Tristan Strong Punches a Hole in the Sky

Tristan recounts his journey to the people at the meeting. Tristan meets Brer Rabbit who now calls himself “Brer” since Fox and Bear have disappeared. Tristan learns that Gum Baby went to retrieve Eddie’s journal and that the hole Tristan punched in the sky has torn a passage between Alke and his world. Eddie’s journal is a book of Anansi, African trickster and first great storyteller, and it is an object of power Tristan needs to turn over, especially since the Midfolk need it to repair the hole. The appearance of two winged women, Sarah and Rose, cause Tristan to blurt out that “the people could fly” (112), the first line of a tale Nana once told Tristan about Africans who could fly but lost their power during slavery. In the tale, some recalled their words of power and flew back to Africa. The two women assume Tristan is a storyteller because he knows the story.

When Tristan sees a gigantic man with a hammer, he remembers the tale Nana told him and Eddie about John Henry—a powerful man who used muscle to beat a steam engine in a contest. This feat killed him but made him legendary. Nana presented an alternate story to this common one, namely, that John Henry was really a convict laborer who was wrongfully imprisoned under Jim Crow laws designed to steal the work of Black people after slavery. Tristan, Nana advises, should always remember that stories and facts may not be the same thing. Tristan realizes that he is surrounded by character after character from Black folklore, all collected in Eddie’s book. He wonders why such a powerful book would have been in Eddie’s hands.

Tristan admits to John Henry that he lost the journal during the flight to the Thicket and wants no part of their plans to get the book back. He wants to go home. Brer tells Tristan off, calling him a careless boy whose thoughtless actions have created a mess Tristan must resolve. The adults nod in wordless agreement. Tristan is used to entering rooms of adults who judge him for being angry and not up to their standards. Brer then makes an accusation that stings Tristan: Tristan’s greatest fault is letting down people who depend on him.

Deeply angry, Tristan screams out his own story—that the journal was precious to him, a memory of how he and Eddie worked hard to record the stories they found, that the Midfolks’ plan to steal the book from the wounded, grieving boy was wrong. As he yells at the assembly, power builds in Tristan’s fists, and his demand that they hear his story makes the story real: Butterflies in the glade recreate Tristan’s story in real time, cast in the same green, shimmering light like the one that escaped from the journal. Gum Baby, seeing a chance to get out of trouble, claims that she did well after all because Tristan’s powers mean he must be an Anansesem, or a storyteller.

Tristan learns that an Anansesem is a storyteller who can speak their stories into reality. Brer hops off in exasperation. Tristan learns that since he ripped the tear into Alke’s sky, the Thicket has been in danger, so Tristan realizes he probably does owe them help. Tristan is an Anansesem, and John Henry cautions Tristan to be careful of his words, and Rose explains he must learn control to avoid creating further damage with his power. If he is captured, he could further threaten the Thicket by making it vulnerable to the Maafa. The adults have decisions to make. They usher Tristan out of the meeting so Gum Baby can take him to a meal and more rest.

Tristan follows Gum Baby to a dining room. He encounters Netta, a girl who tells him that few children make it to the Thicket because the Maafa target people Tristan’s age. Tristan falls into a vision in the dining room. He sees Brer Fox and others imprisoned behind semitransparent walls in a dark place. At the end of the passage past these prisons is Uncle C, who tells Tristan that the journal doesn’t work, and that Tristan must bring whatever it takes to give Uncle C Anansi’s power of storytelling. If Tristan doesn’t bring something to fix the journal, Uncle C will destroy Tristan, anyone who helped him, and everyone he loves. Just as Uncle C expels Tristan from the dark place, a ghostly Eddie tells Tristan that he is “talking to the wrong one” (140).

Ayanna takes Tristan back to the meeting room to talk with John Henry, who explains that Tristan may be able to repair the hole using his Anansesem powers. Although John Henry hates to involve the boy in the plan to save Alke, there really is no other hope for Alke. Tristan feels guilty, so he agrees to help. He continues to hide that Uncle C is loose in Alke because of him.

Ayanna and John Henry take Tristan to the Warren, the heart of Brer’s spy operation, which is rumored to run through tunnels leading to every part of Alke. Brer tells them that the monsters hunting Midfolk have been loose and dangerous instead of just being a nuisance for a year, ever since the tear in the sky opened. The hole must be closed. Brer and the others believe Anansi himself is the only one with enough power to close the hole and save them, but he is in hiding. Tristan learns that until the hole closes, there is no way back to Alabama.

