Fourth Grade Rats

“But I loved my lunch box. It was like a brother to me. Now that I thought about it, I wasn’t even sure I could eat lunch at school without it. And as for my lunch box going off to college with me someday—well, to tell you the truth, I didn’t see anything so bad about that.”

While Joey is adamant that he and Suds must become rats and leave the trappings of their childhood behind, Suds isn’t ready for such a drastic change. His thoughts in response to Joey’s criticism of his lunchbox characterize Suds as less cynical and more sensitive than Joey. This moment establishes the conflict between growing up and longing for childhood that drives Suds’s growth in the novel as he navigates the transition into preadolescence.

“We packed up our lunches. We didn’t even get to eat most of them. As we headed out, I wondered if anybody was looking at my lunchbox.”

Suds’s sudden self-consciousness following Joey’s criticism of his lunchbox demonstrates how powerfully this small example of peer pressure has already begun to change his behavior. His abrupt self-consciousness develops the newly established conflict surrounding his shifting identity within the transition to preadolescence.

“Above me, Gerald Willis was howling. I was the last one back to the room. I stashed my lunch box and sat down. A note was waiting for me. From Joey. It said: ‘Swings after school.’ I looked over at him. I nodded.”

Jerry Spinelli characterizes Suds’s shift in attitude through action and body language. His nod at Joey following the bullying incident in the cafeteria represents tacit agreement to Joey’s pressure to become a rat. The juxtaposition of this moment with the bullying incident communicates the underlying fact that the cruelty of others is causing Suds to act rashly due to his feelings of powerlessness, for he only agrees to become a rat in order to counteract this new social pressure.

“I kept seeing the girl’s eyes as she ran. It was the first time anyone had ever been afraid of me. I couldn’t figure out how I felt about it.”

Suds’s reaction to the first graders develops his character in contrast to Joey’s. While Joey revels in his new ability to exert power over the first graders, Suds feels appropriate empathy and discomfort with the idea of bullying others. Because these new social pressures contradict Suds’s personal morals, Spinelli uses this moment to introduce the importance of maintaining one’s integrity when faced with peer pressure. As Suds embraces poor behavior, he learns this lesson the hard way, and his eventual growth reflects the underlying theme of The Costs of Succumbing to Peer Pressure.

“I laughed, picturing me and Joey zooming down the bench like it was a sliding board. ‘Man, I forgot all about that.’ ‘I didn’t,’ said Joey. He wasn’t laughing.”

Spinelli utilizes dialogue and body language to characterize an important difference in Suds’s and Joey’s outlooks on a past injustice. Joey is angry at the bullying he previously experienced, and now that he is older, he asserts his power over younger children as a way to rectify the treatment he endured years ago. On the other hand, Suds laughs at the incident and shrugs it off, which suggests his kinder, more forgiving nature. The boys’ different reactions demonstrate the various effects that bullying has on children’s behavioral and identity changes.

“‘Being a rat is the next step to being a man. You want to be a man, don’t you? […] Well,’ [Joey] said, ‘you can’t be a man without being a rat first.’ He poked m in the chest. ‘That’s what fourth grade is all about.’”

Joey’s statement explicitly connects the fourth grade rat motif to the concept of adulthood. Spinelli uses the boy’s obsessive adherence to the rhyme to create a concrete analogy for the more abstract transition into preadolescence. The motif recurs at other key moments in the novel to evoke exploration of The True Meaning of Maturity as Suds strives to conform to these social expectations in a misguided attempt to prove that he can be a man.

“One thing’s for sure, suds gave me my name.

I stopped having upset stomachs by the time I was two. But I never stopped liking a warm bath. It doesn’t matter what time of the day or night it is. If I’m sad or ticked off or wound up about something, I usually feel better if I head for the water.”

Spinelli introduces the bath motif as a connection to Suds’s childhood identity. Baths provide Suds with a space beyond his daily life where he can reflect on his changing identity. By establishing the fact that Suds’s enjoyment of baths is the only part of Suds’s identity not under threat of being discarded, Spinelli creates a recurring element of stability within the otherwise tumultuous narrative.

“For the first time in my life, I wanted time to slow down. I didn’t care if I never had another birthday, as long as I could keep my one-eyed teddy bear.”

Suds’s reflections on being a fourth grade rat increase his internal crisis regarding the fears and realities of growing up. He conceptualizes maturing in a deeper way, encouraging the conflict surrounding childhood versus maturity that drives Suds’s emotional arc.

