Wonder

Via doesn’t remember life before Auggie. She sees herself in old pictures, but the only thing that registers is that her parents look young and happy (her dad was a hipster and her mother a Brazilian fashionista). She doesn’t even remember when Auggie came home from the hospital. Her mother says it took her a week to get used to him, while Grans says it took a few days. Supposedly, Via was upset because Auggie looked nothing like the doll, named Lilly, she received as a way to practice being a big sister. Eventually, she ditches Lilly and gives Auggie all her love and attention.

Via’s never understood why other people see Auggie so differently. She understands he’s different, but the shock and fear she always sees on other people’s faces make her angry and confrontational. This all changes one year when she stays with her grandmother in Montauk for four weeks. Looking back, she says:

[…] I have to say it was so amazing to suddenly be free of all that stuff that made me so mad. No one stared at Grans and me when we went to town to buy groceries. No one pointed at us. No one even noticed us (85).

Via loves being with her grandmother so much that she wants to live with her. When she finally returns home, Auggie runs to greet her, and, for a moment, she sees him as other people do. Though she hates herself for giving in to this feeling, she admits that she feels “horrified. Sickened. Scared” (86) as he hugs her with drool running down his chin. Via feels that she can tell only Grans how she feels, but then Grans dies two months after her visit. Both Via and her mother take Grans’s death hard. Via remembers one particular night when Grans said Via was her favorite. Grans then went on to explain that Auggie has tons of angels looking after him, which is why she will look after Via. This is one of Via’s fondest memories of Grans.

Via spends the chapter describing Auggie’s looks. After mentioning his misshapen, waxy face, a lack of eyebrows, eyelashes, and cheekbones, and his disproportionate nose, she adds, “Sometimes people assume that he’s been burned in a fire: his features look like they’ve been melted, like the drippings on the side of a candle” (88). When younger, he didn’t even have a chin, so his tongue would hang out of his mouth. Surprisingly, he can hear well, though he’ll eventually need hearing aids.

Via wonders what Auggie really thinks of himself, or if he knows just how much others talk about him. Nowadays, Via has a hard time understanding Auggie. It used to be easier when he was younger because he always had a facial expression for each emotion. Now that he can speak, and after the surgeries, she can’t figure out his moods as easily and wonders just how adept at hiding his feelings he has become. Moreover, though she’d like to keep up with his new manner of emoting, she also doesn’t want to understand him the way her parents do. Via feels that they baby Auggie too much, and, because of this, he won’t be able to survive in the real world. She believes that “[…] we’ve all spent so much time trying to make August think he’s normal that he actually thinks he is normal. And the problem is, he’s not” (90).

Via enjoys middle school because she can be herself; no one identifies her as Auggie’s sister, which they always did in elementary school. In middle school, she asks her best friends—Miranda and Ella—to call her by her full name, Olivia, not Via, and they understand her desire to be seen as someone else. She and her two best friends have been close since the first grade. They both love Auggie, and the three are inseparable. The fact that they all got into Faulkner High School is a miracle in that almost no one else from their middle school did. Via is now confused about her friendships, however; something strange is taking place between the three of them.

Out of all of Via’s friends, Miranda has always been nicest to Auggie. When Via and Ella move on from the games they purposely play to include Auggie, Miranda tries to include him anyway. In addition to engaging him in conversations about Star Wars and Bones, she gives him the infamous astronaut helmet that he wears religiously until it gets lost. She also nicknames him Major Tom. Though Miranda always calls Via after she returns from summer camp, she doesn’t this year. Via assumes Miranda needs time to recuperate. Eventually they try talking on the phone once, but the call feels forced. When school starts, Miranda looks and acts like a completely different person. She dyes her hair pink and dresses differently. It’s also clear to Via that Miranda and Ella have been hanging out together over the summer. Via feels like a third wheel with her best friends.

When Miranda brings up that she and her mother are giving Via a ride, Via lies and says they no longer need to. The truth is that she doesn’t want to spend more time with “new Miranda” (95). After school, she hides in the bathroom and then takes the subway home. She later lies to her mother by saying that she’s late because she and Miranda went to get pizza. When her mother questions this, Via snaps, tries easing the tension, then gets upset all over again. She storms into Auggie’s room and is annoyed at his fixation with his video game. When she asks him about his first day, she gets the same terse treatment she’d previously given her mom. Via asks him if anyone was mean to him, and he sarcastically responds, “Why would people be mean?” (96). Via’s shocked not only because she’s never heard Auggie use sarcasm before but also because she never thought he had it in him to act this way.

Via gets upset when Auggie cuts off his Padawan braid, and the worst part is that she’s not even sure why. When her mother comes to talk to her later on, Via mentions, “She looked drained, and I realized that between me and Auggie, today had been a rough day for her, too” (97). Though she doesn’t want to tell her mother about Miranda at that moment, her mother promises to return, so Via decides to tell her later. Only her mother never returns. When her father comes in, he mentions that Auggie’s had a bad day and her mother is with him. So Via tells her father everything instead. With his trademark humor, he helps to diffuse the situation; then he brings Daisy in to sleep with Via.

