81 pages • 2 hours read
Pax
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Chapters 25-28Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 25 Summary
Pax and Bristle take turns guarding Runt in what Pax calls a “Pact of Protection” (228). Pax knows he shouldn’t go back to the war camp, but his thoughts are on his encounter with Peter’s father and the boy himself: “The man’s motion—that sweeping kick of his boot through the doorway with its conflicting messages of goodwill and threat—had reminded him that he needed to protect his boy” (229).
Musings aside, Pax is very hungry, and Bristle helps him learn to catch his first prey—a mouse. She shows him how to stay very still so that an incoming mouse believes she’s sleeping. Pax manages to catch the mouse: “The mouse’s life energy now merged with his own. His muscles brimmed with energy” (233). Pax is becoming wilder.
Pax then unearths the jar of peanut butter he buried the night before and drops it in front of Bristle and Runt, who marvel at the strange smell. Bristle’s snout gets stuck in the jar, and Bristle thrashes from side to side trying to free herself. There’s a deepening of Bristle’s character here and a budding intimacy with Pax. Bristle sits uncharacteristically close to Pax, and the foxes groom each other until Pax smells a new smell that causes him great alarm. He orders Runt all the way into the back of the den.
Chapter 26 Summary
A soldier comes out from behind a truck and tells Peter there’s no entry allowed past the guard station. At this point, it’s been two days since Peter has spoken to anyone. Peter recalls the bus driver giving him the opportunity to go back where he came from on a later bus, but Peter had refused the offer. No one he’d seen since getting off the bus had tried to help him or stop him: “The few people he passed kept their eyes down, picked up speed, as if they couldn’t afford to make contact with anyone who might need help” (238).
The solider is angry, and Peter explains that he left someone behind, someone who’s not a person. The solider understands. His whole faces changes, and he tells Peter that he has a dog named Henry. He takes out a picture of a beagle and shows it to Peter: “The corners of the photo were worn soft and colorless. That picture had been taken out a lot” (240). The solider says he’ll let him pass, but he has to back out by tomorrow. Peter agrees and heads off into the woods.
Peter searches for the toy solider he threw to Pax and then realizes he’s never going to find it: “He wasn’t going to find that toy solider. Because Pax wouldn’t have given up. Not ever. Pax wouldn’t have thought he’d been abandoned—they were inseparable” (243). Peter decides to head south in the direction of his old home, calling for Pax the whole way.
Chapter 27 Summary
Pax senses Peter’s presence in the forest. He looks at the war camp but doesn’t see any youth among “the war-sick.” Pax returns to Bristle’s side but does not sleep, anticipating Peter’s return.
Chapter 28 Summary
Peter walks nine hours through the woods to find Pax. Peter sees something moving in the distance, but realizes it’s tan, not red. It could be a coyote, he realizes, and hurries away, knowing how dangerous they are. He scales a rock face using only his arm strength and continues; he sees lots of animals in the woods: “He wished he could tell them that he knew how it felt to have the one person who had loved you and taken care of you suddenly vanish. How the world seemed dangerous after that” (250).
Peter is lost in his thoughts that he stops paying attention and “his left crutch shot out into a patch of loose stones” (250). He hears the wood break, and yells “Dyableman.” He tapes Vola’s bat to the crutch.
He hears coyotes in the distance and answers by making a vow. He promises himself he’ll find Pax tomorrow, and calls it “A blood red vow” (252).
Chapters 25-28 Analysis
Peter has a lot of deep thoughts about the cost and price of war. “How many kids this week, he wondered, had woken up to find their worlds changed forever, their parents gone off to war” (250). But those are the bigger losses. “How many friends had to say goodbye? How many kids went hungry? How many pets had they had to leave behind to fend for themselves. And why didn’t anybody count those things?” (250). Peter remembers Vola saying that people should tell the truth about what war costs and realizes that those things are the cost of war, too. Instead of hearing about the war from afar, Peter becomes part of it, but his duty is saving someone he loves, not killing someone. His duty is refusing to listen to what he’s told to do because he’s listening to his core.
When Peter shouts “Dyableman,” which is a Haitian Creole word that means “devilish,” it shows that Vola, her teachings, and her language have become a part of him as well. This moment emphasizes the pair’s “oneness.” Likewise, Pax is instantly aware that Peter is in the woods, signifying their connection.
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