Anansi can only be lured back with a powerful Story Box, an object of power that is created out of stories like those Tristan tells. Most lands have one, but MidPass does not for some unknown reason. Before the hole in the sky, Brer and Anansi were hard at work on the original Story Box, the one that included stories Anansi gained when he bartered with Nyame, all-knowing sky god, creator, and first among the gods in Alke.

That Story Box and Anansi are missing, but maybe another Story Box in the city of Golden Crescent, Nyame’s home, might be enough to get Anansi to return and help repair the hole. Golden Crescent fell when the monsters came after the creation of the hole, so someone must retrieve it if the plan is to work. Ayanna suggests that she and Chestnutt accompany Tristan on a quest to retrieve the box, but Tristan refuses to help. He believes he has failed as a hero twice already by not saving Eddie and Fox.

Everyone is disappointed and shocked by Tristan’s refusal. John Henry, his ever-present hammer in hand, takes Tristan on a walk through the glade around the Tree of Power. Talking to Tristan, John Henry learns more about the boy losing his first boxing match, Eddie’s death, and Tristan’s admiration for Muhammad Ali, the boxer who refused to enlist to fight in the Vietnam War and was stripped of his boxing titles as a result. After four years of fighting the punishment, Ali became a champion again.

John Henry tells Tristan that his favorite boxer is Old Man Rawlins, a man forced to fight in the convict labor camp where John Henry was held. Rawlins won 103 matches. John Henry asks Tristan to guess how, but he cannot. Tristan tells John Henry about Ali’s promise to “[f]loat like a butterfly, sting like a bee” (166) as he boxed. When Tristan sees butterflies land on his fists, he wonders if boxing might be a source of power for him, despite his disappointing first match.

John Henry gives Tristan several gifts: tassels and the trinket (an adinkra or symbol) from the cover of Eddie’s journal, rescued by crows after Tristan lost the journal during the fight with the fetterlings. He tells John Henry the journal meant everything to him and realizes the trinket still glows. Their conversation ends when John Henry hears fetterlings loose in the glade.

John Henry contacts Brer for help, but Brer says he can’t immediately help in the defense of the Thicket. John Henry gives Tristan a pair of light boxing gloves after touching his hammer to the gloves. The gloves glow with the same green light as the journal that belonged to Eddie. Tristan and John Henry defend the Thicket from the monsters. Using the boxing coaching that he learned from his father, Tristan fights off many monsters, even though he at one point loses his focus as he congratulates himself. Tristan eventually grows tired, something all his reading of superhero comics never prepared him for.

At the end of the chapter, Brer contacts them (after commenting that he is shocked that a coward like Tristan is fighting) to let them know that an enormous iron creature, the Bossling, likely the leader of the small ones that are attacking the Thicket, is headed their way. It is too big to defeat.

Brer Rabbit as well as Rose and Sarah join John Henry and Tristan in the battle to defend the Thicket. It is a lost cause, so John Henry tells Tristan to find Ayanna and Chestnutt and go with them on the journey to the Golden Crescent. He does, but Ayanna at first rejects Tristan’s help because of his earlier refusal. He convinces her that he didn’t want to help because he feared letting someone down. This admission softens her heart, leaving Tristan feeling thoughtful about how this conversation turned out. They leave on Ayanna’s flying raft.

Ayanna takes the group high above the clouds to avoid fetterlings and brand flies, iron insects who poison with their stingers. Chestnutt, who is a technology wizard and knowledgeable about many things in Alke, draws the brand flies to show Tristan what they look like. Tristan admits he is afraid of insects and heights, while Chestnutt shares that it is as well. Ayanna reluctantly admits she is afraid of surprises. Their trip moving along smoothly until Gum Baby pops out of one of the supply bags.

Gum Baby wants to make up for the failed mission to Alabama and be an air pilot like Ayanna. She is dressed in a ridiculous pilot outfit and makes the usual snappy insults and incorrect word choices, but she seems down. Chestnutt and Ayanna demand to hear the entire tale of what brought Tristan to Alke, but the story is so upsetting that Tristan fears his powers as Anansesem will bring unwanted attention if he tells it. He chooses to tell another story instead.

Using concentration and focus as all the important adults in his life have told him to, he conjures the clouds into a story about how he and Eddie sneaked into their school to make soda. When a teacher caught them, the sodas exploded so violently that people in the surrounding streets claimed they saw the colors from the bottles. Tristan loses the rhythm of the story when he recalls Eddie’s promise that day to always have his back. The anger and sadness pass, and Tristan is just about to resume his story when they make it to Golden Crescent.