The Homework Machine

“My first reaction was that it was discrimination. We are one of the few African-American families living in the area. When something bad happens to Judy, I can’t help but wonder if it is bigotry at work.”

Judy’s mother is speaking in this passage in one of the few times Judy’s race is mentioned. Judy is a high-achieving student in the gifted program, and her parents push her to excel in school. The racial bigotry Judy’s family seems to have experienced likely explains Judy’s drive and desire to break the negative racial stereotypes sometimes assigned to African American students.

“I scope out the scene and it’s obvious who the cool kids are, who the dumb kids are, who the smart kids are, and who the dorks are. I could tell in a minute. The class had the usual number of clueless dweebs, pre-jock idiots, losers, brown-noses, and bullies, just like my old school.”

Snik assesses his new classmates in this quote and reveals that he’s judgmental. Snik decides “in a minute” which boxes to put his peers in, and all the boxes except his own are negative. The fact that Snik says his new class reflects the same distribution of “losers,” etc., as his last school shows that snap judgments and arrogance are staples of his personality. As the story unfolds, these traits soften as Snik is forced to get to know “losers” and “dweebs.”

“I feel that a person can change himself or herself no more than a giraffe can decide it doesn’t like having a long neck […] Nothing will ever make me cool. Some people are simply destined not to be cool. And I’m cool with that.”

Brenton is musing on “coolness” as a quality someone simply has or doesn’t have. At this point in his journey, Brenton cannot fathom anything changing his status in the classroom. However, this quote foreshadows the change that will happen in his peers’ perception of him simply because of his association with Snik. When Brenton becomes cool by association, he acknowledges that his initial hypothesis was wrong.