“[Mom] took a deep breath. She put her hand on my shoulder. ‘Tell you what. There’s more than one way to become a man. […] Go sweep the sidewalk. You’ll be a man in no time.’”

Although Mom’s words are light-hearted, her statement has deeper resonance that hints at The True Meaning of Maturity. While Joey proposes a model of manhood that relies on superficial posturing, Mom suggests that manhood is achieved through a deepening of one’s own character. This idea, while not yet explicitly stated, is symbolized when she asks Suds to complete a chore: something that a responsible man would do. Suds eventually internalizes this definition of maturity at the climax of the novel when he learns that taking accountability signals maturity much more strongly than rebellious behavior ever will.

“[Joey] even looked different. He got his hair cut practically down to the nubs. ‘Like Marine boot camp,’ he said. And he started wearing one of his father’s old sweatbands around his head. He got a black marker and wrote ‘No.1’ on it.”

Joey’s physical transformation suggests the inner changes he is making to his identity to conform to the rebellious standards of fourth grade behavior. Spinelli references images of stereotypical masculinity to indicate that Joey’s idea of adulthood is shallow at best. While Joey believes that maturity involves appearing tough and aggressive, Suds ultimately learns that The True Meaning of Maturity requires an internal deepening of perspective rather than a superficial external exhibition of toughness.

“[Joey] was a rat. He was a man.”

The scene in which Joey wins the class’s admiration for tolerating a bee sting prompts Suds to think that his friend is a real man. This scene establishes the boys’ belief that tolerating pain is the equivalent of achieving maturity. This moment ultimately pushes Suds into pursuing similar behavior, for he is jealous of Judy Billings’s admiration for Joey’s stoicism. He therefore actively models himself after Joey so that he can win Judy Billings’s affection too.

“I just sat back, stunned. Until then Joey Peterson’s room had been the neatest room I had ever seen.”

The fact that Joey has so drastically altered his room’s cleanliness indicates how forced his new identity as a rat really is. By messing up his room, Joey deliberately distances himself from his natural way of being, reinforcing the idea that his transformation is extrinsically rather than intrinsically motivated. This scene realistically portrays the ways in which children try on new identities to solve the riddle of how they fit into their changing social contexts.

“Joey looked at the floor. I looked at Mrs. Peterson. Mrs. Peterson glared daggers at Joey. This lasted for about three hours. Then all of a sudden it was over. Mrs. Peterson gave a little shrug and a smile and said ‘Okay,’ and walked away.”

Although Mrs. Peterson’s reaction seemingly sanctions Joey’s rebellious behavior, this moment becomes important when Suds’s mom reveals that Mrs. Peterson was only trying to give Joey the space to figure things out on his own. Mrs. Peterson’s incongruent body language here—that she is “glaring daggers at Joey” —foreshadows this eventual reveal, that she is only acquiescing in the moment for some greater purpose. Mrs. Peterson’s tacit understanding of Joey’s underlying issues supports the novel’s exploration of the transition into preadolescence, for her behavior implicitly acknowledges that children of this age are exploring their identities and will sometimes exhibit problematic behavior as part of this process.

“[Joey] laughed. ‘I keep telling you, jerkface, I don’t care about [Judy]. I ain’t chasing her. You want her to chase you—’ he threw the pad of tattoos in my face—‘do something about it.’”

Joey’s words and the sentiments underlying them catalyze the next stages of Suds’s advancement into adopting a disruptive and rebellious persona. This moment develops the theme surrounding peer pressure and social approval. Because Suds desperately desires the adoration of Judy Billings, he is driven to adopt a persona similar to Joey’s despite his persisting qualms. Suds learns from this moment that he can win others’ approval and attention by changing his behavior, and this realization reinforces the novel’s thematic exploration of both implicit and explicit peer pressure.

“The kid was passing us. I reached out. I snatched the uneaten Twinkie. The kid howled bloody murder. I shoved the Twinkie back in his hand and took off.”

This passage reflects Suds’s inner turmoil and cognitive dissonance over his attempts to conform to his friend’s expectations. At this point, Suds hasn’t completely lost his empathy for others because he gives the Twinkie back once the child shows distress, but the fact that he is now willing to take the action in the first place demonstrates a crucial erosion of his integrity. This moment foreshadows the fact that Suds will be driven to give up his integrity entirely in order to adopt a persona that he believes will garner him more attention, praise, and popularity.

“I figured [Joey] was right. I figured I was dumping my chances with Judy Billings out with my trash. But I didn’t figure on what happened Monday at school.”

