Breakout

Elidee feels trapped in Wolf Creek, which she thinks “might be the kind of place where nothing ever really changes” (85). Bored at home while her mother is at work, she begins writing poems about the town and the manhunt. She also writes acrostic poems about herself, Mama, and Troy. Because Troy was in the wrong place with the wrong people, Elidee feels pressure to be perfect. At the library, she checks out books by Jacqueline Woodson, Nikki Giovanni, and Nikki Grimes, along with one about Alexander Hamilton and one about space, which she uses to find the names of faraway planets for a game she plays with Mama based on the children’s book I Love You to the Moon and Back.

Lizzie and Nora continue their efforts to be investigative reporters though security restrictions and their parents’ fears limit where they can go and when. They attend the press briefing at the prison, where officials vow to “search behind every tree, under every rock, and inside every structure” (98) until the inmates are found. Nora again meets Elizabeth Carter Wood, who learns she is the prison superintendent’s daughter and takes advantage of Nora’s offhand comments that her dad has been busy and her little brother is scared.