrative.

Nathan Templeton is the novel’s primary antagonist and the main figurehead for Belsum. As a member of the Templeton family, he manufactured a toxic product in Bourne and was at all times fully aware of the potential consequences for the town. Thus, he is emblematic of corporate greed. In his personal dealings, he proves himself to be both dishonest and manipulative; for example, he pretends to drink Bourne’s tainted water in order to cast doubt on the town’s assertions that the water supply is not potable. He also manipulates the townspeople into removing their signatures from the lawsuit by offering them jobs. Although he denies knowledge of it, he is part of the team responsible for hiring a crony of his father’s to lie and claim that Belsum’s reformulated product is no longer toxic.

In addition to these flagrant transgressions, Nathan also renders himself an even less sympathetic character when he seeks out Nora’s help in a counseling session, a transparent attempt at manipulating her. Although he begins by saying “I have misgivings” (289), his story does not quite bear that out. He tells Nora that, as a young man, he wanted to be a chemist and that he accidentally discovered what would become Belsum’s toxic product during the course of his dissertation research. Although his father, Duke, chose to manufacture the chemical in spite of its known danger to the water supply, Nathan himself also knew the risks and did nothing to stop the process. Although he attempts to paint his father as the worst aggressor, Nathan was also entirely complicit in Belsum’s scheme. Now, he merely desires to avoid blame, and this becomes his most unethical characteristic as he actively shirks responsibility and refuses to admit to any real wrongdoing.