Reading Journal Post #5

Reading Journal Post # 5
End Chapters 

Summary:  

Tom ends his date with Lucy and returns home, mulling things over in his head. He has another small epiphany, and realizes that in order to be true to Lucy, he must tell her, and a few other people (Gram, the Police, his neurosurgeon) who he is and what he can do. He realizes that, if he tells Lucy the truth, she might leave him. After all, he has hurt people as iBoy, plotted, lied, and pretended to be a different person on MySpace and flirted with her. He feels like she has every right to leave him, especially after finding out what a freak he is. Tom agonizes over this, but he resolves to do the right thing and reveal all his secrets to the girl of his dreams. He spends most of the night wondering exactly how to 'spill the beans' when, at approximately  2:00 am, there is a knock at his door. His unexpected visitor: Howard Ellman, the ultimate mob boss. And with him are three goons, plus a very confused and frightened Lucy, in her pale nightgown, just dragged out of bed. And one of the most frightening things of all is her new accessory: A goon, Yusef Hashim, has taped his hand to a gun, and a gun to her head. If Tom does anything rash, Hashim pulls the trigger. Howard Ellman smashes a blunt object against Gram's head to stop her from calling the police, and then sits Tom down and begins questioning him about being iBoy and about what he can do with his powers. Tom spills it all, helpless as Lucy is repeatedly threatened and his Gram lies in the kitchen with a massive head injury.


Ellman eventually makes a weighted decision, and forces Tom and Lucy into a couple of cars and drives them to a warehouse to kill them both. On the way, he hints at a past with Tom's dead mother, Georgie, who was killed in a brutal hit-and-run accident while getting off a bus when Tom was only six months old. When they finally get to the warehouse, Tom finds out that the warehouse has no cellular reception, rendering Tom useless. He is forced to watch, strapped to a chair, while Ellman threatens to rape and murder Lucy before his eyes, too far away for Tom to zap him, even if he had access to his powers. Desperate, Tom searches his iBrain for a solution, and presses himself to the limit, finally connecting to a service provider and queuing up calls from all over the world to the cell phones of the goons in the warehouse. He sends them all at once, causing the phones to overheat and explode, debilitating or killing the goons instantly. Howard Ellman's phone explodes in his chest, and he collapses to the floor.

The next part is blurred. The police find Lucy and Tom, and rush all the goons to the hospital. A week passes, and some of Ellman's men have died, some are still in hospital, and Ellman himself mysteriously dissapeared after undergoing emergency surgery, and although hospital staff report he would probably be dead in the next 24 hours, there is always that nagging question in the back of Tom's mind.

Tom is not doing so well. After Howard Ellman told him of his mother's association with the mob, Ellman running her over with a car, and about the possibility of Ellman being Tom's biological father, Tom's world has been flipped again. Gram reveals her daughter's role in the mob, and Tom decides not to tell her the rest of Ellman's associations with their family. Tom ends up on the roof, verging on the egde of depression, flashing back to the iPhone falling through the air at his face, back when he is normal. He sits on the edge of the roof and considers jumping when Lucy appears and vows to kill Tom if he even thinks about commiting suicide, which, Tom points out, is a little contradictory. This makes them both laugh, and Tom decides not to jump after all, and hugs Lucy close.

Analysis:

Tom Harvey is maturing quickly in these last few chapters. In the beginning, we can see that he chooses to possibly sacrifice his newfound romance with Lucy in favor for his being honest with her, because he realizes he can't lie to her any longer. If he had been given more time, it would have been interesting to see exactly how he would have approached the topic with Lucy, without the pressure of the gang members. He also has to mature rapidly to deal with the information Howard Ellman reveals to him, instead of just shutting down. Tom has to face his demons, and he is forced to kill a couple men and severely injure severl others with the intent to kill. Seeing such carnage, let alone being the person responsible, would mature/severely mentally damage anyone, and he has to mature to deal with what he has done, otherwise it would destroy him. In the end, he goes through a great change, and almost commits suicide because of it, but he has become stronger, and has the strength to not take his life, to live with the choices he's made and the things he has done.

Questions to Consider:

How would you react if you found out one of your biological parents was a murderer? What if he/she was responsible for your other parent's death?
Would you disclose this disturbing information to your guardian/anyone else? Why or why not?
Do you think Tom would have jumped if Lucy hadn't shown up?
How could a person change after being held hostage, tortured, and almost killed?
How do you make the decision whether or not to kill someone? What factors play into this?