Pictures Of Hollis Woods

Hollis remembers “I never showed this picture to anyone” (59). It depicts her laughing in a field while she drives the truck with Steven one night when Izzy and the Old Man are out at the movies. Before the parents leave, the Old Man instructs Steven to clean up a mess he made in the shed, saying “Did you notice how neat Holly’s things are?” (60). Hollis is worried by this statement. When the parents are gone, Steven takes Hollis out to the field and demonstrates how to drive the truck, which turns out to be great fun. Hollis feels uncharacteristically free and joyful.

Hollis wakes up early one morning and tries to do the homework she forgot about the previous night. She hears that there’s snow in upstate New York where the Regans live and wonders what life would be like if she lived with them. Realizing she will never finish all her homework before school, Hollis decides to skip again and walks out to the pier with Henry the cat following her. As the narrator, she says, “I knew it was a mistake. But still I kept going” (63). The captain of a local boat offers to pay her to help him clean the boat, and she is excited to have some money to buy food.