The foreshadowing in this quote creates an abrupt shift in tone that heralds the beginning of Suds’s crisis point. It directly foreshadows the events at the end of Chapter 9 in which Suds goes “full rat.” Thus, Spinelli prepares the reader to expect and engage with Suds’s next stage of character development. Although the novel is narrated in the past tense, it maintains a focus upon concrete action and does not feature much explicit foreshadowing. Spinelli breaks that pattern here, subtly repositioning Suds the narrator as a character telling a completed story rather than living through it moment by moment.

“I didn’t take the cake from the angel’s [third grader’s] hand. I just shoved his hand, cake and all, into his face. Then I mashed them around. The whole joint was howling.”

This crucial moment marks a crisis point for Suds and develops the novel’s thematic exploration of implicit peer pressure. Because Suds’s actions are taken in response to rejection from Judy and bullying from Gerald, this scene demonstrates that a child’s desire for peer approval often motivates uncharacteristic behavior. This moment stands as a direct contrast of the earlier failed theft of the Twinkie, for in this scene, Suds has no further reservations about engaging in harmful behavior. Now, Suds goes farther on his own initiative, causing outright pain and humiliation, forsaking his personal integrity and principles.

“I heaved the trap down the hallway. I screamed: ‘Okay, you want a rat, you got a rat!’”

This moment marks a shift as Suds fully commits to being a rat. Because Suds makes this declarative statement following Zippernose’s latest prank of placing a rat trap in his room, his reaction suggests the impact that others’ perceptions have on a preadolescent’s identity formation. Because others are treating Suds like a rat, he responds by living up to their expectations.

“Judy was mobbed too, mostly by girls. ‘He did it for you?’ I guess we were both famous.”

This is the first suggestion that Judy isn’t really interested in Suds, but rather in the popularity she attains by being with him. Her characterization supports another facet of the peer pressure theme by suggesting that a drive for peer approval and popularity inhibits true connection.

“[Joey] just stared for another minute. Then he got up and walked away. Left his lunch there, me holding his sandwich. Just walked away.”

Joey’s uncharacteristic behavior foreshadows the philosophical conclusion of the novel when Mrs. Peterson will explain that she has put a stop to Joey’s disruptive behavior. While Suds has finally embraced the false persona of “fourth grade rat,” Joey has inexplicably turned his back on it. The omitted subjects in the final two sentences reinforce the seriousness of Joey’s abrupt switch. The break from standard sentence structure creates a more somber tone and focuses on the strangeness of Joey’s actions.

“I thought about rats and real men and Number One and angels and fame and first and last and love and nature’s way. And for the first time since I started fourth grade, I knew exactly who I was—a scared kid up a tree.”

In this quote, Suds reflects on his actions and knows that being a rat isn’t really who he is. He sheds the “tough-guy” image entirely and acknowledges his own emotions, discarding the posturing and shallow definition of adulthood and returning to the developmentally appropriate emotions that he is actually feeling. This moment functions as the novel’s climax, for Suds finds an inner resolution to his identity crisis and releases his attempts to accelerate his maturation by adopting a false persona.

“‘Mom, I know now. Something else. When I was being a rat, I thought I was having a great time. But I wasn’t. I was having a rotten time.’ I thought of the faces of the little kids I had pushed around. ‘It’s like other kids thought I was a big deal or something. But I didn’t like myself, Mom.’ My lip was quivering. ‘It’s no fun being a rat.’”

Suds’s confession represents the ultimate evidence of his new maturity. He recognizes that conforming to the behavioral standards that win him approval actually made him miserable. He displays a great deal of insight into himself, demonstrating his growth and resolution of internal crises. Suds’s ideas therefore encapsulate the thematic exploration of The Costs of Succumbing to Peer Pressure, for he finally realizes that conforming to others’ expectations ultimately creates internal harm that outweighs the hollow rewards of popularity or social approval.

“‘Well, I was just thinking. It’s kind of funny. As soon as you stopped trying to be a man, you became one. In a nice little way, I might add. […] ‘Your confession there. Taking blame on yourself. Admitting you were wrong. That’s grown-up stuff.’”

Mom’s comment communicates the novel’s larger message about The True Meaning of Maturity. As Mom’s words reflect, growing up is not accomplished by emulating bad behavior and succumbing to peer pressure, nor is it accomplished by discarding childhood and forming a false new identity. Instead, maturity requires taking on new responsibility and learning from mistakes. Throughout the novel, Mom creates a safe space for Suds to tackle the transition into preadolescence on his own, facilitating his deeper understanding of himself and manhood.