Skippy Dies

Back home for the midterm, Skippy and his father live in denial of their shared sadness over an unspecified issue. They decide to call Skippy’s sister, Nina, who asks to talk to their mother. Skippy tells her that their mother is asleep. When Nina insists, Skippy calls her an asshole, and they both start crying.

Skippy’s father talks to him about his poor grades. He asks if anything is preventing Skippy from concentrating, but Skippy indicates that it is just the difficulty of adjusting to senior school. His father suggests altering their original plan, which involves Skippy’s boarding status at Seabrook, but Skippy chooses to stick to it. Afterward, he immediately takes some pills. Skippy fails to practice his swimming and tells his dad that he is supposed to take a break from the sport altogether. Skippy tries to console himself with memories of Lori.

Agonizing over his distance from Aurelie during the midterm break, Howard goes to the school library to conduct research for the anniversary concert. Once he has exhausted the material, he turns to books on World War I, telling Halley that he needs them to prepare for class. He tells Farley that he is in love with Aurelie, but Farley reminds him that they hardly know each other. Howard is initially upset with this assessment but soon realizes that he is probably right. He weighs his relationship with Halley against his affair with Aurelie and finds that he is bored with his life.

Carl waits outside Lori’s house, having left several messages demanding to know why she is ignoring him, along with other threatening voice notes. He gets a text from Barry telling him to come to Ed’s Doughnut House, but when he arrives, he is assaulted by four local drug dealers who have pinned down Barry. The dealers force them to reveal how they supply their drugs. Barry tells them everything about their operation. They threaten to hang Barry, scaring him enough that he wets himself. Barry apologizes for dealing on their turf. One of the dealers lets them smoke drugs to pacify them as a sign of goodwill. The boys decide to return home while they are still high, but the dealers break Barry’s arm before letting him go. They are about to do the same to Carl but are too shocked by the sight of his arm, which is covered in self-inflicted cuts, to carry it out.

Back from midterm break, Skippy’s friends can hardly believe that Lori kissed him, especially when none of them can remember them leaving together. They tell Skippy to get her phone number, which he can’t get from Titch since he can’t remember Lori and Skippy talking either. To everyone’s surprise, Mario acquires it, and Skippy spends time figuring out what to text Lori. Geoff composes a haiku about Lori’s eyes. All of their friends agree that Skippy should send it to her.

Ruprecht spends most of his free time in the laboratory, obsessed with studying M-theory. He discusses it with everyone from his friends to Mr. Farley, who posits that it is impossible to find compelling evidence supporting the theory.

Skippy is too distracted by thoughts of Lori to properly perform in swim training. Coach Tom threatens that some members of the swim team might be cut if they fall behind before their upcoming race.

Carl and Barry strike a deal with the drug dealers, allowing them to operate as long as they give the dealers a cut of their profits. Carl learns that Lori had left the Hallowe’en Hop with somebody else named Daniel. Lori’s friend, Janine, tells Carl that Daniel has been texting Lori poems. Though Lori has been grounded by her protective father, Janine promises to put in a good word for him. Before Carl and Janine part ways, they start kissing.

Auditions for the Christmas concert are in full swing. The narrative describes how, with puberty, many of the boys who see their physical quirks as talents will soon try to hide them.

Dennis is upset that Ruprecht has included him in his musical act, the Van Doren Quartet, for the Christmas concert. Their lineup is completed by Jeekers and Geoff. They learn that Lori hasn’t texted Skippy back yet. Mario reveals that he got her number from a toilet cubicle at Ed’s Doughnut House. They argue over it until Carl comes up to Skippy and smashes his head against the wall.

Halley sees Farley at a science fair and wants to talk to him about Howard. However, Farley’s attention is pulled away by students before she can get a chance. Driving home, Halley hits a neighbor’s dog, which soon dies. When Howard gets home, Halley scolds him about the broken car brakes. She soon lets out all her frustrations on him. Howard finally tells her that he “can’t do this any more” and confesses about Aurelie (291).

Skippy’s friends speculate that he will give up pursuing Lori now that Carl is in the picture. Ruprecht suggests that the reason Skippy won’t get Lori in the end is because of the universe’s fundamental asymmetry.

That same day, Coach Tom posts the team roster for the upcoming meet and includes Skippy toward the end of his list. Skippy calls his father to ask if he and his mom will come to watch the race. His dad’s answer is noncommittal. Later, Father Green asks Skippy about his injury, and Skippy tells him that it came from running into a door.

Skippy tells Ruprecht that Carl couldn’t have known about him and Lori unless she told him about it. This gets Ruprecht to think about the asymmetry of non-reciprocal relationships like those of Skippy, Lori, and Carl. He wonders if other universes are fundamentally less lonely. Ruprecht sees a moth outside his window and has an idea.

Father Green visits a community of elderly women. While cleaning up their public grotto of the Virgin Mary, he encounters a Black man who reminds him of the people he used to teach as a missionary in Africa. During dinner with the other Paraclete priests, Father Green marvels at the possibility that any of his former students might have ended up in Seabrook. His colleagues dismiss its likelihood, citing the AIDS crisis in Africa. Father Green remains nostalgic about their conversion during his time. While checking the students’ homework, he pays special attention to Skippy’s paper.

Ruprecht skips class to reach a breakthrough in his research. Gathering his friends, he unveils a device that will allow him to create a portal that will pass through the 11th dimension to a parallel universe. He uses the machine on a toy robot, but the power fizzles out. The boys are surprised to learn, however, that the robot has vanished from the pod. Dennis also claims to have been moved by a force to the far side of the room.

Everyone is stunned by Ruprecht’s invention, except for Dennis, who feels sick. Dennis also apologizes for all the times he made fun of Ruprecht’s love of science. Ruprecht tries to repeat the experiment to verify it, but the device fails to work the same way. Ruprecht wonders what went wrong the second time, and Dennis tries to rally their friends’ support around him. Later, Skippy and Dennis find something compelling on the computer.

Ruprecht’s failure to replicate the experiment leads him to resign his endeavors. Skippy and Dennis come down to share their discovery that Seabrook is a tumuli, a site that alien civilizations were believed to have created as gateways to travel across and outside the universe. Dennis recalls Ms. Ni Riain’s lecture on the invisible Sidhe, linking them to the invisibility of the 11th dimension. Then he tells them that Niall’s sister reported having a supernatural experience in St. Brigid’s, hearing beautiful music outside a locked storeroom that had nothing inside. Dennis theorizes that the first experiment might have caused the energy to fluctuate, which is why they should try doing it again from the locked room at St. Brigid’s. Skippy then gets a message from Lori.

Halley gradually moves out of Howard’s house. Aurelie, meanwhile, fails to return to school after the midterm break. Howard is too scared to tell anyone about these changes except Farley. However, his history classes have greatly improved because of his personal study. One day after class, Ruprecht and Geoff ask Howard about Seabrook’s history, but he isn’t very helpful. Howard resolves to find out more for them.

Howard returns to the staffroom to learn that the regular geography teacher, Finian Ó Dálaigh, has returned to the school.