Otherwise Known as Sheila the Great

Sheila is a 10-year-old girl from Manhattan and the narrator and protagonist of Otherwise Known as Sheila the Great. In the first installment of the Fudge series, Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing, Sheila is an antagonistic figure in Peter Hatcher’s life, and throughout Sheila the Great, she maintains these somewhat antagonistic habits. However, in the second book in the series, the reader has the chance to look into Sheila’s head when she becomes the narrator, and one thing becomes abundantly clear about Peter’s mortal enemy: Sheila might be bossy and controlling, but she is also very fearful, and she uses arrogance as a smokescreen to hide her vulnerabilities.

Sheila often lies or lashes out to cover up her many fears. When Peter and his dog Turtle get on the elevator with her in Chapter 1, she feels her heart “beating so loud [she] was sure Henry and Peter could hear it” (4). She even imagines Turtle licking his chops, eager to gobble her up, and she lies about Turtle’s smell to get off the elevator. When her mother forces her to take swimming lessons, she “think[s] it’s dumb of [her] mother to waste her money on swimming lessons” (38-39).