Class-edition pages 197–198. Cite each quotation with the printed page shown beside it—for example, (Alexie 197).
Your aimAt Mary's funeral, Rowdy tells Junior "you killed her." Is that fair, and what does Junior think really killed his sister?
Read and make your own notes. Turn the highlights on when you are ready to compare. Other choices can work when you explain them.
This short chapter builds context for the week’s aim. Its model notes show blue connections.
Printed page 197
A few days after basketball season ended, I e-mailed Rowdy and told him I was sorry1 that we beat them so bad and that their season went to hell after that.
“We’ll kick your asses next year2,” Rowdy wrote back. “And you’ll cry like the little faggot you are.”
“I might be a faggot,” I wrote back, “but I’m the faggot who beat you.”
“Ha-ha,” Rowdy wrote.
Now that might just sound like a series of homophobic
Printed page 198
insults, but I think it was also a little bit friendly3, and it was the first time that Rowdy had talked to me since I left the rez.
I was a happy faggot!
Sherman Alexie, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian · printed pages 197–198. Parenthetical citations use author and printed page: (Alexie 197).
After reading
What happened?
Junior emails Rowdy an apology after the basketball season. Their teasing exchange reopens contact, but it does not settle everything that divided them.