Via remembers seeing her mother standing outside of Auggie’s door one night as he sleps. Her mother looks tired and worried. Via had gotten up to get water, but then goes back to her room without interrupting. Back in bed, she wonders if her mother ever stood outside her bedroom while she slept. 

Via asks her mom to pick her up from school. With the new school year, the new schedule means that she and her father take the subway to school, while her mom picks her up afterwards. Via discovers that her mother has asked Miranda’s mom to pick her up again today. Via throws a fit, saying that she can take the subway by herself. Her father backs her up, though her mother doesn’t want her to take the train alone. When her mom asks why she’s outnumbered, Via says that her mother would know if she’d remembered to talk to her the previous night. Her mom apologizes for the snafu—she was consumed with making sure Auggie was alright. Feeling bad, Via explains that Miranda is being mean, which angers Auggie because he loves Miranda. Though her mother worries, Via will take the subway home and call her father before she does.

Despite the Pullmans’ diverse genetic background, no one has ever exhibited traits of having Auggie’s condition. Via researches both sides of her family, from her father’s Russian and Polish backgrounds to her mother’s Brazilian background. Via discovers that her parents have had genetic counseling, and she finds out that they both carry the same gene that afflicts Auggie. Via, too, carries the gene.

Via explains the use of Punnett squares in determining the inheritance of dominant and recessive genes. In her case, there’s a one-in-two chance that she’ll pass on her family’s defective gene to her kids. This isn’t to say that her kids will automatically resemble Auggie, though if she marries someone with the same gene then there’s a one-in-four chance that their child might resemble him. For Auggie, this means this his kids will definitely carry the gene. If he marries someone without the gene, however, there’s zero percent probability of them looking like him. If he marries someone with the gene, the chances are the same as if Via marries someone with the gene. Though it’s all statistics, probability, and big words, Via admits that “I actually like the way doctors talk. I like the sound of science. I like how words you don’t understand explain things you can’t understand” (106).

Via and her best friends part ways after orbiting each other painfully for a week. Neither side asks questions, and Via finds that it’s easier to eat in the library while reading than deal with her old friends and their new, popular group of friends. When Via meets Eleanor, a girl she’d been going to school with since they were younger, she becomes part of a new group: the smart-kids’ group. Within that group is a boy named Justin on whom she develops an instant crush. Every now and then, she and Miranda run into each other and are always cordial. Miranda always asks about Auggie, but Via admits that “August was in his own world these days. There were times, at home, that we never crossed paths” (108).

Via’s grandmother died the night before Halloween, four years prior to now. Since then, both she and her mother still feel sad when this time of year comes around. Her mother, however, focuses on Auggie’s costume because it’s his favorite holiday. This year, her mother went overboard to make him a Boba Fett costume from Star Wars. On Halloween morning, Via’s father is running late and begins yelling at her to hurry. This stresses her, and with the memory of Grans, she begins crying. Via’s mother tries soothing her while her father takes Auggie to school. Via and her mother cry together over their memories of Grans, and they plan a mother-daughter day. Just as they are about to watch one of their favorite black-and-white movies, Auggie’s school calls and says he’s sick. Though Via wants to tell her mom everything about how high school’s treating her, she misses her opportunity on account of Auggie. In her own words, ‘“Via’s mom,’ who had come out for a little while, was put away” (110).

Via’s surprised that Auggie doesn’t want to go trick-or-treating. She knows it’s his favorite day, and even though he continues to say that he’s not feeling well, she finds his behavior strange. Auggie’s been through a lot of surgeries and pain, yet he’s allowing a stomachache to force him to miss his favorite day. Via understandably feels that something else is wrong. When she queries him again and asks about school, he deflects her questions but looks close to crying. When she finally asks him again, he breaks down and tells her what happened at school. Auggie is visibly hurt from Jack Will’s betrayal, though Via implores him not to believe that he’s a “freak” (112). She finally convinces him to go trick-or-treating, and she can tell that he feels better by the time he finishes putting his costume on.

Though Auggie tries to remain out of school under the guise of still having a stomachache, Via tries to get him to return so that his bullies don’t win. Auggie refuses to go back, causing Via to get angry at what she perceives as childishness. He also tells her that she can’t understand because people aren’t afraid to touch her. When Via mentions that he can pretend to be friends with his bullies because they don’t even know he overheard them, Auggie calls out what he perceives as hypocrisy. He relates that Miranda called him, and he knows they aren’t friends any longer. This news shocks Via, and she feels chastised. She then tells Auggie that she’ll inform their parents about what happened (she’d previously promised Auggie to keep it a secret) if he doesn’t go back, and this tactic does the trick. When he tells Via that Miranda said she misses her, Via leaves his room hurriedly, embarrassed.